PART THREE SHAPING THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM is a marvel of the Mother's vision. It is a living commentary on Sri Aurobindo's work. The arduous labours of the Master and the Mother are not only for the benefit of the sadhaks as individuals but for the "outflowering of the Divine in the collectivity." The Mother observes: 'The conditions under which men live upon earth are the result of their state of consciousness. To seek to change conditions without changing the consciousness is a vain chimera."1 The Ashram constitutes a picture of evolving individuals in a developing society. "Every sadhak here represen

PART TWO PRANAM "No one should look upon the Pranam either as a formal routine or an obligatory ceremony or think himself under any compulsion to come there. The object of the Pranam is not that sadhaks should offer a formal or ritual daily homage to the Mother, but that the sadhaks may receive along with the Mother's blessings whatever spiritual help or influence they are in a condition to receive or assimilate. It is important to maintain a quiet and collected atmosphere for that purpose." Sri Aurobindo IN 1926 Pranam and meditation used to take place upstairs just in front of the room which afterwards the Mother utilised for Darshana. The Mother used to be on

THE ASHRAM IN THE MAKING "FROM the very beginning of my present earthly existence,happened to meet many people who said that they had a great inner aspiration, an urge towards something deeper and more true, but could not advance, because, they said, they were bound, subjected, slaves of this brutal necessity of earning their livelihood and that put such a burden upon them, took so much of their time and energy that nothing remained to enable them to devote to any other kind of activity inner or outer. I have heard this very often, I have seen many poor people like that—I do not say poor from the monetary point of view, but poor, because they felt themselves i

-20_Auroville—The City Of The Future.htm AUROVILLE— THE CITY OF THE FUTURE ...see a world that is from a world to be. Sri Aurobindo We have seen what the Ashram, within the last forty years of its existence, has done for the all-round development of man and his evolution into a higher consciousness. Now it intends to carry out its experiment on a larger scale, in a wider field, in the shape of a town modelled on the vision of the Mother, named by her"Auroville" ("Auro" meaning dawn and "ville" city). Auroville is not just another city nor is it simply a stupendous project. It is a vision of the future. It is a creation of the Yogic consciousness. Life will flow here "more

PART ONE INTRODUCTION SRI Aurobindo Ashram is a living symbol of the Master's immortality and a sign of his work. In this world so full of darkness and disappointment, his Ashram is a beacon light and is dynamic in the hearts of its members. It is here in the Ashram that he laid the foundation of the lofty ideals of his life and initiated a new era by giving a large practical form to his vision. India is called the land of gods. She has never been devoid of spiritual heroes who have sacrificed their all for the sake of Truth. There has indeed been an unbroken chain of saints and sages; yet that luminous development of Indian spirituality which showed itself in the

-15_The Mother^s Revealing Talks.htm THE MOTHER'S REVEALING TALKS BEFORE dealing with the year 1939-40, let us have an interlude. The greatness of a personality lies in its creative power, the power not only to influence but to mould the lives of others. The Ashram is a living example of the Mother's creative power. More eloquent than anything else are the power and presence that radiate from the atmosphere of the Ashram; her environment is redolent of divinity. A devotee's father on a day's visit from Calcutta (1961) was given only one minute's time for Pranam and no talk. On coming down he said, "For long I had been hearing about the greatness of the Mother. To-day I have lear

OUR WAY OF SADHANA WE have said something about our sadhana through work and meditation. But that is not all. Without an all-engrossing sadhana the inmost potentialities cannot be released, the greatness latent in the being cannot be drawn out. The demand upon us is to surrender the whole human to the Divine so that the Grace can lavish the whole Divine on the human frame. In the Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the one essential is self-surrender. But its expression differs from person to person. Sri Aurobindo did not wish to cast everyone in the same mould. He used to direct each sadhak according to his individual inner capacities and tendencies. That is why we

APPENDIX IT has been already mentioned that the outer activities of the Mother had to be suspended because She fell seriously ill in 1962. But it was a temporary phase. When She recovered, a great change came about in her active life. She stopped coming downstairs. Having closed the external doors, She opened the inner ones. Only those in-charge of the different departments of the Ashram came to the Mother in the morning to seek her advice and instructions and received her Blessings. They felt the presence of the Mother in the regular stream of the activities of the Ashram. On some one's birthday or for any especial reason one could meet the Mother and She would also give int

YOGA THROUGH WORKS In this chapter we shall become acquainted with the question : Where lies the speciality of the sadhana pursued in the Ashram ? The Western nature is always doing, doing, doing; the Eastern tends to suffer meekly. If things could be done not under the stress of the ego, man would in time radiate spirituality. Both East and West yearn for a change—change of the world. But no real change can come without change of consciousness, change of nature. And to bring about this change is our sadhana. The ideas contained in Sri Aurobindo's writings are not mere ideals. To use his own words : "The Life Divine is not philosophy bu

SRI AUROBINDO AND WORLD WAR II 1939-1947 IT was not in Sri Aurobindo's nature to show extraordinari-ness or trumpet forth his achievements in order to rise in the estimation of the world. Even when things went against his expressed will he kept silent. He was an unfathomable and imperturbable sea of patience and tolerance. But he was not against the use of spiritual powers whenever an occasion demanded it or served a divine purpose.1 We shall discuss, in short, what he did to save civilisation from destruction. Though the World War II had no apparent bearing on the accident to his right leg yet the world little knows what fights he h