The Goal WHEN we have passed beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar. When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar. When we have passed beyond enjoyings, then we shall have Bliss. Desire was the helper; Desire is the bar. When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar. When we have passed beyond humanity, then we shall be the Man. The Animal was the helper; the Animal is the bar. Transform reason into ordered intuition; let all thyself be light. This is thy goal. Transform effort into a

The Yoga and Its Objects "...the book represents an early stage of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana and only a part of it is applicable to the Yoga as it has at present taken form after a lapse of more than twenty years." 28-10-1934 A note from Sri Aurobindo Page-409 The Yoga and Its Objects THE yoga we practise is not for ourselves alone, but for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the

APPENDIX (In December 1935, a sadhak had asked Sri Aurobindo a question regarding a passage in Ch. II of Rebirth and Karma — the title under which the series of articles in Section One of this book were first published in the Arya. This question along with Sri Aurobindo’s answer to it is shown below.) Q: In Chapter II, “The Reincarnating Soul”, of Rebirth and Karma it is stated: “We have, in fact, an immutable Self, a real Person, lord of this ever-changing personality which, again, assumes ever-changing bodies, but the real Self knows itself always as above the mutation, watches and enjoys it, but is not involved in it. Through what does it enjoy the chan

The Higher Lines of Karma THE third movement of mind labours to bring the soul of man out of the tangle of the vital and mental forces and opens to him a field in which the mind raises itself, raises at least the head of its thought and will, above the vital demands and standards and there at that top of its activities, whatever its other concessions to the lower Karma, lives for the sake of the true values, the true demands of a mental being, even though one imprisoned in a body and set to wrestle with the conditions of life in a material universe. The innate demand of the mental being is for mental experience, for the mind's manifold strengths, its capacities,

The Chain THE whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature. Man is in love with the bonds of birth; therefore he is caught in the companion bonds of death. In these chains he aspires after freedom of his being and mastery of his self-fulfilment. Man is in love with power; therefore he is subjected to weakness. For the world is a sea of waves of force that meet and continually fling themselves on each other; he who would ride on the crest of one wave, must faint under the shock of hundreds. Man is in love with pleasure; therefore he must undergo the yoke of grief