To Buy Sometimes we go to the bazaar to buy our things. Is that good? One cannot make general rules. This depends on the spirit in which you make your purchases. It is said that you should have no desires – if this is not a desire, it is all right. You understand, there is no movement, no action, which in itself is good or bad; it depends absolutely on the spirit in which it is done. If, for instance, you are in a state of total indifference about what you have and what you do not (it is a condition a little difficult to realise, but after all one can attain it – a state of detachment: “If I have it, I have it; if I don’t, I do

Indispensable There was someone else also who told me: “Oh! I can absolutely do without anything at all" – we were speaking of a walking-tour with a minimum of baggage on the back (when you are compelled to carry it for miles on end, four or five kilometers a day, you try to reduce the weight of your bag as much as possible); so we discussed about what was indispensable and had to be put in the bag. He said his toothbrush. Another told me he needed a piece of soap, ( usually this spins around very simple tiny things of this kind). But here how many people there are who have never used soap, and that doesn’t prevent them from being clean! There are other ways of be

SRI AUROBINDO ON SPEECH   The organ of speech is an instrument of the physical-mental or expressive externalising mind. * * * Speech comes from the throat centre, but it is associated with whatever is the governing centre or level of the consciousness—wherever one thinks from. If one rises above the head, then thought takes place above the head and one can speak from there, that is to say, the direction of the speech is from there. * * * Pashyanti is evidently speech with the vision of Truth in it—Para is probably the revelatory and inspired speech. I a

PETITION WHEN Night has opened her ten thousand eyes And earth has muted those entangled cries, Might such a silence on this heart descend ; Might inmost eyes awaken, day-trance end. Cloud-darkened sky or vapours dank from earth Bedim the growing vision, mar the worth Of fairer reckoning. Enhance this will— Make mind's own zenith clear—all swirls of passion still. October 14, 1936. Page-218

ADHARMA FROM the rim of the world to the zenith Is a chasm-roof of cloud ' (What shape in this gloom-built sepulchre Is stretched in a shroud ?) Storm-drift like vampires crowding All earth kindred note— But different guises of one Silence (Is it terror seized their throat ?) Not one star-ship left floating And the moon-beacon dowsed : Shall the Guardians of earth, so sleep-enchanted, Be ever roused ? September 26, 1934. Page-89

MUSICIAN SPLENDOUR beyond conceiving wave against wave of swirling light uprear their sinuous crests and are thrust forward in a' seething foam of melody within the listening coves and over the untrod sandways of the heart. January 7, 1938. Page-289

THEY AS they wander by the edges of the world In the uncharted place, By shimmering lagoons and shores impearled With light from all the moons that ever curled Thin horns round Space, They whisper to each other words of boding From no human lips Like windle-straws that feel the night wind's goading, Like the whine when rockets reel and zoom, exploding, And the star-shower dips. They weave no shadow pattern with the moon-rays, They cast no shade As they stalk across the land of that lagoon-maze : Though their feet have crossed the sand on certain noondays, No dints were made. November

UNLINKED FROM TIME COME nearer ; do not tarry ; Quickly pass The odorous gates of twilight And the dew-drenched grass. Bring the mazer moonlight-filled— All dreams dissolve Therein : and with the moon-dance Let slow steps revolve. Then by this conjuration Unlinked from Time, As from a hilltop vantage Be witness of world mime. March 30, 1936. Page-178

RICHARD A HUNDRED forms would pass the languid eye Each one its proper load of hue would bear. Singly the world-changing instant sauntered by, Was Richard's hair. Thousands of glances throng my sight in vain, Holding such harvest as an un reaped book : I see now hence a sapphire with no stain In Richard's look. Idly the singing sands of life I heard ; Not they could make the selfless self rejoice. A flawless promise of new heaven stirred In Richard's voice. February 5, 1938. Page-293

DREAMSCAPE SOLITARY breath of silent dream, You show the lonely breakers op a shore ; Untrodden are the hue less sands that gleam ; Never that foam-waste brooked a plash of oar. A narrow spit runs far into the sea : The empty sea calls to an emptier land. No throng of birds to shake the air with glee ; Naught stirs beneath upon the strew of sand. To landward, hillocks thinly set with trees (Vacancy garbed with listless leaf and bough), —Their blooms lie idle, tenantless of bees, Hearing no motion but the sea-wind's changeless sough. March 2, 1936. Page-161