Light Was Born A strong son of lightning A strong son of lightning came down to the earth with fire-feet of swiftness splendid; Light was born in a womb and thunder's force filled ahuman frame. The calm speed of heaven, the sweet greatness, pure passion, winged power had descended; All the gods in a mortal body dwelt, bore a single name. * Light (written at the age of 11, in 1883) From the quickened womb of the primal gloom, The sun rolled, black and bare, Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast, Of the threads of my golden hair.... When I flashed on their sight, the heralds bright, Of Heave

-19_The_Great_Assurance¹.htm The Great Assurance ¹ The great holocaust In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother. When

Sowing the Seed of the Supramental Light in the Human Night I made an assignation with the Night; In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous: In my breast carrying God's deathless light I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo. I left the glory of the illumined Mind And the calm rapture of the divinised soul And travelled through a vastness dim and blind To the grey shore where her ignorant waters roll. I walk by the chill wave through the dull slime And still that weary journeying knows no end; Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time, There comes no voice of the celestial

Tapasya for the Earth Bringing down the Supramental I have no intention of achieving the Supermind for myself only — I am not doing anything for myself, as I have no personal need of anything, neither of salvation (Moksha) nor supramentalisation. If I am seeking after supramentalisation, it is because it is a thing that has to be done for the earth-consciousness... * I care nothing for greatness or littleness in the human sense. I am seeking to bring some principle of inner Truth, Light, Harmony, Peace into the earth-consciousness; I see it above and know what it is — I feel it ever gleaming down on my consciousness from above and I am

Footprints of God To the hill-tops of silence from over the infinite sea, Golden he came, Armed with the flame, Looked on the world that his greatness and passion must free. Sri Aurobindo Glimpses of Sri Aurobindo

Dawn of a New World The Force is here July 6, 1914 ... the formidable omnipotence of Thy Force which is here, ready for the manifestation, waiting, building the propitious hour, the favourable opportunity: the incomparable splendour of Thy victorious sovereignty. The Force is here. Rejoice, O you who are waiting and hoping: the new manifestation is sure, the new manifestation is at hand. The Force is here. All nature exults and sings in gladness, all nature is at a festival: The Force is here. Arise and live; arise and be illuminated; arise and battle forthe transfiguration of all: The Force is here. A new world is bor

Footprints of God CONTENTS Pre-Content The Mystery of Divine Birth Part I (Pre-Pondicherry Period: 15Aug 1872 —04 Apr 1910) Light Was Born Joyous Sacrifice The Bridge Between Heaven and Earth Nirvana and Beyond Nirvana Vasudevam Sarvam Iti The Revolutionary Yogi Journey: Towards the New and the Unknown (04 April 1910) Part II (Pondicherry Period: 04 Apr 1910 — 05 Dec 1950) Cave of Tapasya The Divine Mother Inst

The Revolutionary Yogi Awakening the Soul of a Nation There were three sides to Sri Aurobindo's political ideas and activities. First, there was the action with which he started, a secret revolutionary propaganda and organisation of which the central object was the preparation of an armed insurrection. Secondly, there was a public propaganda intended to convert the whole nation to the ideal of independence which was regarded, when he entered into politics, by the vast majority of Indians as unpractical and impossible, an almost insane chimera. It was thought that the British Empire was too powerful and India too weak, effectively disarmed and im

Joyous Sacrifice A heart of compassion and ideal love: The path of Dharma (Extracts from a letter of Sri Aurobindo to his wife, Mrinalini Devi, dated 30 Aug 1905; original in Bengali) I was sorry to learn that your parents have once again the same kind of bereavement, but you have not mentioned which of their sons died. However, how does sorrow help? Seeking happiness in the world inevitably leads one to find suffering in the midst of that happiness, for suffering is always intertwined with happiness. This law holds good not only in regard to the desire for children, but it embraces all sorts of worldly desires. ... Now, let me tell you ... You

Vasudevam Sarvam Iti All He loves, all He moves, all are His, all are He What Srikrishna demands He placed the Gita in my hands [at the Alipore jail]. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhana of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Srikrishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success and failure, yet not to do His work negli