Quotation, Mantra, Prayer, Poem, Music, Flower
Please remember that I have all along been declaring an integral Yoga in which Knowledge, Bhakti, Works - light of consciousness, Ananda and love, will and power in works - meditation, adoration, service of the Divine have all their place.
If thou think defeat is the end of thee, then go not forth to fight, even though thou be the stronger. For Fate is not purchased by any man nor is Power bound over to her possessors. But defeat is not the end, it is only a gate or a beginning.
A "personalised" section means that the content is refreshed per view for you, as if in answer to your inner aspiration.
The content is selected from the words of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. It is the electronic equivalent of looking up any of Sri Aurobindo's or The Mother's works to receive an indication or answer. The explanation of the physical process follows..
Everybody can do it. It is done in this way: you concentrate. Now, it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and want the solution, you concentrate on this problem; if you want to know the condition you are in, which you are not aware of - if you want to get some light on the state you are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the light. Or else, quite simply, if you are curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell you, you remain silent and still for a moment and then open the book. I always used to recommend taking a paper-knife, because it is thinner; while you are concentrated you insert it in the book and with the tip indicate something. Then, if you know how to concentrate, that is to say, if you really do it with an aspiration to have an answer, it always comes.
For, in books of this kind (Mother shows The Synthesis of Yoga), books of revelation, there is always an accumulation of forces - at least of higher mental forces, and most often of spiritual forces of the highest knowledge. Every book, on account of the words it contains, is like a small accumulator of these forces. People don't know this, for they don't know how to make use of it, but it is so. In the same way, in every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small accumulation representative of the force of the person whose picture it is, of his nature and, if he has powers, of his powers. Now, you, when you are sincere and have an aspiration, you emanate a certain vibration, the vibration of your aspiration which goes and meets the corresponding force in the book, and it is a higher consciousness which gives you the answer.
Everything is contained potentially. Each element of a whole potentially contains what is in the whole. It is a little difficult to explain, but you will understand with an example: when people want to practise magic, if they have a bit of nail or hair, it is enough for them, because within this, potentially, there is all that is in the being itself. And in a book there is potentially - not expressed, not manifest - the knowledge which is in the person who wrote the book. Thus, Sri Aurobindo represented a totality of comprehension and knowledge and power; and every one of his books is at once a symbol and a representation. Every one of his books contains symbolically, potentially, what is in him. Therefore, if you concentrate on the book, you can, through the book, go back to the source. And even, by passing through the book, you will be able to receive much more than what is just in the book.
There is always a way of reading and understanding what one reads, which gives an answer to what you want. It is not just a chance or an amusement, nor is it a kind of diversion. You may do it just "like that", and then nothing at all happens to you, you have no reply and it is not interesting. But if you do it seriously, if seriously your aspiration tries to concentrate on this instrument - it is like a battery, isn't it, which contains energies - if it tries to come into contact with the energy which is there and insists on having the answer to what it wants to know, well, naturally, the energy which is there - the union of the two forces, the force given out by you and that accumulated in the book - will guide your hand and your paper-knife or whatever you have; it will guide you exactly to the thing that expresses what you ought to know…. Obviously, if one does it without sincerity or conviction, nothing at all happens. If it is done sincerely, one gets an answer.
Certain books are like this, more powerfully charged than others; there are others where the result is less clear. But generally, books containing aphorisms and short sentences - not very long philosophical explanations, but rather things in a condensed and precise form - it is with these that one succeeds best.
Naturally, the value of the answer depends on the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing at all but stupidities. But if you take a book containing a condensation of forces - of knowledge or spiritual force or teaching power - you will receive your answer.
तत्सवितुर्वरं रूपं ज्योतिः परस्य धीमहि । यन्नः सत्येन दीपयेत् ।।
Tat savitur varam rūpam jyotiḥ parasya dhīmahi, yannaḥ satyena dīpayet
Let us meditate on the most auspicious (best) form of Savitri, on the Light of the Supreme which shall illumine us with the Truth.
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Spirit Supreme Who musest in the silence of the heart, Eternal gleam,
Thou only Art! Ah, wherefore with this darkness am I veiled, My sunlit part
By clouds assailed? Why am I thus disfigured by desire, Distracted, haled,
Scorched by the fire Of fitful passions, from thy peace out-thrust Into the gyre
Of every gust? Betrayed to grief, o'ertaken with dismay, Surprised by lust?
Let not my grey Blood-clotted past repel thy sovereign ruth, Nor even delay,
O lonely Truth! Nor let the specious gods who ape Thee still Deceive my youth.
These clamours still; For I would hear the eternal voice and know The eternal Will.
This brilliant show Cumbering the threshold of eternity Dispel,—bestow
The undimmed eye, The heart grown young and clear. Rebuke in me These hopes that cry
So deafeningly, Remove my sullied centuries, restore My purity.
O hidden door Of Knowledge, open! Strength, fulfil thyself! Love, outpour!
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Lord, Thou didst speak to me through the lips of one of those who have known Thee best—most probably to make me understand Thy lesson better (was I then deaf to Thy direct suggestion?). And still I do not understand at the moment what to do. Thou knowest what happiness would be mine if by Thy grace I could be integrally transformed into a hearth of divine love—that love which is the first and highest manifestation of Thy eternal Truth, that love which is at once the completest expression in this world of Thy Truth and the most direct road to lead to it the human consciousness that has gone astray. In the days when I used to aspire, desire and ask, how many times have I asked of Thee the grace of this state as the one most in conformity with my present ideal of action! And at that time it seemed to me that the day I should be purified of all egoistic preference, Thou wouldst choose this individual terrestrial being as an instrument of Thy manifestation of love upon earth. And now that Thou askest it of me, more than ever before do I feel my helplessness. For such a long time I thought I knew what love was, and now that I no longer see anything that cannot be called love, I also no longer see anything that may specially be called love. And how can I be that which I can no longer define, that state which I can no longer distinguish? And yet Thou didst show me yesterday that I was holding enclosed in a dark sheath one of Thy most precious and powerful gifts.... Lord, all my being aspires to obey Thy voice, to conform to Thy Law; but it does not know in its outer consciousness,
does not understand what Thou expectest of it. It feels indeed that at present its love is a passive state and that Thou wouldst awaken it to an active state; but how to pass from one to the other is what escapes it. It knows that this active state of love should be constant and impersonal, that is, absolutely independent of circumstances and persons, since it cannot and must not be concentrated upon any one thing in particular; and in this it will resemble the present passive state of love which is pure, unchanging and impersonal. But what it still does not know is how, even while retaining its purity, unchangeability and impersonality, qualities now inherent in its being, it can resume its activity.
That is why this evening I implored Lord Mitra who so perfectly symbolises Thy truth of love, asking him to come to my help and enlighten my ignorance, dissolve my doubts, vanquish my hesitations, break down the last obstacles and take possession of this physical instrument so that it may become what Thou expectest it to be.
But my speech is timid and my voice faltering and I do not know if Lord Mitra heard my prayer.
Prayers & Meditations >>
Savitri Book 1 Canto 4 - The Secret Knowledge
This transfiguration is earth’s due to heaven: A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme: His nature we must put on as he put ours; We are sons of God and must be even as he: His human portion, we must grow divine. ||15.10|| Our life is a paradox with God for key. ||15.11||
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