Chapter Two   The Gods   The Gods or Divine Powers   The Gods are Personalities or Powers put forth by the Divine — they are therefore in front limited Emanations, although the full Divine is behind each of them.   *   Of course, the gods exist —that is to say, there are Powers that stand above the world and transmit the divine workings. It is the physical mind which believes only in what is physical that denies them. There are also beings of other worlds —gods and Asuras etc.   *   There are Gods everywhere on all the planes.   *   The Gods are in the universal Self —if identified with the universal S

Chapter Two   Occult Powers or Siddhis   General Remarks   The astasiddhis as obtained in the ordinary Yoga are vital powers or, as in the Rajayoga, mental siddhis. Usually they are un certain in their application and precarious depending on the maintenance of the process by which they were attained.   *   It is certainly possible to have consciousness of things going on at a distance and to intervene. The idea that true Yogins do not or ought not to use such powers, I regard as an ascetic superstition. I believe that all Yogins who have these powers do use them whenever they find that they are called on from within to do so. They m

Section Three   The Vertical System:   Supermind to Subconscient       Chapter One   The Planes or Worlds of Consciousness   The System of Planes or Worlds   What we speak of are planes of consciousness —the physical is the lowest, above it the ordinary vital, above it the emotional (heart), above it the mental, above the mental are other planes. There is a psychic plane behind the emotional which influences all the others.   *   The physical is not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and cont

Chapter Three   The Supramental Transformation   Preparatory Steps towards the Supramental Change   It is not possible to have the direct supramental working now. The Adhar is not yet ready. First one must accept an indirect working which prepares the lower planes for the supramental change.   *   The gate of the supramental cannot be smashed open like that. The Adhar has to be steadily prepared, changed, made fit for the supramental Descent. There are several powers between the ordinary mind and the supramental and these must be opened up and absorbed by the consciousness —only then is the supramental change possible.   *  

Chapter Two   Idealism and Spirituality   Human Perfection and Spirituality   I would not describe the perfections you describe in your letter, fine though they are, as spiritual in the proper sense of the word —for they lack the essential condition of spirituality. Perfection of all kinds is indeed good, as it is the sign of the pressure of the consciousness in the material world towards full self-expression in this or that limit, on this or that level. In a certain sense it is an urge of the Divine itself hidden in forms that tends in the lesser degrees of consciousness towards its own increasing self-revelation. Perfection of an object or a scene in

Chapter Two Doubt and Faith Doubt and Yoga   As to doubts and argumentative answers to them I have long given up the practice as I found it perfectly useless. Yoga is not a field for intellectual argument or dissertation. It is not by the exercise of the logical or the debating mind that one can arrive at a true understanding of Yoga or follow it. A doubting spirit, "honest doubt" and the claim that the intellect shall be satisfied and be made the judge on every point is all very well in the field of mental action outside. But Yoga is not a mental field, the consciousness which has to be established is not a mental, logical or debating consciousness —it is even

Section Three   The Jivatman and the Psychic Being   Chapter One   The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga   The Jivatman or Individual Self   By Jivatma we mean the individual self. Essentially it is one self with all others, but in the multiplicity of the Divine it is the individual self, an individual centre of the universe —and it sees everything in itself or itself in everything or both together according to its state of consciousness and point of view.   *   The self, Atman, is in its nature either transcendent or universal (Paramatma, Atma); when it individualises and becomes a central being, it is

Chapter Four   Transformation and the Body   The Transformation of the Body   It is quite true that the surrender and the consequent transformation of the whole being is the aim of the Yoga —the body is not excluded, but at the same time this part of the endeavour is the most difficult and doubtful —the rest, though not facile, is comparatively less difficult to accomplish. One must start with an inner control of the consciousness over the body, a power to make it obey more and more the will or the force transmitted to it. In the end as a higher and higher Force descends and the plasticity of the body increases, the transform

Part Three   The Evolutionary Process and the Supermind        Section One   The Supramental Evolution      Chapter One   The Problem of Suffering and Evil   The Riddle of This World   It is not to be denied, no spiritual experience will deny that this is an unideal and unsatisfactory world, strongly marked with the stamp of inadequacy, suffering, evil. Indeed this perception is in a way almost the starting-point of the spiritual urge —except for the few to whom the greater experience comes spontaneously without being forced to seek it by the strong or overwhelming, the afflicting and detaching se

Chapter Three   Human Greatness   Greatness   Why should the Divine not care for the outer greatness? He cares for everything in the universe. All greatness is the Vibhuti of the Divine, says the Gita.   *   Obviously outer greatness is not the aim of Yoga. But that is no reason why one should not recognise the part played by greatness in the order of the universe or the place of great men of action, great poets and artists etc.   *   People have begun to try to prove that great men were not great, which is a very big mistake. If greatness is not appreciated by men, the world will become mean, small, dull, narro