TO MELT INTO THE DIVINE How to melt into the Divine? That is to say, how to get dissolved in the Divine, lose one's ego ? First of all, one must wish for it, will for it, aspire for it with perseverence. Everytime the ego shows itself, you must give it a tap on the nose, until it receives so much of it that it gets tired and gives up. Generally, however, one does not administer the tap but cherishes the miscreant, justifies its presence. When it shows itself, one says, "After all it is right"; although in most cases, one does not even know it is the ego, one takes it for one's self. The first condition then is to consider it essential that one should have no

Spirits in Trees You told us the other day that there are spirits who remain bound to trees. How are they to get free ? Why should they get free? You told us how the spirits in the trees got freed when someone was kind to them and said prayers on their behalf. Yes, but that was in the story. It was a Christian legend and put in that way to illustrate a lesson. It was to show that if you are wicked you suffer even after death, that it is a virtuous life that saves you from misery. In reality, however, there is no question here of sin and punishment; it is not that spirits get attached to trees in order to be punished. When a person dies, his vital b

THE YOGA OF SRI AUROBINDO Part Eight NOLINI KANTA GUPTA. SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY 1956 Publishers: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry First Edition...... November, 1956 All rights reserved Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press Pondicherry printed in India

DIVINE LIVING We always give the name "Divine" to all that we are not and want to become, all that seems infinitely higher than not only everything we have done but everything we can possibly do, all that is beyond our present capacity and conception. I am perfectly sure that if we went back into the past a few thousands of years, we would find that when one spoke of the Divine it was of a being somewhat like one of the "overmental" gods. But now, the way of living proper to these overmental divinities who governed the earth and created many things upon earth for a very long time, seems to us very inferior to what we conceive as the Supramental. This Supramental again

THE WORK HERE From the worldly standpoint, from the point of view of result achieved, certainly things can be done better. But I am speaking of the effort put in, effort in the deepest sense of the word. Work is prayer done with the body. With that effort in your work the Divine is satisfied, the eye of the Consciousness that has viewed it is indeed pleased. Not that from the human standpoint one cannot do better. For us, however, this particular endeavour is one among many; it is only one movement in our sadhana. We are engaged in many other things. To raise one particular item of work to something like perfection requires time and means and resources which are not at our d

THE ORIGIN One has forgotten. From the fact of separation from Sat - Chit - Ananda comes forgetfulness of what one is. You believe you are, does not matter what, a boy, a girl, a man, a woman, a dog, a horse, any thing : a stone, the sea or the sun. You think you are all that, instead of thinking that you are the One Divine. Indeed, if you had continued to think that you are the One Divine, there would have been no universe at all. The phenomenon of separation seems to have been indispensable, otherwise it would have remained always as it was. But once the curve has been followed up and the Unity re-established, having profited by the multiplicity and division,

EDUCATION OF GIRLS The question is about our physical education and, in a general way, the psychological basis of our activities here. These things have, of course, been written about and spoken of by me and by Sri Aurobindo very often, but evidently the idea does not seem to have entered your consciousness. I do not wish to wage a war against what you feel and do, but I would like you at least to understand why things are done here in the way they are being done instead of letting yourself go thoughtlessly in a retrograde movement towards all that is done elsewhere, under the plea that that is how your fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers and all the

THE DIVINE GRACE (I) When you are in a certain set of circumstances and when certain things happen, these things often go against your desire or against what appears to you best. And you regret and say: "Oh! How much better it would have been had it been otherwise !" It does not matter whether the thing concerned is small or big. The years pass, events roll on. You progress, become more conscious, understand better. And when you look back, you discover, at first with surprise, later on with a smile, that the famous circumstances which once appeared to you disastrous or unfavourable were just the very best thing that could have happened for your needed progr

Section Two To the Children of the Ashram THE TRUE TEACHING You must have observed that my way of talking to you is not always the same. I don't know whether you are very sensitive to the difference, but for me it is considerable. Sometimes, on rare occasions, because of something read or for another reason, there comes to me in the wake of a question what is called an experience but what is simply the fact of entering into a certain state of consciousness and, having entered into it, describing that very state. In such a case, the Force, the Consciousness that express themselves pass across the individual mind, use it like a store-house of

GOAL OF EVOLUTION You say it is obvious that evolution has a goal and that it cannot stop here or now. It seems to you obvious because you have read Sri Aurobindo's books. But if you take anybody you meet in the street and ask him what is the purpose of the universe or of the evolution, you will see that he will answer by saying that he knows nothing about it. Even here there are many, perhaps hundreds, if you ask them individually not to repeat what they have read but to say what they feel and think by themselves about the question, what is the intention behind the universal evolution or if there is any intention at all, they will not be able to give a better answer. I