-048_Bases of Spiritual Life   Chapter 6   Bases of Spiritual Life     The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened thoughts and, as it seems, his inevitable and ultimate preoccupation ... is also the highest which his thought can envisage. It manifests itself in the divination of Godhead, the impulse towards perfection, the search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss, the sense of a secret immortality. The ancient dawns of human knowledge have left us their witness to this constant aspiration; today we see a humanity satiated but not satisfied by victorious analysis of the externalities of Nature preparing to return to its primeval longings. The earliest formula of Wisdom promises

        The Spiritual Significance of Flowers           The Mother             The Spiritual Significance of Flowers   Part 1 Text and Photographs                 Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry, India                   First edition 2000 © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 2000 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department Pondicherry, India Printed in Singapore at Ho Printing ISBN 81-7058-609-7  

    The Mother       The Mother was born Mirra Alfassa on 21 February 1878 in Paris. A student at the Academie Julian, she became an accomplished artist. Gifted from an early age with a capacity for spiritual and occult experience, she went to Tlemcen, Algeria, in 1906 and 1907 to study occultism with the adept Max Theon and his wife. Between 1911 and 1913 she gave a number of talks to various groups of seekers in Paris and began to record her deepening communion with the Divine in the diary later published as Prayers and Meditations.   In 1914 the Mother voyaged to Pondicherry, South India, to meet the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo. After a stay of eleven

  Chapter 5   Road to the Divine     Reveal, who know, the road that I must tread ...    Sri Aurobindo   What I call "being on the path" is being in a state of consciousness in which only union with the Divine has any value — this union is the only thing worth living, the sole object of aspiration. Everything else has lost all value and is not worth seeking, so there is no longer any question of renouncing it because it is no longer an object of desire. As long as union with the Divine is not the thing for which one lives, one is not yet on the path.    The Mother   It is true that the path is very long, but for one who follows it with since

  Chapter 2   The Divine     The Divine is that from which all comes, in which all lives, and to return to the truth of the Divine now clouded over by Ignorance is the soul's aim in life. In its supreme Truth, the Divine is absolute and infinite peace, consciousness, existence, power and Ananda.    Sri Aurobindo   The Divine has three aspects for us:   1. It is the Cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings, from which and in which all is manifested in the universe — although it is now a manifestation in the Ignorance.   2. It is the Spirit and Master of our own being within us whom we have to serve and learn to express his

  Chapter 3   The New Creation     The really new thing is that a new world is born, born, born. It is not the old one transforming itself, it is a new world that is born. And we are right in the midst of this period of transition where the two are entangled — where the old still persists all-powerful, entirely dominating the ordinary consciousness, but where the new one is quietly slipping in, still very modest, unnoticed — unnoticed to the extent that outwardly it doesn't disturb anything very much for the time being, and in the consciousness of most people it is even quite imperceptible. And yet it is working, it is growing — until the time comes when it

  Chapter 8   Power     Power means strength and force, Shakti, which enables one to face all that can happen and to stand and overcome, also to carry out what the Divine Will proposes. It can include many things, power over men, events, circumstances, means etc. But all this not of the mental or vital kind, but by an action through unity of consciousness with the Divine and with all things and all beings. It is not an individual strength depending on certain personal capacities, but the Divine Power using the individual as an instrument.    Sri Aurobindo   Force is the essential Shakti; Energy is the working drive of the Force, its active dynamism; Power is the

  Chapter 11   Awakening in Matter     A resplendent sun rises above the horizon. It is your Lord that comes to you. The whole world awakes and stretches in delight at the contact of His glory. As the earth that heaves and opens, as the tree that grows, as the flower that blossoms, as the bird that sings, as the man that loves, let His light permeate you and radiate in an ever-increasing and widening happiness, a happiness steadily moving onward as the stars move in heaven.    The Mother   In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow, In body and body kindled the sacred birth; Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars, The days

  Chapter 10   Collaboration of Nature     In her green wildernesses and lurking depths, In her thickets of joy where danger clasps delight, He glimpsed the hidden wings of her songster hopes, A glimmer of blue and gold and scarlet fire. In her covert lanes, bordering her chance field-paths And by her singing rivulets and calm lakes He found the glow of her golden fruits of bliss And the beauty of her flowers of dream and muse. Sri Aurobindo   Nature proves her collaboration with a smile of flowers.    The Mother   O Nature, Material Mother, thou hast said that thou wilt collaborate and there can be no

  The Origin of the Significances       Mother, when flowers are brought to you, how do you give them a significance? By entering into contact with the nature of the flower, its inner truth. Then one knows what it represents.   Mother, how do you give a significance to a flower? By entering into contact with it and giving a meaning, more or less precise, to what I feel.   Mother, each flower has its own significance, doesn't it? Not as we understand it mentally. There is a mental projection when one gives a precise significance to a flower. ... A flower does not have the equivalent of a mental consciousness. ... It is rath