Letters on the integral yoga, other spiritual paths, the problems of spiritual life, and related subjects.
Integral Yoga
Letters on subjects including 'The Object of Integral Yoga', 'Synthetic Method and Integral Yoga', 'Basic Requisites of the Path', 'The Foundation of Sadhana', 'Sadhana through Work, Meditation, Love and Devotion', 'Human Relationships in Yoga' and 'Sadhana in the Ashram and Outside'. Part II includes letters on following subjects: 'Experiences and Realisations', 'Visions and Symbols' and 'Experiences of the Inner and the Cosmic Consciousness'. Sri Aurobindo wrote most of these letters in the 1930s to disciples living in his ashram.
THEME/S
Colour and light are always close to each other—colour being more indicative, light more dynamic. Colour incandescent becomes light.
Gold indicates at its most intense something from the supramental, otherwise overmind truth or intuitive truth deriving ultimately from the supramental Truth-Consciousness.
As for the exact symbolism of colours, it is not always easy to define exactly, because it is not rigid and precise, but complex, the meaning varying with the field, the combinations, the character and shades of the colour, the play of forces. A certain kind of yellow, for instance, is supposed by many occultists to indicate the buddhi, the intellect, and it often has that sense, but occurring among a play of vital forces it could not always be so interpreted—that would be too rigid. Here all one can say is that the blue (the particular blue seen, not every blue) indicated the response to the Truth; the green—or this green—is very usually associated with Life and a generous emanation or action of forces—often of emotional life-force, and it is probably this that it would indicate here.
There are no separate colours of the beings. There is a characteristic colour of mind, yellow; of the psychic, pink or pale rose; of the vital, purple; but these are colours corresponding to the main forces of mind, psychic, vital—they are not the colours of the beings. Also other colours can play, e.g. in the vital, green and deep red as well as purple and there are other colours for the hostile vital forces.
Page 959
The Lights one sees in concentration are the lights of various powers or forces and often lights that come down from the higher consciousness.
The violet light is that of the Divine Compassion (karuṇā—Grace)—the white light is the light of the Mother (the Divine Consciousness) in which all others are contained and from which they can be manifested.
Purple is the colour of vital power. "Red" depends on the character of the colour, for there are many reds—this may be the colour of the physical consciousness.
The four lights were the lights of the Truth,—white the purity and power of the divine Truth, green its active energy for work, blue the spiritual consciousness of the divine Truth, the gold its knowledge.
The arrow is the symbol of the force which goes to its aim.
Blue is the higher mind.
Bells heard are usually a sign of progress in sadhana, progress to come.
The snake form is a symbol of Energy and the white blue light may be that of the Mother's consciousness in the higher mind, or if it is not two separate colours but whitish blue then it is Sri Aurobindo's light. The light is a manifestation of Force, the nature of the force being indicated by the colour of the Light.
Blue is the normal colour of the spiritual planes; moonlight indicates the spiritual mind and its light.
The lights indicate the action of certain forces, usually indicated by the colour of the light. Whitish blue is known as Sri Aurobindo's light or sometimes Sri Krishna's light.
Page 960
The meaning of blue light depends on the exact character of colour, its shade and nature. A whitish blue like moonlight is known as Krishna's light or Sri Aurobindo's light—light blue is often that of Illumined Mind—there is another deeper blue that is of the Higher Mind; another, near to purple, which is the light of a power in the vital.
The pale whitish blue light is "Sri Aurobindo's Light"—it is the blue light modified by the white light of the Mother.
The pale blue light is mine, the white light is the Mother's. The world you saw above the head was the plane of the Illumined Mind which is a level of consciousness much higher than the human intelligence. It is there that the Divine Light and Power come down to be transmitted to the human consciousness and from there they work and prepare the transformation of the human consciousness and even the physical nature.
If the blue lights were of different shades it might mean the overhead planes, overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind, Higher Mind.
There are different Krishna lights—pale diamond blue, lavender blue, deep blue etc. It depends on the plane in which it manifests....
There is one blue that is the higher mind, a deeper blue belongs to the mind—Krishna's light in the mind....
All blue is not Krishna's light....
Diamond blue, Krishna's light in the overmind—lavender blue in intuitive mind.
Blue is also the Radha's colour.
Page 961
White light indicates the divine consciousness.
They have always the same meaning. The white light is that of the pure conscious force from which all the rest come. The golden light is that of the Divine Truth on the higher planes.
White indicates a force of purity.
Diamonds may indicate the Mother's Light at its intensest, for that is diamond white light.
The Sunlight is the light of the Truth itself—whatever power of Truth it may be—while the other lights derive from the Truth.
The Sunlight is the direct light of the Truth; when it gets fused into the vital, it takes the mixed colour—here gold and green—just as in the physical it becomes golden red or in the mental golden yellow.
The golden light is the light of the Divine Truth which comes out from the supramental sunlight and modified according to the level it crosses, creates the ranges from overmind to higher Mind.
Page 962
The golden light is that of the modified (overmentalised) supramental, i.e., the supramental Light passing through the overmind, Intuition, etc., and becoming the Light of Truth in each of these things. When it is golden red it means the same modified supramental-physical Light,—the Light of Divine Truth in the physical.
Golden Light always means the light of Truth—but the nature of the Truth varies according to the plane to which it belongs. Light is the light of Consciousness, Truth, Knowledge—the Sun is the concentration or source of the Light.
It is again the ascent into one of the higher planes of mind illumined with the light of the Divine Truth. Yellow is the light of mind growing brighter as one goes higher till it meets the golden light of the Divine Truth.
The spiritual Power is naturally more free on its own level than in the body. The golden colour indicates here Mahakali force which is the strongest for the working in the body.
It is not clear yet. Golden red is the colour of the supramental physical light—so this yellow red may indicate some plane of the overmind in which there is a nearer special connection with that. The golden red light has a strong transforming power.
Orange or red gold is supposed, by the way, to be the light of the supramental in the physical.
Page 963
Orange is the true light manifested in the physical consciousness and being.
The deep red light is a light that comes down into the physical for its change. It is associated with the sunlight and the golden light.
The deep red is the light of the Power that descended before the 24th [November, 1933] for the transformation of the physical.
Deep red is the Divine Love—rosy is the psychic love.
It seems to be an opening of various powers and the peace, light and wideness of the spiritual consciousness. The red Purusha may be the Power of the true physical—red being the colour of the physical.
Orange is the colour of occult knowledge or occult experience.
Yellow is the thinking mind. The shades indicate different intensities of mental light.
The colour of the psychic light is according to what it manifests—e.g., psychic love is pink or rose, the psychic purity is white, etc.
Page 964
Reddish pink rose = psychic love or surrender.
White rose = pure spiritual surrender.
The rosy light is that of love—so probably you entered the psychic worlds—or at least one of them.
As for the experiences described in the other letter, it seems to have been a passage through worlds of neutral peace which to the mind are a darkness and stand in the way to the full light.
The violet is the light of Divine Grace and Compassion.
"Violet" is the colour of benevolence or compassion, but also more vividly of the Divine Grace—represented in the vision as flowing from the heights of the spiritual consciousness down on the earth. The golden cup is I suppose the Truth Consciousness.
Violet is the colour of the light of Divine Compassion, as also of Krishna's Grace. It is also the radiance of Krishna's protection. Blue is his special and significant colour, the colour of his aura when he manifests—that is why he is called Nīla Krishna. The adjective does not mean that he was blue or dark in his physical body.
Purple is the colour of the vital force—crimson is usually physical.
Page 965
The crimson colour is the light of Love in the vital and physical.
Both [purple and crimson] are vital lights, but when seen above they represent the original forces of which the vital are the derivations.
Green light can signify various things according to the context—in the emotional vital it is the colour of a certain form of emotional generosity, in the vital proper an activity with vital abundance or vital generosity behind it—in the vital physical it signifies a force of health.
Yes. The green light is a vital force, a dynamic force of the emotional vital which has the power to purify, harmonise or cure.
Green is a vital energy of work and action.
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