Heredity, Past Lives, Astrology   Heredity and Past Lives   It is true that we bring most of ourselves from past lives. Heredity only affects the external being and all the effects of heredity are not accepted, only those that are in consonance with what we are to be or not preventive of it at least. I may be the son of my father or mother in certain respects, but most of me is as foreign to them as if I had been born in New York or Paraguay. 3 June 1935   Speculations about His Past Lives   It is reported that you were Kalidasa and Shakespeare. I suppose it is true, at least regarding Kalidasa —  isn't it?   As to the report, who is t

Darshan   Admission to Darshan   Write that usually Sri Aurobindo sees on these days only his disciples, whether those residing in the Asram or those who come to him from outside, and a few others who are either connected in some way with the Asram, its work or its members or else are given permission for special reasons. Permission is not given to all who would like to come, as that would mean an impossible number and it would besides entirely break the principle of Sri Aurobindo's retirement.1 5 February 1930   *   You can write to him that he can have permission for himself and his wife —  but f

Remarks on the World Situation 1933 - 1949   Intellectual Idealists, World Events and the New Creation   I cannot persuade myself that all the things that are happening —  including the triumph of the British policy and deterioration of Gandhi's intellect —  are meant for the best. . . . Bengal is now benighted and there is no sign of light anywhere. Tagore too has just written an article of despair in which he forebodes gloomily an end of the world, pralaya-kalpānta, as perhaps the quickest and most satisfactory solution to the mess we are in. Add to this my own lack of devotion and faith. . . . I do sometimes even

Remarks on Public Figures in Europe   Kaiser Wilhelm II   The Kaiser gave up at the last moment when he could have assumed a dictatorship. Napoleon did the same after Waterloo.   In Napoleon's case they say it was the result of his disease, he was no longer quite his old self. The Kaiser was a man without any real strong stuff in him to face adversity. In the German case they simply lost hope after the American intervention and the failure of the submarine campaign —  there was no way out any longer and they felt exhausted by a hopeless struggle. But the end was inevitable. After the turning back at Co

Section Two   Messages     Messages Written for Special Occasions   Darshan Messages   The Divine gives itself to those who give themselves without reserve and in all their parts to the Divine. For them the calm, the light, the power, the bliss, the freedom, the wideness, the heights of knowledge, the seas of Ananda. 15 August 1929   *   It is not by your mind that you can hope to understand the Divine and its action, but by the growth of the true and divine consciousness within you. If the Divine were to unveil and reveal itself in all its glory, the mind might feel a Presence, but it would not understand its action or its

Sadhana in the Ashram Contd... I for my part am not prepared to bear any part of the burden of transformation of the hostile forces.   So much the better. I am not asking anybody to transform the Asuras —  I am only asking them to reject them.   I spoke of having seen and heard someone who showed me how he had organised, in the being of every sadhak here, a "dark being" veiling his "divine being".   I do not know what you mean by this someone. The existence of a double being is a preexistent fact, it has not been organised by anyone here.   I am not aware that the conditi

Sri Aurobindo's Force   Concreteness of the Force   The invisible Force producing tangible results both inward and outward is the whole meaning of the Yogic consciousness. Your question about Yoga bringing merely a feeling of Power without any result was really very strange. Who would be satisfied with such a meaningless hallucination and call it Power? If we had not had thousands of experiences showing that the Power within could alter the mind, develop its powers, add new ones, bring in new ranges of knowledge, master the vital movements, change the character, influence men and things, control the conditions and functionings of the body, work

Life and Death in the Ashram   Self-Control, Not Asceticism   What should be the true necessities of a sadhak? Should he buy things from outside? With what idea is pocket money given to us?   The idea, when the arrangement was made, was simply to see how and in what spirit the sadhaks dealt with money when they had any at their disposal. The necessities of a sadhak should be as few as possible; for there are only a very few things that are real necessities in life. The rest are either utilities or things decorative to life or luxuries. These a Yogi has a right to possess or enjoy only on one of two conditions — (1)

The Ashram and Religion   A Way, Not a Religion   I have no time to read books usually. I seldom had and none at all now. I have had no inspirations from the sadhana of Bejoy Goswami, though a good deal at one time from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. My remarks simply meant that I regard the spiritual history of mankind and especially of India as a constant development of a divine purpose, not a book that is closed, the lines of which have to be constantly repeated. Even the Upanishads and the Gita were not final though everything may be there in seed. In this development the recent spiritual history of India is a very important stage a

Letters on Himself and the Ashram     Selected Letters on His Outer and Inner Life,     His Path of Yoga and the Practice of Yoga in His Ashram      Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry, c. 1915­1918 Part One    Remarks on His Life and Works and on His Contemporaries and Contemporary Events   Section One   Reminiscences and Remarks on Events in His Outer Life   His Life and Attempts to Write about It   Knowing about Things in His Past   For a long time I have wanted to hear something about the early days i