The Siddhis   Some men sneer at the Siddhis because they do not believe in them, others because they think it is noble and spiritual to despise them. Both attitudes proceed from ignorance. It is true that to some natures the rule of omne ignotum pro magnifico holds and everything that is beyond their knowledge is readily accepted as true marvel and miracle, and of such a temper are the credulous made, it is also true that to others it is omne ignotum pro falso and they cannot forbear ridiculing as fraud or pitiable superstition everything that is outside the reach of their philosophy. This is the temper of the incredulous. But the true temper is t

III   Parabrahman and Parapurusha   God or Para Purusha is Parabrahman unmanifest & inexpressible turned towards a certain kind of manifestation or expression, of which the two eternal terms are Atman and Jagati, Self and Universe. Atman becomes in self-symbol all existences in the universe; so too, the universe when known, resolves all its symbols into Atman. God being Parabrahman is Himself Absolute, neither Atman nor Maya nor unAtman; neither Being nor Not-Being (Sat, Asat); neither Becoming nor non-Becoming (Sambhuti, Asambhuti); neither Quality nor non-Quality (Saguna, Nirguna); neither Consciousness nor non-co

Section Three   Circa 1913   THE PSYCHOLOGY OF YOGA   Initial Definitions and Descriptions   Yoga has four powers and objects, purity, liberty, beatitude and perfection. Whosoever has consummated these four mightinesses in the being of the transcendental, universal, lilamaya and individual God is the complete and absolute Yogin. All manifestations of God are manifestations of the absolute Parabrahman. The Absolute Parabrahman is unknowable to us, not because It is the nothingness of all that we are, for rather

Part Three   Notes and Fragments on Various Subjects   The pieces collected in this part were written by Sri Aurobindo at different times and for various purposes. They have been arranged by the editors by subject in five sections.     Section One   The Human Being in Time       The Marbles of Time   Institutions, empires, civilisations are the marbles of Time. Time, sitting in his banqueting hall of the Ages, where prophe

Section   Three India     Renascent India   Everybody can feel, even without any need of a special sense for the hidden forces and tendencies concealed in the apparent march of things, for the signs are already apparent, that India is on the verge, in some directions already in the first movements of a great renascence, more momentous, more instinct with great changes and results, than anything that has gone before it. Every new awakening of the kind comes by some impact slight or great on the national consciousness which puts it in face of new ideas, new conditions, new ne

Towards Unification   The progress of distance-bridging inventions, our modern facility for the multiplication of books and their copies and the increase of human curiosity are rapidly converting humanity into a single intellectual unit with a common fund of knowledge and ideas and a unified culture. The process is far from complete, but the broad lines of the plan laid down by the great Artificer of things already begin to appear. For a time this unification was applied to Europe only. Asia had its own triune civilisation, predominatingly spiritual, complex and meditative in India, predominatingly vital, emotional, active and s

Additional Aphorisms   541. I know that the opposite of what I say is true, but for the present what I say is still truer.   542. I believe with you, my friends, that God, if He exists, is a demon and an ogre. But after all what are you going to do about it?   *    543. God is the supreme Jesuit Father. He is ever doing evil that good may come of it; ever misleads for a greater leading; ever oppresses our will that it may arrive at last at an infinite freedom.   544. Our Evil is to God not evil, but ignorance and imper

PURNA YOGA   I   The Entire Purpose of Yoga   By Yoga we can rise out of falsehood into truth, out of weakness into force, out of pain and grief into bliss, out of bondage into freedom, out of death into immortality, out of darkness into light, out of confusion into purity, out of imperfection into perfection, out of self-division into unity, out of Maya into God. All other utilisation of Yoga is for special and fragmentary advantages not always worth pursuing. Only that which aims at possessing the fullness of God is purna Yoga; the sadhaka of the Divine Perfection is the purna Yogin.

Section Four   Genius, Poetry, Beauty     The Origin of Genius   When the human being puts forth a force in himself which is considerable but acts normally, we call it talent; when it is abnormal in its working we call it genius. It would seem, therefore, that genius is in reality some imperfect step in evolution by which mankind in its most vigorous and forward individuals is attempting to develop a faculty which the race as a whole is not strong enough as yet to command or to acclimatise. As always happens in such a movement, there is a considerable irregularity in

Part One Essays   Divine and Human   The essays in this part have been arranged chronologically in five sections. The contents of several of the sections or subsections seem to have been intended by Sri Aurobindo to be published as series or collections of essays.      Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry