The Triple Cord * SUNAHSHEPA, the human creature, says the Vedic Rishi, is bound to the stake with three cords: one on the top, the second in the middle and the third below. Sunahshepa cries out to God Varuna to be freed from the triple bondage. The God is pleased and cuts the topmost cord and throws it upward, he cuts the middle cord and throws it on either side, he cuts the downmost cord and throws it downward. Thus Sunahshepa is freed through the Grace of King Varuna. The three cords are the three limitations of being and consciousness in the normal human creature. There is a wall or barrier up in the mind which shuts out the higher levels of consciousness that are beyo

Education as the Growth of Consciousness ALL knowledge is within you. Information you get from outside, but the understanding of it? It is from within. The information from outside gives you dead matter. What puts life into it, light into it is your own inner light. All education, all culture means drawing this inner light to the front. Indeed the word 'education' literally means, 'to bring out.' Plato also pointed to the same truth when he said that education is remembrance. You remember what is imbedded or secreted with in, you bring to the light, the light of your physical mind, what you have within, what you already possess in your being and i

The Supramental Vision IN the supramental vision there is a direct, full and immediate knowledge of things, in the sense that you see all things at the same time totally, integrally; you see the truth of a thing in all its aspects simultaneously. But as soon as you want to explain or describe it, you are obliged to come down to a lower level. Sri Aurobindo calls it the Mind of Light. Here things have to be said or even thought or expressed and realised in action one after another in a certain order, in a certain relation to each other. Therefore the simultaneity disappears; for, in the present condition of our way of expression it is impossible to say everything at

Short Notes (1) THE SENSE OF EARTHLY EVOLUTION Ignorance is usually equated with innocence. A child is ignorant, therefore he is innocent. Although it is said that ignorance of law is no excuse. Spiritually however, ignorance does not mean innocence. Ignorance or unconsciousness or inconscience – different degrees of the same thing – that is to say lack of consciousness, mean, at bottom, falsehood. It is through the ignorance that Maya, the great illusion, was born. Ignorance is false apprehension, it begins with the sense of separation, "I am other than the Divine." That is how Jiva is born in or through the ignorance. The world is separate from the Divine. That is how

On Teachers and Teaching MASTERY means to know how to deal with certain vibrations. If you have the knowledge and can deal with the vibrations, you have the mastery. The best field for such an experience and experiment is yourself. First, you must have mastery over yourself and when you have it, you can transmit its vibrations to others in so far as you are capable of identifying yourself with them. But if you cannot deal with the vibrations in yourself, how can you deal with them in others? You can, by word or by influence, encourage people so that they do what is necessary to master themselves, but you cannot yourself have direct mastery over them. To mast

PART ELEVEN The Opening Scene of "Savitri" "IT was the hour before the Gods awake". Only when the Gods awake, does the light begin to appear on earth. Other­wise it is all night here, black, impenetrable and unfathomable. Indeed the very creation begins with the awakening of the Gods. When the Gods are asleep, it is the non-existence – tamaasit tamasa gudhamagre – 'in the beginning darkness was engulfed in darkness'. This is the asat, non-being, this is the acit, the inconscience, this is the blackest night. The Bible also speaks of a similar darkness – Job's terrible vision: "A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, wi

Transfiguration THE Divine attributes – such as Peace and Joy, Consciousness and Power, Freedom, etc. – each and all of them are self-existent realities, existing by themselves in their fullness and perfection. They are not mere qualities that are acquired by effort through gradual culture and development, they are not acquired piecemeal as other human possessions, material or mental. They are there near us, about us in their fullness and wholeness. We do not see them or seize them as there happens to be a veil in between. We need not strain and struggle, labour and sweat, go through all the pains of the world in order to find them, realise them. It is, as I say, a veil inte

Are Not The Ascetic Means Helpful At Times? I DO not think so. You cure nothing in that way. You give yourself the illusion that you are progressing, but you are really freed of nothing. The proof is that as soon as you stop the practices, the old things come back violently with a vengeance. But naturally all depends upon the meaning you attach to the word. If it means not yielding to your desires, then it is not asceticism, it is common sense, it is good sense. By asceticism people usually understand fasting, bearing biting cold or burning heat, lying on a bed of sharp nails, that is to say, torturing the body in some way or other. Th

Notes on Freedom MAN is born free, – in his spirit, not in his body. The body is bound and all that is there in its frame of reference – the life and even the mind with their multiple movements. The spirit alone is free with all else that is there in its frame of reference. The mind and the life bound normally, because tied to the body-scheme attain the freedom of the spirit when linked to the spirit. The body is bound because it is bound to the ignorant material nature. The body too can attain freedom, the freedom of the spirit, when submitted to the spirit. Freedom is a divine quality; it belongs to the Divine Consciousness. Nothing below that status is free or

Savitri (1) SAVITRI, the poem, the word of Sri Aurobindo is the cosmic Answer to the cosmic Question. And Savitri, the person, the Godhead, the Divine Woman is the Divine's response to the human aspiration. The world is a great question mark. It is a riddle, eternal and ever-recurring. Man has faced the riddle and sought to arrive at a solution since he has been given a mind to seek and interrogate. What is this universe? From where has it come? Whither is it going? What is the purpose of it all? Why is man here? What is the object of his existence? Such is the mode of human aspiration. And Ashwapati in his quest begins to explore the world and see what it is, the