Chapter XII METAPHYSICS OF LIFE AND DEATH A Truth supreme has forced the world to be; It has wrapped itself in Matter as in a shroud, A shroud of Death, a shroud of Ignorance. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book X, Canto IV, p. 658) Who thinks he sees difference, from death to death he goes. (Katha Upanishad, II. 1.10) When every desire that finds lodging in the heart of man has been loosened from its moorings, then this mortal puts on immortality. (Ibid., II.3.14) Forms on earth do not last ... because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they

-015_The Critique of the ^Jivanmukti^-Solution.htm Chapter VI THE CRITIQUE OF THE 'JIVANMUKTI'-SOLUTION The passage describes the state of consciousness when one is aloof from all things even when in their midst and all is felt to be unreal, an illusion. There are then no preferences or desires because things are too unreal to desire or to prefer one to another. But, at the same time, one feels no necessity to flee from the world or not to do any action, because being free from the illusion, action or living in the world does not weigh upon one, one is not bound or involved. (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, pp. 682-83) When one sees a mirage for the first time, he

-032_Metaphysics of Hungar- The Mystery of ^Anna^ and ^Ananda^.htm Chapter III METAPHYSICS OF HUNGER: THE MYSTERY OF 'ANNA' AND 'ANNADA'* This whole world, verily, is just food and the eater of food. (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, I.4.6) This is the Power...that has the multitude of its desires so that it may sustain all things; it takes the taste of all foods. (Rig Veda, V.7.6) O Thou in whom is the food, thou art that divine food, thou art the vast, the divine home. (Rig Veda, IX.83) In the beginning all was covered by Hunger that is Death. (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, I.2.1) All Matter...is food, and this is the formula of the mat

Chapter III THE SLEEP AND THE WAKING "The status he reaches is the Brahmic condition; he gets to firm standing in the Brahman, brahmi sthiti. It is a reversal of the whole view, experience, knowledge, values, seeings of earth-bound creatures. This life of the dualities which is to them their day, their waking, their consciousness, their bright condition of activity and knowledge, is to him a night, a troubled sleep and darkness of the soul; that higher being which is to them a night, a sleep in which all knowledge and will cease, is to the self-mastering sage his waking, his luminous day of true being, knowledge and power." (Sri Aurobindo, Es

Chapter II THE UNIVERSAL SLEEP The soul must soar sovereign above the form And climb to summits beyond mind's half-sleep. (Savitri, Book II, Canto V, p. 171) What distinguishes the state of wakefulness from that of sleep ? Is it the execution of some purposeful movements, or the making of a coherent speech, or the capability of engaging in a meaningful conversation, or the successful completion of some delicate and hazardous physical undertaking, or at the least a tolerably good functioning of the organs of cognition? As we shall presently see, none of these criteria nor for that matter any other ordinarily cited

Chapter IV WHAT IS SAMADHI OR YOGIC TRANCE? In her own depths she heard the unuttered thought That made unreal the world and all life meant. "Who art thou who claim'st thy crown or separate birth, The illusion of thy soul's reality And personal godhead on an ignorant globe In the animal body of imperfect man ? ...Only the blank Eternal can be true. All else is shadow and flash in Mind's bright glass, ........... O soul, inventor of man's thoughts and hopes, Thyself the invention of the moments' stream, Illusion's centre or subtle apex point, At last know thyself, from v

Part Three THE PROBLEM OF SLEEP AND FATIGUE Chapter I THE PROBLEM OF SLEEP A darkness stooping on the heaven-bird's wings Sealed in her senses from external sight And opened the stupendous depths of sleep. (Savitri, Book IV, Canto III, p. 376) Out of her Matter's stupor, her mind's dreams, She woke, she looked upon God's unveiled face. (Ibid., Book VI, Canto I, p. 418) Sleep, in the sense of an intermittent condition of apparent inanimation and suspense of all surface activity, appears to be a concomitant of all embodied life. For a human being, on an average, almost

Chapter IV MORTALITY AND IMMORTALITY: THE REAL ISSUE Abolishing death and time my nature lives In the deep heart of immortality. (Sri Aurobindo, More Poems, p. 72) The sons of Death have to know themselves as the children of Immortality. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 685) The Wise One is not bom, neither does he die: came not from anywhere, neither is he any one: he is unborn, he is everlasting, he is ancient and sempiternal: he is not slain in the slaying of the body. (Katha Upanishad, 1.2.18*) ...Standing on Eternity's luminous brink I have discovered

Chapter IX THE EVOLUTIONARY CLUES Conceivably, one might rediscover and re-establish at the summit of evolution of life the phenomenon we see at its base, the power to draw from all around it the means of sustenance and self-renewal. (Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, p. 52) It is evident that spontaneous motion or locomotion, breathing, eating are only processes of life and not life itself; they are means for the generation or release of that constantly stimulating energy which is our vitality and for that process of disintegration and renewal by which it supports our substantial existence; but these processes o

Chapter X THE DESCENT OF THE SUPERMIND I know that I can lift man's soul to God, I know that he can bring the Immortal down. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book XI, Canto I, p. 687) The integral perfection can come only by a mounting ascent of the lowest into the highest and an incessant descent of the highest into the lowest till all becomes one at once solid block and plastic sea-stuff of the Truth infinite and eternal. (Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 478) There are different statuses of the divine consciousness. There are also different statuses of transformation. First is the psychic transforma