STEPPING BACK Most of you live on the surface of your being, exposed to the touch of external influences. You live almost projected as it were, outside your own body, and when you meet some unpleasant being similarly projected you get upset. The whole trouble arises out of your not being accustomed to stepping back. You must always step back into yourself—learn to go deep within—step back and you will be safe. Do not lend yourself to the superficial forces which move in the outside world. Even if you are in a hurry-to do something, step back for a while and you will discover to your surprise how much sooner and with what greater success your work can be done. If someone is a

-018_REINCARNATION—MEMORY OF PAST LIVES.htm REINCARNATION—MEMORY OF PAST LIVES To understand rightly the problem of what is popularly called reincarnation, we must perceive that there are two factors in it which require consideration. First, there is the line of divine consciousness which seeks to manifest from above and upholds a certain series of formations, peculiar to itself, in the universe which is its field of manifestation. Secondly, there is the psychic consciousness which climbs from below, the seed of the Divine developing through time till it meets the Force from above and takes the impress of the supramental Truth. This psychic consciousness is the inner being of a man, the material f

OM Mother: Is it January? Yes, Mother—it is January. Read what is written here. (Every month I used to take to Mother a large calendar on which flowers were painted and on which She used to write a prayer) "In this year of Sri Aurobindo's centenary, Jet us strive to be worthy of Hint..." And then? "... by following His teaching faithfully in order to prepare the advent of the superman. Happy New Year." What flower is this? (pointing to the painted flower) " Superhumanity". Eh? This is "Superhumanity". The name of this flower is "superhumanity" Which flower is it? This flower—it is the dahlia. Dahlia! Yes, yes

SUPERMIND AND OVERMIND Sri Aurobindo's work is a unique earth-transformation. Above the mind there are several levels of conscious being, among which the really divine world is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind, the world of the Truth. Rut in between is what he has distinguished as the Overmind, the world of the cosmic Gods. Now it is this Overmind that has up to the present governed our world; it is the highest that man has been able to attain in illumined consciousness. It has been taken for the Supreme Divine and all those who have reached it have never for a moment doubted that they have touched the true Spirit. For, its splendours are so great

SURRENDER Surrender is the decision taken to hand over the responsibility of your life to the Divine. Without this decision nothing is at all possible; if you do not surrender, the Yoga is entirely out of the question. Everything else comes naturally after it, for the whole process starts with surrender. You can surrender cither through knowledge or through devotion. You may have a strong intuition that the Divine alone is the truth and a luminous conviction that without the Divine, you cannot manage. Or you may have a spontaneous feeling that this line is the only way of being happy, a strong psychic desire to belong exclusively to the Divine: "I do nor belong to myself," you s

RENUNQATION There is in books a lot of talk about renunciation—that you must renounce possession, renounce attachments, renounce desires. But I have come to the conclusion that so long as you have to renounce anything you are not on this path; for, so long as you are not thoroughly disgusted with things as they are, and have to make an effort to reject them, you are not ready for the supramental realisation. If the construction of the Overmind— the world which it has built and the existing order which it supports—still satisfy you, you cannot hope to partake of that realisation. Only when you find such a world disgusting, unbearable and unacceptable, are you fit for the change

X "The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry of the Divine into the human and a self-immergence of man in the Divinity. "But that immergence is not in the nature of an annihilation. Extinction is not the fulfilment of all this search and passion, suffering and rapture. The game would never have been begun if that were to be its ending. "Delight is the secret. Learn of pure delight and thou shall learn of God. "What then was the commencement of the whole matter ? Existence that multiplied itself for sheer delight of being and plunged into numberless trillions of forms so that it might find itself innumerably. "And what is

XVI "The delight of victory is sometimes less than the attraction of struggle and suffering: nevertheless the laurel and not the cross should be the aim of the conquering human soul. "Souls that do not aspire are God's failures; but Nature is pleased and loves to multiply them because they assure her of stability and prolong her empire. "Those who are poor, ignorant, ill-born or ill-bred are not the common herd; the common herd are all who are satisfied with pettiness and an average humanity. "Help men, but do not pauperise them of their energy; lead and instruct men, but see that their initiative and originality remain intact; take others

THOUGHTS AND GLIMPSES THE MOTHERS TALKS SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY First Edition 1989 Editor: Shyam Sundar ©Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1989 Published by Madanlal Himatsingka on behalf of All India Books, Pondicherry-605002. Printed at All India Press, Pondicherry-605001 PRINTED IN INDIA .htm?IsHostedInContentPage=1

  THOUGHTS AND GLIMPSES Contents Pre-Content Editors Note   The Goal   Delight of Being   Man, the Purusha   The End   The Chain   Thoughts and Glimpses