Concentration and Dispersion In sporting activities those who want to be successful choose a certain line or subject which appeals more to the  and suits their nature; they concentrate on their choice and take great care not to disperse their energies in different directions. As in life a man chooses his career and concentrates all his attention upon it, so the sportsman chooses a special activity and concentrates all his efforts to achieve as much perfection as he can in this line. This perfection comes usually by a building up of spontaneous reflex which is the result of constant repetition of the same movements. But this spontaneous reflex can be, with advantage, replaced by

CONDUCT What a Child Should Always Remember The necessity of an absolute sincerity. The certitude of Truth's final victory. The possibility of constant progress with the will to achieve.   An Ideal Child is good-tempered He does not become angry when things seem to go against him or decisions are not in his favour. is game Whatever he does he does it to the best of his capacity and keeps on doing in the face of almost certain failure. He always thinks straight and acts straight. is truthful He never fears to say the truth whatever may be the consequences. is patient He does not get disheartened if he has to

Aims   Why are we here in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram? There is an ascending evolution in nature which goes from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man. Because man is, for the moment, the last rung at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; she endeavours to bring out a being who will be t

An International University Centre 1 The conditions in which men live on earth are the result of their state of consciousness. To seek to change these conditions without changing the consciousness is a vain chimera. Those who have been able to perceive what could and ought to be done to improve the situation in the various domains of human life economic, political, social, financial, educational and sanitary are individuals who have, to a greater or lesser extent, developed their consciousness in an exceptional way and put themselves in contact with higher planes of consciousness. But their ideas have remained more or less theoretical or, if an attempt has been m

 The Problem of Woman I wish to speak to you about the problem of woman, a problem as old as mankind in appearance, but infinitely older in origin. For if we want to find the law that governs and solves it, we must go back to the origin of the universe, even beyond the creation. Some of the most ancient traditions, perhaps even the most ancient, ascribed the cause of the creation of the universe to the will of a Supreme Absolute to manifest by his own self-objectification; and the first act of this objectification was said to be the emanation of the creative Consciousness. Now, these ancient traditions usually speak of the Absolute in the masculine gender and of the C

Transformation We want an integral transformation, the transformation of the body and all its activities. But there is an absolutely indispensable first step that must be accomplished before anything else can be undertaken: the transformation of the consciousness. The starting-point is of course the aspiration for this transformation and the will to realise it; without that nothing can be done. But if in addition to the aspiration there is an inner opening, a kind of receptivity, then one can enter into this transformed consciousness at a single stroke and maintain oneself there. This change of consciousness is abrupt, so to say; when it occurs, it occurs all of a sudden, alth

THE ASCENT TO TRUTH  A Drama of Life in a Prologue, Seven Stages and an Epilogue   PERSONS OF THE DRAMA             The Philanthropist             The Pessimist The Scientist The Artist Three Students Two Lovers The Ascetic                                                                               Two Aspirants Prologue: In the Artist's studio, preliminary meeting. Seven stages of the ascent, of which the seventh is at the summit. Epilogue: The new world. Page – 503 Prologue In the Artist's studio Evening, at night-fall; the end of a meeting held by a small group of people unit

IV A GLIMPSE OF MOTHER'S WORK IN THE SCHOOL (1)                                   FRENCH IN THE ASHRAM AND THE SCHOOL (Two or three teachers were having a discussion about the language of instruction in the school. Their discus- sion was submitted to Mother with the remark:)  Sri Aurobindo says in his book on education that the child should be taught in his mother-tongue. Sri Aurobindo did say that, but he also said many other things which complete his advice and abolish all possibility of dogmatism. Sri Aurobindo himself has often repeated that if one affirms one thing, one should be able to affirm its opposite; oth

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Helping Humanity             For those who practise the integral Yoga, the welfare of humanity can be only a consequence and a result, it cannot be the aim. And if all the efforts to improve human conditions have miserably failed in the end in spite of all the ardour and enthusiasm and self-consecration they have inspired at first, it is precisely because the transformation of the conditions of human life can be achieved by another preliminary transformation, the transformation of the human consciousness or at least of a few exceptional individuals capable of laying the foundations for a more widespread transformation. But we shall return to this subject later on; it w