MONEY (21-03-10) MONEY Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces ― power, wealth, sex ― that have the strongest attraction for the human ego and the Asura and are most generally misheld and misused by those who retain them. The seekers or keepers of wealth a

Difficulties of the Path (03-02-10) When thou findest thyself scorning another, look then at thy own heart and laugh at thy folly. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 297) Difficulties of the Path …..It is quite obvious that this world is full of suffering, and afflicted with transience to a degree that seems to justify the Gita's description of it as “this unhappy and transient world”, anityam asukham. The question is whether it is a mere creation of Chance or governed by a mechanical inconscient Law or whether there is a meaning in it and something beyond its present appearance towards which we move. If there is a meaning and if there is something towards which things are evolvi

The Message of the Gita (25-05-10) Shun the barren snare of an empty metaphysics and the dry dust of an unfertile intellectuality. Only that knowledge is worth having which can be made use of for a living delight and put out into temperament, action, creation and being. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms160)   The Message of the Gita “The first step on this free, this equal, this divine way of action is to put from you attachment to fruit and recompense and to labour only for the sake of the work itself that has to be done. For you must deeply feel that the fruits belong not to you but to the Master of the world. Consecrate your labour and leave its returns to the Spirit who ma

Transformation of the Vital (08-09-10) God's world advances step by step fulfilling the lesser unit before it seriously attempts the larger. Affirm free nationality first, if thou wouldst ever bring the world to be one nation. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms331) Transformation of the Vital …… This yoga can only be done to the end by those who are in total earnest about it and ready to abolish their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspira

THE GITA AND SRI AUROBINDO'S MESSAGE (18-08-10) Nationality is a stride of the progressive God passing beyond the stage of the family; therefore the attachment to clan and tribe must weaken or perish before a nation can be born. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 333)  THE GITA AND SRI AUROBINDO'S MESSAGE It is not a fact that the Gita gives the whole base of Sri Aurobindo's message; for the Gita seems to admit the cessation of birth in the world as the ultimate aim or at least the ultimate culmination of Yoga; it does not bring forward the idea of spiritual evolution or the idea of the higher planes and the supramental Truth-Consciousness and the bringing down of that consci

The Integral Yoga and the Ordinary Life (22-08-10) The Integral Yoga and the Ordinary Life It is a lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man - only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you - blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life. Sri Aurobindo, SABCL, v24, p1639 Sadhana must be the main thing and sadhana means the purification of the nature, the consecration of the being, the openin

Receptivity: Open Yourself (16-02-10)  See God everywhere and be not frightened by masks. Believe that all falsehood is truth in the making or truth in the breaking, all failure an effectuality concealed, all weakness strength hiding itself from its own vision, all pain a secret & violent ecstasy. If thou believest firmly & unweariedly, in the end thou wilt see & experience the All-true, Almighty & All-blissful. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorism 534) Receptivity: Open Yourself To be active is to throw the consciousness or force or movement from within outwards. To be passive is to remain immobile and receive what comes from outside… Now if you want to get true inspiration, inner g

Entry into The Inner Self (08-08-10) Entry into The Inner Self One effective way often used to facilitate this entry into the inner self is the sparation of the Purusha, the conscious being, from the Prakriti, the formulated nature. If one stands back from the mind and its activities so that they fall silent at will or go on as a surface movement of which one is the detached and disinterested witness, it becomes possible eventually to realise oneself as the inner Self of mind, the true and pure mental being, the Purusha; by similarly standing back from the life-activities, it is possible to realise oneself as the inner Self of life, the true and pure vital being, the Purusha; there is even a

The Human Aspiration (30-06-10) The strangest of the soul's experiences is this, that it finds, when it ceases to care for the image & threat of troubles, then the troubles themselves are nowhere to be found in one's neighbourhood. It is then that we hear from behind those unreal clouds God laughing at us. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms - 507) The Human Aspiration .....,.. We speak of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution tha

The Object of Integral Yoga (16-06-10) One of the greatest comforts of religion is that you can get hold of God sometimes and give him a satisfactory beating. People mock at the folly of savages who beat their gods when their prayers are not answered; but it is the mockers who are the fools and the savages. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 60) The Object of Integral Yoga To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him, – that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousnes