The Reincarnating Soul   HUMAN thought in the generality of men is no more than a rough and crude acceptance of unexamined ideas Our mind is a sleepy or careless 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

All-Will and Free-Will   HIS IS surely a bounded soul who has never felt the brooding wings of a Fate overshadow the world, never looked beyond the circle of persons, collectivities and forces, never been conscious of the still thought or the assured movement of a Presence in things determining their march On the other hand it is the sign of a defect in the thought or a void of courage and clearness in the temperament to be overwhelmed by Fate or hidden Presence and reduced to a discouraged acquiescence, —as if the Power in things nullified or rendered superfluous and abortive the same Power in myself Fate and free-will are only two movem

The News of the Month   August ­ September 1914     The News of the Month    "L'IDÉE NOUVELLE"   In close connection with the intellectual work of synthesis undertaken by this Review a Society has been founded in French India under the name of the New Idea, (L'Idée Nouvelle) Its object is to group in a common intellectual life and fraternity of sentiment those who accept the spiritual tendency and idea it represents and who aspire to realise it in their own individual and social action. The Society has already made a beginning by grouping together young men of different castes and religions

'Essays in Philosophy and Yoga' by Sri Aurobindo - Page1 of 50 Heraclitus   Heraclitus   THE PHILOSOPHY and thought of the Greeks is perhaps the most intellectually stimulating, the most fruitful of clarities the world has yet had Indian philosophy was intuitive in its beginnings, stimulative rather to the deeper vision of things, —nothing more exalted and profound, more revelatory of the depths and the heights, more powerful to open unending vistas has ever been conceived than the divine and inspired Word, the mantra of Veda and Vedanta When that philosophy became intellectual, precise, founded on the human reason, it became also rigidly logical, en

    1371 YOGIC SADHAN   AUM   I   The proper course of the Sadhan is just the opposite of the thing most people do and you have also done. People begin with the body and the prana, go on to the chitta and the manas, and finish up with the buddhi and the will. The real course is to start with the will and finish with the body. There is no need of Asana, Pranayama, Kumbhaka, Chittasuddhi, or anything else preparatory or preliminary if one starts with the will. That was what Sri Ramakrishna came to show so far as Yoga is concerned. "Do the Shakti Upasana first," he said, "get Shakti and she will give you Sat." Will and Shakti are the first means necessary to the Yogin.

1323 NOTES ON IMAGES SEEN IN MARCH 1914   The Evolutionary Scale.   We shall see how the thought of God works itself out in Life. The material world is first formed with the Sun as centre, the Sun [ ]1 being itself only a subordinate star of the great Agni, Mahavishnu, in whom is centred the Bhu. Mahavishnu is the Virat Purusha who as Agni pours Himself out into the forms of sun and star. He is Agni Twashtá, Visvakarman, he is also Prajápati and Matariswan. These are the three primal Purushas of the earth life,—Agni Twashta, Prajapáti & M

1359 DIAGRAMS, c. 1931   THE SUPREME | Sachchidananda—Unmanifest, making possible every kind of manifestation. | SACHCHIDANANDA IN MANIFESTATION The Supreme Planes of Infinite Consciousness (1) Sat (implying Chit-Tapas and Ananda) (2) Chit (implying Sat and Ananda) (3) Ananda (implying Sat and Chit-Tapas.) | SUPERMIND or DIVINE GNOSIS. (The Self-Determining Infinite Consciousness)