SOME DIARY-NOTES OF 1956, THE YEAR OF THE SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION ON FEBRUARY- 29 (As February 29, 1988 will mark the eighth anniversary of the great event which took place thirty-two years ago in a leap year, a dip into a sadhak's Diary of 1956 will be of interest.) Bombay, March 4 On December 18, last year, on a Sunday night the Divine Grace came forth to meet me and lift me up. I was feeling a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Then, towards early morning, perhaps at 4.30 or 5, I had a dream. Even after waking, I could not think it a dream, so concrete it had been, so intensely real — mor

THE SEARCH FOR SOMA It is legitimate for scholars to seek the identity of the marvellous Soma of the Rigveda. Their efforts claim justification from the fact that an actual plant was used in rituals of the times succeeding those of the ancient scripture which had made Soma famous. But, as the reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement1 of R. Gordon Wasson's monumental study, Soma, the Divine Mushroom of Immortality,2 clearly tells us, the plant in question was acknowledged to be a substitute. The fundamental fact, as pointed out by the reviewer, is: nobody could tell, even in antiquity, what plant the original Soma had been. Surely, therefore, it is legit

"SEVEN DOUBTS" Here is my attempt to answer your "seven doubts". 1.It is according to Sri Aurobindo that Sri Krishna is known to have revealed what you designate "the plane of Purushottama" in the Gita. I venture to suggest that he could disclose Sri Krishna's ultimate status because he was himself Sri Krishna in a past birth: the status of an Uttama (supreme) Purusha beyond either the Kshara (mutable) or the Akshara (immutable) Purusha. The existence of Purushottama was part not only of Sri Aurobindo's philosophical knowledge but also of his own experience. Both he and Sri Krishna were Purushottama incarnate, the latter using, in consonance with the need of t

-032_Apropos of Udar's commrnt in the mother india of december 1981.htm APROPOS OF UDAR'S COMMENT IN THE MOTHER INDIA OF DECEMBER 1981 1 A Letter to a Friendly Critic I am sorry Udar's article in Mother India has proved so offensive to you. I know it hits hard at places but it does not seem to me more offensive than the extract Udar has quoted from the Introduction to Vol. I of the Agenda. Perhaps your reaction is really to what he has said in reply to that extract? As you have singled out this reply, let me first say something about it. Obviously it is subjective in most part but the provocation is to be understood before one judges it. It is v

-012_The Ashram's sixty years.htm THE ASHRAM'S SIXTY YEARS GLIMPSES FROM A PERSONAL STANDPOINT A line in the opening passage of Sri Aurobindo's Ilon runs; Ida climbed with her god-haunted peaks into diamond lustres... A sacred mountain of ancient Greece, Ida as seen by the poet, an ever-uplifting vigil, full of secret divine presences, now emerging in the dawn-light which has the purity and transparent depth of an ethereal diamond — here is an apt symbol for Sri Aurobindo's Ashram on November 24, 1986, the sixtieth year of its establishment, what is termed in traditional reckoning its diamond jubilee. It is also apt that Ida should be spoken of in the feminine

AN ALL-ROUND REVELATION Sri Aurobindo's spiritual vision of the world can be considered an all-round revelation because it finds some essential truth in every world-view reached by mystical, philosophical or scientific research, and weaves it into its own comprehensive system. There is nothing it rejects or fails to explicate. Take even the very denial of it, the most extreme Materialism of our day, basing itself on blind physical phenomena, random genetic mutation, mindless natural selection of mutated forms by the environment, extensively wasteful processes of evolutionary life, mechanical reactions and reflexes of organisms, dependence of psychologica

SIDELIGHTS ON THE AUROBINDONIAN TRUTH A LETTER FROM KRISHNA PREM (RONALD NIXON) TO MR. KOSKE AND A COMMENT BY K. D. SETHNA The Letter September 1946 Dear Mr. Koske, "Whom should I believe?" You can cut Bradley, Bergson, Hegel, etc., out of the list as admittedly their views are mere speculations. They do not even claim to have reached the other shore. How, then, will they guide us? It is useless to reach one unique and final philosophical system. All such systems are relative. The Buddha described his teachings as like a raft — useful to cross the river but to be left behind on the further bank. Thou

-015_Dr. v.k.GOkak Amd Sri Aurobindo's savitri.htm DR. V. K. GOKAK AND SRI AUROBINDO'S SAVITRI In the Indian Express, Saturday, September 11, 1982, p. 14, Dr. V. K. Gokak was interviewed on his latest literary work, an epic in Kannada due to be published in November of the same year. Asked why, being an English scholar who had taught the language for more than three decades, he wrote his epic in Kannada, Dr. Gokak was quoted as replying: "...I was hesitant to write in a language which I have not mastered completely. Aurobindo who had mastered the language wrote his Savitri in English and, though it contained most beautiful passages, I felt the language was a bit awkward. If a schol

SRI AUROBINDO, PARTHASARATHY IYENGAR AND PONDICHERRY A NOTE TOWARDS CLARIFYING THEIR CONNECTION This article by the Editor of Mother India is published at the request of readers who wanted his views on the subject apropos of some views already in print. In the issue of Sri Aurobindo: Archives and Research for December 1987 the "Archival Notes" are partly aimed at settling certain queries raised by some statements of the writer two years earlier in the same periodical. His new statements too have come in for criticism. It may be that his true drift has failed to be caught, but the cause of

-10_A Retrospect - the Resolution of The Tyger's Symbolism.htm 7 A Retrospect: The Resolution of The Tyger's Symbolism We have completed our study of The Tyger. We may conclude with a brief retrospect. The starting-point in our treatment of the poem was an analysis of its "Minute Particulars, Organized", and the analysis resolved the poem's symbolism into a mytho-poeic vision of Christ's battle in Heaven with revolted angels. The details of this vision - the ultimate empyrean of the supreme lustre-hidden Godhead, the winged intermediate Creator who is essentially one with that Godhead yet existen-tially secondary and who aspiring from his existential status to the primary blaze and