Why are We Born, if it is Only to Die? (27-01-10) “Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. If there were no siege of death, the creature would be bound forever in the form of an imperfect living. Pursued by death he awakes to the idea of perfect life and seeks out its means and its possibility.” Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Glimpses Vol.16,p386) Why are We Born, if it is Only to Die? There seems to be matter enough here for us not to need to go any further. This is a question which every person whose consciousness is awakened a little has asked himself at least once in his life. There is in the depths of the being such

The True Aim of Life (19-06-10) The True Aim of Life Why are we on earth? To find the Divine who is in each of us and in all things. Only one thing is important, it is to find the Divine. ….. The true purpose of life― To live for the Divine, or to live for the Truth, or at least to live for one’s soul. And the true sincerity― To live for the Divine without expecting any benefit from Him in return The Mother CWM Vol. 14, Page 3 – 4 What you must know is exactly the thing you want to do in life. The time needed to learn it does not matter at all. For those who wish to live according to Truth, there is always something to learn and some progress to make. The true aim o

The Reincarnating Soul (04-04-10) The Reincarnating Soul Human thought in the generality of men is no more than a rough and crude acceptance of unexamined ideas; it is sleepy sentry and allows anything to pass the gates which seems to it decently garbed or wears a plausible appearance or can mumble anything that resembles some familiar password. Especially is this so in subtle matters, those remote from the concrete facts of our physical life and environment. Even men who will reason carefully and acutely in ordinary matters and there consider vigilance against error an intellectual or a practical duty, are yet content with the most careless stumbling when they get upon higher and more diffi

Difficulties of the Path (24-02-10)  In those whom God loves, have delight; on those whom He pretends not to love, take pity. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 454) Difficulties of the Path ALL who enter the spiritual path have to face the difficulties and ordeals of the path, those which rise from their own nature and those which come in from outside. The difficulties in the nature always rise again and again till you overcome them; they must be faced with both strength and patience. But the vital part is prone to depression when ordeals and difficulties rise. This is not peculiar to you, but comes to all sadhaks − it does not imply an unfitness for the sadhana or justify a sense of

The Object of Integral Yoga (02-06-10) They proved to me by convincing reasons that God did not exist, and I believed them. Afterwards I saw God, for He came and embraced me. And now which am I to believe, the reasonings of others or my own experience? Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms13) The Object of Integral Yoga ….. The way of yoga followed here has a different purpose from others, – or its aim is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Ma

Sadhna through work (03-10-10) Sadhna through work No, without sadhana the object of yoga cannot be attained. Work itself must be taken as part of sadhana. But naturally when you are working, you must think of the work, which you will learn to do from the yogic consciousness as an instrument and with the memory of the Divine. It is because the energy is put forward in the work. But as the peace and contact grow, a double consciousness can develop – one engaged in the work, another behind, silent and observing or turned towards the Divine – in this consciousness the aspiration can be maintained even while the external consciousness is turned towards the work. One can both aspire and att

Rebirth (19-05-10) He who will not slay when God bids him, works in the world an incalculable havoc. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms227) Rebirth THE soul takes birth each time, and each time a mind, life and body are formed out of the materials of universal nature according to the soul's past evolution and its need for the future. When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close. This is the general course for ordinarily developed human

Helping Humanity (09-06-10) When Wisdom comes, her first lesson is, "There is no such thing as knowledge; there are only apercus of the Infinite Deity." Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 73)   Helping Humanity For those who practise the integral Yoga, the welfare of humanity can be only a consequence and a result, it cannot be the aim. And if all the efforts to improve human conditions have miserably failed in the end in spite of all the ardour and enthusiasm and self-consecration they have inspired at first, it is precisely because the transformation of the conditions of human life can be achieved by another preliminary transformation, the transformation of the human cons

The Motives of Devotion (10-11-10) Do not like so many modern disputants smother thought under polysyllables or charm inquiry to sleep by the spell of formulas and cant words. Search always; find out the reason for things which seem to the hasty glance to be mere chance or illusion. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 17) The Motives of Devotion ALL religion begins with the conception of some Power or existence greater and higher than our limited and mortal selves, a thought and act of worship done to that Power, and an obedience offered to its will, its laws or its demands. But Religion, in its beginnings, sets an immeasurable gulf between the Power thus conceived, worshipped and

Love and the Triple Path (17-10-10) Love and the Triple Path Will, knowledge and love are the three divine powers in human nature and the life of man, and they point to the three paths by which the human soul rises to the divine. The integrality of them, the union of man with God in all the three, must therefore, as we have seen, be the foundation of an integral Yoga. Action is the first power of life. Nature begins with force and its works which, once conscious in man, become will and its achievements; therefore it is that by turning his action God-wards the life of man best and most surely begins to become divine. It is the door of first access, the starting-point of the initiation. When the