The Subconscient, the Subliminal and the Superconscient It is a mistake to think that we live physically only, with the outer mind and life. We are all the time living and acting on other planes of consciousness, meeting others there and acting upon them, and what we do and feel and think there, the forces we gather, the results we prepare have an incalculable importance and effect, unknown to us, upon our outer life. Not all of it comes through, and what comes through takes another form in the physical -though sometimes there is an exact correspondence; but this little is at the basis of our outward existence. All that we be

Existence of Spiritual Force Even in ordinary non-spiritual things the action of invisible or subjective forces is open to doubt and discussion in which there could be no material certitude, while the spiritual force is invisible in itself and also invisible in its action. So it is idle to try to prove that such and such a result was the effect of spiritual force. Each must form his own idea about that, for if it is accepted, it cannot be as a result of proof and argument, but only as a result of experience, of faith or of that insight in the deeper heart or the deeper intelligence which looks behind appearances and sees what is behind them. The spiritual cons

REFERENCES The passages, in this book have been culled from the following volumes of Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library and the Collected Works of the Mother, published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. SRI AUROBINDO BIRTH CENTENARY LIBRARY Volume Title 9 The Future Poetry 13 Essays on the Gita 16 The Supramental Manifestation and Other Writings 17 The Hour of God 18 The Life Divine: Book One and Book Two. Part One 19 The Life Divine: Book Two, Part Two 20 The Synthesis of Yoga: Part One 22 Letters on Yo

Nature and Action of Universal Forces Universal forces means all forces good or bad, favourable or hostile, of light and darkness that move in the cosmos. SRI AUROBINDO They [the cosmic forces] act on everyone, according to the person's nature - and his will and consciousness. SRI AUROBINDO These [impersonal forces of the world] we know only by their results, by the little that we can seize of their visible action and consequence. Among them it is mostly the physical world-forces of which we have some knowledge, but we live constantly in the midst of a whirl of unseen mind-forces and life-forces of which we

Outside Suggestions and Vibrations A suggestion is not one's own thought or feeling, but a thought or feeling that conies from outside, from others, from the general atmosphere or from external Nature, - if it is received, it sticks and acts on the being and is taken to be one's own thought or feeling. If it is recognised as a suggestion, then it can be more easily got rid of. SRI AUROBINDO By suggestion I do not mean merely thoughts or words. When the hypnotist says "sleep", it is a suggestion; but when he says nothing, but only puts his silent will to convey sleep or makes movements of his hands over the face, that also is a su

VI HIDDEN WORLDS AND EVOLUTIONARY FORCES Our earth is a fragment and a residue; Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse; An atavism of higher births is hers, Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell. Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move; They are partners of her greater growing fate And her return to immortality; SRI AUROBINDO Savitri, Book Two, Canto One A difficult evolution from below Called a masked intervention from above; Else this great, blind inconsci

Play of Forces Anyone with some intelligence and power of observation who lives more in an inward consciousness can see the play of invisible forces at every step which act on men and bring about events without their knowing about the instrumentation. The difference created by yoga or by an inner consciousness - for there are people like Socrates who develop or have some inner consciousness without yoga - is that one becomes conscious of these invisible forces and can also consciously profit by them or use and direct them. That is all. SRI AUROBINDO ... the play of the forces is very complex and one has to be conscious of them and, as it were, see a

SURRENDER AND OPENING The whole principle of this Yoga is to give oneself entirely to the Divine alone and to nobody and nothing else, and to bring down into ourselves by union with the Divine Mother all the transcendent light, power, wideness, peace, purity, Truth-consciousness and Ananda of the Supramental Divine. * Radha is the personification of the absolute love for the Divine, total and integral in all parts of the being from the highest spiritual to the physical, bringing the absolute self-giving and total consecration of all the being and calling down into the body and the most material nature the supreme Ananda. * Purity is to accept no other

PLANES AND PARTS OF THE BEING Men do not know themselves and have not learned to distinguish the different parts of their being; for these are usually lumped together by them as mind, because it is through a mentalised perception and understanding that they know or feel them; therefore they do not understand their own states and actions, or, if at all, then only on the surface. It is part of the foundation of Yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. We are composed of many parts each of which contributes something to the total movement of our consciousne

Lights on Yoga   Contents   Pre-Content     The Goal   Planes and Parts of the Being   Surrender and Opening   Work   Appendix   Glossary