Inner voice (01-03-09) Inner voice Before undertaking any action one tries to know whether the impulse comes from the Mother or not, but generally one doesn't have enough discernment to know it and yet one acts. Can one know from the result of the action whether it came from the Mother or not ? One does not have the discernment because one does not care to have it ! Listen, I don't think there is a single instance in which one does not find within oneself something very clear, but you must sincerely want to know – we always come back to the same thing – you must sincerely want it. The first condition is not to begin thinking about the subject and building all sorts of ideas: opposing ideas,

Basic Requisites of the Path (08-04-09) "He loves her", the senses say; but the soul says "God God God". That is the all-embracing formula of existence. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 448)   Basic Requisites of the Path …. Faith is the soul's witness to something not yet manifested, achieved or realised, but which yet the Knower within us, even in the absence of all indications, feels to be true or supremely worth following or achieving. This thing within us can last even when there is no fixed belief in the mind, even when the vital struggles and revolts and refuses. Who is there that practises the yoga and has not his periods, long periods of disappointment and failure

The Argument of Weakness (07-10-09) Yet, O soul of man, seek not after pain, for that is not His will, seek after His joy only; as for suffering, it will come to thee surely in His providence as often and as much as is needed for thee. Then bear it that thou mayst find out at last its heart of rapture. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 501) The Argument of Weakness Correcting an ignorance is like eliminating darkness: you light a lamp, the darkness disappears. But to make a mistake once again when you know it is a mistake, is as if someone lighted a lamp and you delib­erately put it out... That corresponds exactly to bringing the darkness back de­liberately. For the argument of weakn

The Great Discovery (19-04-09) The Great Discovery ....When the psychic being awakens, you grow conscious of your own soul; you know your self. And you no longer commit the mistake of identifying yourself with the mental or with the vital being. You do not mistake them for the soul. Secondly, when awakened, the psychic being gives true bhakti for God or for the Guru. That bhakti is quite different from mental or vital bhakti. In the mind one may have admiration or appreciation for the intellectual greatness of the man – or Guru, but it is merely mental; it does not carry the matter very far. Of course there is no harm in having that also. But by itself it does not open the whole of the

The One Thing Indispensable (07-06-09) The One Thing Indispensable .... To find the Divine is indeed the first reason for seeking the spiritual Truth and the spiritual life; it is the one thing indispensable and all the rest is nothing without it. The Divine once found, to manifest Him, – that is, first of all to transform one's own limited consciousness into the Divine Consciousness, to live in the infinite Peace, Light, Love, Strength, Bliss, to become that in one's essential nature and, as a consequence, to be its vessel, channel, instrument in one's active nature. To bring into activity the principle of oneness on the material plane or to work for humanity is a mental mistranslation of th

The Grace and Falsehood (25-02-09) A nation is not made by a common blood, a common tongue or a common religion; these are only important helps and powerful conveniences. But wherever communities of men not bound by family ties are united in one sentiment and aspiration to defend a common inheritance from their ancestors or assure a common future for their posterity, there a nation is already in existence Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 332) The Grace and Falsehood The Grace has come; well, it works for the realisation of the truth. If it accepts the conditions laid upon it by the falsehood, it can no longer do anything. Of this, you know, I could give you countless examples- of

To do the integral yoga (25-03-09) Has thy effort succeeded, O thou Titan? Dost thou sit, like Ravana and Hiranyakashipou, served by the gods and the world's master? But that which thy soul was really hunting after, has escaped from thee. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorisms 508 ) To do the integral yoga …. Sri Aurobindo has said — that to do the integral yoga one must first resolve to surrender entirely to the Divine, there is no other way, this is the way. But after that one must have the five psychological virtues, five psychological perfections, and we say that these perfections are: Sincerity or Transparency Faith or Trust (Trust in the Divine, naturally) Devotion or Gratitud

How can we escape from other people's influence? (16-09-09) Our parents fell, in the deep Semitic apologue, because they tasted the fruit of the tree of good and evil. Had they taken at once of the tree of eternal life, they would have escaped the immediate consequence; but God's purpose in humanity would have been defeated. His wrath is our eternal advantage. Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorism 520) Sri Aurobindo. (Thoughts and Aphorism 343) How can we escape from other people's influence? By concentrating more and more totally and completely on the Divine. If you aspire with all your ardour, if you want to receive only the divine influence, if all the time you pull back towards yo

Knowledge Is Within You (29-07-09) Canst thou see God as the bodiless Infinite & yet love Him as a man loves his mistress? Then has the highest truth of the Infinite been revealed to thee. Canst thou also clothe the Infinite in one secret embraceable body and see Him seated in each & all of these bodies that are visible & sensible? Then has its widest & profoundest truth come also into thy possession. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorism 492) Knowledge Is Within You You can understand only what you already know in your own inner self. What strikes you in a book is what you have already experienced deep within you. Men find a book or a teaching very wonderful and often you hear them say,

Is religion a necessity in the life of the ordinary man? (01-07-09) The spirit within us is the only all-efficient doctor and submission of the body to it the one true panacea. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms 396) Is religion a necessity in the life of the ordinary man? In the life of societies it is a necessity, for it serves as a corrective to collective egoism which, without this control, could take on excessive proportions. The level of collective consciousness is always lower than the individual level. It is very noticeable, for example, that when men gather in a group or collect in great numbers, the level of consciousness falls a great deal. The consciousness of crowds i