23 May 1956  Sweet Mother, what is the difference between yoga and religion? Ah! my child… it is as though you were asking me the difference between a dog and a cat! (Long silence) Imagine someone who, in some way or other, has heard of something like the Divine or has a personal feeling that something of the kind exists, and begins to make all sorts of efforts: efforts of will, of discipline, efforts of concentration, all sorts of efforts to find this Divine, to discover what He is, to become acquainted with Him and unite with Him. Then this person is doing yoga. Now, if this person has noted down all the processes he has used and constructs a fixed syst

19 September 1956 Sweet Mother, I haven't understood this well: “Will, Power, Force are the native substance of the Life- Energy, and herein lies the justification for the refusal of Life to acknowledge the supremacy of Knowledge and Love alone, — for its push towards the satisfac- tion of something far more unreflecting, headstrong and dangerous that can yet venture too in its own bold and ardent way towards the Divine and Absolute. Love and Wisdom are not the only aspects of the Divine, there is also its aspect of Power.” The Synthesis of Yoga. pp. 163-64 * What have you not understood? Sri Aurobindo says that the vit

13 June 1956  “Already in the process of spiritualisation it [the spi- ritualised mind] will have begun to pass out of the brilliant poverty of the human intellect; it will mount successively into the pure broad reaches of a higher mind and next into the gleaming belts of a still greater free intelligence illumined with a Light from above. At this point it will begin to feel more freely, admit with a less mixed response the radiant beginnings of an Intuition, not illumined, but luminous in itself, true in itself, no longer entirely mental and therefore sub- jected to the abundant intrusion of error. Here too is not an end, for it must r

28 November 1956   “When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar. “When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar. “When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar. “When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar. “When we have passed beyond humanity, then we shall be the Man. The Animal was the helper; the Animal is the bar.” Thoughts and Glimpses, Cent. Vol. 16,p. 377 *

21 November 1956 Mother distributes the booklet Thoughts and Glimpses, then glances through one of the  copies: Five paragraphs dealing with five modes of being or five states of being, and the same thing recurs in all the different domains:  “When we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar.”   Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, Cent. Vol. 16,p. 377 * This is about the mental being in man, that is, his mental activities; and Sri Aurobindo contrasts knowings with Knowledge. Actually I should be the one to ask you if you know what Sri Aurobindo means by “knowings”, and

1 February 1956 Sri Aurobindo writes here, “It is possible, indeed, to begin with knowledge or Godward emotion solely or with both together and to leave works for the final movement of the Yoga.” The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 86 * What is this knowledge? There are three principal paths of yoga: the path of knowledge, the path of love and the path of works. So Sri Aurobindo says that it depends on each case and person. Some people follow more easily the path of knowledge, others follow more easily the path of love, of devotion, and others follow the path of works. He says that for the integral yoga the three must be combined and with them s

"Wednesday Class"

APPENDIX 15 August 1947¹ August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it by our life and acts as a free nation an important date in a new age opening for the whole world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity. August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this da

6 June 1956  Once or twice, as a game, you took one of your books or Sri Aurobindo’s and opened a page at random, and read out a sentence. Can these sentences give one a sign or an indication? What should we do to get a true answer? Everybody can do it. It is done in this way: you concentrate. Now, it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and want the solution, you concentrate on this problem; if you want to know the condition you are in, which you are not aware of ― if you want to get some light on the state you are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the light. Or else, quite simply, if you are curious to know what the inv

8 August 1956 Sweet Mother, Sri Aurobindo writes: “A psychic fire within must be lit into which all is thrown with the Divine Name upon it.” The Synthesis of Yoga, p.155 * Isn’t the psychic fire always lit? It is not always lit. Then how to light it? By aspiration. By the will for progress, by the urge towards perfection. Above all, it is the will for progress and self-purification which lights the fire. The will for progress. Those who have a strong will, when they turn it towards spiritual progress and purification, automatically light the fire within themselves. And each defect one wants to cure or each progress one want