The 15th of August 1947 Message by Sri Aurobindo [Sri Aurobindo wrote this message at the request of All India Radio, Tiruchirapalli, India, for broadcast on the eve of India’s independence. This is the message which was broadcast on August 14, 1947. It is of special relevance and importance even now.] August 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks for her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it by our life and acts as a free nation an important date in a new age o

Teachers who are not perfectly calm, who do not have an endurance that never fails, and a quietude which nothing can disturb, who have no self-respect — those who are like that will get nowhere. One must be a saint and a hero to be a good teacher. *One must be a great yogi to be a good teacher. One must have a perfect attitude to be able to exact a perfect attitude from the students. You cannot ask anyone to do what you don't do yourself. That is a rule. So look at the difference between what is and what ought to be, and you will be able to estimate the extent of your failure in class.*

ALL visions have a significance of one kind or another. This power of vision is very important for the yoga and should not be rejected although it is not the most important thing – for the most important thing is the change of the consciousness. All other powers like this of vision should be developed without attachment as parts and aids of the yoga. Visions are not indispensable – they are a help, that is all, when they are of the right kind. page 931 - Letters on Yoga , volume 23 , SABCL

SATPREM A sailor and a Breton, though born in Paris in 1923. A member of the French Resistance, Satprem was arrested by the Gestapo when he was twenty and spent a year and a half in concentration camps. Devastated, he journeyed first to Upper Egypt, then to India, where he served in the French colonial government of Pondicherry. There he discovered Sri Aurobindo and Mother. Their Message—"Man is a transitional being"— struck a deep chord. He resigned his post and left for Guiana, where he spent an adventurous year in the middle of Amazonian jungle, then wandered on to Brazil, Africa.... In 1953, at thirty, Satprem returned to India for good to be near Her who was in search of the

Neanderthal Looks On Satprem MIRA ADITI Mysore

Neanderthal Looks On Satprem MIRA ADITI Mysore This book was originally published in French under the title Néanderthal Regards © Editions Institut de Recherches ÉVOLUTIVES, Paris, 1999. Neanderthal Looks On. English translation by Michel Danino © Institut de Recherches ÉVOLUTIVES, Paris, 1999. Information addresses : - in Asia: MIRA ADITI CENTRE 62 'Sriranga', 2'"'Main, 1" Cross T. K. Layout, Saraswatipuram MYSORE - 570 009, INDIA - in America : INSTITUT DE RECHERCHES ÉVOLUTIVES, CANADA CP41 CHAMBLY OC J3L4B1 CANADA - in Europe : INSTITUT DE RECHERCHES ÉVOLUTIVES 142 boulevard du Mon

CHAPTER 6 Quieting the Vital The Limitations of Morality There is an area of our being which is a source of both great difficulty and great power. A source of difficulty, because it blurs all the communications from outside or above by frantically opposing our efforts to silence the mind and bogging down the consciousness at its own level of petty occupations and interests, thus hindering its free movement toward other regions. A source of power, because it is the outcropping of the great force of life in us. This is the region located between the heart and the sex center, which Sri Aurobindo calls the vital. It is a place full of every possible mixture: pleasure is inex

CHAPTER 12 The Superconscient A triple change of consciousness, then, charts our journey on earth: the discovery of the psychic being or immanent Spirit, the discovery of Nirvana or transcendent Spirit, and the discovery of the central being of cosmic Spirit. This is probably the real meaning of the Father-Son-Holy Ghost trinity of the Christian tradition. Our purpose is not to decide which experience is better than the other, but to verify them for ourselves. Philosophies and religions dispute about the priority of different aspects of God and different Yogins, Rishis and Saints have preferred this or that philosophy or religion. Our business is not to dispute any of th

CHAPTER 11 Oneness Sri Aurobindo was to spend a whole year in the Alipore jail awaiting the verdict. He had had no hand in the unsuccessful assassination attempt; organizing the rebellion had nothing to do with isolated acts of terrorism. When I was arrested and hurried to the Lal Bazar police station I was shaken in faith for a while, for I could not look into the heart of His intention. Therefore I faltered for a moment and cried out in my heart to him, "What is this that has happened to me? I believed that I had a mission to work for the people of my country and until that work was done, I should have Thy protection. Why then am I here and on such a charge?" A day passed and

CHAPTER 9 Sleep and Death Not everyone is capable of consciously leaving his body, or consciously widening his mind and vital, but many of us do so unconsciously, in sleep, just when the little I's of the frontal being are less noisome and less engrossed in their superficial preoccupations. These sundry I's express a fraction of reality, the reality seen by the naked eye, but immense realms stretch beyond them. We have already mentioned a universal Mind, a universal Vital, and a subtle Physical behind this physical shell; now we must try to recover our entire universal reality. There are three methods or stages for achieving this. The first, available to everyone, is sleep