Canto Seven   The Discovery of the Cosmic Spirit and the Cosmic Consciousness   IN THE little hermitage in the forest's heart, In the sunlight and the moonlight and the dark The daily human life went plodding on Even as before with its small unchanging works And its spare outward body of routine And happy quiet of ascetic peace. The old beauty smiled of the terrestrial scene; She too was her old gracious self to men. The Ancient Mother clutched her child to her breast Pressing her close in her environing arms, As if earth ever the same could for ever keep The living spirit and body in her clasp, As if death were

  Canto Eight   The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness   THEN could he see the hidden heart of Night: The labour of its stark unconsciousness Revealed the endless terrible Inane. A spiritless blank Infinity was there; A Nature that denied the eternal Truth In the vain braggart freedom of its thought Hoped to abolish God and reign alone. There was no sovereign Guest, no witness Light; Unhelped it would create its own bleak world. Its large blind eyes looked out on demon acts, Its deaf ears heard the untruth its dumb lips spoke; Its huge misguided fancy took vast shapes, Its min

  Canto Fifteen   The Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge   AFTER a measureless moment of the soul Again returning to these surface fields Out of the timeless depths where he had sunk, He heard once more the slow tread of the hours. All once perceived and lived was far away; Himself was to himself his only scene. Above the Witness and his universe He stood in a realm of boundless silences Awaiting the Voice that spoke and built the worlds. A light was round him wide and absolute, A diamond purity of eternal sight; A consciousness lay still, devoid of forms, Free, wordless, uncoerced by sign or rule, For ever cont

Canto Three   The Debate of Love and Death   A SAD destroying cadence the voice sank; It seemed to lead the advancing march of Life Into some still original Inane. But Savitri answered to almighty Death: "O dark-browed sophist of the universe Who veilst the Real with its own Idea, Hiding with brute objects Nature's living face, Masking eternity with thy dance of death, Thou hast woven the ignorant mind into a screen And made of Thought error's purveyor and scribe, And a false witness of mind's servant sense. An aesthete of the sorrow of the world, Champion of a harsh and sad philosophy Thou hast used words to shutter out the

Evolution     Evolution   WHAT IN its principle and scope is the force of evolution and how does it work out in the world? The theory of evolution has been the key-note of the thought of the nineteenth century It has not only affected all its science and its thought-attitude, but powerfully influenced its moral temperament, its politics and its society Without it there could not have been that entire victory of the materialistic notion of life and the universe which has been the general characteristic of the age that is now passing, —a victory which for a time even claimed to be definitive, —nor such important corollary effect

'Essays in Philosophy and Yoga' by Sri Aurobindo - Page1 of 16 Note on the Texts     Note on the Texts   ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY AND YOGA consists of short prose pieces written by Sri Aurobindo after May 1909 and published by him in journals or books or both before his passing in 1950 Most of them are on aspects of philosophy and yoga Short prose pieces written between 1910 and 1950 but not published during Sri Aurobindo's lifetime are included in Essays Divine and Human, volume 12 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO Short prose writings published between 1910 and 1950 on certain specialised subjects —the Vedas, the Upanishads, Indian culture,

Karma and Freedom   THE UNIVERSE in which we live presents itself to our mentality as a web of opposites and contraries, not to say contradictions, and yet it is a question whether there can be in the universe any such thing as an entire opposite or a real contradiction Good and evil seem to be as opposite powers as well can be and we are apt by the nature of our ethical mind to see the world, at any rate in its moral aspect, as a struggle and tug of war between these eternal opposites, God and devil, Deva and Asura, Ahuramazda, Angrya Mainyu We hope always that on some as yet hardly conceivable day the one will peris

Supermind and Humanity   WHAT THEN would be the consequence for humanity of the descent of Supermind into our earthly existence, its consequence for this race born into a world of ignorance and inconscience but capable of an upward evolution of its consciousness and an ascent into the light and power and bliss of a spiritual being and spiritual nature? The descent into the earth-life of so supreme a creative power as the Supermind and its truth-consciousness could not be merely a new feature or factor added to that life or put in its front but without any other importance or only a restricted importance carrying with it no results profoundly affecting

The Higher Lines of Karma   THE THIRD movement of mind labours to bring the soul of man out of the tangle of the vital and mental forces and opens to him a field in which the mind raises itself, raises at least the head of its thought and will, above the vital demands and standards and there at that top of its activities, whatever its other concessions to the lower Karma, lives for the sake of the true values, the true demands of a mental being, even though one imprisoned in a body and set to wrestle with the conditions of life in a material universe The innate demand of the mental being is for mental experience, for the mind's manifold strengths

The Superman   The Superman   THE IDEAL of the Superman has been brought recently into much notice, some not very fruitful discussion and a good deal of obloquy It is apt to be resented by average humanity because men are told or have a lurking consciousness that here is a claim of the few to ascend to heights of which the many are not capable, to concentrate moral and spiritual privileges and enjoy a domination, powers and immunities hurtful to a diffused dignity and freedom in mankind So considered, supermanhood is nothing more important than a deification of the rare or solitary ego that has out-topped others in the force of our common human