THE GOLDEN LIFE-LINE   As slow our ship her foaming track Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still looked back To that dear isle't was leaving. So loth we part from all we love, From all the links that bind us, So turn our hearts as on we rove, To those we've left behind us.         This is not merely children's homesickness; it is a fundamental note of the human nature as it is at present constituted. We always look backward, we always are tied to our roots and it is with great difficulty and much effort that we advance and go forward or upward away from our origins. In a nobler language this is called tradition. Ofte

THE LABOURS OF THE GODS (THE FIVE PURIFICATIONS)         Nowadays we hear much of brain wash. The other day, instead of brain-washing, I spoke of brain-ignition. That is to say, for a total reconstitution of the brain, for a new building of the physique of the new man, one has to transform the cells of grey matter into particles of fire, packets of burning energy. I said, the cranium being the control-room of physical existence and the brain being the controlling agent — the brain extending its range down the spinal column to its end at the last vertebra — this is the element that has to be treated and reorganised first and foremost if a physical reorganisation of human natu

APPENDIX   SRI AUROBINDO   I         From a certain standpoint Sri Aurobindo's message is very simple, almost self-evident. The sum and substance of all he says is that man is growing and has to grow in consciousness till he reaches the complete and perfect consciousness, not only in his individual but in his collective, that is to say, social life. In fact, the growth of consciousness is the supreme secret of life, the master key to earthly evolution.         Sri Aurobindo believes in evolution. Creation, according to him, has a purpose and man moves to a goal. That is nothing else than the unfolding of consciousness. Originally all was Matter, only dead Matt

THE OPENING SCENE OF "SAVITRI"         "It was the hour before the Gods awake". Only when the Gods awake, does the light begin to appear on earth. Otherwise it is all night here, black, impenetrable and unfathomable. Indeed the very creation begins with the awakening of the Gods. When the Gods are asleep, it is the non-existence—tama āsīt tamasā gūḍhamagre—'in the beginning darkness was engulfed in darkness'. This is the asat, non-being, this is the acit, the inconscience, this is the blackest night. The Bible also speaks of a similar darkness—Job's terrible vision: "A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order and where the light is as

TOWARDS THE IMMORTAL BODY         To be immortal one must live in that which is immortal. One may be immortal outside and beyond the world and one may be immortal in the world upon the earth. The first is the immortality of Transcendence, of the Self, of Sachchidananda. The other is that of Immanence, of the Soul, the delegated Emanation in Matter upon earth. To be immortal here upon earth one must find that which is immortal here below. To be immortal in the body one must find that which is immortal in the body, and the body must become it integrally and absolutely.         It is the soul that is immortal upon earth and in the mortal being. For the life to be immor

THE MOUNTING FIRE         The seat of human consciousness, in fact of all consciousness, is the brain—the grey substance filling up the cranium. The brain constitutes man in his essential and characteristic substance and functioning.         I am speaking specially of the physical and material basis of mind and consciousness, for unless this basis is changed there can be no change in the structure of the being, and in the movement of outward life; even the consciousness would not change radically or permanently: a stable transformation can come only when the material stuff has undergone a reversal.         The human brain consists, as physiologists tell us, of three

* THE TRIPLE CORD*         Sunahshepa, the human creature, says the Vedic Rishi, is bound to the stake with three cords: one on the top, the second in the middle and the third below. Sunahshepa cries out to God Varuna to be freed from the triple bondage. The God is pleased and cuts the topmost cord and throws it upward, he cuts the middle cord and throws it on either side, he cuts the downmost cord and throws it downward. Thus Sunahshepa is freed through the Grace of King Varuna.         The three cords are the three limitations of being and consciousness in the normal human creature. There is a wall or barrier up in the mind which shuts out the higher levels of consciousness