Archival Notes       A NEW EDITION OF THE HOUR OF GOD       Since its first appearance in 1959, The Hour of God has been among the most popular of Sri Aurobindo's shorter books. The pieces of which it is composed, although never prepared by him for publication, have a clarity and power that have endeared them to numerous readers. Most of them had first been published in journals between 1951 and 1959. In 1972 the same pieces, together with other material, were issued as The Hour of God and Other Writings, Volume 17 of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. This book was intended to contain all of Sri Aurobindo's posthumously published later prose writings except mater

THE STAGES OF EVOLUTION MATTER, LIFE, MIND, SUPERMIND       55       The evolution of the earth-nature is not finished because it has manifested only three powers out of the seven-fold scale of consciousness that is involved in manifested Nature. It has brought out from its apparent inconscience only the three powers of Mind and Life and Matter.       56       Evolution is the one eternal dynamic law and hidden process of the earth-nature.       An evolution of the instruments of the spirit in a medium of matter is the whole fundamental significance of the values of the earth-existence. All its other laws are its values of operation an

On Editing Sri Aurobindo (Continued from the last issue)       The problem of editorial form was mentioned briefly at the end of the last instalment. Once an editor has collected every available version of a work, found and evaluated all variants, made necessary emendations, and in every other way established a critical text, how is he to present the result to the reader? The text he publishes will embody the totality of his work, but is the text alone enough? No doubt for the general reader it is. But the scholar, the researcher, the student interested in details will also want to know the number and nature of the versions, and how using them the critical text was e

Nature THE WORLD-MANIFESTATION       THE DIVINE AND THE MANIFESTATION       22       All existence is Brahman, Atman and Ishwara, three names for one unnameable reality which alone exists. We shall give to this sole real existence the general name of God, because we find it ultimately to be not an abstract state of Existence not conscious of itself, but a supreme and self-aware One who exists — absolutely in Himself, infinitely in the world and with an appearance of the finite in His various manifestations in the world.       God in Himself apart from all world-manifestation or realisable relation to world-manifestation is called the Pa

Notes on the Texts       GENERAL NOTE       Scope The present volume consists of about half of the non-literary prose writings of Sri Aurobindo on yoga and yogic philosophy and psychology not. published during his lifetime. The other half, the more complete, fully developed and clear of the mass of writings on these subjects, is being published in the revised edition (1982) of The Hour of God. The writings in that book may rightly be considered essays; those included here are more in the nature of notes, drafts, fragments etc.       There is a third division of the general prose writings of the period — essays and fragments of essays on various subjects, cultur

Man and Superman       MAN AND THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS   45       Man is a transitional being, he is not final. He is a middle term of the evolution, not its end, crown or consummating masterpiece.       46       God is the beginning, middle and end of all things; but in the beginning He is concealed, in the middle partly and progressively manifest, in the end revealed.       The universe is such a manifestation of God under certain conditions and in the terms of a gradually unfolding harmony. These conditions and the movements which govern the rhythms of the harmony are the universal laws.       In this manifestation the two terms are in

A Swadeshi Meeting BABU AUROBINDO GHOSE'S SPEECH         A PUBLIC meeting was held on Wednesday evening at Harrish Park. Bhowanipur. to consider means for the celebration of the Partition Day Babu Kritanto Kumar Bose. Vakil. High Court, occupied the chair.       The proceedings opened with the singing of a national song. The Chairman then briefly explained the object of the meeting after which Babu Lolit Mohan Das in a short speech recalled the events that led up to the celebration of the Partition Day. In conclusion he urged that on that day they should all subscribe their mite to the fund for the erection of the Federation Hall.       Mr. Aurobindo Ghose then

The Life Divine   Chapter III The Golden Rule of Life — Desire, Egoism and Possession   Ma grdhah kasya svid dhanam.       Immediately after this great fundamental reconciliation, the Seer proceeds to a phrase which under a form of familiar commonness conceals an immoderate wealth of spiritual suggestion. "Lust not       after any man's possession." Ma grdhah kasya svid dhanam.       We seem to have stumbled out of deep and strange waters into a very familiar shallow. Read superficially and without an eye to the words that precede or to the whole serried thought of the Upanishad, this closing cadence of the Seer's opening sloka would suggest only