On Thought – III It has always seemed to me that apart from a very few exceptions, the mental role of women is not to speculate on the metaphysical causes of the phenomena which are perceptible to us, but to draw practical conclusions from these phenomena. Madame Martial was telling you very rightly last Friday that it would be wrong for women to want to think in the same way as men, that they would be in danger of losing their own qualities – profound intuition and practical deduction – without acquiring those of their masculine counterparts – logical reasoning and the capacity of analysis and synthesis. That is why today I shall not at

Seven Prudence “Good shot!” The cry rang out as the young Indian let fly his arrow and hit his mark. “Yes,” someone said, “but it is broad daylight. The archer can see his target. He is not so skilled as Dasaratha.”  “And what does Dasaratha do?”  “He is Sabdabhedi.”  “What is that?”  “He shoots by sound.”  “What do you mean?”  “Well, he can shoot in the dark. At night he goes out into the jungle and listens, and when he has judged, from the sound of wings or footsteps, what kind of game he has encountered he lets fly his arrow and hits it as surely as if he had shot by day.”  Thus the reputation of Das

Appendix Stories not published in previous editions of  Tales of All Times Twelve The Giver Rantideva who was a king, became a hermit in the forest. He had given his wealth to the poor and lived a simple life in the solitude of the jungle. He and his family had only the bare necessities of life.  One day, after a fast of forty-eight hours, a light meal of rice with milk and sugar was prepared for him.  A poor Brahmin came up to the door of the hut and asked for food. Rantideva gave him half of his rice. Then came a Sudra begging for help and Rantideva gave him half of what remained.  Then

To Know How to Suffer If at any time a deep sorrow, a searing doubt or an intense pain overwhelms you and drives you to despair, there is an infallible way to regain calm and peace.  In the depths of our being there shines a light whose brilliance is equalled only by its purity; a light, a living and conscious portion of a universal godhead who animates and nourishes and illumines Matter, a powerful and unfailing guide for those who are willing to heed his law, a helper full of solace and loving forbearance towards all who aspire to see and hear and obey him. No sincere and lasting aspiration towards him can be in vain; no strong and respect

Eleven Building and Destroying Children, you all know what it is to build and to destroy.  Weapon in hand, the warrior goes forth to destroy.  The builder draws up plans, digs foundations, and the toiling hands of men build a farmhouse for the peasant or a palace for a prince.  It is better to build than to destroy, and yet destroying is sometimes necessary.  You, children, who have strong arms and hands, do you only build? Do you never destroy? And if you do, what do you destroy?  Listen to this account of an Indian legend:  A new-born baby lay in a grove. You might think that he was sure to die, fo

The Central Thought* We are meeting for the last time this year – at least physically, for I hope we shall always remain united in thought, at all events in the same desire for progress, for perfection. This desire should always be the centre of our action, animating our will, for, whatever the goal we set ourselves, whatever the duty which devolves to us, whatever the work we have to achieve, in order to attain this goal, to fulfil this duty, to accomplish this work to the best of our ability, we must progress at each moment, we must use yesterday as the stepping-stone to tomorrow. Life is in perpetual movement, in perpetual transformation

Part 7 Tales of all Times These stories were written to help children to discover themselves and follow a path of right and beauty. The Mother * February 1950 * One Self-Control  A wild horse can be tamed but one never puts a bridle on a tiger. Why is that? Because in the tiger there is a wicked, cruel and incorrigible force, so that we cannot expect anything good from him and have to destroy him to prevent him from doing harm.  But the wild horse, on the other hand, however unmanageable and skittish he may be to begin with, can be controlled with a little effort and patience. In time he

Part Four Prayers and meditations, some written between 1914 and 1916, the rest undated but probably belonging to the pre-1920 period. Page - 112 Insofar as the activities of the physical organism are egocentric, it is both legitimate and necessary to separate the consciousness from it and to regard the body as a servant to be directed, guided and made obedient. As the terrestrial being grows more receptive to the divine forces and manifests them in its illumined activities, one can identify oneself with it once more and cease to distinguish between the instrument and the Doer. But since, by the very necessity of preservation

Sixteen Sympathy   When is sorrow accompanied by sorrow?  When one heart feels it and our heart feels it at the same time.  Duryodhana, the famous warrior, fell on the plain of Kurukshetra and his friends were so full of grief that when he lay on the ground and died, all Nature seemed in disorder. Headless creatures with many arms and legs danced dreadful dances over the earth; in lakes and wells the water was turned to blood; rivers flowed upstream instead of downstream; women looked like men, and men like women.  Here the poet teaches us that the suffering undergone by one being spreads through a wide, wide world. There was

Five Patience and Perseverance The people of the Punjab have a song which goes like this:   The bulbul does not always sing in the garden,   And the garden is not always in bloom;   Happiness does not always reign,   And friends are not always together. The conclusion to be drawn from this song is that we cannot expect to be always happy, and that to know how to be patient is most useful. For there are few days in our lives which do not give us the opportunity to learn greater patience.  You want to see a very busy man to ask him something. You go to his house. Already many visitors are there and