Progress and Perfection PROGRESS             Progress is the sign of the divine influence in creation.               Progress: the reason why we are on earth.             The purpose of earthly life is progress. If you stop progressing you will die. Every moment that you spend without progressing is one step closer to your grave.             From the moment you are satisfied and aspire no longer, you begin to die. Life is movement, life is effort; it is marching forward, climbing towards future revelations and realisations. Nothing is more dangerous than wanting to rest.             One has always something to learn and a progress to

      In rebirth it is not the external being, that which is formed by parents, environment and circumstances − the mental, the vital and the physical − that is born again: it is only the psychic being that passes from body to body. Logically, then, neither the mental nor the vital being can remember past lives or recognise itself in the character or mode of life of this or that person. The psychic being alone can remember; and it is by becoming conscious of our psychic being that we can have at the same time exact impressions about our past lives.       Besides, it is much more important for us to fix our attention upon what we want to become than upon what we have been. 2 Apri

1956 29 février — 29 mars Seigneur, Tu as voulu et je réalise. Une lumière nouvelle point sur la terre, Un monde nouveau est né, Et les choses promises sont accomplies. 29 February - 29 March Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute: A new light breaks upon the earth, A new world is born. The things that were promised are fulfilled.   Page - 103 24th April 1956             The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality.             It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unco

23 September 1953 “Each spot of the body is symbolical of an inner move- ment; there is there a world of subtle correspondences. But this is a long and complex subject and we can- not enter into its details just now. The particular place in the body affected by an illness is an index to the nature of the inner disharmony that has taken place. It points to the origin, it is a sign of the cause of the ailment. It reveals too the nature of the resistance that prevents the whole being from advancing at the same high speed. It indicates the treatment and the cure. If one could perfectly understand where the mistake is,

17 June 1953 “There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement: one helps, the other hinders.” Questions and Answers 1929 (5 May) * What is the true movement of the intellect? What exactly do you understand by intellect? Is it a function of the mind or is it a part of the human being? How do you understand it? A function of the mind. A function of the mind? Then it is that part of the mind which deals with ideas; is that what you mean? Not ideas, Mother. Not ideas? What else, then? Ideas, but.. There is a part of the mind which receives ideas, ideas that are formed in a higher mind. Still, I

15 April 1953 You have written: “Do not try to pull at the forces of the Divine.” Questions and Answers 1929 (14 April) * Can one pull the divine forces by violence? Yes, if you call very strongly, if you aspire very strongly, you may pull down a large number of forces into you, but you will not be able to digest them, assimilate them. It is the same thing as with food; when you swallow all that you have at hand in one gulp, that causes indigestion, it chokes you. You cannot bear it. So if you want to go fast, if you hurry, you send a kind of call and pull towards you too great a number of forces, forces which otherwise would have come less quickly.

18 March 1953 “We are conscious of only an insignificant portion of our being.” Questions and Answers 1929 (7 April) * What are these insignificant parts of our being? Almost all of them. There are very few things which are not insignificant; all your ordinary reactions, ordinary thoughts, sensations, actions, movements, – all this is very insignificant. It is only at times, when there is a flash of the higher consciousness through the psychic, an opening into something else, a contact with the psychic being (which may last for a second), at that moment, it is not insignificant. Otherwise, all the rest is repeated in millions and millions of copie

11 November 1953 Mother is about to begin reading the first pages of Quelques Paroles, Quelques Prieres. The first texts were written in 1912. Many of you were not yet born. It was a small group of about twelve people who met once a week. A subject was given; an answer was to be prepared for the following week. Each one brought along his little work. Generally, I too used to prepare a short paper and, at the end, I read it out. That is what is given here – not all, only these two. These two first ones. Later, it was something else. The others appeared in Words of Long Ago. There were four meetings. The subject for the first meeting was: What is the aim to be

Appendix (Extract from a talk of Sri Aurobindo with a French scientist-disciple) 8 May 1926 In the West the highest minds are turned not towards spiritual truth but towards material science. The scope of science is very narrow, it touches only the most exterior part of the physical plane. And even there, what does science know really? It studies the functioning of the laws, builds theories ever renewed and each time held up as the last word of truth! We had recently the atomic theory, now comes the electronic. There are, for instance, two statements of modern science that would stir up deeper ranges for an occultist:        1. Atoms are whirling systems

25 November 1953 You have said: “It is in proportion to our trust in the Divine that the Divine Grace can act for us and help.”¹ If someone has no trust in the Divine, but calls very sincerely when he is in difficulty, in danger, what will happen to him? How can he call? The two things are contradictory. If he has no trust, he won’t even think of the Divine! He won’t think of calling. It is contradictory. He thinks of calling exactly in proportion to his trust… So? You have said here: “To smile at an enemy is to dis- arm him.”² “Smile” means what? One ought not to smile at an enemy! One ought not to!.. What I have state