... वृत्रतूर्ये दिवो वृष्टिरीड्यो रीतिरपाम् ॥१॥ 1) O felicitous Fire, of thee are all felicities and they grow wide from thee like branches from a tree. For quickly come, in the piercing of the Python adversary, the Riches and the desirable plenty and the Rain of Heaven and the flowing of the Waters. त्वं भगो न आ हि रत्नमिषे परिज्मेव क्षयसि दस्मवर्चाः । अग्ने मित्रो न बृहत ऋतस्याऽसि क्षत्ता वामस्य... it thy impregnating bulls and thy heifers. अग्निं देवासो अग्रियमिन्धते वृत्रहन्तमम् । येना वसून्याभृता तृळ्हा रक्षांसि वाजिना ॥४८॥ 48) The Gods kindle, most strong to slay the Python adversary, the supreme Fire, the Horse of swiftness by whom the Riches are brought and pierced the demon keepers. Page 92 × ...
... minds on the surface or apparent surface of the spiritual Reality behind things and I need not elaborate it. More important is the prognostic of a greater danger coming in the new attack by the adversary, the sceptics, against the validity of spiritual and supraphysical experience, their new strategy of destruction by admitting and explaining it in their own sense. There may well be a strong ground ...
... minds on the surface—or apparent surface—of the spiritual Reality behind things and I need not elaborate it. More important is the prognostic of a greater danger coming in the new attack by the adversary, the sceptics, against the validity of spiritual and supraphysical experience, their new strategy of destruction by admitting and explaining it in their own sense. There may well be a strong ground ...
... movement. There are indeed enemies on the way, but he shall slay these oppressors of our journey. "O Pushan, the wolf, the troubler of our bliss who teaches us evil, him smite from the Path. The adversary, the robber perverse of heart, drive him far from the road of our journeying. Set thy foot on the distressful force of whatsoever power of duality expresses evil in us." Thus beyond all the obstacles ...
... uncompromising living faith, the pure light, the unvacillating flame, a spirit even though small standing against insurmountable odds – that was the way, the martyr's way to stand against the adversary. ¹ The Mother Page 293 That is why in the process the God-Man sacrificed himself. We are in a somewhat different age under different circumstances. At least our aim is different ...
... evil, and it is no less destruction even if we personally are saved the pain of a sensational act of violence. Moreover, every time we use soul-force we raise a great force of Karma against our adversary, the after-movements of which we have no power to control. Vasishtha uses soul-force Page 42 against the military violence of Vishwamitra and armies of Huns and Shakas and Pallavas hurl ...
... world-domination, and by its geographical position and the encircling position of its enemies it was especially open to all the disadvantages which must accompany the mastery of the seas by its natural adversary. The combination of overwhelming sea-power with overwhelming land-power 1 can alone bring so vast an enterprise into the domain of real possibility; Rome itself could only hope for something like ...
... He: the child, the traveller, the lover, the disciple, the triumphant, the holocaust – the One, the Beloved. It is She: the mother, the tree, the comrade, the bride, the master, the adversary – the One, the Beloved. The New Being incarnates, in a new cycle, their manifestation in a single body. Page 290 Act I : The Descent ...
... and it is no less destruction even if we personally are saved the pain of a sensational act of violence. "Moreover, every time we use soul-force we raise a great force of Karma against our adversary, the after-movements of which we have no power to control. Vasishtha uses soul- force against the military violence of Vishwamitra and armies of Huns and Shakas and Pallavas hurl themselves on the aggressor ...
... which can conquer the Adversary. But to attain the joy one must first conquer the Adversary! Why no! One must go beyond him and ignore him. There is one thing you must begin by doing, it is true, that is to free yourself from his influence. But there is a difference between freeing oneself from the Adversary's influence and conquering the Adversary. To conquer the Adversary is not a small Page... totally from his influence. And from the minute one is completely free from his influence, one's self-giving can be total. And with the self-giving comes joy, long before the Adversary is truly vanquished and disappears. The Adversary will disappear only when he is no longer necessary in the world. And we know very well that he is necessary, as the touch-stone for gold: to know if it is pure. But if... one is really sincere, the Adversary can't even approach him any longer; and he doesn't try it, because that would be courting his own destruction. Only, some people have in them a kind of fighting instinct and they are not content to liberate themselves and come out of the influence; indeed they think they have the capacity to go to war and fight with the Adversary. So sometimes, if they are not ...
... learn from thy adversary; for even from a fool, if thou listen not with the ear and the reasoning mind but the soul's light, thou canst gather much wisdom. 300—Turn all things to honey; this is the law of divine living. 301—Private dispute should always be avoided; but shrink Page 298 not from the public battle; yet even there appropriate 1 the strength of thy adversary. 302—When ...
... influence of the adversary but is also one of his most powerful ways of acting in the world, the most powerful of all if in addition there comes its natural and spontaneous consequence: hatred and the desire for revenge in the strong, despair and the wish to die in the weak. The other category of suffering, whose initial cause is the pain of separation created by the adversary, is totally opposite... which alone has the strength and the power to deliver the world from its ignorance and misery. And this suffering too will disappear from the universe only with the total disappearance of the adversary and all the effects of his action. Page 339 ...
... vanquished. We aspire to be the valiant warriors of the Lord so that His glory may manifest upon the earth. 30 September 1954 Bravery fears nothing and knows how to hold tight against adversaries. Page 168 ...
... 1941 Dilip, You should make it a rule never to listen to this voice or accept the suggestions that come with it. It is clear from where it comes; it is a voice of untruth, the voice of the adversary which comes to almost everybody who follows the way of yoga, suggesting doubt and denial and incapacity and defeat. You must meet it always as you did this time. You should also reject such suggestions ...
... our disappointed adversaries suggested, born of fear or unwillingness to bear sacrifices for the country—for even without breaking the law many Swadeshi workers had to go to jail or undergo police and Gurkha violence, but part of a well-reasoned policy. To be able to keep within the law gives an immense advantage to a young movement opposed by a strong Page 462 adversary in possession of ...
... her, and if the bureaucracy begins giving real concessions, that will be its fate. But this watered milk of Morleyan sympathy is a different matter. To drink it is to weaken ourselves and help the adversary. Page 994 ...
... few can move towards the Heaven, like eagles freed from nets. [9] Swans move in the path of the sun, they who possess subtle powers walk in the sky, the wise conquer the Adversary with all his armies and go out of the world. [10] A creature who transgresses even one law, who utters a falsehood, who disdains the other world, is capable of every possible ...
... That is why, to keep their truth unsullied, the ancients abandoned this field of practical politics, retired to the forest or into the cosy laps of the hills. Beware, this is the voice of the adversary trying to tempt you by confusing your mind. The path is straight and Page 172 narrow, it is not wide and comfortable and strewn with roses. To find the Truth, to live the Truth we... was an uncompromising living faith, the pure light, the unvacillating flame, a spirit even though small standing against insurmountable odds—that was the way, the martyr's way to stand against the adversary. That is why in the process the God-Man sacrificed himself. We are in a somewhat different age under different circumstances. At least our aim is different. We stand firm full square against ...
... excuse. The Grace is there to give the supreme strength to whoever takes the resolution. That means an insincerity, it does not mean a weakness. And insincerity is always an open door for the adversary. That means there is some secret sympathy with what is perverse. And that is what is serious. In the case of ignorance which is to be enlightened, it is enough, as I said, to light the lamp. In ...
... detested him. When I was about twenty-five I discovered the inner God Page 331 and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions is none other than the Great Adversary. When I came to India, in 1914, and became acquainted with Sri Aurobindo's teaching, everything became very clear. 24 March 1970 ...
... the convenience of those who employ and pay his judge, determines whether he goes free or incurs the honourable pains of martyrdom—brief or long according to the caprice or policy of his political adversaries. To one who loves his country above all things, life in India today is as insecure as in the worst days of despotic caprice and arbitrariness from which British benevolence is fabled to have rescued... reawakened is the life of the movement and not a borrowed Western patriotism; we shall shrink once more from accommodation and paltering with the high call of our conscience as a fatal concession to the adversary and feel again that only by perfect faith, perfect self-sacrifice, perfect courage can we generate that Brahmatej in the nation which will raise up the Kshatriya spirit to protect it. Without this ...
... This is the only true humility and with it come quiet and peace. This is also the surest shield against all hostile attack. Indeed, in the human being it is always the door of pride at which the Adversary knocks, for it is this door which opens to let him enter. Whatever is your personal value or even your individual realisation, the first quality required in yoga is humility . A true ...
... chequered experiences of life—of pleasure and pain—man marches towards the birth of divinity in life. Even world-saviours have to suffer pain in order to help mankind. The reason is that there is an adversary Force which opposes any move towards Light. Escape from the world of pain would not solve the problem. The Light must descend into the Inconscient which is the basis of Ignorance and therefore of... participation in the world's suffering still "he carries the suffering world in his own breast". "A siege, a Page 300 combat is his inner life", because he has to meet "an ancient adversary Force". 'In the fight against the antidivine Force "the weeping of the centuries visits his eyes", "the poison of the world has stained his throat". "He is the victim of his own sacrifice", because... is slain peace is forbidden on earth." Man is, in a way, an instrument of those hostile forces: "forces intangible besiege", "thoughts not our own," "touches from alien realms" come to man. This adversary Force hides from man "the straight immortal path". It twists everything divine and turns it into evil. "It is the origin of our suffering here." "It binds earth to calamity and pain." ...
... and leads to nothing but these darknesses ought to be enough to show you that this imagination about Mother's not smiling as a sign of absence of her grace or love is a device and suggestion of the Adversary. You have to drive away these things and so give some chance for the psychic with its deeper and truer love and surrender to come forward and take up the Adhar as its kingdom. C asks your opinion ...
... Lord Minto, but even the austere and philosophical Mr. Morley has committed himself to government Page 401 by panic. It is for us to take full advantage of the mistakes of our political adversaries. ...
... explaining the Path. [4] You must yourself make the effort, the Master only explains. They who take to meditation and follow the Path are freed from the bond ages of the Adversary. [5] All becomings are transitory. When one sees by the right knowledge, sufferings vanish. Such is the Path of purity. [6] AIl becomings bring ...
... time we immolated a new victim, I felt a pang of regret, as if by that very act we were moving away from our goal. "But what are we to do when we are driven by events and when we are faced with adversaries who will not shrink even from mass slaughter in the hope of overcoming us? But that they can never do. Though we may perish to the last man, we shall not falter in the sacred task that has fallen... so as to conquer on the auspicious day, helped by the organising intelligence, the all-powerful lever which, unlike violence, can never be defeated. "Put no more weapons in the hands of your adversaries, be irreproachable before them, set them an example of courageous patience, of uprightness and justice; then your triumph will be near at hand, for right will be on your side, integral right, in ...
... resistance runs under the law, yet there is no surety that it will continue to be unaccompanied by similar or more serious perils. The making of the laws is at present in the hands of our political adversaries and there is nothing to prevent them from using this power in any way they like, however iniquitous or tyrannical,—nothing except their fear of public reprobation outside and national resistance... unjust coercive order or interference is not only justifiable but, under given circumstances, a duty. Finally, we must be prepared for opposition not only from our natural but from unnatural adversaries,—not only from bureaucrat and Anglo-Indian, but from the more self-seeking and treacherous of our own countrymen. In a rebellion such treachery is of small importance, since in the end it is the ...
... us. If so, then the general attitude will be one of a neutral indifference to everything. But the Gita, which strongly insists on a perfect and absolute samata, goes on to say, "Fight, destroy the adversary, conquer." If there is no kind of general action wanted, no loyalty to Truth as against Falsehood except for one's personal sadhana, no will for the Truth to conquer, then the samata of indifference... stand for either side, to refuse any action of hostility even against assailants; Sri Krishna, who insisted so much on samata, strongly rebuked his attitude and insisted equally on his fighting the adversary. "Have samata," he said, "and seeing clearly the Truth, fight." Therefore to take sides with the Truth and to refuse to concede anything to the Falsehood that attacks, to be unflinchingly loyal and ...
... with patience and endurance, and who all of a sudden has a strong aspiration, well, this one will beat you in spite of your aspiration unless your aspiration is very much superior to that of your adversary. If you have opposite you someone who knows only the technique of the game but has no conscious aspiration, while you are in a fully conscious state, evidently it is you who will defeat him because ...
... and leads to nothing but these darknesses ought to be enough to show you that this imagination about Mother's not smiling as a sign of absence of her grace or love is a device and suggestion of the Adversary. You have to drive away these things and give some chance for the psychic with its deeper and truer love and surrender to come forward and take up the Adhar as its kingdom. 28 July 1934 So ...
... by an act of will and for what purpose? For Sri Aurobindo to do anything without a purpose and ultimate advantage is in the last degree inconceivable. If he gave in at times to what he called the Adversary, that was because, to quote his own words, "retreat" (palâyanam) suited his purpose. One who had mastered the secrets of Life and the Spirit by his tremendous sadhana, who had been acclaimed as... noticed in the early stage could, from the perimeter of his consciousness, slowly, almost craftily, enlarge, envelope and take possession of the whole physical being. He asked himself, "How could this Adversary gain such an unbelievable dominance against the puissant action of Sri Aurobindo's force? He had cured himself once, what happened afterwards? Did he not take any step at all to prevent the course... Mission would fail. "Then" we said, "why have you taken all this trouble?" He answered, smiling, "I have done a bit of nishkama karma." That was his life, both occult and overt. That is why the Adversary was always surprised by his unexpected moves. Divine Diplomat that he was, we have yet to see what was the supreme object of this highest strategy. He could not have been blind to the approach of ...
... being—the surest link. ( Silence ) That’s all? Sweet Mother, does something aspire even in the most nasty people? In the most nasty people?… yes, my child—even in the Asuras, even in the Adversaries, even in the monsters, there is something. There is always a corner, a kind of rift, a sensitive point, which is usually called a weakness. But this actually is the strength of the being, the ...
... win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the Python, Aryan and Dasyu. Aryan adversaries even he has to face in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings of Aryan states whom he would conquer and overpass join themselves to the Dasyus and are leagued against... and Tearers; there are hurters and haters; there are dualisers; there are confiners or censurers. But we are given also Page 24 many specific names. Vritra, the Serpent, is the grand Adversary; for he obstructs with his coils of darkness all possibility of divine existence and divine action. And even when Vritra is slain by the light, fiercer enemies arise out of him. Shushna afflicts us ...
... other members of the family. They would not stop to weigh the pros and cons or the right and justice involved in case of quarrel with outsiders. All will pool their strengths together to defeat the adversary. That is also the case with national or collective egos. International wars are the natural consequences of such attitudes. All these are the aberrations and failings of the vital or life-being of ...
... and vital-material force. The lion is the attribute of the Goddess Durga, the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother. The Death's Head is the symbol of the Asura (the adversary of the gods) vanquished and killed by the Divine Power. Ganesh It is according to the need or else the condition of the consciousness that these figures [ of the Gods ] appear in sadhana. Ganesh ...
... inspire you to say: "Yes, yes, on other occasions it was like that, I admit, I was indeed in the wrong; but this time, I am sure, it is not my fault etc., etc." If you do not deal firmly with your adversary, it will be always there, hiding in the subconscient, lodged there comfortably, coming up any day you are off your guard. I have seen people cherishing the evil in this way for more than thirty-five ...
... are doing each in its own line a great work for the country, but they are working in an isolated fashion, each absorbed in its own struggle to survive, each exposed to attack from the same powerful adversary, yet careless of the other,—a condition of things which gives enormous advantages to the enemy who is already powerful enough to crush them and would have crushed them long ago if there had not been ...
... fish. He hid the truth and called it 'diplomacy'! But the root cause of the Indian government's headache was Babu Arabindo Ghose, an analyzer par excellence. He was "the most dangerous of our adversaries now at large" as the Chief Secretary to the government of Bengal put it. Here was a man who had a backbone, who always spoke out. Arabindo Babu was not just a run-of-the-mill politician, he was a ...
... can take place. For if the ukase is to be passively resisted, the opposition must be offered in concert and ubiquitously. A sporadic resistance will be ineffectual and give the advantage to our adversaries. We again repeat that in our opinion the boldest course is the best. If we thought, as the Anglo-Indian papers affect to think, that the movement was the result of our own efforts, a mere ...
... Srijut Bhupendranath Bose and we are grieved to find that the country has received this honourable and legislative gentleman's proposals with the supreme contempt of neglect. It is natural that our adversaries should exult over this silence and point to it as an evidence of complete demoralisation, and it is natural that those of us who are not in constant touch with the mofussil should also feel the silence ...
... right under the light, and that he or she who comes to do the divine work must take on himself or herself the whole burden of the Opposer. Thus is it near Sri Aurobindo and Mother that the greatest adversaries will be found. That also explains Mother's departure and the ensuing murky situation in Auroville and in the Ashram. For obvious reasons we will not publish Mother's note or the long conversation ...
... The Song of Triumph THE MASTER Solitary, eternal, enter into thy original Splendour! SCENE 5: THE ADVERSARY SHE My spouse, my brother, we have sworn to be eternal enemies. It is our secret. And now we are ready to melt into our ...
... cave of the Panis. Indra strong with the soma-wine and the Angirasas, the Rishis, who are his companions, follow the track. The battle with the adversaries continues for nine Page 4 months but there is no deliverance from the attacks of the adversaries. Ayasya joins the company of the Angirasas, and during the tenth month, Ayasya discovers the seven-headed Thought, becomes universalised, and... Heaven, the path of Truth, ritasyapanthah. 7 In its search it finds that our life is a battle between the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness, between the Gods who are the immortals and adversaries of various names, Vritra, Vala and the Panis and Dasyus and their Kings. To fight successfully, the Yogi is required to seek the help of the powers and beings of light and to build the way of ascent ...
... imagine that they cannot and rejoice over the pleasant expectation of seeing this over Page 1044 energetic and inconveniently independent party being crushed out of existence by the common adversary of all. It is the spirit of Mir Jafar, the politics of Jagat Sheth repeating themselves in their spiritual descendants. That these ignoble, but perfectly human and intelligible motives are behind ...
... inspire you to say: "yes, yes, on other occasions it was like that, I admit, I was indeed in the wrong; but this time, I am sure, it is not my fault etc., etc.". If you do not deal firmly with your adversary, it will be always there, hiding in the subconscient, lodged there comfortably, coming up any day you are off your guard. I have seen people cherishing the evil in this way for more than thirty-five ...
... 8 Search and Seizure The third option was time-consuming. The government now concentrated on finding some indiscretions on the part of its 'dangerous adversary.' Any statement that Sri Aurobindo made was submitted to the closest scrutiny. The Intelligence Bureau, the police, even high government officers were roped in to analyse his speeches and writings ...
... the intrusive alien; it thought of inaugurating a new revolution such as the world had never yet seen, a moral, peaceful revolution, actively developing ourselves but only passively resisting the adversary. But there was another current submerged as yet, but actively working underneath, which tended in another direction,—a sprinkling of men in whom one fiery conviction replaced the cultured broodings ...
... riches. Page 276 के ते अग्ने रिपवे बन्धनासः के पायवः सनिषन्त द्युमन्तः । के धासिमग्ने अनृतस्य पान्ति क आसतो वचसः सन्ति गोपाः ॥४॥ 4) O Fire, who are these that are binders of the Adversary, who are the guardians, the luminous ones that shall possess and conquer? who keep the foundation of the Falsehood, O Fire? who are the guardians of the untrue Word? सखायस्ते विषुणा अग्न एते ...
... terms, certain proper names and special terms found in Sri Aurobindo 's writings. Explanations of philosophical and psychological terms have generally been given in Sri Aurobindo's own words. the Adversary —anti-divine Force that is in revolt against the Divine, against the Truth and Light, and opposed to the yoga; see also Asura . Ananda —bliss, delight, beatitude, spiritual ecstasy; the essential... beyond positive conception. Asura —the strong or mighty one, Titan; a hostile being or force of the vital mental plane, known in traditional Indian legends as the dark Titan or demon; see also Adversary. Asuric —of the nature of the Asura. Atman —Self; Spirit; the original and essential nature of Existence or Being. Augustine, St. —(354-430), a great saint, bishop of Hippo and one of ...
... help, calmly, fearlessly, wisely. On the manner and spirit in which we shall resist and repel outrage and face repression, while not for a moment playing into the Page 398 hands of the adversary, will depend the immediate success or failure of our mission. ...
... responsibilities that their respective qualities must unite in a close and confident solidarity. Is it not time that this hostile attitude of the two sexes facing one another as irreconcilable adversaries should cease? A severe, a painful lesson is being given to the nations. On the ruins piled Page 149 up now, new constructions more beautiful and more harmonious can be erected. It is ...
... height. Politics is concerned with masses of mankind and not with individuals. To ask masses of mankind to act as saints, to rise to the height of divine love and practise it in relation to their adversaries or oppressors, is to ignore human nature. It is to set a premium on injustice and violence by paralysing the hand of the deliverer when raised to strike. The Gita is the best answer to those who ...
... life which is in process of creation. So now when the waters of a people's life are stirred and the formation of a great organic Indian state and nation has begun, the same law holds. All that the adversaries of the movement have done whether they have tried to repress or tried to conciliate, has helped what they sought to destroy and swelled the volume and strength or purified as by fire the forces of ...
... Congress. It is of small importance to us whom these three gentlemen elect as their President. The nomination was indeed a foregone conclusion. Sir Pherozshah Mehta, having got rid of his Nationalist adversaries, now rules the Convention with as absolute a sway as he ruled the Corporation before the European element combined against him and showed that, servile as Bombay respectability might be to the C ...
... as the Mymensingh and Comilla disturbances will have its use if it drives into our minds the truth that in the struggle we have begun we cannot and ought not to expect protection from our natural adversaries. It is perfectly true that one of the main preoccupations of the executive mind has been the maintenance of order and quiet in the country, because a certain kind of tranquillity was essential to ...
... or attitudes one can take. The attitude of isolation, which can't be total unless you withdraw, and which is only very relatively effective. The attitude of attack: a power fighting and repulsing adversaries (that has a big drawback which is that if you use forces on the same plane, they are ineffective, Page 76 or very relatively effective; and if it's supreme forces, then... the effect ...
... would have been heroic but foolish, an outburst of patriotic sentiment but not an act of patriotic wisdom. To allow the voice of Nationalism to be silenced would be to play into the hands of the adversary to whom we owe no duty. The gospel of National ism has to be preached with unflinching candour, but Nationalist organs will be perfectly within their rights if they protect their writers so long as ...
... countries young men are freely permitted to take part in politics and their want of interest in the chief national activity would be considered a mark of degeneration. It is not the arguments of adversaries but their own personal and class interests which actuate those among us who at the bidding of Anglo-Indians official or unofficial deter our young men from attending public meetings or mixing in ...
... victory is certain and if He wheels back, it is only to leave ground which is no longer advantageous to Him and shift the conflict to terrain fixed beforehand for the victory. Often He forces His adversaries to drive Him from ground conquered and occupied in order that they may exhaust their strength on a position never meant to be permanently held and by their very triumph prepare a more decisive overthrow ...
... such an atmosphere? How can there be the right reception? Naturally it reacts on the sadhak, creates any amount of misconception, wrong feelings etc.—creates an open door for the suggestions of the Adversary who delights in falsehood and administers plenty of it to the minds of the sadhaks. This apart from the fact that many throw all sorts of undesirable things on the Mother through the Pranam. The whole ...
... suggestions — this is the most effective weapon of defence available to the sadhaka against these dark forces. For, if he does not take their bait and show any affinity to their prompting, these adversary beings will not be able to disturb his sadhana, however virulent may be their assault or ambush. And for being able to reject always the lure or the threat of these hostiles, the sadhaka must... their noxious fumes vitiating our specious outer life and consciousness. About these grim attacks coming from below and behind, Sri Aurobindo writes in Savitri: "The dread visages of the adversary Kings. The dreadful powers held down within his [man's] depths Become his masters or his ministers; Enormous they invade his bodily house, Can act in his acts, infest his thought ...
... rough dynamic vitality, and continually renounced the European rationalist tradition. Generations of philosophers, historians, sociologists and psychologists had a hand in bringing the ‘mind as the adversary of the soul’ [this is the title of an influential book by Ludwig Klages] into disrepute and replacing it by intuition, blood, instinct, to which it gave a status that inevitably raised stupidity to ...
... the origin of death : The unsophisticated man has sought to assure himself through various mythical accounts that, after all, from the beginning death was not pre-decreed for him. This sombre Adversary could force his advent in the kingdom of the living simply because of some act of disobedience on the part of man to some Divine Command (e.g., to abstain from the fruit of a certain tree, in the ...
... right nail on the head and that at the first blow. Roman too was his principle of advancing to a great object by solid and consecutive gradations. To begin by accustoming the burgess as well as his adversaries to his own corporate reality, to proceed by a definitive statement of his case to the Vice-regal Government, and for a final throw to make a vehement and powerful appeal to the English Parliament ...
... by this new Holy Alliance. Even this formidable conjunction does not alarm us. At any rate Bibhishan has gone out of Lanka, and Bibhishans are always more dangerous there than in the camp of the adversary. OTHER WRITINGS BY SRI AUROBINDO IN THIS ISSUE Yoga and Hypnotism Two Pictures Page 121 ...
... over the great earthly transformations, under one form or another, one name or another, 3 has plunged in the depths of the Night of Death in order to score a radical victory over this formidable Adversary of life; 1 The Mother, Prayers and Meditations (Pondicherry, 1954), p. 91. (Italics ours). 2 The Mother on Sri Aurobindo, p. 15. 3 Ibid., p. 7. Page 414 ...
... who's behind Khrushchev's downfall. ( Mother looks at the photo ) He is only an instrument. I mean he isn't an Asuric incarnation. But a strong will. He isn't a being who acts consciously for the Adversary: he thinks he is doing the right thing. He's a "theoretician." Yes. Oh, he may have violent passions and reactions, and ambitions too, but he isn't one of those beings who know they are ...
... greater consciousness and a more or less complete union with the One and Divine or full emergence of the individual soul in the Absolute. The Vedic idea of the battle between gods and their adversaries, Vritra, Panis, and Dasyus is retained m the Purano-Tantric system, although names are different and the stories and legends of their battles as also their victories are varied and described ...
... and relentless" measures employed by the Government against the Nationalist party and the Boycott movement and by the Bombay Government's use of the new repressive legislation to crush a personal adversary in Mr. Gokhale's interests. The Moderate leader has with a belated adroitness used the disqualification of the Nationalist, Mr. N. C. Kelkar, to rehabilitate himself, if that be possible, by championing ...
... being—the surest link. ( Silence ) That's all? Sweet Mother, does something aspire even in the most nasty people? In the most nasty people?... yes, my child—even in the Asuras, even in the Adversaries, even in the monsters, there is something. There is always a corner, a kind of rift, a sensitive point, which is usually called a weakness. But this actually is the strength of the being, the ...
... depends a lot on the attitude you take and on the mental construction you have, naturally. Sri Aurobindo insisted rather on Oneness: he used to say that even what we consider to be the worst adversaries are still a form of the Supreme, which, deliberately or not, consciously or not, helps in the general transformation. This seems to me vaster, deeper, more comprehensive. And I tried to base action ...
... this experience even just recently. All that comes to me from people who have dedicated their lives to "spiritual life," people who do a yoga in the traditional way, who are very solemn, who see adversaries everywhere, obstacles everywhere, taboos everywhere, prohibitions everywhere, oh, how they complicate life... and how far they are from the Divine! I saw this the other day with someone you know ...
... pernicious delusion that a foreign and adverse interest can be trusted to develop us to its own detriment, and entirely to do away with the foolish and ignoble hankering after help from our natural adversaries. Our attitude to bureaucratic concessions is that of Laocoon: "We fear the Greeks even when they bring us gifts." Our policy is self-development and defensive resistance. But we would extend the ...
... mark of greatness. (52) Moreover it is not becoming of you to give way to despair on my account, 0 sinless one! Redeem your pledge by killing Rāvana today. (53) Fallen a victim to your shafts, your adversary cannot escape alive any more than an elephant fallen in the clutch of a roaring lion possessing sharp teeth. (54) I for my part wish to see this evil minded fellow die quickly before Page 202... my will? (4) By you, 0 unworthy soul, has my glory, which was Page 211 earned through a long period, my valour, dignity and (peoples') faith (in my bravery) too been wiped out. (5) My adversary, whose prowess is widely known, and who deserved to be gratified through feats of valour, stood looking on, while you made me, who was covetous of fighting, a coward! (6) In case you do not through... is pushed back by a tide. (14) I took note of the exhaustion occasioned by your strenuous fighting. Indeed there was no exhibition of valour on your part nor did I notice any superiority to your adversary in you. (15) The steeds of my chariot too, which had been exhausted by drawing the chariot and broken down and, being worn out under the rays of the sun, felt miserable like cows lashed by a downpour ...
... kept watch and so enemies had got inside. Sujata entered the house and found a room in which Sri Aurobindo was, and Sri Aurobindo's foot had been injured—he was groaning. He had been hurt by the adversaries that had been allowed to enter the house. Seeing Sri Aurobindo injured, she ran off to fetch you. Maybe it's quite simply the image of what happened on February 11? The foot means something ...
... are sincere and true, from the worst always comes the best. Every grain that is sown in the earth produces a thousand. Every wing-beat of sorrow can be a soaring towards glory. And when the adversary pursues man relentlessly, everything he does to destroy him only makes him greater. Hear the story of the worlds, look: the great enemy seems to triumph. He casts the beings of light into the night ...
... who makes the offering it does not go to the Divine: it goes to the greater or smaller demon to whom he turns. But through everything, through the wood of the idol or even the ill-will of the vital adversary, ultimately, all returns to the Divine, since all comes from Him. Only, the one who has made the offering or the sacrifice receives but in proportion to his own consciousness Page 81 and ...
... honestly, if it is followed to the very end, leads you to despair. It leads you to death. You have nothing which can help you, because you have no material strength at present which the adversary cannot crush, and the adversary will certainly not be so foolish as to help you, or to allow you to develop the necessary strength unmolested. What then is the conclusion? The only conclusion is that there is nothing ...
... win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the Python, Aryan and Dasyu. Aryan adversaries even he has to face in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings of Aryan states he would conquer and overpass join themselves to the Dasyus and are leagued against... and Devourers, Wolves and Tearers; there are hurters and haters; there are dualisers; there are confiners or censurers. But we are given also many specific names. Vritra, the Serpent, is the grand Adversary; for he obstructs with his coils of darkness all possibility of divine existence and divine action. And even when Vritra is slain by the light, fiercer enemies arise out of him. Shushna afflicts us ...
... that are battling for the domination of the earth. The Ashram is for Her the chosen field where the ancient combat between the army of Light and the Hosts of Darkness shall at last be decided. The Adversary has all the means of material power, wealth and numbers at his disposal. She has only one means which is at once Her weapon and Her armour: LOVE. With sheer Love, She has come into this ...
... plunged into the political vortex and my then obscure personality was quite unknown to the astrologer, predicted as an inevitable certitude of the future a political struggle with powerful non-Indian adversaries during which for a time even my life would fall under the shadow of danger. The other, given at the time Page 105 of my first prosecution in the Bande Mataram case, predicted three ...
... disquisition that they encounter each other. The question one puts to another is not "What thinkest thou of this?" but "What dost thou know?" and he whose knowledge proves to be deeper than his adversary's, is the conqueror in the discussion. Nor has this superior knowledge been arrived at by a more just or a more brilliant speculation, but by deeper sight, by a more powerful concentration. He has... spoken to the hearer & he sees, indirectly, through the medium of the word what the seer has seen by the self-vision, directly; to the hearer, Veda is Sruti. Yajnavalkya speaks his knowledge, his adversaries do not dispute it; they, too, see, being themselves habituated to these supreme processes, and the thing seen they silently & without debate acknowledge. If they are to dispute, since dispute is... positive claim; where they are wrong, where Shankara himself goes so hopelessly astray, is in founding on the same authority not only their own ultimate justification, but the confutation of their adversaries. The Veda is not logical, does not really confute anything; its method is experiential, intuitional; its principle is to receive all experiences, all perceptions of truth about the Brahman, and either ...
... plunged into the political vortex and my then obscure personality was quite unknown to the astrologer, predicted as an inevitable certitude of the future a political struggle with powerful non-Indian adversaries during which for a time even my life would fall under the shadow of danger. The other, given at the time of my first prosecution in the Bande Mataram case, predicted three successive criminal trials ...
... India which is knocked down at pleasure through a long and exuberant dance of misstatement and exaggeration in the hope of convincing an ignorant audience that the performer has prostrated a living adversary. Sanity, justice, measure are things altogether at a discount: a show-off of the appearance of staggering and irresistible blows is the object held in view, and for that anything comes in handy,—the ...
... the world who is equal to me?” तदा तमिस्रामपसारयन्तं रक्तप्रकाशं दिवि बालसूर्यम्। शरोपमैर्ध्नन्तमिवांशुभिस्तं प्रीतो ददर्शाहमुदग्ररश्मिम् ॥४८॥ Then, repelling the darkness and piercing the adversary with beams like arrows, I saw with a thrill of gladness a rising sun that shed a ruddy glow in the heavens, casting its rays aloft. समाकुलं भाविभिरास्यवर्यैर्ब्रह्माणमद्राक्षमथाभ्ररूपम्। सहस्रमक्षीणि... सिन्धोस्तटेषूपलकर्कशेषु देवीमपश्यं युधि शेषितारीन्। निःशेषयन्तीमदयां सकोपां शिवां त्रिशूलेन शिवस्य शत्रून् ॥६६॥ On the rocky sea-beaches I have seen the Goddess annihilating in battle her remaining adversaries. Merciless, wrathful and beneficent, she cuts down with her trident the ene-mies of Shiva, the beneficent Lord. खुरैः सुनिष्पिष्टमिदं सुरभ्या घोरं किमेवापि सुकृष्णवर्णम्। मांसस्य पिण्डं ह्यवनौ ...
... us. If so, then the general attitude will be of a neutral indifference to everything. But the Gita, which strongly insists on a perfect and absolute samata, goes on to say, "Fight, destroy the adversary, conquer." If there is no kind of general action wanted, no loyalty to Truth as against Falsehood except for one's personal sadhana, no will for the Truth to conquer, then the samata of indifference... stand for either side, to refuse any action of hostility even against assailants; Sri Krishna, who insisted so much on samata, strongly rebuked his attitude and insisted equally on his fighting the adversary. "Have samata," he said, "and seeing clearly the Truth, fight." Therefore to take sides with the Truth and to refuse to concede Page 206 anything to the Falsehood that attacks ...
... Mother) You should make it a rule never to listen to this voice or accept the suggestions that come with it. It is clear from where it comes; it is a voice of untruth, the voice of the adversary which comes to almost everybody who follows the way of Yoga suggesting doubt and denial and incapacity and defeat. You must meet it always as you did this time. You should also reject such suggestions ...
... and its success. He would cite the example of Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata story; Sri Krishna had no intention of being caught by Jarasandha and he fled to Dwarka in order to make ready for the adversary. That is why Sri Aurobindo did not consider a retreat to be a bad thing always. "We live to fight another day": this should be the motto of the soldier. That is why he left standing instructions ...
... are Eaters and Devourers, Wolves and Tearers; there are hurters and haters; there are dualisers; there are confiners or censurers." Among the Sons of Darkness is Vritra the Python, the grand Adversary, "for he obstructs with his coils of darkness all possibility of divine existence and divine action." Vritra the Besieger prevents the sevenfold Waters of Truth from flowing down upon the earth-c ...
... the highest circles examined the possibility of doing away once and for all with ‘the famous Aurobindo.’ The First Secretary of the Bengal government described him as ‘the most dangerous of our adversaries now at large.’ The same epithet was used by the Lieutenant-Governors of Bengal and Eastern Bengal and Assam, and afterwards by the Viceroy of India, who called him ‘the most dangerous man we have ...
... with divine mysteries which guide us in the right direction, not only taste at all hours a hidden paradise - thus shedding both light and sweetness: they also keep at bay with this holy heat the adversary Wolf and temper the will in us to bear the strokes of fate or else cut through opposing circumstances. In some people, one quality or another out of the basic three predominates but I see in you on ...
... an enemy who wants to kill you, and you strike him terrible blows, and the blows never hit; you exert all your force, all your energy, and you do not Page 194 succeed in touching your adversary. He is there in front of you, he threatens you, he is going to strangle you and you gather all your strength, you try to strike, but nothing touches him. When the struggle is like that, hand to hand ...
... The Lord makes use of everything, and He has no fear. He makes use of everything. It's interesting, very interesting. How He has used the gods, how He uses everything, how He has used the Adversaries ... everything.... It's all ways of being, and everything leads ... where we must go. Page 332 ...
... these wrongly assumed premises and pre-suppositions, we feel like advising a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga, who wants to build up his spiritual life, that against all negative whisperings of the adversary forces and the doubting Thomases, he should believe with all his heart and mind that there is indeed such a thing called divine Grace and that he must learn at every step to invoke this Grace and... his inner vision thus preventing him from seeing the truth. These are times of tests for the sadhaka and he must try with all his strength not to listen to the misleading voices of the Adversary but, instead, keep his faith firm that however dark is the present night, however grievous his present trouble, the divine Grace is there in action and is surely leading him to light and deliverance ...
... each other, each stood eager to take advantage of his adversary's lapse. And both were greatly delighted and both looked like infuriate elephants of prodigious size. And various were the modes of attack and defence that they exhibited with their clenched fists. And each dashed against the Page 275 other and flung his adversary to a distance. And each cast the other down and pressed ...
... is the central figure being often represented in that image; the Pandavas who fight for the establishment of the kingdom of the Dharma, are the sons of the Gods, their powers in human form, their adversaries are incarnations of the Titanic powers, they are Asuras. This outer struggle too the Avatar comes to aid, directly or indirectly, to destroy the reign of the Asuras, the evil-doers, and in them depress ...
... Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the divine Grace to transform you." (lbid., pp.2-3) We recall here the words uttered by Bellecius in his Solid Vir-tue: "Self-love is the rival, adversary and sworn enemy of the love of the Divine. Divine love cannot enter our heart unless self-love is banished thence." But the question of questions is: "How to do it". Here is Sri Aurobindo' ...
... The ego seems to be throwing up strong suggestions against the manifested personality of the Mother. That can hardly be the ego. Such suggestions also come from the Adversary. I am aware that I did not guard myself sufficiently against inertia. But was I really so careless about the ego? Page 85 You left it to be dealt with ...
... and its success. He would cite the example of Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata story; Sri Krishna had no intention of being caught by Jarasandha and he fled to Dwarka in order to make ready for the adversary. That is why Sri Aurobindo did not consider a retreat to be a bad thing always. "We live to fight another day": this should be the motto of the soldier. That is why he left standing instructions with ...
... from all desire and attachment, for if you wish to escape death, you must not be bound by anything that will perish. After the feelings come the sensations. Here the fight is pitiless and the adversaries formidable. They can sense the slightest weakness and strike where you are defenceless. The victories you win are only fleeting and the same battles are repeated indefinitely. The enemy whom you ...
... white, and nothing sullies its white radiance. Till that is done, .. .till the evil is slain in its own home And Light invades the world's inconscient base And perished has the adversary Force, He still must labour on, his work half done. 243 The world-redeemer, the divine soul, stands steadfast in this tremendous task, and is neither tired nor daunted by failures and ...
... by their achievement of works when thou illuminest the body with thy light. Thou becomest a son to the man who worships thee; thou art his blissful friend and guardest him from the violence of the adversary. त्वमग्न ऋभुराके नमस्तस्त्वं वाजस्य क्षुमतो राय ईशिषे । त्वं वि भास्यनु दक्षि दावने त्वं विशिक्षुरसि यज्ञमातनिः ॥१०॥ 10) O Fire, thou art the craftsman Ribhu, near to us and to be worshipped... Bharati, voice of the offering, and thou growest by the word. Thou art Ila of the hundred Page 33 winters wise to discern; O Master of the Treasure, thou art Saraswati who slays the python adversary. त्वमग्ने सुभृत उत्तमं वयस्तव स्पार्हे वर्ण आ संदृशि श्रियः । त्वं वाजः प्रतरणो बृहन्नसि त्वं रयिर्बहुलो विश्वतस्पृथुः ॥१२॥ 12) O Fire, when thou art well borne by us thou becomest the ...
... Night. 4 Savitri survives the Dread. Not only that. Like an undaunted warrior unmindful of hazards of the battle yet as if certain of his victory, she steps into the very camp of the harsh Adversary. She is in a place where dwells for ever only endless Night. Yama looks at her with a stem and fearsome gaze and forbids her to accompany them any farther; for, there even Time must die. Savitri tells... dark granite rock guarded by Death, the Subconscient that obstructs the path of the high Advent. Her meditation must prepare itself to negotiate with it and dissolve it. She is face to face with an Adversary who carries the burden of all history in his person and who is now standing in her way. Savitri has actually touched the core of the deep ancient Agony that resides in the heart of the Earth in her... for the aspirant's Sacrifice. Presently the invocation is to the fire who is watching everything and who shall stand with Savitri at the moment of her dangerous rendezvous with the dark formidable Adversary. Armed with that might she shall chase him and follow him through the "enchanted dimness". "Agni is a mighty benefactor of his worshippers. With a thousand eyes he watches over the man who ...
... against 'the wolves' whose savage fury increases the nearer one draws to their den— Agni is a warrior. Agni grows through his difficulties, his flame burns more brilliantly with each blow from the Adversary; for, as the Rishis said, 'Night and Day both suckled the divine Child'; they even said that Night and Day are the 'two sisters, Immortal, with a common lover [the sun]... common they, though different ...
... that if such a God existed, I detested him. "Around twenty-five, I found the inner God, and at the same time I learned that the God described by most Western religions was none other than the Great Adversary. "When I came to India... Oh, here we should say how long afterwards.... I was twenty-five, and I was born in 18... 78. It was in 1903. And I came to India in 1914. We should specify ...
... strait-jacket forms fabricated by our old habits and preconceived notions. We talk even today of British Imperialism, of the Shylock nature of the white coloniser and exploiter – A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch, Uncapable of pity, void and empty From a1!J dram of mercy. We do not doubt that it is the deliberate policy of these 'vampires' to keep us Indians down ...
... forms fabricated by our old habits and preconceived notions. We talk even today of British Imperialism, of the Shylock nature of the white coloniser and exploiter— A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch Uncapable of pity, void and empty From any dram of mercy. We do not doubt that it is the deliberate policy of these Vampires' to keep us Indians ...
... twenty Page 70 times. It must have provided to the soul parted from the body a new body of subtle vibrations building, as it were, an Aurobindonian embrace shielding it from whatever adversary would come out of the unknown. Then nothing would obstruct it from reaching its place of divine repose before the next embodied entry into life's battle on earth. I have heard of Vipasana ...
... it is absolutely impossible to realize the ideal of a victory over death. In fact, even the slightest attachment on one side and a trace of fear on the other will render man an easy prey to the Adversary, In this connection we may recall the categorical statement of Sri Aurobindo: "As for immortality, it cannot come if there is attachment to the body, for it is only by living in the immortal ...
... thou must, learn from thy adversary; for even from a fool, if thou listen not with the ear and the reasoning mind but the soul's light, thou canst gather much wisdom. 299) Turn all things to honey; this is the law of divine living. 300) Private dispute should always be avoided; but shrink not from the public battle; yet even there appreciate the strength of thy adversary. 301) When thou hearest ...
... but not as a whole at a stroke. But in fact, as I said, these crises are out of all proportion to their cause in the nature. One must therefore not be discouraged, but see the exaggeration in the adversary's successful negation as well as the exaggeration in our own idea of a complete and definitive victory already there. 24 August 1936 Depression and Despair Fits of despair and darkness are ...
... and break his leg. It was a shocking event.’ 9 Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were probably the only ones who could destroy a hostile being by dissolving it into its Origin. The reason why the Adversary had run the risk of an attack like this was that in 1938 Sri Aurobindo had reached a point in his yoga where the general manifestation 91 of the Supramental, the main objective of his effort, had ...
... is his subject and Karma the power of the theme, and he attempts to create a drama of the human will throwing itself on life, the will egoistic and Asuric, conquering only to succumb to the great adversary Death or breaking itself against the forces its violence has brought into hostile play. This is certainly a high and fit subject for tragic creation and his boldly coloured and strongly cut style ...
... do thou become the occasion only, O Savyasachin. Slay, by me who are slain, Drona, Bhishma, Jayadratha, Karna and other heroic fighters; be not pained and troubled. Fight, thou shalt conquer the adversary in the battle." The fruit of the great and terrible work is promised and prophesied, not as a fruit hungered for by the individual,—for to that there is to be no attachment,—but as the result of the ...
... critical hostile voice in everybody's nature, questioning, reasoning, denying the experience itself, suggesting doubt of oneself and doubt of the Divine. One has to recognise it as the voice of the Adversary trying to prevent the progress and refuse credence to it altogether. Page 769 It is not a fact that the Rajayogin or others are not attacked by environmental forces. Whether moksha ...
... very powerful beings who, if they resolve to be converted, can do it; and then they become some of the most wonderful instruments for the divine work. The very ones who were some of the greatest adversaries. I am looking for someone who told me that she would ask me a question. It is Sujat. Where is she perched? At the end of the world! I shall never be able to hear her. What did you want to ask ...
... allows things to be as they are, if It wants things as they are, or else... the Grace is powerless. That―I warn you to put you on your guard against the trap―that is the great argument of the Adversary. He uses it to cloud the mind and raise up revolt; but still, it is well thought out as a trap. Then come those who say, "It is because you are in the Ignorance that you see like that; change your ...
... complete when the pain of them has passed, but often enough present even while it is there and actually fed by the pain. Defeat keeps for him the joy and pride of indomitable resistance to a superior adversary, or, if he is of a baser kind, the passions of hatred and revenge which also have their darker and crueller pleasures. So it is with the pleasure of the soul in the normal play of our life. The ...
... critical hostile voice in everybody's nature, questioning, reasoning, denying the experience itself, suggesting doubt of oneself and doubt of the Divine. One has to recognise it as the voice of the Adversary trying to prevent the progress and refuse credence to it altogether." Sri Aurobindo Page 315 It interested me greatly, because I noticed it was in the PHYSICAL consciousness, and ...
... divine Will, then these fighting capacities are turned against the anti-divine forces and against all the darkness which prevents their transformation. And they are all-powerful and can conquer the adversaries. The anti-divine forces are in the vital world; from there, naturally, they have spread out into the physical, but their true seat is in the vital world, and it is the converted vital force which ...
... ¹ A smooth, clean pathway. XVI The soul's cry, like the roar of a dark cloud, fell upon the triple¹ altars: The terrible Adversary² heard it and fled with all his cohort. The Conscient Being like a mad elephant rushed out And in his thirst began churning the high heavens.³ ... he dives into the heavenly Ganga.6 Mahinda says, "Yes, I entered here and lost sight of all else." NOTES 1. triple – mind, life, body. 2. Adversary – Maya. 3. heavens – the mind – churning in order to go through. 4. Bhutas; elements or indriyas (senses). 5. Sun of the Truth-Consciousness. 6. Ganga = Supreme ...
... the Asura, Puloman; Yayati, ally of the Gods, took to himself a Daitya maiden Surmishtha, child of imperial Vrishopurvan (for the Asuras or Daityas, on the [terrestrial] 3 plane, signified the adversaries of Page 135 Aryan civilisation), and Bhrigou's wife, Puloma, was of the Titan blood. Chief of the Gods were Indra, King and Thunderer, who came down when men sacrificed and drank the ...
... Page 296 down to us won by breaking the fingers of their opponents; another struck so ferociously with straight extended fingers and strong sharp nails that he pierced the flesh of his adversary and dragged out his bowels. Milo of Crotona was a more amiable pugilist. He had developed his strength, we are told, by carrying a calf every day of its life until it was a full-grown bull. People ...
... fight against the "wolves," whose fury increases the nearer one draws to the lair—Agni is a warrior. Agni grows through difficulties, his flame burning more brilliantly with each blow from the Adversary. But did not the Rishis say, "Night and Day both suckle the divine Child" (I.95.1)? They even called Night and Day "two sisters, immortal, with a common lover [the sun]... common they, though different ...
... fighting on horseback, on the elephant, on the car and on foot. He taught him how to fight with clubs, the sword, the lance, the spear and the dart, and how to defend himself against great numbers of adversaries. As for the other pupils, Duryodhana and Bhima specialized in the art of fighting with clubs, Nakula and Sahadeva in handling the sword, Yuddhishthira as a "car-warrior", while Ashwatthama, Drona's ...
... they should both suffer the dangerous attentions of the Flu epidemic; but while Mrinalini succumbed, Mirra managed by sheer force of her occult resourcefulness to throw back and immobilise the adversary. As narrated earlier, the epidemic itself was presently to subside in Japan. There was, then, the attempt by Lokamanya Tilak and Joseph Baptista to get to get Sri Aurobindo back to public life ...
... 10 – or, finally, in the vision which Michael gives Adam of lost humanity at last reaching home with the help of "Joshua whom the Gentiles Jesus call" and who shall quell The adversary Serpent, and bring back Through the world's wilderness long-wandered Man Safe to eternal Paradise of rest. 11 The proof, that Proserpin and Eve were fused in Milton's imagination ...
... end not worth living, not worth our assent to it and persistence in its motives. But this dogma was not universally accepted, nor admitted without a struggle; Shankara was even denounced by his adversaries as a masked Buddhist. The later Indian mind has been powerfully impressed by his idea of Maya; but popular thought and sentiment was never wholly shaped by it. The religions of devotion which see ...
... destroy, and it carried India to the beginning of a complete victory. Page 71 It must be remembered that the climate under which the message of the Bande Mataram had to combat with its adversary forces was entirely unfavourable. The British Government had detected in Sri Aurobindo "the most dangerous man" and had perceived the rising tide of nationalist movement with utmost severity and ...
... of 1971. Page 282 civil disobedience and 'Quit India' movements of the early twenties, thirties and forties. But although Sri Aurobindo hoped that in India, And with an adversary like the British bureaucracy (a milder brand compared to the German or Russian), passive Resistance itself - if organised intensively and on a national scale - might be able to win the freedoms... that they cannot and Page 295 rejoice over the pleasant expectation of seeing this over-energetic and inconveniently independent party being crushed out of existence by the common adversary of all. It is the spirit of Mir Jafar, the politics of Jagat Sheth repeating themselves in their spiritual descendants. Answering Gokhale's ingenuous plea that the word "national" in the ...
... contact with the outside world renewing some possibilities of the old Adam in you. When there is some lowering or diminution of the consciousness or some impairing of it at one place or another, the Adversary—or the Censor—who is always on the watch presses with all his might wherever there is a weak point lying covered from your own view, and suddenly a wrong movement leaps up with unexpected force. Become ...
... India which is knocked down at pleasure through a long and exuberant dance of misstatement and exaggeration in the hope of convincing an ignorant audience that the performer has prostrated a living adversary. Sanity, justice, measure are things altogether at a discount: a show-off of the appearance of staggering and irresistible blows is the object held in view, and for that anything comes in handy, - ...
... discrimination between big desires and small desires, noble desires and ignoble desires, spiritual desires and worldly desires. In that way he will surely fall into the dangerous trap laid by the Adversary. Desires are desires, equally detrimental to the spiritual well-being of the sadhaka. Aspiration he must have ardent and ceaseless; but desires which are the unholy progeny of the principle of Ego ...
... and leads to nothing but these darknesses ought to be enough to show you that this imagination about Mother’s not smiling as a sign of absence of her grace or love is a device and suggestion of the Adversary.’ 53 Ashram life was very strict in the beginning, but the Mother knew human nature well enough to see to it that it had also its relaxed, more colourful moments. She even played games with... tail can pass, the rest will follow.’ 80 It was a gigantic step forward, and everything Sri Aurobindo wrote on the subject leads us to suppose that he had the goal of the yoga in sight. But the Adversary was not to be underestimated. One has to look back at the contemporary circumstances in Pondicherry to realize the extent of the Mother’s effort in building up the Ashram. She was behind every ...
... the universal manifestation where the One becomes the many – and that the consequences of their action are always fragmentary and often result in clashes among themselves and with their titanic adversaries. This is what the greatest part of all mythologies in the world is about. Having explained this, Sri Aurobindo warns against another possible misunderstanding. “A mental control can only be a... unseen Is round us, forces intangible besiege, Touches from alien realms, thoughts not our own Overtake us and compel the erring heart; Our lives are caught in an ambiguous net. An adversary Force was born of old: Invader of the life of mortal man, It hides from him the straight immortal path. 46 Our second marginal note is about the children. From 1967 onwards the Mother ...
... but Vritra is a demon who covers and holds back the Light and the waters and the Vritras are his forces fulfilling that function. The Dasyus, robbers or destroyers, are the powers of darkness, adversaries of the seekers of Light and the Truth. Always there are indications that lead us from the outward and exoteric to an inner and esoteric sense. In connection with the symbol of the Sun a notable ...
... So they went on, Sri Aurobindo and Nirodbaran, with their daily literary duels, Sri Aurobindo often encouraging and allowing himself to be attacked on all fronts but ultimately throwing the puny adversary down with a benign laughter. But the disciple would shake off the dust, get prepared for another tussle and "though vanquished, would argue still." 10 NB writes in this connection: "Friends ...
... as to conquer on the auspicious day, helped by the organising intelligence, the all-powerful lever which, unlike violence, can never be defeated. Put no more weapons in the hands of your adversaries, be irreproachable before them, set them an example of courageous patience, of uprightness and justice; then your triumph will be near at hand, for right will be on your side, integral right, in ...
... indeed settle the issue. The rest is logomachy of smaller souls. Private dispute should always be avoided; but shrink not from public battle; yet even there appreciate the strength of thy adversary. ~ Sri Aurobindo Amal Kiran about Savitri : If this poem becomes a part of your life then it will make you part of the Poet. An insight from Narendra Gehlaut I found the possible ...
... trilobite's carapace, and the poor “thread” has been so debased by antiquated mysticisms that we dare not even tap our own sources! And so we have swung to a rationalism as bigoted as its religious adversary – “I think, therefore I am” or some other height of philosophical and anthropological stupidity: I swim, therefore I am; I crawl, therefore I am; I climb trees, therefore Page 38 I am.... us, followed by all that is unknown – grating, venomous, macabre – in our evolutionary catacombs. It is a daring, arduous venture – and back breaking, really as if we had unleashed millennial adversaries. Everything says NO. And that “no” is not particularly “outside,” it is under our own skin along with all the imprints we bear in our animal physiology. It took the courage of Sri Aurobindo and Mother ...
... if it is followed to the very end, leads you to despair. It leads you to death. You have nothing which can help you, because you have no material strength at present which the adversary cannot crush and the adversary will certainly not be so foolish as to help you, or to allow you to Page 277 develop the necessary strength unmolested. ...The only conclusion is that there is nothing ...
... Sri Aurobindo had covered an enormous distance on the path despite all possible resistance of the hostile forces, and that a decisive achievement could be expected. But then came November 1938. The adversary was never to be underestimated. The Correspondence Nirodbaran’s 1,200 printed pages of correspondence are only a small part of the letters Sri Aurobindo was penning in those years, ten hours ...
... there were still enormous gaps in the fossil record. “During the 1850s, orang-utans, chimpanzees and gorillas were beginning to emerge from their jungle obscurity, and Richard Owen [one of Darwin’s adversaries] dissected their bodies and studied their skeletons.” 38 The following paragraph from a science magazine dated March 1859 gives a glimpse of the situation in Darwin’s days: “In Africa there ...
... In the Puranas and Tantras also life is conceived as a struggle and battle between Devas and Asuras, Devas and Rakshasas, armies of Gods and Goddesses and those of Asuric, Rakshasic and Paishacik adversaries. The Vedic goal of achieving immortality recurs also in the Puranas and Tantras, where we have symbolic story of the search after the nectar of immortality. The Vedic idea of the divinity in ...
... rather awfully since the day I saw this huge rock detaching itself — it is grating in me, in you, in Kireet and everywhere. But perhaps it is a good sign, it means that the Adversary is not pleased (we all have our little adversary's corner ... to make progress). On the positive side too, the Governor of Pondicherry, that rascal, has been replaced a few days ago, and two or three days Page 165 ... each one his responsibility" — no. Responsibility is a certain inner presence , awake enough to be drawn precisely to where there is a crack and to plug the thousand little pitfalls that the Adversary is sure to create everywhere and at every level. It is not enough to "give the packet" of films to Mr. Anceau: there is a certain way of being with these films and a certain kind of will which... makes things move and warns you. It is not a question of feeling your own incapacity and your lack of this or that, it is simply a question of vigilance and consciousness — we are surrounded by adversaries who never miss an occasion. If you have, present in you, the small spark of Mother, these things must be annulled and dissolved automatically. (...) All those around you should understand ...
... pain in life and the pain that has to be undergone by the world-redeemers. His words echo the passage just quoted. Hard is the world-redeemer's heavy task; The world itself becomes his adversary, His enemies are the beings he came to save. Those he came to save are his antagonists: This world is in love with its own ignorance, Its darkness turns away from the saviour light ...
... to the Spirit in all she takes up the issue. To make the anguished body a receptacle of heavenly joy has been her ancient mission. She recalls it and yogically prepares herself to confront the Adversary. This shall be on the day of Satyavan's death. I: 2 The Issue Satyavan awaits in the forest of life the arrival of Savitri. His waiting for her is, in the cosmic working, the waiting ...
... Tantras also life is conceived as a struggle and battle between Devas and Asuras, Devas and Rakshasas' between the armies of Gods and God- desses and the armies of Asuric, Rakshasic and Paishachik adversaries. The vedic goal of achieving immortality recurs also in the Puranas and Tantras, where we have symbolic story of the search after the nectar. The Vedic idea of the divinity in man was popularised ...
... the battle of feelings that bind one to home, relations, friends, and what is to be given up is the attachment to these things; 3) the battle of sensations - "the fight is pitiless and the adversaries formidable"; 4) and the most deadly battle of all, fought in the body "without respite or truce", in which the force of transformation is pitted against the force of disintegration. ...
... path, there is no question of personal incapacity, since our help and protection are always there. Indeed, you must open yourself to this help and protection and learn to use them to conquer the adversary who is trying to draw you towards the lower animal consciousness. Love from your mother who never leaves you. 15 May 1938 My sweet Mother, These last few days I felt that I was going ...
... slain, do thou become the occasion only, O Savyasācin, slay by Me who are slain, Drona, Bhishma, Jayadratha, Karna and other heroic fighters; be not pained and troubled. Fight, thou shalt conquer the adversary in the battle." 108 Arjuna cried out: "Rightly and in good place, O Krishna, does the world rejoice and take pleasure in Thy name, the rakshasas are fleeing from Thee in terror to all the quarters ...
... Indra and Vayu, come to the perfected offering of the presser of the Wine, swiftly, with right understanding, O Strong Ones. (7) Mitra of purified discernment I call and Varuna who destroys the adversary, accomplishing together a clear light of the understanding. (8) By the Truth, O Mitra and Varuna, growing by the Truth, in touch with the Truth you attain to a vast will-force. (9) Seers, many... forests. (6) Let us press and give the nectar-wine to the Bull and the Page 240 Strong One and the Doer of the multitude of works, the Lord whose strength is Truth, who like a hero adversary on the path rends away the knowledge of those that do not sacrifice and goes abroad giving of it largesse. (7) This is the same heroic might which thou madest thy force when thou wakenedst with ...
... ¹ Ibid., pp. 367-8. ² Ibid., p. 367 Page 37 As a part of the Mother's work of transformation, it was necessary for her to come into close connection with each one of the Adversaries and to try convert them. Mother's meeting with Theon was a part of her struggle with one of the most formidable problems that are afflicting the world. Even after her return from Algeria, she ...
... which are very precious to it.’ 40 The problem — a wrong interpretation of the facial expression, corporeal attitude or acts of the Mother — cropped up time after time, it being inspired by ‘the Adversary’ as Sri Aurobindo called him. When Nirodbaran admits: ‘I know from my own experience that we have abused the pranam,’ Sri Aurobindo replies without mincing words: ‘That is that. The pranam (like ...
... stated, is yet well focused in the inescapable death of Savitri's lover and husband Satyavan. This death indeed becomes a glorious occasion for the incarnate Power's action to deal with the universal Adversary standing in the way of the intended divine manifestation. What was brief and suggestively succinct in Vyasa, given to us in just twenty swift shlokas, Sri Aurobindo elaborated in his epic to ...
... totally, you find yourself instantly in the ranks of the Adversary, you are forced to it, as it were. Forces make use of everything and everyone and compel everything and everyone to do the thing which will place them on this side or on that side. It is ineluctable, we could say... There is some unconsciousness somewhere in G.G. and the Adversary always knows how to find the way of pressing the button... anything anywhere — it was incredible. He had as much money as he wished . He could buy everything . In the ministries, he was kept informed of everything . But this is really the sign of the Adversary, you know. Yes. The power of corruption. Ah, by the way, I wanted to tell you and I forgot. The man who came to us on January 1, 1978 ... Yes, with the expulsion letter? He, too, was a... yesterday, on the 9th, it was awful, I could not even speak to Sujata — but I can clearly see also that what is attacked are all our flaws. Counouma and Co. are mere pretexts. What we are facing is the Adversary, pure and simple. I am full of weaknesses. I could almost say that all my strength lies in my weaknesses! They are so painfully perceived and lived that it creates a sort of Fire of Suffering, ...
... " And that is why the reign of human suffering on earth cannot be put an end to immediately. No wonder — "Hard is the world-redeemer's heavy task; The world itself becomes his adversary, His enemies are the beings he came to save. The world is in love with its own ignorance." Yes, he had, indeed, his work cut out and he knew it. Years ago he wrote to me that ...
... January 1939 of Sri Aurobindo, who did not have to wait till the discovery of the extermination camps to see through Hitler. From the beginning Sri Aurobindo and the Mother knew exactly the kind of adversary they were dealing with and the human instruments he had sought out. When Sri Aurobindo saw a newspaper photo of Chamberlain and Hitler in Munich, he compared them respectively to a fly and a spider ...
... made pure. Or some undivine Force may try to seize hold, not of the Power itself, for that withdraws, but of the result of force it leaves behind in the instrument and use it for the purposes of the Adversary. Even if none of these more disastrous faults or errors should take place, still the numerous mistakes of reception or the imperfections of the vessel may impede the transformation. The Power has ...
... undergone by you, 0 scion of Raghu, as well as by Sītā and myself, and for whose sake, 0 Rama, you have been deprived of a kingdom which was ever yours. (21-22) Bharata, who has arrived .in state as an adversary, surely deserves to be killed outright, 0 heroic prince! I see no wrong in killing Bharata, 0 scion of Raghu! (23) Killing a man who has wronged one before, one surely does not get contaminated with ...
... us. If so, then the general attitude will be one of a neutral indifference to everything. But the Gita which strongly insists on a perfect and absolute samatā goes on to say, ‘Fight, destroy the adversary, conquer.’ If there is no kind of general action wanted, no loyalty to Truth as against Falsehood except for one’s personal sadhana, no will for the Truth to conquer, then the samatā of indifference... not to stand for either side, to refuse any action of hostility even to the assailants; Sri Krishna who insisted so much on samatā , strongly rebuked his attitude and insisted on his fighting the adversary, ‘Have samatā ,’ he said, ‘and seeing clearly the Truth, fight.’ Therefore to take sides with the Truth and to refuse to concede anything to the Falsehood that attacks, to be unflinchingly loyal ...
... looked on both of us with great kindness.’ 4 The Mother also said that people like this attendant were targeted for possession by the powerful Titan who was put into the world by the great Adversary, and who tried to end the Mother’s life and her mission on every possible occasion. This Black Shadow stalking her at every step attempted to kill her innumerable times, she said, using every human ...
... her love against the fatality by which she was being dogged. Knowing the heartbreak concealed for her behind the rapture of love she faced the future: hers was the hope of triumphing over the dread Adversary of man's existence. At the back of this tale of conjugal devotion armed with an extreme Will to Life, Sri Aurobindo intuited a wealth of symbol; for the name "Savitri" the Rig Veda Page 4 ...
... Christopher Smart who wrote apocalyptically about his cat Jeffrey nearly a quarter century before Blake rhapsodized about the Tyger: For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary. For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes... For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger... 27 ...
... distance is created by the consciousness alone. It is a pity you are allowing the dark spell to come back—I mean, by giving hospitality to its suggestions, especially those two great weapons of the Adversary—despondency and doubt. Prayer may not bring always an immediate response, though I believe in the end it does, if the whole being is behind it—but all experience shows the effectivity of two things ...
... as a psychological movement does not belong to the sadhaka himself: it is not intrinsic to his true nature. It is something imposed upon him from outside through the malignant intervention of some adversary forces. Now, so long as one feels and Page 5 considers something as an integral part of one's own being, it becomes psychologically difficult to give an effective fight against it; ...
... to the ground she began to cry, bitterly. The English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong force to take her, and then for a few minutes the might Page 70 of both adversaries was concentrated upon that spot. Over her and about her, English and French fought with desperation— for she stood for France, indeed she was France to both sides— whichever won her won France, and... with leonine courage, with incomparable fortitude, with a mind which was in several particulars a prodigy—a mind which included among its specialties the lawyer's gift of detecting traps laid by the adversary in cunning and treacherous arrangements of seemingly innocent words, the orator's gift of eloquence, the advocate's gift of presenting a case in clear and compact form, the judge's gift of sorting ...
... of other extremist newspapers in Bengal astonished even Barin when he looked back many years later. One of the reasons may have been that the British did not yet consider the Bengalis as serious adversaries and so were not unduly concerned about the situation. They were to find to their surprise that the people had grown bold enough to defy their power. Another reason was the inborn British sense of ...
... India which is knocked down at pleasure through a long and exuberant dance of misstatement and exaggeration in the hope of convincing an ignorant audience that the performer has prostrated a living adversary. Sanity, justice, measure are things Page 491 altogether at a discount: a show-off of the appearance of staggering and irresistible blows is the object held in view, and for that ...
... humour and the expression of it have Page 27 undergone in the course of history an upward and continuous progress. Humour meant exultation, the sense of personal triumph over one's adversary, or the sense of impish delight in seeing something — anything — demolished or knocked out of shape. But humour has been undergoing a refining process. The 'exultation' must somehow keep away the ...
... that he too has come to realise the limitations of mere Reason; "thinking", he says, "only begins at the point where we have come to know that Reason, glorified for centuries, is the most obstinate adversary of thinking". 5 Through the isolation and analytical scrutiny of detached things and phenomena, the ancient Greeks started the movement of the physical and biological sciences, and the result is ...
... Aryan adversaries even he has to face in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings of Aryan states whom he would conquer and overpass join themselves to the Dasyus and are leagued against him in supreme battle to prevent his free and utter passing on. 385. Hymns to the Mystic Fire, pp. 28-29. Page 358 Obviously these "Aryan adversaries" noted... human and who would confer by association the same kind of existence on the Dāsas. The other three references are: 315 "RS 6,25,2-3 'By these (succours) keeping (us) unhurt, O Indra, make the adversaries whom we are meeting tremble, (make) the fury of the enemy (fall).... Indra, whether it be kinsmen or strangers who have approached and injuriously assailed us, do thou enfeeble and destroy their... pervading ether. Varuṇa is this highest heaven, this soul-surrounding ocean, this ethereal possession and infinite pervasion. The same root had given them an appellation for the dark Coverer, the adversary Vritra; for to obstruct and resist, screen or hedge, besiege and hem in are also some of its many kindred senses. But dark Vritra is the thick cloud and the enveloping shadow. His knowledge - for ...
... her love against the fatality by which she was being dogged. Knowing the heartbreak concealed for her behind the rapture of love she faced the future: hers was the hope of triumphing over the dread Adversary of man's existence. At the back of this tale of conjugal devotion armed with an extreme Will to life, Sri Aurobindo intuited a wealth of symbol; for the name "Savitri" the Rig Veda had given to the ...
... seiz'd..." 197 A situation in general such as we have seen in The Tyger is here. Only, instead of the Son seizing the fire of the Father's "strength" at the latter's call, we have the Adversary attempting to capture His seat by main force. But Blake's reversal is in accordance with his reversal of the notion of aspiring: once this motion, in a reconstituted form, is transferred from Satan ...
... and hell, much less for this poor earth of ours. Slaying the sons of Dhritarashtra what joy would be left to us, O Janardana? Sin, sin alone would find lodging in us, if we slew these, though our adversaries and foes. Therefore we do not right to slay the children of Dhritarashtra and their friends, for how can we be happy, O Madhava, if we slay our kin? Even though these see not, for their hearts are ...
... that we wished—but the fact remains that she has not been able to achieve it and that what does come on her after a time of reconciliation is a relapse into old passions and fierce attacks of the Adversary shaking her very body and life—not because she is separated from you but because you are going with another woman even after the old relation was practically over! Is it so utterly unreasonable of ...
... violence. For non-violence is a form of retaliation, a more subtle form of violence: it attempts to obtain through moral force what is generally achieved by the exertion of physical force. It covers the adversary with contempt by showing him that he takes recourse to unjust means. It condemns him, degrades him to an ethically inferior position. Consequently, how can non-violence ever result in peace, which ...
... scientific minds on the surface or apparent surface of the spiritual Reality behind things and I need not elaborate it here. Krishnaprem's prognostic of a greater danger coming in the new attack by the adversary against the validity of spiritual and supraphysical experience, their new strategy of destruction by admitting and explaining it in their own sense, is interesting enough and there is strong ground ...
... has legs; and the princes of darkness are there to make sure, however brutally, that it does not slumber. God's negations are as useful to us as His affirmations, 69 says Sri Aurobindo. The Adversary will disappear only when he is no longer necessary in the world , remarked Mother. He is undoubtedly necessary, as is the touchstone for gold, to make sure we are true. Indeed, God may not be... a friend's betrayal, for example, is the sure sign of our ego's involvement, for if we truly loved people for themselves, and not for ourselves, we would love them in any circumstances, even as adversaries; we would feel the joy of their existence in all cases. Our sorrows and sufferings are actually always the sign of a mixture, and therefore always deceitful. Joy alone is true. Because only the "I" ...
... repulsions, all that exists and forms the fabric of our physical life must be overcome, transformed and freed from all its habits. It's a battle of every second against thousands and millions of adversaries. 64.3010 The body is learning one thing: ALL that happens is for progress. All that happens is for reaching the true state, the one that is expected of the cells so that the realization may ...
... not as a whole at one stroke. But in fact, as I said, these crises are out of all proportion to their cause in the nature. One must therefore not be discouraged, but see the exaggeration in the adversary's successful negation as well as in the exaggeration in our own idea of a complete and definite victory already there. That too explains Puranmal's condition. His experiences Page 147 ...
... is precisely the fact. Fleet originally read the inscription and noted some gaps. In one place his reading suggested that the king of a tribe called the Pushyamitras was the Gupta emperor's adversary. But, while construing the expression "Pushyamitrārhs cha", he observed that the second syllable of the name was damaged. 3 H. R. Divakar proposes to read the whole thing as "Yudhyamitrarhs cha" ...
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