Notes and References 1 Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), Pondicherry, 1971, Vol. 20, p. 83. 2 Vide., Ibid., p. 2. 3 Vide., Ibid., p. 44. 4 Vide., Ibid., The Life Divine, Vol. 19, p. 832. 5 Ibid., pp. 841. 6 Ibid., pp. 841-2. 7 Ibid., p. 842-3. 8 Ibid., p. 844. 9 Ibid., pp. 1066. 10 Vide., Ibid., p. 882-3. 11 Vide., Ibid., Vol. 18,p.l0. 12 Vide., Ibid., Vol. 19,p. 884. 13 Ibid., p. 885. 14 Vide., Ibid., pp. 889-90. 15 Vide., Ibid., p. 1046. 16 Vide., Ibid., p. 1050. 17 Ibid., Social and Political Thought, Vol. 15, pp.63-4. 18 Vide., Ibid., chapters

PART FOUR The Problem of Death and Physical Immortality In the beginning of 1970, the Mother spoke of the replacement of knowledge-processes in her body by a new perception which was total, something that comprehended at the same time hearing, vision and knowledge. There was, she said, no differentiation among her organs. She pointed out that the new consciousness insisted on surpassing all divisions and all exclusiveness, including the great division of life and death. The Mother discovered 'over-life', which is at once life and death or which is rather something that cannot be described either as life or as death, but some other thir

PART SIX Difficulties and Remedies Psychological Difficulties and Remedies In regard to the psychological difficulties, certain impulses and instincts of the body have been found especially harmful by the spiritual aspirant. Sri Aurobindo points out that sex and sexuality and all that springs from sex and testifies to its existence had to be banned and discarded from spiritual life. Sri Aurobindo points out that though this is difficult, it is not at all impossible and can be made a cardinal condition for the spiritual seeker.73 In the practice of integral yoga, all gross animal indulgence of sex desire and impulse would have to be eliminated

Supermind in the Evolution A New humanity would then be a race of mental beings on the earth and in the earthly body but delivered from its present conditions in the reign of the cosmic Ignorance so far as to be possessed of a perfected mind, a mind of light which could even be a subordinate action of the supermind or Truth-Consciousness and in any case capable of the full possibilities of mind acting as a recipient of that truth and at least a secondary action of it in thought and life. It could even be a part of what could be described as a divine life upon earth and at least the beginnings of an evolution in the Knowledge and no longer

Spiritual Religion of Humanity A spiritual religion of humanity is the hope of the future.  By this is not meant what is ordinarily called a universal religion, a system, a thing of creed and intellectual belief and dogma and outward rite.  Mankind has tried unity by that means; it has failed and deserved to fail, because there can be no universal religious system, one in mental creed and vital form.  The inner spirit is indeed one, but more than any other the spiritual life insists on freedom and variation in its self-expression and means of development.  A religion of humanity means the growing realisation that there is a secret Spirit, a divine Reality, i

Religion as the law of life SINCE THE infinite, the absolute and transcendent, the universal, the One is the secret summit of existence and to reach the spiritual consciousness and the Divine the ultimate goal and aim of our being and therefore of the whole development of the individual and the collectivity in all its parts and all its activities, reason cannot be the last and highest guide; culture, as it is understood ordinarily, cannot be the directing light or find out the regulating and harmonising principle of all our life and action.  For reason stops short of the Divine and only compromises with the problems of life, and culture in order to attain th

The End of the Curve of Reason The rational collectivist idea of society has at first sight a powerful attraction.  There is behind it a great truth, that every society represents a collective being and in it and by it the individual lives and he owes to it all that he can give it.  More, it is only a certain relation to the society, a certain harmony with this greater collective self that he can find the complete use for his many developed or developing powers and activities.  Since it is a collective being, it must, one would naturally suppose, have a discoverable collective reason and will which should find more and more its right expression and right

Unity in Diversity, Law and Liberty The social evolution of the human race is necessarily a development of the relations between three constant factors, individuals, communities of various sorts and mankind.  Each seeks its own fulfillment and satisfaction, but each is compelled to develop them not independently but in relation to the others.  The first natural aim of the individual must be his own inner growth and fullness and its expression in his outer life; but this he can only accomplish through his relations with other individuals, to the various kinds of community religious, social, cultural and political to which he belongs and to the idea an

Transition from Mind to Supermind It is not to be supposed that the circumstances and the lines of the transition would be the same for all, for here we enter into the domain of the Infinite: but, since there is behind all of them the unity of a fundamental truth, the scrutiny of a given line of ascent may be expected to throw light on the principle of all ascending possibilities; such as scrutiny of one line is all that can be attempted. This line is, as all must be, governed by the natural configuration of the stair of ascent: there are in it many steps, for it is an incessant gradation and there is no gap anywhere: but, from the point of view of the

A Vision of Spiritual Society It is this kingdom of God within, the result of the finding of God not in a distant heaven but within ourselves, of which the state of society in an age of the Truth, spiritual age, would be the result and the external figure.           Therefore a society which was even initially spiritualised, would make the revealing and finding of the divine Self in man the whole first aim of all its activities, its education, its knowledge, its science, its ethics, its art, its economical and political structure.  As it was to some extent in the ancient Vedic times with the cultural education of the higher classes, so it would be then