Eleven Building and Destroying Children, you all know what it is to build and to destroy.  Weapon in hand, the warrior goes forth to destroy.  The builder draws up plans, digs foundations, and the toiling hands of men build a farmhouse for the peasant or a palace for a prince.  It is better to build than to destroy, and yet destroying is sometimes necessary.  You, children, who have strong arms and hands, do you only build? Do you never destroy? And if you do, what do you destroy?  Listen to this account of an Indian legend:  A new-born baby lay in a grove. You might think that he was sure to die, fo

The Central Thought* We are meeting for the last time this year – at least physically, for I hope we shall always remain united in thought, at all events in the same desire for progress, for perfection. This desire should always be the centre of our action, animating our will, for, whatever the goal we set ourselves, whatever the duty which devolves to us, whatever the work we have to achieve, in order to attain this goal, to fulfil this duty, to accomplish this work to the best of our ability, we must progress at each moment, we must use yesterday as the stepping-stone to tomorrow. Life is in perpetual movement, in perpetual transformation

Part 7 Tales of all Times These stories were written to help children to discover themselves and follow a path of right and beauty. The Mother * February 1950 * One Self-Control  A wild horse can be tamed but one never puts a bridle on a tiger. Why is that? Because in the tiger there is a wicked, cruel and incorrigible force, so that we cannot expect anything good from him and have to destroy him to prevent him from doing harm.  But the wild horse, on the other hand, however unmanageable and skittish he may be to begin with, can be controlled with a little effort and patience. In time he

Part Four Prayers and meditations, some written between 1914 and 1916, the rest undated but probably belonging to the pre-1920 period. Page - 112 Insofar as the activities of the physical organism are egocentric, it is both legitimate and necessary to separate the consciousness from it and to regard the body as a servant to be directed, guided and made obedient. As the terrestrial being grows more receptive to the divine forces and manifests them in its illumined activities, one can identify oneself with it once more and cease to distinguish between the instrument and the Doer. But since, by the very necessity of preservation

Sixteen Sympathy   When is sorrow accompanied by sorrow?  When one heart feels it and our heart feels it at the same time.  Duryodhana, the famous warrior, fell on the plain of Kurukshetra and his friends were so full of grief that when he lay on the ground and died, all Nature seemed in disorder. Headless creatures with many arms and legs danced dreadful dances over the earth; in lakes and wells the water was turned to blood; rivers flowed upstream instead of downstream; women looked like men, and men like women.  Here the poet teaches us that the suffering undergone by one being spreads through a wide, wide world. There was

Five Patience and Perseverance The people of the Punjab have a song which goes like this:   The bulbul does not always sing in the garden,   And the garden is not always in bloom;   Happiness does not always reign,   And friends are not always together. The conclusion to be drawn from this song is that we cannot expect to be always happy, and that to know how to be patient is most useful. For there are few days in our lives which do not give us the opportunity to learn greater patience.  You want to see a very busy man to ask him something. You go to his house. Already many visitors are there and

Eight Sincerity A lion, a wolf and a fox went out hunting together. They killed an ass, a gazelle and a hare. Seeing this catch, the lion said to the wolf:  “Kindly tell me, friend wolf, how we should divide this game.”  “There is no need,” replied the wolf, “to cut up the three animals. You take the ass, let the fox take the hare, and for my part I shall be content with the gazelle.”  The lion's only answer was a roar of fury, and with a single blow, as reward for his advice, he crushed the wolf's head with his claw. Then the lion turned to the fox and said:  “And, my dear friend, what do you suggest?”  “Oh, Sire

A Leader It was in January 1907, shortly after the sanguinary crushing of the revolutionary movement in Russia. A few friends and I had assembled in a small group for philosophical studies, when we were informed of the presence of a mysterious visitor asking to be admitted. We went out to meet him, and in the anteroom we saw a man whose clean but very worn clothes, arms held close to his sides, pale face steadfastly turned towards the ground and half-concealed by a black felt hat, made him look like a hunted animal. At our approach he removed his hat and looked up to cast us a brief, frank glance. In the half-light of the hall one could sc

The Divinity Within All in us that is not wholly consecrated to the Divinity within is in the possession, by fragments, of the whole entirety of things that encompass us and act upon what we improperly call “ourselves”, whether through the intermediary of our senses or directly on the mind by suggestion.  The only way to become a conscious being, to be oneself, is to unite with the divine Self that is in all. For that, we must, by the aid of concentration, isolate ourselves from external influences.  When you are one with the Divinity within, you are one with all things in their depths. And it is through It and by It that you must ente

Thirteen The Conquest of Knowledge The great Rishi, Bhrigu, shining in splendour, sat on the summit of Mount Kailas, and Bharadwadja questioned him:  “Who made the world?  How wide is the sky?  Who gave birth to water? To fire? To the wind? To the earth?  What is life?  What is good?  What is there beyond the world?”  And so on. Great were the questions and great must be the Rishi who could answer them all!  But Bharadwaja's mind was the mind of a man who asks and asks ever and again, and never knows enough.  The child is the supreme questioner, he is always asking, “Wha