ANTHOLOGY SOURCES The passages in the anthology have been drawn from the following volumes of Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library series published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1970-75). Vol. 12 : Vol. 13 : Vol. 14 : Vol. 16 : Vol. 17 : Vol. 18 : Vol. 19 : Vol. 20 : Vol. 21 : Vol. 22 : Vol. 23 : Vol. 24 : Vol. 25 : Vol. 27 : The Upanishads Essays on the Gita The Foundations of Indian Culture The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings The Hour of God and Other Writings The Life Divine-Book One and Book Two Part One (pp

2 The Scientific Study of Consciousness Three Prerequisites for Consciousness Research Having examined and explained Matter by physical methods... — it is not really explained, but let that pass, — having failed to carry that way of knowledge into other fields beyond a narrow limit, we must then at least consent to scrutinise life and mind by methods appropriate to them.... Adhering still to the essential rigorous method of science, though not to its purely physical instrumentation, scrutinising, experimenting, holding nothing for established which cannot be scrupulously and universally verified, we shall s

11 Self, Ego and Individuality ...this little mind, vital and body which we call ourselves is only a surface movement and not our "self" at all. It is an external bit of personality put forward for one brief life, for the play of the Ignorance. It is equipped with an ignorant mind stumbling about in search of fragments of truth, an ignorant vital rushing about in search of fragments of pleasure, an obscure and mostly subconscious physical receiving the impacts of things and suffering rather than possessing a resultant pain or pleasure. All that is accepted until the mind gets disgusted and starts looking about for the real Truth of itself and

Part One An Anthology of Sri Aurobindo's Writings The integral knowledge admits the valid truths of all views of existence, valid in their own field, but it seeks to get rid of their limitations and negations and to harmonise and reconcile these partial truths in a larger truth which fulfils all the many sides of our being in the one omnipresent Existence. Sri Aurobindo It is not by "thinking out" the entire reality, but by a change of consciousness that one can pass from the ignorance to the Knowledge — the Knowledge by which we become what we know. To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; t

10 The Gunas of Prakriti The Three Modes of Nature The idea of the three essential modes of Nature is a creation of the ancient Indian thinkers and its truth is not at once obvious, because it was the result of long psychological experiment and profound internal experience. Therefore without a long inner experience, without intimate self-observation and intuitive perception of the Nature-forces it is difficult to grasp accurately or firmly utilise.... These modes are termed in the Indian books qualities, gunas, and are given the names sattva, rajas, tamas. Sattwa is the force of equilibrium and translates in quality as good and harmony and

6 Self, Ego and Individuality Sri Aurobindo's Integral View When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar.1 —Sri Aurobindo Self, Ego and Individuality in Ordinary Consciousness A fundamental characteristic of our ordinary or "normal" state of consciousness is the sense of I-ness, of being an individual who has an independent existence, who is distinct and separate from other individuals and things in the universe. In its basic connotation, the term "ego" (derived from the Latin word for "I") is applied to this core of our being as we experie

-010_The Outer (Surface) Being.htm 6 The Outer (Surface) Being The outer consciousness is that which usually expresses itself in ordinary life. It is the external mental, vital, physical. It is not connected very much with the inner being except in a few — until one connects them together in the course of the sadhana. Letters on Yoga, p. 311 The outer being is a means of expression only, not one's self. One must not identify with it, for what it expresses is a personality formed by the old ignorant nature. If not identified one can change it so as to express the true inner personality of the Light. Letters on Yoga, p. 311 They [the outer mind, vital and b

Foreword by Ken Wilber Sri Aurobindo Ghose was India's greatest modern philosopher-sage, flowing out of a country that is one of the most astonishing and profound geographical sources of spiritual awareness on the planet. But Aurobindo's genius was not merely that he captured the profundity of India's extraordinary spiritual heritage. He was the first great philosopher-sage to deeply grasp the nature and meaning of the modern idea of evolution. And thus, in Aurobindo, we have the first grand statement of an evolutionary spirituality that is an integration of the best of ancient wisdom and the brightest of modern knowledge. It wasn't that other great thinkers had not seen

8 The Psychic Being The inner being is composed of the inner mental, inner vital, inner physical, — but that is not the psychic being. The psychic is the inmost being and quite distinct from these. The word 'psychic' is indeed used in English to indicate anything that is other or deeper than the external mind, life and body, anything occult or supraphysical, but that is a use which brings confusion and error and we entirely discard it when we speak or write about yoga. In ordinary parlance we may sometimes use the word 'psychic' in the looser popular sense or in poetry, which is not bound to intellectual accuracy, we may speak of the soul sometimes in

7 The Inner Being; the Subliminal (self) The Subliminal Distinguished from the Subconscient ...subliminal is a general term used for all parts of the being which are not on the waking surface. Subconscient is very often used in the same sense by European psychologists because they do not know the difference. But when I use the word [subconscient], I mean always what is below the ordinary physical consciousness, not what is behind it. The inner mental, vital, physical, the psychic are not subconscious in this sense, but they can be spoken of as subliminal. Letters on Yoga, p. 354 The real subconscious is a n