A Review of Sri Aurobindo's Life   A Review of Sri Aurobindo's Life   I PROPOSE to speak to you on a very interesting subject – about Sri Aurobindo. You know it is his centenary, that is to say, this August¹ he completes a hundred years of earthly existence: I say earthly advisedly because although he has left his body he has not left earth's atmosphere. The Mother assures us he will be there to see the work begun be completed. I will speak on a very peculiar aspect of Sri Aurobindo's life. Many must have noticed it but I wish to draw your particular attention to it. Sri Aurobindo's life is an extraordinary phenomenon. It is not that of an ordinary human being. The life of an ordinary man foll

Janaka and Yajnavalkya   I   KING JANAKA was a great king and a great sage. He wielded an empire without and equally an empire within: he had realised the Truth, known Brahman. He was svarāt and samrāt. A friend and intimate of his was Rishi Yajnavalkya, who also was a sage ― in fact, considered to be the greatest sage of the time, a supreme knower of Brahman. Once upon a time King Janaka invited sages from everywhere, whoever wanted to come to the assembly. The king from time to time used to call such assemblies for spiritual discussion and interchange of experiences. This time he summoned the assembly for a special reason. He had collected a herd of one thousand cows and

THE BHIKKHU   [1]   It is good to control one's eye, good to control one's ear, good to control one's nose, good to control one's tongue.   [2]   It is good to control one's body, good to control one's speech, good to control one's mind; it is good to have control everywhere. The Bhikkhu who has control everywhere is freed from all sorrows.   [3]   One who has control over his hands, who has control over his feet, who has control over his speech, is the best among the self-controlled; he is concentrated in the Spirit, wholly self-absorbed, lone and happy, he is indeed a Bhikkhu.  Page – 244 [4]   The Bhikkhu who has his mo

Soul's Freedom Soul's Freedom   THE pressure from above has been withdrawn and normalcy restored to the earth-consciousness.  Pressure meant a separation: something foreign acting from elsewhere, an interference. As a process, a passage needed for a time, for a special purpose and under special circumstances, it was necessary and welcome. But circumstances have changed. The higher consciousness is not to remain always high but become level with the normal. Either the higher must come down and mingle totally with the lower or the lower has to rise and merge altogether into the higher, or both meet and unite midway somewhere. Earth or material nature does not easily tolerate any thin

Translations  I  Ma soeur, qui donc a prononcé Ie Nom fatal? Ce Nom, dès que je l'ai entendu, a pénétré jusqu'au fond de mon coeur; II a remué mes entrailles dans des joies turbulentes. Que de délices sont enclosés dans ce Nom! Mes lèvres                         ne parviennent pas à l'abandonner. Je Ie répète comme une prière; je Ie répète jusqu'à ce que, là, je tombe de fatigue. Dites-moi, soeurette, comment pourrai-je Ie trouver? . . . Ah, si son nom seul a tant de puissance, que ne ferrait alors Ie toucher de son corps? Et comment donc gardent-elles leur virginité, les jeunes filles                         du pays qu'il habite,

Occult Experiences   IT seems my predecessors were telling you stories ― stories of their own lives; their experiences, so I thought I should follow in their footsteps. But I am not going to tell you about my own experiences, I am going to tell a story, rather a history, that happened in the life of another person. It will be interesting and also instructive. So I will begin the story, I am the narrator: I was a traveller, going about from place to place, seeing all things of interest ― especially those of pilgrimage ― and I happened to be in Madras. I was waiting there to take a bus to the railway-station which was a few miles off. I saw that there were also many other travelle

EIGHT TALKS   To Read Sri Aurobindo   I LEARNED that you want to know something about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from me. But then there are three lines of approach: you may want to know about them, know of them or know them. Of course the last is the best. Indeed if you want to know truly something you have to become it. Becoming gives the real knowledge. But becoming Sri Aurobindo and the Mother means what? Becoming a portion of them, a part and parcel of their consciousness ― that is what we are here for. And if you can do that, you know enough. . . . Once I told you, I think, how to study or approach Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in order to read them or un

ON EVIL   [1]   Hasten towards the Good, turn the mind away from evil; if you do good in sloth, the mind will indulge in evil.   [2]   If a man does an evil thing, he must not repeat it, he must not indulge it. Painful is the accumulation of evil.   [3]   If a man does a good thing, let him repeat it, let him indulge it. Happiness comes of the accumulation of the good.   [4]   The evil-doer finds it all good, so long as the evil does not ripen. As soon as evil ripens than the evil-doer finds it all evil.   [5]   The goodly man finds it all evil, so long as the good does not ripen. When the good ripens then the goodly ma

A Review of Our Ashram Life     IN its early days, quite at the beginning, we may now say, long long ago, for it is now almost half a century ago, the Ashram from its very start and quite spontaneously and inevitably grew into a community life. That is to say, the individuals ceased to have any personal possessions. Whatever they had belonged not to themselves but to the group, rather to the Master of the group, the Guru, to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Whatever they had, they considered as having received from the Mother for use only. They are not proprietors or possessors of anything: whatever they needed or they thought they needed, they had to ask for it a

Tagore   VIGIL   In the boundless heavens the Great Ascetic,      Vast Time keeps vigil.   He keeps vigil For a manifestation till now unconceived, unimagined, That none has yet known, That has revealed itself nowhere.   In the air, in the sky the new music That rose never and nowhere in the world, Prepares itself in a mystery sphere Through songs ringing out the secret heart's silent voices. The dams round the celestial city shall crumble, The flood of the New Harmony shall rush forth And the ancient walls of a deaf age Shall be swept away.   One who is remembered no more, One whose name none has ever h