Section Three XI BEYOND LOVE AND HATE The Mother says Love and Hate are at bottom the same thing. At the centre there is the same substance in both, it is the obverse and reverse of the same stuff. It is a vibration, it is a unique vibration, a vibration of extreme intensity, of extreme intimacy. At the centre there is this one single movement although at the periphery it becomes different, even contradictory. As the movement starts from the centre, and proceeds outward it differentiates itself, becomes more and more different, contrary, even contradictory to what it was at its origin. Hatred with all its most ugly features appears in the pl

Section Five XIX PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS OF THE MOTHER (I) The 'Prayers and Meditations of the Mother'. It is Life Divine in song, it is Life Divine set to music—made sweet and lovely, near and dear to us—a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. To some the ideal has appeared aloof and afar, cold and forbidding. The ascent is difficult involving immense pains and tiresome efforts. It is meant for the high-souled ascetic, not for the weak earth-bound mortals. But here in the voice of the Mother we hear not the call for a hazardous climb to the bare cold wind-swept peak of the Himalayas but a warm invitation for

VII THE MYSTERY OF THE FIVE SENSES The senses are the doors opening out on the external world for the consciousness to act and range abroad. That is the usual outward movement which is generally so much condemned by spiritual seekers. The doors and windows of the senses, whatever they are, all openings should be closed, shut up, hermetically sealed. One should then return within away from them, if one is to come into contact with the true consciousness, the true reality. Even the Gita says, the conscious being is seated in tranquility within, closing all the nine gates of the city, himself doing nothing nor causing anything to be done. Well,

THE AUTHOR This Part of Nolini Kanta Gupta's The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo series consisting of his most recent (1968) talks given to the members of the Ashram, is specially brought out to commemorate his eightieth birthday, 13 January 1969. Dreamer and revolutionary, linguist, scholar, critic, poet, philosopher and man of deep spiritual realisation, Nolini Kanta Gupta stands foremost among the men of this century who are destined to leave their mark on generations to come. Born in 1889 of a cultured and well-to-do family in Bengal, he came early in his teens under the influence of Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary par excellence, and 'a mighty prophet of Indian

XII THE DIVINE GRACE AND LOVE The Mother says that there can be Love without Grace as there can also be Grace without Love, although the two are essentially one and the same. Grace means gift, it is a gesture of the giving of boon from the Divine. The Divine gives out of His Plenitude what we want, what we need, what we should have, naturally as per His choice. The most obvious, the most external, superficial and concrete form of gift is what meets our physical material need. And protection is the most appreciated and the most readily available treasure. Protection in its larger sense, includes all kinds and modes of welfare from the most p

VII THE WORLD IS ONE The world is one, in fact and in potentia. There is already a realised unity; that unity runs as the fundamental chord in and through differing and discordant notes. These different and discordant and even denying notes have to be re-conditioned, blended, harmonised; that is the effective and patent unity that lies in potentia and has to be brought forth in front. The world is one at bottom; it is to be made one up to the brim. The material world is a factual unity. For it is one matter that exists everywhere; the same fundamental elements constitute, although in different degrees, the earth, the sun, the stars, the distan

-026_God^s Debt.htm V GOD'S DEBT Here is a line from Savitri: "And paying here God's debt to earth and man." What is this debt that God owes to earth and man? We understand the debt that man and earth owe to God, their creator. But how is God indebted to his creation? Besides we learn that God pays his debt through his representative, his protagonist upon earth, the aspiring human being. First let us understand the mystery of God's debt toman. We know, in ordinary life a subordinate has a duty towards his superior, the lesser owes a debt to the greater. That is easily understood. Likewise the superior also has a duty to his subordinate, the greater has his duty to the sma

XIV NIGHT AND DAY The night is the background to the day or otherwise the day is the stage and the night the green room, that is to say, whatever is expressed in the day, all your activities physical or mental, are in a large part determined or coloured by your activities at night in sleep. The day represents your conscious activities, products of choice and the exercise of conscious will, but of the night we are wholly unconscious and we have no control over its hidden activities. Even so, it exercises a tremendous influence on the life of the day. The mood, the rhythm in the sleep-state colours, as I say, very much the mood and rhythm of the active life o

XII CLING TO TRUTH The Life Divine is the life of Truth. It is based on Truth, it is Truth, body and substance—Truth absolute, pure and simple. But it may be asked as we are actually in the ignorant and half-ignorant consciousness, in a world of almost total falsehood, is it not necessary, is it not inescapable for us to accept the falsehood for the moment, in order to be able to work in the world and succeed? We have to live in an environment and move in it; if we try to go against it openly, how can we do it practically? As individuals we are infinitesimal particles and the mass of the whole will bear us down each one of us and crush us out of existence. Truth is

Section Four XV THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE Human language was born out of the necessity of intercommunication among human beings living together. The necessity naturally related to the physical life and its demands and requirements. Man being a mental being sought intercommunication through his mind. So mind yoked to the physical demands gave the first form and pattern to human speech. Language in the beginning must have been an echo or a graphic expression of man's sense-bound mind. But as the mind developed, became more and more rational and intellectual, language also tended to become more and more abstract and intellectualised. E