Not simply Waste your Time because You are Here (23-09-09) Men are in love with sin;when they see one who is too high for vice or virtue, they curse him & cry, "O thou breaker of bonds, thou wicked and immoral one! " Therefore Srikrishna does not live as yet in Brindavun. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorisms 37)   Not simply Waste your Time because You are Here.* That is the attitude of men in general: they come into life, they don't know why; they know that they will live a certain number of years, they don't know why; they think that they will have to pass away because everybody passes away, and they again don't know why; and then, most of the time they are bored because they hav

To Know How To Love (04-03-09) Thy soul has not tasted God's entire delight, if it has never had the joy of being His enemy, opposing His designs and engaging with Him in mortal combat. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 417) To Know How To Love The first step is to stop being selfish. For everyone it is the same thing, not only for those who want to do yoga but also in ordinary life: if one wants to know how to love, one must not love oneself first and above all selfishly; one must give oneself to the object of love without exacting anything in return. This discipline is elementary in order to surmount oneself and lead a life which is not altogether gross. As for yoga we may add som

The Grace and Falsehood (01-04-09) If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 223)   The Grace and Falsehood They go as far as to say to the Divine, “If you are like this and like that, if you fulfil the conditions I lay down for you, I shall obey you!” They don’t put it in this way because that would be too ridiculous, but they almost constantly do it. You see, they say, “Oh, the Divine is like this. The Divine does this. The Divine must respond like this.” And they continue in this way, and they are not aware that they are quite simply imposing their conceptions and also their desires on what the Divine ough

Works, Devotion and Knowledge (17-06-09) When I look back on my past life, I see that if I had not failed & suffered, I would have lost my life's supreme blessings; yet at the time of the suffering & failure, I was vexed with the sense of calamity. Because we cannot see anything but the one fact under our noses, therefore we indulge in all these snifflings and clamours. Be silent, ye foolish hearts! slay the ego, learn to see & feel vastly & universally. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 176) Works, Devotion and Knowledge ....This integral turning of the soul Godwards bases royally the Gita’s synthesis of knowledge and works and devotion. To know God thus integrally is to know him

INVITATION (21-01-09) What was Ramakrishna? God manifest in a human being; but behind there is God in His infinite impersonality and His universal Personality. And what was Vivekananda? A radiant glance from the eye of Shiva; but behind him is the divine gaze from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 158) INVITATION With wind and the weather beating round me Up to the hill and the moorland I go. Who will come with me? Who will climb with me? Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow? Not in the petty circle of cities Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell; Over me God is blue in the welkin Ag

“Why am I here?” (23-12-09) I saw a child wallowing in the dirt and the same child cleaned by his mother and resplendent, but each time I trembled before his utter purity. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorism 31) “Why am I here?”   Well, to find out what one truly is, to find out why one is on earth, what is the purpose of physical existence, of this presence on earth, of this formation, this existence…the vast Majority of people live without asking themselves this even once! Only a small elite ask themselves this question with interest, and fewer still start working to get the answer. For, unless one is fortunate enough to come across someone who knows it, it is not such an easy th

The Illumined Will (16-08-09) The Illumined Will     He is equally the Will in Prana, the dynamic Life-energy, and in that energy performs the same functions. Devouring and enjoying, purifying, preparing, assimilating, forming, he rises upwards always and transfigures his powers into the Maruts, the energies of Mind. Our passions and obscure emotions are the smoke of Agni’s burning. All our nervous forces are assured of their action only by his support. If he is the Will in our nervous being and purifies it by action,he is also the Will in the mind and clarifies it by aspiration. When he enters into the intellect, he is drawing near to his divine birthplace and home. He leads the

Man A Transitional Being (30-09-09) Love of man, love of woman, love of things, love of thy neighbour, love of thy country, love of animals, love of humanity are all the love of God reflected in these living images. So love & grow mighty to enjoy all, to help all and to love for ever. . Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 486 ) Man A Transitional Being MAN is a transitional being; he is not final. For in man and high beyond him ascend the radiant degrees that to a divine supermanhood. There lies our destiny and the liberating key to our aspiring but troubled and limited mundane existence. We mean by man mind imprisoned in a living body. But mind is not the highest possible power o

Joy & Depression (18-01-09) Joy & Depression   Q: Sweet Mother, sometimes when one feels depressed it lasts quite a long time; but when one feels a special kind of joy, it does not last. “Yes, that is very true.” Q: Then what should one do to make it last longer? “But it is not the same part of the being that has the depression and the joy. If you are speaking of pleasure, the pleasure of the vital is something very fleeting, and I think that in life – in life as it is at present – there are more occasions for displeasure than for pleasure. Pleasure in itself is extremely fleeting, for if the same vibration of pleasure is prolonged a little, it becomes unpleasant or even repu

The Personal Effort (04-10-09) The Personal Effort In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature. In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary. The personal effort required is a triple labour of aspiration, rejection and surrender,--an aspir