Sadhana through Love and Devotion (22-04-09) The most binding Law of Nature is only a fixed process which the Lord of Nature has framed and uses constantly; the Spirit made it and the Spirit can exceed it, but we must first open the doors of our prison-house and learn to live less in Nature than in the Spirit Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 126) Sadhana through Love and Devotion When the love goes towards the Divine, there is still this ordinary human element in it. There is the call for a return and if the return does not seem to come, the love may sink; there is the self-interest, the demand for the Divine as a giver of all that the human being wants and, if the demands are n

Transformation (14-01-09) The Titans are stronger than the gods because they have agreed with God to front and bear the burden of His wrath and enmity; the gods were able to accept only the pleasant burden of His love and kindlier rapture. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 133) Transformation (Integral Yoga and Other Paths) By transformation I do not mean some change of the nature – I do not mean, for instance, sainthood or ethical perfection or yogic siddhis (like the Tantrik's) or a transcendental (cinmaya) body. I use transformation in a special sense, a change of consciousness radical and complete and of a certain specific kind which is so conceived as to bring about a st

The central faith (09-12-09)  God leads man while man is misleading himself, the higher nature watches over the stumblings of his lower mortality; this is the tangle & contradiction out of which we have to escape into the [?self-unity] to which alone is possible a clear knowledge & a faultless action. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 205 ) The central faith Even a faltering faith and a slow and partial surrender have their force and their result, otherwise only the rare few could do sadhana at all. What I mean by the central faith is a faith in the soul or the central being behind, a faith which is there even when the mind doubts and the vital despairs and the physical wants to collap

A Prayer (18-03-09) I knew my mind to be conquered when it admired the beauty of the hideous, yet felt perfectly why other men shrank back or hated. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorisms 49 ) A Prayer Thou art the one and only goal of my life and the centre of my aspiration, the pivot of my thought, the key of the synthesis of my being. And as Thou art beyond all sensation, all feeling and all thought, Thou art the living but ineffable experience, the Reality lived in the depths of the being but untranslatable in our poor words; and it is because human intelligence is powerless to reduce Thee to a formula that some, a little disdainfully, label “sentiment” the knowledge that it is possib

Joy & Depression (18-01-09) Joy & Depression   Q: Sweet Mother, sometimes when one feels depressed it lasts quite a long time; but when one feels a special kind of joy, it does not last. “Yes, that is very true.” Q: Then what should one do to make it last longer? “But it is not the same part of the being that has the depression and the joy. If you are speaking of pleasure, the pleasure of the vital is something very fleeting, and I think that in life – in life as it is at present – there are more occasions for displeasure than for pleasure. Pleasure in itself is extremely fleeting, for if the same vibration of pleasure is prolonged a little, it becomes unpleasant or even repu

Absolute Sincerity (15-07-09) There are two who are unfit for greatness and freedom, the man who has never been a slave to another and the nation that has never been under the yoke of foreigners. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorism 309) Absolute Sincerity If you are not absolutely sincere, not only with others but also with yourself, if at any time you try to cover up your imperfections and failings, you will never make any progress, you will always remain what you are throughout all your life, without ever making any progress. So, even if you only want to grow out of this primitive unconscious state into a progressive consciousness, the most important thing, the one absolutely importan