... ss within him. There is a minor pragmatic use of exclusive concentration on the surface which may also give us an indication in spite of its temporary character. The superficial man living from moment to moment plays, as it were, several parts in his present life and, while he is busy with each part, he is capable of an exclusive concentration, an absorption in it, by which he forgets the rest of... is phenomenal only, not essential: it is, in essence, in both cases the same movement of exclusive concentration, of absorption in a particular aspect of himself, action, movement of force, though with different circumstances and another manner of working. Page 608 This power of exclusive concentration is not confined to absorption in a particular character or type of working of one's larger... The Infinite Consciousness and the Ignorance The Life Divine Chapter XIII Exclusive Concentration of Consciousness-Force and the Ignorance From the kindled fire of Energy of Consciousness Truth was born and the Law of Truth; from that the Night, from the Night the flowing ocean of being. Rig Veda. (X. 190. 1.) Since Brahman is in the ...
... manifestation where the exclusive concentration of consciousness could operate effectively; and if that possibility is to operate, an effective lid or wall can be erected in such a manner that on the upper side of the lid, the supramental or total concentration of consciousness can continue to operate, while on the other side of the wall the separative and exclusive concentration of consciousness would... it is a movement that falls away from the consciousness of unity on account of the action of Tapas which acts in the operation by its power of exclusive concentration of consciousness on diversity. Again, it is involutionary because this exclusive concentration of consciousness does not and cannot abolish the operation of the unity of consciousness but can only hold it back. This holding back of the... The basic premise of the explanation of the process of the appearance of Ignorance is that the Divine is an infinite being, and that Infinite Being has a possibility of assuming a poise of exclusive concentration of Page 96 consciousness when the Divine in the Oneness manifests the Divine in the Many. It is in the nature of Being to be able to grade and vary its powers of consciousness ...
... principle of "exclusive concentration" does not by itself really create the "objects" of the material world; it creates the perception —the illusory perception—of separativeness, that objects are more or less closed systems, distinct and isolated from one another. The sense of limitation—and hence actual limitation, not however real or essential limitation —comes out of the exclusive concentration. ... one end, and the Inconscience, at the other. The second is the total Sachchidananda, the supramental concentration; the third, multiple or totalising overmental awareness; the fourth is the exclusive concentration of Ignorance. All the four, however, form the integral play of one indivisible consciousness. Page 50 Here we come to the very heart of the mystery. As we have put it thus... that creates the status and its troth-forms; with the exclusiveness goes away only the twist, the aberration produced by it. When the consciousness withdraws from its mode and field of exclusive concentration, it need not concentrateagain 'On the withdrawal only, it can be an inclusive concentration also embracing both the status-the frontal and the behind. Both can be held together in one single ...
... principle of "exclusive concentration" does not by itself really create the "objects" of the material world; it creates the perception-the illusory perception – of separativeness, that objects are more or less closed systems, distinct and isolated from one another. The sense of limitation – and hence actual limitation, not however real or essential limitation – comes out of the exclusive concentration. This... Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 Some Conceptions and Misconceptions A QUESTION is asked, where, at what stage or level of Involution does the principle of exclusive concentration (the principle of Ignorance) come in? If, as Sri Aurobindo says, it comes subsequently at a later stage, where was it then before? Was it not in the Absolute Reality itself? There can be nothing... ss that creates the status and its truth-forms; with the exclusiveness goes away only the twist, the aberration produced by it. When the consciousness withdraws from its mode and field of exclusive concentration, it need not concentrate again on the withdrawal only, it can be an inclusive concentration also embracing both the status-the frontal and the behind. Both can be held together in one single ...
... gets his highest efficiency. Such an exclusive concentration, which is ignorance of the total self, is the condition for its highest effectivity as a personality. If the exclusive concentration and the resulting self-loss became permanent, that would give us some idea of the phenomenon of Ignorance in which the human being is the result of an exclusive concentration of the Infinite. The Infinite Brahman... individuals. experience as Ignorance. This Ignorance is due to exclusive concentration : that is,. concentration which puts forward a part of self and holds back the rest of the self-knowledge behind. Thus a self— imitation takes place which gives rise to Ignorance; the true Being is not clouded but kept behind by the exclusive concentration. In fact, this exclusive is purposeful and is. within the exercise... standard of living, " as it is called, to multiply gadgets for his comfort; it is slowly changing the values of life by promoting the false notion that the physical is the only reality. The exclusive concentration on mere material advance, it is clear, is not enough to create perfect men or a perfect society. Even in societies that have achieved a very high degree of material advance there are signs ...
... various degrees of exclusive concentration of consciousness; but this concentration is not involutionary but evolutionary, and therefore, in this concentration, there is also a thrust towards knowledge and thrust towards the removal of the veil of Ignorance, — the veil that is created and sustained by exclusive concentration of consciousness. In order that that exclusive concentration of consciousness... conscious Force being in us uses the same power of exclusive concentration, but in a reverse direction, and in a growing manner of integrality. And that is the essential process of integral yoga. There is, first, the movement of quieting the frontal movement of Prakriti in the individual consciousness, and in this movement, there is an exclusive concentration increasingly on the concealed inner being, on... its involutionary process by downward looking Mind (at the stage of the final operation of the third poise of the Supermind) with exclusive concentration of consciousness on diversity while ignoring the unity, which is always present behind it; this exclusive concentration of consciousness creates a wall or a veil between the supramental consciousness and the mental consciousness. This movement culminates ...
... formulas. It is therefore no longer possible to take Matter as the sole reality. The material interpretation of existence was the result of an exclusive concentration, a preoccupation with one movement of Existence, and such an exclusive concentration Page 196 has its utility and is therefore permissible; in recent times it has justified itself by the many immense and the innumerable... exclusive or predominant preoccupation with Mind or with Life and regard Mind or Life as the sole fundamental reality, have not a sufficiently wide basis for acceptance. Such a preoccupation of exclusive concentration may lead to a fruitful scrutiny which sheds much light on Mind and Life, but cannot result in a total solution of the problem. It may very well be that an exclusive or predominant concentration... would not be by itself an integral solution or lead us successfully to the integral knowledge of Reality. In our view the Spirit, the Self is the fundamental reality of existence; but an exclusive concentration on this fundamental reality to the exclusion of all reality of Mind, Life or Matter except as an imposition on the Self or unsubstantial shadows cast by the Spirit might help to an independent ...
... the formulas. It is therefore no longer possible to take Matter as the sole reality. The material interpretation of existence was the result of an exclusive concentration, a preoccupation with one movement of Existence, and such an exclusive concentration has its utility and is therefore permissible; in recent times it has justified itself by the many immense and the innumerable minute discoveries of... exclusive or predominant preoccupation with Mind or with Life and regard Mind or Life as the sole fundamental reality, have not a sufficiently wide basis for acceptance. Such a preoccupation of exclusive concentration may lead to a fruitful scrutiny which sheds much light on Mind and Life, but cannot result in a total solution of the problem. It may very well be that an exclusive or predominant concentration... itself an integral solution or lead us successfully to the integral knowledge of Reality. In our view the Spirit, the Self is the fundamental reality of existence; Page 679 but an exclusive concentration on this fundamental reality to the exclusion of all reality of Mind, Life or Matter except as an imposition on the Self or unsubstantial shadows cast by the Spirit might help to an independent ...
... half-light between the full day of the supramental Truth and the night of the material Inconscience. All that is necessary to note at present is that it must be in its essential character an exclusive concentration on one movement and status of Conscious Being, which puts all the rest of consciousness and being behind and veils it from that one movement's now partial knowledge. Still there is one aspect... at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and... truths, but not a denial or opposite of truth or knowledge. This character of an organisation of partial truths on a basis of separative knowledge persists in Life and subtle Matter, for the exclusive concentration of Consciousness-Force which puts them into separative action does not entirely sever or veil Mind from Life or Mind and Life from Matter. The complete separation can take place only when the ...
... limited mind as opposed to freely limiting mind". This new power is avidy ā , the self-ignoring faculty, which acts by an exclusive concentration in the mind. Then the mind perceives only the particular not the universal: it takes up an exclusive concentration on the object excluding the rest of the all. This Mind is the final operation of the apprehending Truth-Consciousness; it is a subordinate... would depend on the One and the Eternal would depend on the Many—there would be eternal persistence, eternal recurrence of the Many. This is difficult for the mind to grasp; in its exclusive concentration it creates mutually destructive philosophical schools. But we who seek the integral Truth need not bother about them. It would be "vain labour of enslaving to our mental distinctions and d... source of knowledge and giving a force of rigidity and mistaken appearance of opposition and of conflict to the harmonious play of the Supreme Truth in its universal manifestation." It is by an exclusive concentration of consciousness which becomes complete identification with the moment, the field or form; then the indivisibility of time, force, substance is lost. Thus Ignorance does not create anything ...
... turn away from all that belongs to the one and to retreat by a naked and precipitous ascent into the other. Thus arises the attraction and, it would seem, the necessity of the principle of exclusive concentration which plays so prominent a part in the specialised schools of Yoga; for by that concentration we can arrive through an uncompromising renunciation of the world at an entire self-consecration... The problem is solved by the excision of all but the one central difficulty which pursues the one chosen motive-force; into the midst of the dividing calls of our nature the principle of an exclusive concentration comes sovereignly to our rescue. But for the sadhaka of the integral Yoga this inner or this outer solitude can only be incidents or periods in his spiritual progress. Accepting life, he... transfigure them separately and all together, harmonising them in themselves and with each other,—integrally, omitting no grain or strand or vibration, leaving no iota of imperfection anywhere. An exclusive concentration, or even a succession of concentrations of that kind, can be in his complex work only a temporary convenience; it has to be abandoned as soon as its utility is over. An all-inclusive concentration ...
... yoga are primarily the methods by which our consciousness can be turned more and more inward. It is a reversal of our present exclusive concentration of consciousness which is normally centered on the outward; in yoga, the process is reversed, and we employ exclusive concentration of consciousness on the inward. A passage is then made in the inner realm of consciousness, and light that is inherent in ... and of the Self. To begin with, we may hold firmly the conception of the Self derived from our inmost aspirations or from teachers or from luminous teachings. We may fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration; we may thus use the triple operation of Jnana yoga, shravana, manana, nidhidhy ā sana. It is only when after long and persistent concentration that the veil of the mind is rent or swept ...
... become unreal. In fact, they can all be called up to the surface, each according to the need. This selective projection of a personality for a particular purpose secures full efficiency. This exclusive concentration on one personality may render the individual practically "ignorant" of his other personalities,—for the time being at least. It is curious but true that the more exclusive the concentration... the common background, is embodied. The rest of the Omnipresent Reality is kept in the background to support the play of variation. In the embodiment of its self-determination there is an exclusive concentration. Thus a world of infinitely varied forms and relations comes into being. In the lower kingdoms where there is no mind, the form or the organism acts with a knowledge that seems to be self-existent... possibility of choice being given, human knowledge is subjected to an uncertainty and a wrong choice which makes possible the experience of Ignorance. This Ignorance really proceeds from an exclusive concentration of consciousness in the external being, the ego Page 278 and its nature and an oblivion of the true divine Being, which one really is. When the human being turns from the ego ...
... movement does not seem to proceed from the Self, but to go on by some inherent power of its own and only to be reflected in the Self. In other words, the mental being has put away from himself by exclusive concentration the dynamic aspect of consciousness, has taken refuge in the static and built a wall of non-communication between the two; between the passive and the active Brahman a gulf has been created... active Brahman whose joy of existence does not abrogate His peace, nor His lordship of all workings impair His calm freedom in the midst of His works. The difficulty is created by the exclusive concentration of the mental being on its plane of pure existence in which consciousness is at rest in passivity and delight of existence at rest in peace of existence. It has to embrace also its plane of ...
... the understanding of what is technically called in the Indian systems, the study of ignorance, avidya. This concept is difficult to grasp, but the essential characteristic is marked by exclusive concentration of consciousness on a limited field and identification of the being or purusha with that limited field, which is an expression of prakriti or Nature, the executive force of threefold gunas... egoistic ignorance, temporal ignorance, constitutional Page 279 ignorance and practical ignorance. If this ignorance is to be removed, the means should consist of reversing the exclusive concentration of consciousness. Essentiality of the process of Yoga lies in effecting this reversal. All the various methods of Yoga are basically methods by which our outward consciousness is reversed ...
... unconscious, is really not so: it is inconscient. That is to say, it holds consciousness secreted and involved within itself; it is, indeed, a special formulation of consciousness. It is the exclusive concentration of consciousness upon single points in itself: it is consciousness throwing itself out in scattered units and, by reason of separative identification with them and absorption into them, losing... level or levels that lie above it. This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First,. there is an Involution, a gradual foreshortening—a disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete ...
... unconscious, is really not so: it is inconscient. That is to say, it holds consciousness secreted and involved within itself; it is, indeed, a special formulation of consciousness. It is the exclusive concentration of consciousness upon single points in itself: it is consciousness throwing itself out in scattered units and, by reason of separative identification with them and absorption into Page... level or levels that lie above it. This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First, there is an Involution, a gradual foreshortening—a disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness, by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete ...
... destined leader. Moreover, since his twelve months' detention in the Alipur Jail, which had been spent entirely in the practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him for an exclusive concentration. He resolved therefore to withdraw from the political field, at least for a time. In February, 1910, he withdrew to a secret retirement at Chandernagore and in the beginning of April sailed... political field under more favourable circumstances; but very soon the magnitude Page 8 of the spiritual work he had taken up appeared to him and he saw that it would need the exclusive concentration of all his energies. Eventually he cut off connection with politics, refused repeatedly to accept the Presidentship of the National Congress and went into a complete retirement. During all ...
... XL The Fundamental Character of the Ignorance -- XLI The Origin of the Ignorance XII Revised form of a chapter originally published in the Arya . XLII Exclusive Concentration of Tapas XIII Revised form of a chapter originally published in the Arya . XLIII The Order of the Worlds XXI Chapter comprising revised Arya material as well as new material... XII Revised form of a chapter originally published in the Arya . The Origin of the Ignorance XLI XIII Revised form of a chapter originally published in the Arya . Exclusive Concentration of Consciousness-Force and the Ignorance XLII XIV Entirely new chapter. The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil -- XV Chapter comprising revised ...
... established; it is interrupted by exclusive thought-concentration, but is found again at once still in possession or else recovered at once, usually of itself without need of smarana, when the exclusive concentration ceases. This has now to be confirmed in complete continuity. It remains (1) to get rid of the interruption noted above, (2) to increase the intensities. Page 1023 The lipi has reached... to nil, and ahaituka depressed so as only to be active on condition of attentive smarana and intense by tapas smarana. Ahaituka is now recovering its vina-smarana activity suspended only by exclusive concentration, and its intensity. Vaidyuta has been showing occasionally signs of development. Perfect development of narrative and reading in Samadhi, coherent, long-continued and initially idealised ...
... in crisis; the new discoveries in genetics which call ‘Darwinism’ into question … “The material interpretation of existence was the result of an exclusive concentration, a preoccupation with one movement of Existence, and such an exclusive concentration has it utility and is therefore permissible; in recent times it has justified itself by the many immense and the innumerable minute discoveries of ...
... the formulas. It is therefore no longer possible to take Matter as the sole reality. The material interpretation of existence was the result of an exclusive concentration, a preoccupation with one movement of Existence, and such an exclusive concentration has its utility and is therefore permissible; in recent times it has justified itself by the many immense and the innumerable minute discoveries of ...
... yoga are primarily the methods by which our consciousness can be turned more and more inward. It is a reversal of our present exclusive concentration of consciousness which is normally centred on the outward; in yoga, the process is reversed, and we employ exclusive concentration of consciousness on the inward. A passage is then made in the inner realm of consciousness, and light that is inherent in ...
... unconscious, is really not so: it is inconscient. That is to say, it holds consciousness secreted and involved within itself; it is, indeed, a special formulation of consciousness. It is the exclusive concentration of consciousness upon single points in itself: it is consciousness throwing itself out in scattered units and, by reason of separative identification with them and absorption into them, losing... level or levels that lie above it. This, then, is the nature of creation and its process. First,. there is an Involution, a gradual foreshortening-a disintegration and concretisation, an exclusive concentration and self-oblivion of consciousness by which the various levels of diminishing consciousness are brought forth from the plenary light of the one supreme Spirit, all the levels down to the complete ...
... was pressing upon him for an exclusive concentration. So in April, 1910, he sailed for Pondicherry in French India. Sri Aurobindo had left Bengal with some intention of returning to the political field under more favourable circumstances ; but very soon the magnitude of the spiritual work he took up appeared to him and he saw that it would need the exclusive concentration of all his energies. Eventually ...
... correspondent finds is in an apparent conflict of authorities, as sometimes meditation is recommended in the form of a concentrated succession of thoughts on a single subject, sometimes in the exclusive concentration of the mind on a single image, word or idea, a fixed contemplation rather than meditation. The choice between these two methods and others, for there are others, depends on the object we have ...
... ever mobile energy of Maya. In the same way we can become aware of it as the Purusha, separate from Prakriti, the Conscious Being standing back from the activities of Nature. But this is an exclusive concentration which limits itself to a spiritual status and puts away from it all activity in order to realise the freedom of Brahman the self-existent Reality from all limitation by its own action and ...
... inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it, we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration; but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood ...
... scientist shuts himself up in his laboratory to pore by experiment into the secrets of Nature; these retirements are not grim and inhuman. Neither is the retirement of the sadhak into the exclusive concentration of which he feels the need; it is a means to an end, to the end on which his whole heart is set. As for the Yogin or bhakta who has already begun to have the fundamental experience, he is not ...
... every way that being, why should the power of its being be excised and why at all should we desire or labour to excise it? We should then only diminish the scope of our unity with it by an exclusive concentration accepting the divine being but not accepting our part in the power and consciousness and infinite delight of the Divine. It would in fact be the individual seeking peace and rest of union in ...
... inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration; 3 but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when ...
... In this transition it is possible to be awake to all the states of being together in a harmonised and unified experience and to see the Reality everywhere. But if we plunge by a trance of exclusive concentration into a mystic sleep state or pass abruptly in waking Mind into a state belonging to the Superconscient, then the mind can be seized in the passage by a sense of the unreality of the cosmic ...
... the conscious becomes subconscious in the body or the subconscious becomes conscious? The real difference lies in the absorption of the conscious energy in part of its work, its more or less exclusive concentration. In certain forms of concentration, what we call the mentality, that is to say, the Prajnana or apprehensive consciousness almost or quite ceases to act consciously, yet the work of the body ...
... containing all existences is the basis of our oneness in difference; the Self inhabiting all is the basis of our individuality in the universal. If the defect of our mentality, if its need of exclusive concentration compels it to dwell on any one of these aspects of self-knowledge to the exclusion of the others, if a realisation imperfect as well as exclusive moves us always to bring in a human element ...
... separate act of will, but by the general force of consciousness behind it; if to us there seems to be a concentration of divine Will and Knowledge in each, it is a multiple and equal and not an exclusive concentration, and the reality of it is rather a free and spontaneous working in a self-gathered unity and infinity. The soul which has risen to the divine Samadhi participates in the measure of its attainment ...
... something inconceivable, neti neti . Moreover for getting samadhi they concentrate on one single idea and what they reach is that which is represented by that idea—the samadhi is in its nature an exclusive concentration on that. So why should it open them to anything else? There are only a few who are sufficiently plastic to escape from this self-limitation of the sadhana—what they experience is that there ...
... the yellow robe but are not purified of their taints. The yellow robe is taken as the symbol of consecration to the spiritual life, the external sign of renunciation of all that is not an exclusive concentration upon the spiritual life. What Buddhism means by "impurities" is chiefly egoism and ignorance; because, from the Buddhist standpoint, the greatest of all taints is ignorance, not ignorance ...
... one of the 'elite, for instance, a man of great culture and great intellectual and moral development. These people in their ordinary conduct, when they came out of their meditation, their exclusive concentration, lived very grossly. They had very, very ordinary defects, you see. I knew many of this kind. Or perhaps they had come to a stage where their outer life was a sort of dream in which they were ...
... to all that exists; it is a concentration which does not oppose anything. It is a concentration which is open. It means that one must not reject certain things from himself and practise an exclusive concentration on a particular point while neglecting all the others. All the possibilities should be admitted and pursued. Here it is written: "Our one objective must be the Divine himself to whom, knowingly ...
... play of Evil, the negation of the very divinity. Absolute Consciousness brought forth absolute unconsciousness – the inconscient – because of its own self-pressure, a play of an increasingly exclusive concentration and rigid objectivisadon. That same consciousness repeats its story in the individual incarnation: it plunges into the material life and matter and identifiesltselfwith Evil. But it is then ...
... Aurobindo's vision, if Brahman has entered form, it can only be to enjoy self-manifestation in the "figures of the relative and phenomenal consciousness". And the "purpose for which all this exclusive concentration we call the Ignorance is necessary is to trace the cycle of self-oblivion and self-discovery for the joy of which the Ignorance is assumed in Nature by the secret spirit.... It is to find ...
... and of the Self. To begin with, we may hold firmly the conception of the Self derived from our inmost aspirations or from teachers or from luminous teachings. We may fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration; we may thus use the triple operation of Jn ā na yoga, shravana, manana, nidhidhy ā sana, It is only when after long and persistent concentration that the veil of the mind is rent or ...
... admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. Page 317 The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious ...
... that ghostly fairness which a soul had by kind and shall have by grace." The utter beauty of the soul and its absolute love for her deity within her (which has the fair name of Jhesu), the exclusive concentration of the whole of the being upon one point, the divine core, the manifest Grace of God, justifies the annihilation of the world and life's manifold existence. Indeed, the image of the Beloved ...
... is called. There is a tendency to multiply the gadgets for his comfort and it is slowly changing the values of life by promoting the false notion that the physical is the only Real. Such exclusive concentration on mere material advance is not enough to create a perfect individual or a perfect society. Even in societies that have achieved a very high material advance there are already signs of satiety ...
... existed. 13 It is exactly the experience I wanted you to have. I am glad for your receptivity. Just for a few seconds, but an entirely new experience. I suppose it may be due to exclusive concentration on me at the time. But I don't know. And in the evening at the Playground it was not so. Another thing is about an experience I had on three occasions during meditation on the Playground ...
... indispensable for the maintenance of his body and his contact with the world. The motor springs of energy, physical and vital, are thus left to starve and atrophy in the heat and stress of an exclusive concentration on the peace and silence of the Immutable. The philosophy underlying this conception is a life- chilling philosophy of negation which denies reality to the world and its evolutionary labour ...
... trance may be needed sometimes to effect a first entry into some remote or recondite region of the being, or for some specific work on a particular plane of consciousness by a momentarily exclusive concentration; but the consummating achievement is the power of multiple concentration, normalised in the waking consciousness and commanding a total and simultaneous knowledge of God and soul and Nature ...
... when the difference of spirit is deep, because there the absence of the mediating word, the necessity of proceeding direct from spirit to line and form brings about a special intensity and exclusive concentration of aim and stress of execution. The intensity of the thing that moves the work is brought out with a more distinct power, but by its very stress and directness allows of Page 261 ...
... Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. (V. 5. 1.) Page 618 If ignorance is in its nature a self-limiting knowledge oblivious of the integral self-awareness and confined to an exclusive concentration in a single field or upon a concealing surface of cosmic movement, what, in this view, are we to make of the problem which most poignantly preoccupies the mind of man when it is turned on the ...
... outcome of its immutable formless essence. All theories that make the Becoming sufficient to itself are therefore half-truths, valid for some knowledge of the manifestation acquired by an exclusive concentration upon what they affirm and envisage, but otherwise valid only because the Being is not separate from the Becoming but present in it, constitutive of it, inherent in its every infinitesimal atom ...
... perversion of the supramental functioning? It proceeds from the individualised soul viewing everything from its own standpoint and excluding all others; it proceeds, that is to say, by an exclusive concentration of Page 178 consciousness, an exclusive self-identification of the soul with a particular temporal and spatial action which is only a part of its own play of being; it starts from ...
... creature-Mind is the parent and cause. The original source of the perversion was, we have seen, the self-limitation of the individual soul bound to self-ignorance because it regards itself by an exclusive concentration as a separate self-existent individuality and regards all cosmic action only as it presents itself to its own individual consciousness, knowledge, will, force, enjoyment and limited being instead ...
... light of the spirit. A quietude and stillness is imposed on the body, on the active life-soul of desire and ego, on the external mind, while the sattwic nature by stress of meditation, by an exclusive concentration of adoration, by a will turned inward to the Supreme, strives to merge itself in the spirit. But if this is sufficient for a quietistic release, it is not sufficient for the freedom of an integral ...
... not seem to proceed from the Self, but to go on by some inherent power of its own and only to be reflected in the Self. In other words, the mental being has put away from himself by exclusive concentration the dynamic aspect of consciousness, has taken refuge in the static and built a wall of non-communication between the two; between the passive and the active Brahman a gulf has been created ...
... you could cover the whole path in a matter of years and straight-away begin the work of transformation ( Mother touches her body ). To have it (just to give you an idea) took me a year of exclusive concentration on finding that within myself—that is, to enter into contact with the immanent God. I did nothing but that, thought of Page 399 nothing but that, wanted nothing but that. There ...
... part of The Life Divine is actually an argumentation against Buddhism and Advaitic Illusionism. They are, according to Sri Aurobindo, responsible for India’s deterioration because of their exclusive concentration on “the other world”. He esteemed Gautama the Buddha (563-483 BC) as gifted with a “penetrating rational intellect supported by an intuitive vision”, 11 and called Adi Shankara (788-820 ...
... communication with the surface or the outside world. But it must be noted that this inconscience of matter is entirely superficial and phenomenal. It is no more real than the ignorance of exclusive concentration of man's waking mind or the inconscience or subconscience of his sleeping mind. Only, here, the self-limitation of consciousness and the "superficially exclusive self-forgetful concentration ...
... that are separate and clearly defined? This question is rooted in an error. The mystical world is not a featureless unity. It has indeed a vast unity which can be felt as featureless by an exclusive concentration on it; but, on the basis of the experience of an inalienable oneness, there is an experience of infinite diversity — distinctions innumerable are visioned and felt though with no sense of rigid ...
... every way that being, why should the power of its being be excised and why at all should we desire or labour to excise it? We should then only diminish the scope of our unity with it by an exclusive concentration accepting the divine being but not accepting our part in the power and consciousness and infinite delight of the Divine. It would in fact be the individual seeking peace and rest of union ...
... . Spirituality is thus conceived as something negative and even abstract as far as the mundane life is concerned. But this view is partial and even misleading. It has arisen from an exclusive concentration only on one phase of experience in human history, during which the world came to be seen as meaningless or purposeless. If we examine the history of Indian spirituality, we shall find that ...
... downward looking movement of consciousness speedily separating itself from the integral consciousness of unity and differentiations resulting in ignoring all that is behind that movement and in exclusive concentration on the workings of energy up to such an acute point that the consciousness becomes totally identified with the workings of energy. In contrast, this inward-looking (antarmukha) concentration ...
... perception of psychical things and of the Self. To being with, we may hold firmly the conception of the Self derived from teachers or from luminous teachings. We may fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration; we may thus use the triple operation of Jnanayoga, shravana, manana, nidhidhyasana. It is only when after long and persistent concentration that the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside ...
... all itself in manifestation with a simultaneous self-vision."25 It is on account of these powers of the nature of Page 28 consciousness and because of the operation of exclusive concentration of consciousness that there can come about the process of involution of the supramental consciousness in the Inconscience and of the evolution of that supramental consciousness out of the ...
... the jivatman plays in respect of the evolutionary process. In the deepest experiences of the soul, the delegate of the Jivatman in evolution, it is discovered that the purpose for which the exclusive concentration of consciousness has resulted in ignorance is to trace the cycle of self-oblivion and self-discovery. Sri Aurobindo points out that it is to find himself in the apparent opposites of his being ...
... APPENDIX I SRI AUROBINDO on The Intention of the Soul in its Embodiment in the Ignorance of Body, Life and Mind T hat purpose for which all this exclusive concentration we call the Ignorance is necessary, is to trace the cycle of self oblivion and self discovery for the joy of which the Ignorance is assumed in Nature by the secret spirit. It is not that all ...
... difficulty experienced by a spiritual seeker in guarding the peace of the silent Self while engaged in dynamic activity is more incidental than intrinsic . It arises out of the mental being's exclusive concentration on its "plane of pure existence in which consciousness is at rest in passivity and delight of existence at rest in peace of existence." 2 Because of this exclusiveness, when the Mind seeks ...
... principles that guide the world process, first, the principle of limitation, and second, the principle of ingress. The first one Sri Aurobindo calls the principle of concentration (and of exclusive concentration) by which the infinite and the eternal limits himself, makes himself finite and temporal and infinitesimal, the universal transforms itself into the individual and the particular. The second ...
... of consciousness that originally separated the world from the Divine, created the ego and placed it as an objective reality against itself. It was a force of dividing consciousness, of exclusive concentration, that created the fission in the original unitary status of the Divine: it was that that precipitated the world of negation, of ignorance and inconscience, out of the supreme Light and Reality ...
... beautiful and capable whole. A particular exercise is not to be indulged for its own sake: all the energy of the body turned to that alone and the whole attention devoted to that one thing. An exclusive concentration upon a single physical feat does not bring out the full capacity of the body. It is to that end, the fullness of the body potential, that the culture of the bodily limbs is to be directed ...
... as Spirit pressed upon itself and gradually condensed and consolidated into the concrete material reality. Spirit has become Matter by a process of crystallisation, of self-limitation and exclusive concentration. The movement follows a definite line of self-modification, along a downward gradient till it is consummated: it is one among an infinite variety of possible self-modifications, chosen and ...
... mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life. Where there is exclusive concentration on the heights within, temptations and distractions are avoided and there is a general denial and suppression. But when the hope is to know God inclusively – to realise the divine Ground in ...
... as Spirit pressed upon itself and gradually condensed and consolidated into the concrete material reality. Spirit has become Matter by a process of crystallisation, of self-limitation and exclusive concentration. The movement follows a definite line of self-modification, along a downward gradient till it is consummated: it is one among an infinite variety of possible self-modifications, chosen and ...
... admirably its work. Only we have to put it in its proper place. Page 89 The salvation of an extremely self-conscious age lies in an exceeding and not in a further enhancement or an exclusive concentration of the self-consciousness, nor, of course, in a falling back into the original unconsciousness. It is this shift in the poise of consciousness that has been presaged and prepared by the conscious ...
... never fully understood, because of our habit of imprisoning ourselves in conventions. Every time she destroys one set, we create another! Up to the early forties, Mother had insisted on exclusive concentration on our sadhana, on husbands and wives staying apart, on women wearing sarees and veiling their faces when outside. Then, when she began the Playground activities for the children, she encouraged ...
... beautiful and capable whole. A particular exercise is not to be indulged in for its own sake: all the energy of the body turned to that alone and the whole attention devoted to that one thing. An exclusive concentration upon a single physical feat does not bring out the full capacity of the body. It is to that end, the fullness of the body potential, that the culture of the bodily limbs is to be directed. ...
... force of consciousness that originally separated the world from the Divine, created the ego and placed it as an objective reality against itself. It was a force of dividing consciousness, of exclusive concentration, that created the fission in the original unitary status of the Divine: it was that that precipitated the world of negation, of ignorance and inconscience out of the supreme Light and Reality ...
... is the ochre robe of the Buddhist monk, and of ascetics generally. But it is not the mere robe that makes the monk; it should also be matched within by "renunciation of all that is not an exclusive concentration upon the spiritual life". The impurities to be purged are egoism and ignorance, intemperance and untruthfulness. Translating the surface moral code into the deeper spiritual, the Mother says: ...
... infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite. Eliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations; a greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the universe. An integral self-fulfilment,—an absolute, a culmination for the ... The thinker in us separates himself from all the rest of what we phenomenally are, rejects the heart, draws back from the life and the senses, separates from the body that he may arrive at his own exclusive fulfilment in that which is beyond even himself and his function. There is a truth that underlies, as there is Page 288 an experience that seems to justify this attitude. There is an Essence... seeker in life and for the seeker in Yoga. The thought, since it is not the highest or strongest part of Nature, not even the sole or deepest index to Truth, ought not to follow its own exclusive satisfaction or take that for the sign of its attainment to the supreme Knowledge. It is here as the guide, up to a certain point, of the heart, the life and the other members, but it cannot be a ...
... imperfections or perversions of the type, a mere intellectuality or curiosity for ideas without ethical or other elevation, a narrow concentration on some kind of intellectual activity without the greater needed openness of mind, soul and spirit, or the arrogance and exclusiveness of the intellectual shut up in his intellectuality, or an ineffective idealism without any hold on life, or any other of the ... characteristic incompletenesses and limitations of the intellectual, religious, scientific or philosophic mind. These are stoppings short on the way or temporary exclusive concentrations, but a fullness of the divine soul and power of truth and knowledge in man is the perfection of this Dharma or Swabhava, the accomplished Brahminhood of the complete Brahmana. On the other hand the turn of the nature... all these powers, even though one of them may lead the others, and opens his nature more and more into the rounded fullness and universal capacity of the fourfold spirit. Man is not cut out into an exclusive type of one of these dharmas, but all these powers are in him at work at first in an ill-formed confusion, but he gives shape to one or another in birth after birth, progresses from one to the other ...
... aspects and attributes of Brahman, and the final harmonisation of all universal opposites. It alone permits of a full realisation of the catuspāda or integral Brahman without causing any exclusiveness of concentration on the part of our being, or an abeyance of any layer of its consciousness or movement of its force. This all-comprehending Supermind is the principal target of the Integral Yoga of... we enter by trance into a state of absorbed immersion in the unconditioned Infinite, which excludes all awareness of the normal waking state .and its movements. Both of these states are mutually exclusive, the ksara 1 and the aksara, 2 and a simultaneous possession of them has been held to be extremely difficult,, 1 , 2 Mobile and immobile Page 60 if not impossible... universal Divine, but it proceeds beyond all these to the great goal of its difficult endeavour—the solar illumination and all-harmonising unity of the creative Super- mind. It is not by trance or an exclusive awakening in the depths or on the heights of the being, accompanied by a partial or complete sleep of the surface parts and a temporary suspension of their natural movements, that it ascends towards ...
... seen the thing that has to be seen,—that and not any fragment of consciousness or any exclusive ignorance in us is the silent knower and worker: so is it too with this frontal power of concentration of the All-Consciousness within us. In our valuation of the movements of our consciousness this ability of concentration is rightly held to be one of the greatest powers of the human mentality. But equally... on the pure and perfect Presence, we can achieve individually a deep and blissful sense of this silent Divinity, can enter into the sanctuary, can live in the light and the rapture. An exclusive inner concentration on the Real, the Eternal is possible, even a self-immersion by which we can lose or put away the dissonances of the universe. But there is too somewhere deep down in us the need of a total... equally the power Page 418 of putting forth what seems to be an exclusive working of limited knowledge, that which presents itself to us as ignorance, must be considered one of the greatest powers of the divine Consciousness. It is only a supreme self-possessing Knowledge which can thus be powerful to limit itself in the act and yet work out perfectly all its intentions through that apparent ...
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.