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 pu

Canto Eleven The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind There ceased the limits of the labouring Power. But being and creation cease not there. For Thought transcends the circles of mortal mind, It is greater than its earthly instrument: The godhead crammed into mind's narrow space Escapes on every side into some vast That is a passage to infinity. It moves eternal in the spirit's field, A runner towards the far spiritual light, A child and servant of the spirit's force. But mind too falls back from a nameless peak. His being stretched beyond the sight of Thought. For the spirit i

Canto Seven The Descent into Night A mind absolved from life, made calm to know, A heart divorced from the blindness and the pang, The seal of tears, the bond of ignorance, He turned to find that wide world-failure's cause. Away he looked from Nature's visible face And sent his gaze into the viewless Vast, The formidable unknown Infinity, Asleep behind the endless coil of things, That carries the universe in its timeless breadths And the ripples of its being are our lives. The worlds are built by its unconscious Breath And Matter and Mind are its figures or its powers, Our waking thoughts the output of its

SECTION FIVE Planes and Parts of The Being Men do not know themselves and have not learned to distinguish the different parts of their being; for these are usually lumped together by them as mind, because it is through a mentalised perception and understanding that they know or feel them; therefore they do not understand their own states and actions, or, if at all, then only on the surface. It is part of the foundation of yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. We are composed of many parts each of which contributes something to the total movement

SECTION EIGHT Rebirth THE soul takes birth each time, and each time a mind, life and body are formed out of the materials of universal nature according to the soul's past evolution and its need for the future. When the body is dissolved, the vital goes into the vital plane and remains there for a time, but after a time the vital sheath disappears. The last to dissolve is the mental sheath. Finally the soul or psychic being retires into the psychic world to rest there till a new birth is close. This is the general course for ordinarily developed human beings. There are variations according to the nature of the individual and his development. For example, if the

SECTION THREE Religion, Morality, Idealism and Yoga THE spiritual life (adhyātma-jīvana), the religious life (dharma-jīvana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body which are the laws of the Ignorance. The religious life is a movement of the same ignorant human consciousness, turning or trying to turn away from the earth towards the Divine, but as yet without knowled

SECTION SEVEN The Purpose of Avatarhood SURELY for the earth-consciousness the very fact that the Divine manifests himself is the greatest of all splendours. Consider the obscurity here and what it would be if the Divine did not directly intervene and the Light of Lights did not break  out of the obscurity – for that is the meaning of the manifestation. ⁂ An incarnation is the Divine Consciousness and Being manifesting through the body. It is possible from any plane. ⁂ It is the omnipresent cosmic Divine who supports the action of the universe; if there is an Incarnation, it does not in the least diminish the cosmic Presence and

SECTION NINE Fate and Free-Will, Karma and Heredity, etc. YOUR extracts taken by themselves are very impressive, but when one reads the book, the impression made diminishes and fades away. You have quoted Cheiro's successes, but what about his failures? I have looked at the book and was rather   staggered by the number of prophecies that have failed to come off. You can't deduce from a small number of predictions, however accurate, that all is predestined down to your putting the questions in the letter and my answer. It may be, but the evidence is not sufficient to prove it. What is evident is that there is an element of the predictable,

PART – I SECTION ONE The Supramental Evolution THERE have been times when the seeking for spiritual attainment was, at least in certain civilisations, more intense and widespread than now or rather than it has been in the world in general during the past few centuries. For now the curve seems to be the beginning of a new turn of seeking which takes its start from what was achieved in the past and projects itself towards a greater future. But always, even in the age of the Vedas or in Egypt, the spiritual achievement or the occult knowledge was confined to a few, it was not spread in the whole mass of humanity. The mass of humanity evolves slowl