... solution than what have been offered to us so far. This study will lead us to the consideration of the problems of centralisation and decentralisation, of the relationship between the individual and the collectivity, the drift of history at the present juncture, and the possibilities of the future in the light of the nature of the human situation in its horizontal and vertical possibilities. Page... in a very zigzag swinging curve of advance appears to be predominant. There are, what we may call, the laws of ascent and integration, as a result of which the relationships between the individual and the collectivity are being built up in such a way that as soon as lower elements of achievement reach a point of maturity they tend to higher grades of achievement in a gradual manner so as to interweave... by Sri Aurobindo, is a great adventure of consciousness, in which the operation of free will is a necessary component. It is against this background that the conflict between the individual and the collectivity needs to be understood. Human history may be considered as a long story of the sway of the developing consciousness between three preoccupations of human idealism, — the complete single ...
... that is spiritual and supramental. In that component of our complex nature, it is claimed, is the integrating power; in it the truths of the individual and the collectivity coalesce; there we discover, we are told, that the individual and the collectivity are not what they appear to be in the lower or infra rational parts of our being. Individual is not, it is discovered, fundamentally egoistic... existence, Nature has provided some kind of disorderly order, and instincts of self-preservation, on the one hand, and herd-instinct, on the other, are found to be so balanced that the individual and the collectivity sub-serve each other, — not irreductibly and ideally, — but in some rough measure for the immediate purposes. As one begins to ascend higher and higher, the demands of self-assertion begin... its consequences but by its own intrinsic value. At that new higher level, the primacy of universal values came to the forefront and began to influence the new equations between the individual and the collectivity. The question came to be asked as to what was the real nature of the individual, and Kant's own answer was that the true individual was capable of liberating him self from the clamour ...
... being that is spiritual and supra-mental. In that component of our complex nature, it is claimed, is the integrating power; in it the truths of the individual and the collectivity coalesce; there we discover, we are told, that the individual and the collectivity are not what they appear to be in the lower or infra rational parts of our being. Individual is not, it is discovered, fundamentally egoistic in... its consequences but by its own intrinsic value. At that new higher level, the primacy of universal values came to the forefront and began to influence the new equations between the individual and the collectivity. The question came to be asked as to what was the real nature of the individual, and Kant's own answer was that the true individual was capable of liberating himself from the clamour of... s action of the being in harmony with the truth of things and the truths of oneself and others and, therefore, sure of true and right results. In that society, the quarrel between the individual and the collectivity or the disastrous struggle between one community and another would not exist, since the cosmic consciousness imbedded in the embodied beings would assure a harmonious diversity in oneness ...
... organization of the varied aspects of life in India. Fundamentally, it gave rise to the predominant tendency to place Page 47 the law of the truth as the sole law to which the individual and the collectivity are called upon to give their ultimate allegiance. Thus there came about in India an organization of human life in which each individual and collectivity was given the freedom to develop... old forms of society, casteism and all the rest, are being broken and there is a fresh search for new forms, plastic and flexible, to permit the highest possible perfectibility of the individual and the collectivity to blossom spontaneously and perpetually. In the ultimate analysis, it is through such a vast and potent change in the social milieu that the total man can be uplifted to his next stage... great revolutions have contributed to the re-making of the collective life of Man.. It is felt that these experiments will continue to grow until the highest and the deepest in the individual and the collectivity are brought forward in the task of the new transformation. It is in this direction that the new spirituality seems to be moving. It is in this direction that the new philosophies are ...
... has assumed a first importance in our epoch. The same problem of disbalance and disharmony has lately shown itself in an equally acute form also in the relation between the individual and the collectivity. The maladjustment between the individual's hopes and needs and aspirations and the demands of the organised society has become so much pronounced that the representative man of the... somehow or other we have to find a perfect reconciliation between freedom and harmony, unity and diversity, growth of the individual and the development of the social being. For both the individual and the collectivity are fundamental truths of existence. And to curb the freedom of the individual for the sake of social order and stability or to inhibit the growth of the society for the sake of the ...
... supra-mental level. In that spiritual and supra- mental component of our complex nature, it is claimed, is the integrating power; in it the truths of the individual and the collectivity coalesce; there, we discover that the individual and the collectivity are not what they appear to be in the lower or infra-rational parts of our being. Individual is not, it is discovered, fundamentally egoistic in nature; ...
... useful if the individual is to be liberated and is to be prepared for perfection. It is on the basis of this knowledge that, according to the ancient Indian wisdom, the harmony between the individual and the collectivity can be created and perfected. Examples of great Rishis and personalities like Rama and Krishna, Mahavira and Buddha and a number of Siddhas illustrate what profundities of knowledge are... are required if we are not only to repeat what was achieved in the past but also if we are to recreate, with new knowledge, the perfect relationship between the individual and the collectivity, — perfection in which the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity are reconciled with the perfections of the power of wisdom, heroism, harmony and skills in works, to which reference is made in the famous ...
... useful if the individual is to be liberated and is to be prepared for perfection. It is on the basis of this knowledge that, according to the ancient Indian wisdom, the harmony between the individual and the collectivity can be created and perfected. Examples of great Rishis and personalities like Rama and Krishna, Mahavira and Buddha and a number of Siddhas illustrate what profundities of knowledge are... are required if we are not only to repeat what was achieved in the past but also if we are to Page 47 recreate, with new knowledge, the perfect relationship between the individual and the collectivity, — perfection in which the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity are reconciled with the perfections of the power of wisdom, heroism, harmony and skills in works, to which reference is ...
... supra-mental level. In that spiritual and supra-mental component of our complex nature, it is claimed, is the integrating power; in it the truths of the individual and the collectivity coalesce; there, we discover that the individual and the collectivity are not what they appear to be in the lower or infra-rational parts of our being. Individual is not, it is discovered, fundamentally egoistic in nature; ...
... existence Nature has provided some kind of disorderly order; and instincts of self-preservation, on the one hand, and herd-instincts, on the other, are found to be so balanced that the individual and the collectivity sub-serve page - 76 each other, —not irreducibly and ideally, —but in some rough measure for immediate purposes. As one ascends higher and higher, the demands of self-assertion... of which standards of action can be determined. At that level, the primacy of universal values came to the forefront which, in turn, began to influence the new equations between the individual and the collectivity. The question came to be asked as to what was the real nature of the individual, and Kant's own assessment was that the true individual was capable of liberating himself from the page ...
... development of the individual to grow into his/her highest possibilities, - physical, vital, mental, aesthetic, ethical and spiritual. True democracy demands self-determination by the individual and the collectivity at the highest levels of consciousness. This demand is consistently and systematically ignored or obstructed, and therefore, democracy is being increasingly collapsing in plutocracy, -... are not working consciously for the development of collective consciousness that takes care of the liberties of the individual, nor are we developing the ethos in which the individual and Page 9 the collectivity are prepared to sacrifice their egoisms for their harmonious and inter-dependent relationships. The only way by which we are reducing the impact of socialism is by reviving ...
... attain a total personal transformation without there being at least a correspondence in the collectivity?... This does not seem possible to me. There is such an interdependence between the individual and the collectivity that, unless one does what the ascetics have preached, that is, escapes from the world, goes out of it completely, leaves it where it is and runs away selfishly leaving all the work to ...
... attain a total personal transformation without there being at least a correspondence in the collectivity?… This does not seem possible to me. There is such an interdependence between the individual and the collectivity that, unless one does what the ascetics have preached, that is, escapes from the world, goes out of it completely, leaves it where it is and runs away selfishly leaving all the work to ...
... approach this perfection if it is not in harmony with at least a group of consciousnesses representative of a new world. In spite of everything there is so great an interdependence of the individual and the collectivity, Page 319 that the individual realisation, despite all, is limited, impoverished by the irresponsive atmosphere—if I may say so—of what surrounds it. And it is certain that ...
... it so happens that spontaneously, without any arbitrary intervention of the will, the individual progress is controlled, so to speak, or held back by the collective state. Between the individual and the collectivity there is an interdependence from which one can't totally free oneself, granting that one tries. And even a person who tried in his yoga to liberate himself totally from the terrestrial ...
... his narrow interests and his egoism in the interests of the development of the collectivity. Development ought to aim at the growth of this kind of inter- relationship between the individual and the collectivity. But even this is not enough. Development needs the promotion of science and technology. Fortunately, science and technology have reached today amazing heights of achievement. But ...
... al part of common man's nature, as was attempted in the Purano-Tantric Age. What is needed is to turn to spiritual reality the entirety of mental, psychical and physical living of the individual and the collectivity so as to divinise the entire human life and nature. It is significant, therefore, that there arose from the middle of the 19th century a reassertion of the Indian spirit which is marked ...
... complex when we come to consider values of physical education, vital education, and mental education in the context of integral development of personality and of the perfectibility of the individual and the collectivity. Science and Values: The second question will be related to science and values, particularly when humanity is awaking to the necessity of directing scientific knowledge ...
... old forms of society, casteism and all the rest, are being broken and there is a fresh search for new forms, plastic and flexible, to permit the highest possible perfectibility of the individual and the collectivity to blossom spontaneously and perpetually. In the ultimate analysis, it is through such a vast and potent change in the social milieu that the total man can be uplifted to his next stage ...
... the origin of the universe, mysteries and wonders of the universe, the paradoxes of the universe as also questions pertaining to the aim of life and those relating to fulfillment of the individual and the collectivity need not be raised, and even if raised, cannot be answered. It is also acknowledged that this conclusion and consequent attitude may be found unsatisfactory, but it is argued that there ...
... trained or even if a greater effort is made to train the psychic- emotional part of man's nature. What is needed is to turn the entirety of mental, psychical and physical living of the individual and the collectivity to divinise the whole of human life and nature. It is significant, therefore, that there arose from the middle of the 19th century a reassertion of the Indian spirit, and this reassertion ...
... individuals to grow according to their own nature and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the common work of humanity. And that work is to find the divine Self in the individual and the collectivity and to realize spiritually, mentally, vitally, materially its greatest largest, richest and deepest possibilities in the inner life of all and their outer action and nature, Page 40 ...
... and that so to manifest is the sole reason of its being here. Sri Aurobindo wrote in one of his letters to Barindra, "What God wants from man is to manifest Him here, in the individual and the collectivity — to realise God in life. The ancient systems of Yoga failed to synthesise or mite spirituality and life; they have explained the world away as Maya (illusion) or a transient Lila (play) ...
... swallow doesn't make the summer, one individual transformation may not matter very much in the cosmic, or even in the terrestrial, context. There is also this close nexus between the individual and the collectivity. As in Mach's Principle, you cannot really - really - change anything, unless everything else also is changed at the same time. Individual change may be the key to collective change ...
... one realising his... identity with all the other members... all as one, within himself... by a fact of consciousness, by an inner realisation". But due to the interdependence between the individual and the collectivity even one who is "the very first in the evolutionary march" is pulled back by the state of the rest. That is why "the effort for individual progress and realisation should be combined with ...
... fullness; and that so to manifest is the sole reason of its being here. Sri Aurobindo wrote in one of his letters to Barindra, "What God wants from man is to manifest Him here, in the individual and the collectivity—to realise God in life. The ancient systems of Yoga failed to synthesise or unite spirituality and life; they have explained the world away as Maya (illusion) or a transient Lila (play) ...
... grow according to their own nature and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the one common work of humanity. And that work would be to find the divine Self in the individual and the collectivity and to realise spiritually, mentally, vitally, materially its greatest, largest, richest and deepest possibilities in the inner life of all and their outer action and nature. For it ...
... the One is the secret summit of existence and to reach the spiritual consciousness and the Divine the ultimate goal and aim of our being and therefore of the whole development of the individual and the collectivity in all its parts and all its activities, reason cannot be the last and highest guide; culture, as it is understood ordinarily, cannot be the directing light or find out the regulating and ...
... view-point, the motive-power and the character of our living, does not at first appear to make any difference in its factors. Subjectivism and objectivism start from the same data, the individual and the collectivity, the complex nature of each with its various powers of the mind, life and body and the search for the law of their self-fulfilment and harmony. But objectivism proceeding by the analytical ...
... Ashram Playground, “if it is not in harmony with at least a group of consciousnesses representative of a new world. There is, in spite of everything, so great an interdependence between the individual and the collectivity that the individual realisation … is limited, diminished by the irresponsive atmosphere – if I may put it like that – of what surrounds it. And it is certain that the entire terrestrial ...
... approach that [supramental] perfection if it is not in accord with at least a group of consciousnesses representative of a new world. After all, there is such a great interdependence of the individual and the collectivity that the individual realization, however great, is limited, impoverished by the unresponsive atmosphere of its surroundings. And it is certain that the entire terrestrial life has to follow ...
... the One is the secret summit of existence and to reach the spiritual consciousness and the Divine the ultimate goal and aim of our being and therefore of the whole development of the individual and the collectivity in all its parts and all its activities, reason cannot be the last and highest guide; culture, as it is understood ordinarily, cannot be the directing light or find out the regulating ...
... interests and his egoism in the interests of the development of the collectivity. Page 17 Development ought to aim at the growth of this kind of inter-relationship between the individual and the collectivity. But even this is not enough. Development needs the promotion of science and technology. Fortunately, science and technology have reached today amazing heights of achievement. But in order ...
... when we come to consider values of physical education, vital education, and mental education in the con text of the integral development of personality and of the perfectibility of the individual and the collectivity. Science and Values The second question will be related to science and values, particularly when humanity is awaking to the necessity of directing scientific knowledge towards ...
... there is greater and greater emphasis on egoism and competition based upon narrow concerns of individuality. She said that the problems of today are problems of the dichotomy between individual and the collectivity. How to reconcile the growth of the individual and growth of collectivity is the central problem, she added. She also referred to the concept of integral education and asked how integral ...
... points to something beyond itself and gives its message of God, Light, Freedom, Bliss, and Immortality that can be realised by an ever-ascending movement of consciousness so that both the individual and the collectivity can liberate themselves from the circum-scribing limitations, bondage and imperfections. That knowledge has constantly expanded from the ancient times to the present day, and if we take ...
... spiritual ways and pass by its own chosen path out of this inferior existence. But then the collectivity of humanity will have to remain confined to the perpetual conflict between the individual and the collectivity, within the circle of the ego and its dualities, and the evolutionary stress in humanity will have to be denied its urge to complete what is intended in the involution of the supermind ...
... inarch in our own century, Reason has now demonstrated, particularly with the collapse of the socialist experiment in USSR, that Page 61 Reason can neither harmonise the individual and the collectivity nor can it synthesise freedom, equality and brotherhood. It is seen that Reason can succeed only in establishing a limited rule of Law over uneasy springs of freedom and a narrow rule of ...
... Referring to the concept of integral personality, he said that personality is fully integrated when there is consistency in thought, word, and deed, when one achieves equilibrium between the individual and the collectivity and when one achieves balanced and progressive development of the physical, mental, moral, emotional and spiritual. Underlining the idea of education as a life-long process, he remarked ...
... grow according to their own nature and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the one common work of humanity. And that work would be to find the divine Self in the individual and the collectivity and to realise spiritually, mentally, vitally, materially its greatest, largest, richest and deepest possibilities in the inner life of all and their outer action and nature." Religion ...
... there may indeed obtain this featureless liberation, but what is the gain? The Spirit, the Self, the Divine is always there. What the Divine wants is for man to embody Him here, in the individual and the collectivity — to realise God in life. The old system of yoga could not synthesise or unify the Spirit and life; it dismissed the world as an illusion or a transient play of God. The result has been ...
... gather oneself in, limbs and all, and hide as in a shell by cutting oneself off from all outward touches. This was a temporary necessity in order to maintain the consciousness of the individual and the collectivity always at a high level and keep it unsullied and unchanged. Our give and take with the outside world was very little indeed and it was carried on under the strictest vigilance. All around ...
... grow according to their own nature and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the one common work of humanity. And that work would be to find the divine Self in the individual and the collectivity and to realise spiritually, mentally, vitally, materially its greatest, largest, richest and deepest possibilities in the inner life of all and their outer action and nature". 36 ...
... with other kinds as well. As regards the issue between individualism and collectivism, Sri Aurobindo writes: Subjectivism and objectivism start from the same data, the individual and the collectivity, the complex nature of each with its various powers of the mind, Page 475 life and body and the search for the law of their self-fulfilment and harmony. But objectivism ...
... to effect the least change of life for the better. The egoistic way of life became crueler and cruder and worse and worse both individual Page 76 ly and collectively. This is what brought in so much clash and conflicts between individuals and individuals and between nations and nations ending in two global wars without being able to remedy in the least the sordid human affairs. He... idea propagated by Vivekananda had such a worldwide appeal. But because it stressed more of an individual than collective spiritual ideal through social and humanitarian services, it failed to bring about a change of our social economic and political life. Sri Aurobindo saw that nothing good for collective life emerged out of the neo-spiritual ideals of Ramkrishria and Vivekananda and that' there was... scene of peace, bliss, unity and harmony and established in the full glory of the Sat-Chit-Ananda. This may and must take time. But we must be prepared to give it a fair chance by our individual and collective collaboration for the common goal. If another 2 to 3 hundred years lapse before the manifestation of this gnostic or supramental consciousness, we have nothing to worry. Mind and mental principle ...
... This was the individual aspect of Sadhana, what every inmate of the Ashram was expected to put into progressive practice for his own march towards spiritual perfection. But there was at the same time a collective aspect to it. Thus the second line along which the Mother worked was to make the collectivity as real and living as the individual aspect and besides make this collective reality of the... serious attempt was made at some sort of a collective organisation. By January 1922, the Ashram - although not yet known as an 'Ashram' - was very much of a reality in its inner spiritual orientation. Yet, in this pre-1926 period, the community of sadhaks had been - in the words of the Mother - no more than "a collection of individuals ... without a collective organisation... One could say it had a general... spiritual charge of the Ashram devolved on the Mother. Then she started working along two complementary lines with a dual purpose - individual and collective - in view. In order to understand what this dual purpose meant in actual practice, we have to remember that one of the cardinal points of Sri Aurobindo's teaching is that there are more than one overhead planes of spiritual consciousness above the ...
... 1934 My blessings are always there to awaken you, but you must want to make use of them. 21 October 1935 Blessings are a manifestation of the divine grace, in favour of an individual or a collectivity. 22 October 1935 My love and blessings are with you. Understand that blessings are for the best spiritual result, not necessarily according to human wishes. My blessings are ...
... supramental or gnostic community.... He has said, of course, that, for this, the individuals constituting this collectivity should themselves have this supramental consciousness; but even without attaining an individual perfection—even while very far from it—there was at the same time an inner effort to create this "collective individuality", so to speak. The need for a real union, a deeper bond has been... that the effort you could make individually, instead of being for only an individual progress, will spread, so to say, or have very important collective results. But I said nothing because for months I wanted to prepare the individual consciousness to admit, I might say, even perhaps to recognise, this necessity for a collective individuality. This is what must be explained now. There is no other reason... see. ( After a long silence ) It is something rather complicated. I shall try to explain it. For a very long time the Ashram was only a gathering of individuals, each one representing something, but as an individual and without any collective organisation. They were like separate pawns on a chess-board—united only in appearance—or rather by the purely superficial fact of living together in the ...
... a corrective to collective egoism which, without this control, could take on excessive proportions. The level of collective consciousness is always lower than the individual level. It is very noticeable, for example, that when men gather in a group or collect in great numbers, the level of consciousness falls a great deal. The consciousness of crowds is much lower than individual consciousness, and... kind—he would have difficulty in finding the energy needed to go on living. ( Silence ) Page 355 But as very few individuals are capable of thinking freely, it is much easier to join a religion, accept it, adopt it and become a part of that religious collectivity than to formulate one's own cult for oneself. So, apparently, one is this or that, but in fact it is only an appearance. ... and the collective consciousness of society is certainly lower than the consciousness of the individuals constituting it. There it is a necessity. In ordinary life, an individual, whether he knows it or not, always has a religion but the object of his religion is sometimes of a very inferior kind.... The god he worships may be the god of success or the god of money or the god of power, or simply ...
... THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COLLECTIVE An integral sadhana cannot be confined to the individual alone; an element of collectivity must enter into it. An individual is not an isolated being in any way. There are, of course, schools of Yoga and philosophy that seek to isolate the individual, consider him as an entity hemmed in by his own consciousness; indeed they view the individuals as all... varied self-objectification. The light that shines here, the fire that burns here and the delight that flows here illumine, purify and revitalise not only the individual in which it dwells, but move abroad and extend into the other individuals with which it lives in spiritual identity. Page 29 ... universe. This is a position, no doubt, that can be acquired by a kind of discipline of the consciousness, though not to a great perfection; but it is not a natural or necessary poise. Normally, individuals do merge into each other and form one weft of give and take. A desire, an impulse, even a thought that rises in you, goes out of you, overflows you and spreads around even to the extreme limit ...
... The Individual and the Collective AN integral sadhana cannot. be confined to the individual alone; an element of collectivity must enter into it. An individual is not an isolated being in any way. There are, of course, schools of Yoga and philosophy that seek to isolate the individual, consider him as an entity hemmed in by his own consciousness; indeed they view the individuals as all... varied self-objectification. The light that shines here, the fire that burns here and the delight that flows here illumine, purify and revitalise not only the individual in which it dwells, but move abroad and extend into the other individuals with which it lives in spiritual identity. Page 232 ... universe. This is a position; no doubt, that can be acquired by a kind of discipline of the consciousness, though not to a great perfection; but it is not a natural or necessary poise. Normally, individuals do merge into each other and form one weft of give and take. A desire, an impulse, even a thought that rises in you, goes out of you, overflows you and spreads around even to the extreme limit of ...
... the shield. Collectivity, like the individual, may also be a help as well as a bar. It means the enlargement and diffusion of the individual's gain, a sharing in wide' commonalty, an element or asset of human progress; it may also Page 187 hamstring, for it is normally conservative and averse to movement and progress. Zhivago at almost every step shows how the individual is thwarted... that direction. But it moves over the sufferings, over the corpses of individuals composing the collectivity. The individuals, in one sense, are indeed the foci, the conscious centres that direct and impel the onward march, but they have something in them which is over and above the dynamism of physical revolution. There is an inner aspiration and preoccupation whose object is other than outer or general... the individual. Pasternak's third article of faith is human freedom, the freedom of the individual. Indeed if evolution is to mean progress and growth it must base itself upon that one needful thing. And here is the gist of the problem that faces Pasternak (as Zhivago) in his own inner consciousness and in his outer social life. The problem – Man versus Society, the individual and the collective-the ...
... shield. Collectivity, like the individual, may also be a help as well as a bar. It means the enlargement and diffusion of the individual's gain, a sharing in wide com- Page 41 monalty, an element or asset of human progress; it may also hamstring, for it is normally conservative and averse to movement and progress. Zhivago at almost every step shows how the individual is thwarted... personality does move in that direction. But it moves over the sufferings, over the corpses of individuals composing the collectivity. The individuals, in one sense, are indeed the foci, the conscious centres that direct and impel the onward march, but they have something in them which is over and above the dynamism of physical revolution. There is an inner aspiration and preoccupation whose object is... honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed Page 40 herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual claims to the demand of his people, the collective godhead. Pasternak's tragedy runs on the same line. Progress and welfare of the group, of humanity at large is an imperative necessity and the collective personality ...
... consciousness is identified with essential energy. Chit and Tapas are one and the same. The seed of consciousness has to be sown in the field of our being, whether it is the individual or the collective being. How is it to be done? And who is to find the seed? There must be some one or even a few who are the prophets, pioneers or forerunners, who are the appointed missionaries. You or I ...
... for consciousness is identified with essential energy. Chit and Tapas are one and the same. The seed of consciousness has to be sown in the field of our being, whether it is the individual or the collective being. How is it to be done? And who is to find the seed? There must be some one or even a few who are the prophets, pioneers or forerunners, who are the appointed missionaries. You or I ...
... equality and progress under the pressure of a new Truth and a new Consciousness. Some people are aware of it; many are not. But that does not matter. The movement is going all right in the individual and in collective life: there is unrest, turmoil and upheaval everywhere; old bases and old values are getting shaken and are gradually yielding place to the new. Women, whether in India or elsewhere, ...
... the same time three distinct perfections: (i) a total self-finding and self-fulfilment of the individual in himself, (ii) an integral flowering of the collective being and (iii) the perfectly harmonious mutual relation between individual and individual, between society and society, and between individual and society. These three perfections are in no way incompatible with one another, rather they... un-tackled and untransformed, the individual cannot be made perfect and remoulded 'in the image of God.' The second perfection, perfection of the collective being, remains on its part short of attainment, so long as the individuals constituting it remain imperfect themselves. For the collective being has to formulate and express itself through the individuals in order to become conscious,... adaptability? Where is the assurance that the self-affirmation of the individual will not go counter to the self-affirmation of the collective being, and vice versa? Rather, one meets the contrary phenomenon all around. We notice clash, discord and disharmony reigning supreme everywhere. Individuals clashing with individuals, communities colliding with communities, nations warring against ...
... the individual, the collective mind of the community, race, nation or body of nations that profess it and the collective mind of all humanity, the latter attaining especial importance in these days when all parts of the world are in some sort of touch with each other. The conditions which act on it are the various physical and other influences which have acted or are now acting on the individual and... and collective mind and most of all its spiritual history. Page 95 ...
... is then the solution? The solution is that the individuals constituting any collectivity should move away from their surface existence which is at present the field of unbridled play of ego and try to dwell more and more in their inner consciousness. In Sri Aurobindo's words: "It is only by an inner growth, movement, action that the individual can freely and effectively universalise and tra... Destiny The Ideal Group-life: Its Character All the past attempts of man to build an ideal collective life have invariably foundered on the rocks of ego-consciousness Page 25 of the constitutive individuals. Egos in different persons in a group are bound to differ in their separate ideas, urges, perceptions, interests and purposes. And sooner... into, must reverse the ordinary principle of group-building and base its action in the collective life upon an inner experience and inclusion of others in our own being. An inner sense of oneness should be the binding element in the group-existence. To quote Sri Aurobindo again: "The spiritual individual acts out of [a] sense of oneness which gives him immediate and direct perception of the ...
... ; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells... mission is yet to be done. Like the individual a nation too dies. Ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt and Babylon and Chaldea are no more. What has happened to their souls, it may be asked. Well, what happens to the soul of the individual when Page 58 the body falls away? The soul returns to the soul-world. Like the individual Psyche the collective Psyche too goes and retires into the... supporting, building, guiding its political, economic, social or cultural makeup. The individual can know of and come in contact with the nation's soul in and through his own soul. When one becomes conscious of his psychic being then only one is in a condition to be conscious of the psychic being of the collective person of his nation or the nation with which he has inner affinity. There are ...
... in perfection only that the Divine begins, and until now Thou hast not granted to it any extraordinary intensity, any real perfection.... Everything is in a state of promise, a promise not individual but collective; nothing is completely realised. Why, O Lord? Thou hast placed in my heart a peace so total that it seems to be almost indifference and in an immensity of calm serenity it says: Just ...
... n, that I realise what it was. Once again this evening I entered that state in which the consciousness is scattered in a multitude of different elements, centres of consciousness both individual and collective, to carry out a certain action there or rather as many actions as these elements comprise. By flashes one point or another suddenly appears distinctly, then fades away giving place to another ...
... ; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells... that soul's mission is yet to be done. Like the individual a nation too dies. Ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt and Babylon and Chaldea are no more. What I has happened to their souls, it may be asked. Well, what happens to the soul of the individual when the body falls away? The soul returns to the soul-world. Like the individual Psyche the collective Psyche too goes and retires into the womb of peace... supporting, building, guiding its political, economic, social or cultural make-up. The individual can know of and come in contact with the nation's soul in and through his own soul. When one becomes conscious of his psychic being then only one is in a condition to be conscious of the psychic being of the collective person of his nation or the nation with which he has inner affinity. There are periods ...
... himself, the perfectibility of the individual, a full development of the collective being, the perfectibility of society and, more pragmatically restricted, the perfect or best possible relations of individual with individual and society, and of community with community. An exclusive or dominant emphasis is laid sometimes on the individual, sometimes on the collectivity or society, sometimes on a right... . . . The individual is indeed the key of the evolutionary movement; for it is the individual who finds himself, who becomes conscious of the Reality. The movement of the collectivity is a largely subconscious mass movement; it has to formulate and express itself through the individuals to become conscious: its general mass consciousness is always... Reality, a manifestation of the spirit of man, and there is a truth, a self, a power of the collective being. The individual is a formation of the Reality, and there is a truth of the individual, an individual self, soul or spirit that expresses itself through the individual mind, life and body and can express itself too in something that goes beyond mind, life and body, something even ...
... for an advance. On the other hand, it may be noted that unless the collectivity rises to a certain level the individual too cannot go very far from it. A higher lift in the individual presupposes a corresponding or some minimum lift in others. There cannot or should not be too great a rift between the individual and the collective: As I said, the East usually ignores this correspondence and posits... the only meaning of freedom. In the West the individual is taught to remain in the world and with the society, maintain his individuality and independence and gradually enlarge them in and through the natural fetters and bondages that a collective life and efficient organisation demands and inevitably imposes. The East, on the contrary, asks the individual never to protest and assert his individuality... evolution from level to level. The individual starts from the organic cell, that is the lower end, it progresses through various gradations of the vital and mental worlds till he reaches the culmination of its growth in the Spirit as ātman. But this vertical growth must be reflected in a horizontal growth too. There is a solidarity among the individuals forming the collective humanity so that the progress ...
... intensive evolution and formation through the individual that anything radical of an expanding or dynamically diffusive character can be expected or any attempt at collective spiritual life,—such attempts have been made, but mostly as a field of protection for the growth of the individual's spirituality,—acquire a successful permanence. For till then the individual must be preoccupied with his own problem... " It is true that the spiritual tendency has been to look more beyond life than towards life. It is true also that the spiritual change has been individual and not collective; its result has been successful in the man, but unsuccessful or only indirectly operative in the human mass. The spiritual evolution of Nature is still in process and incomplete,—one might... the spirit which he is achieving or has achieved in his inner being and knowledge. Any premature attempt at a large-scale collective spiritual life is exposed to vitiation by some incompleteness of the spiritual knowledge on its dynamic side, by the imperfections of the individual seekers and by the invasion of the ordinary mind and vital and physical consciousness taking hold of the truth and mechanising ...
... A Utopian Dream? We have put forward in the preceding Section the idea that in order to fulfil its destiny, the destiny of erecting an ideal collective life wherein will live perfect spiritual individuals, a significant number of Ashramites should seriously endeavour to grow within and live from within, know their real selves and build up their relationships with their comrades... which it may be objected that it puts off the consummation of an ideal human grouping to a remote future; for it presupposes that no machinery invented by man's reason can perfect either the individual or the collective man. And who will deny that the inner change needed in human nature to achieve this goal of dual perfection is something too difficult to be ever achieved except by a microscopic minority... possible in themselves and to find the way." (The Life Divine, p. 1060) And if these psychological factors are found in the Ashramites, our dream of building a perfect collective life made up of spiritually active individuals will prove neither Utopian nor chimerical. Page 56 ...
... of the human adventure, seen here in the light of Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future, there emerges the one eternal question and dominant theme of our seeking: man past and present, man individual and collective, but always and above all, the ultimate flowering of his life upon earth. We have pleasure in stating that the Government of India have given to our Centre of Education a grant to meet ...
... for an advance. On the other hand, it may be noted that unless the collectivity rises to a certain level the individual too cannot go very far from it. A higher lift in the individual presupposes a corresponding or some minimum lift in others. There cannot or should not be too great a rift between the individual and the collective. As I said, the East usually ignores this correspondence and posits... the only meaning of freedom. In the West the individual is taught to remain in the world and with the society, maintain his individuality and independence and gradually enlarge them in and through the natural fetters and bondages that a collective life and efficient organisation demands and inevitably imposes. The East, on the contrary, asks the individual never to protest and assert his individuality... evolution from level to level. The individual starts from the organic cell, that is the lower end, it progresses through various gradations of the vital and mental worlds till he reaches the culmination of its growth in the Spirit as atman. But this vertical growth must be reflected in a horizontal growth too. There is a solidarity among the individuals forming the collective 'humanity so that the progress ...
... again a rung in progress and not perfection. Now we are going to try to find a definition which can fit all instances, that is, the individual, the collectivity, the earth and the universe. We may say that perfection will be attained in the individual, the collectivity, on the earth and in the universe, when, at every moment , the receptivity will be equal in quality and quantity to the Force which ...
... very much, one begins to grow less narrow-minded. Naturally, with yoga one can overcome all this consciously. Does the collective ego depend on the individual ego of the individuals who form the collectivity? Yes. Usually collective egos are inferior in quality to individual egos. Instead of being a multiplication or even an addition, it becomes a diminution, usually. Psychologically it is a ... There are individual egos and collective egos. For example, the national ego is a collective ego. A group may have a collective ego. The human race has a collective ego. It is bigger or smaller. The individual ego is the ego of a particular person; it is the smallest kind of ego. Oh, there is of course a vital ego, a mental ego and a physical ego but these are minor individual egos. But this means... efforts, that is, to enjoy the individuality. Even the physical formation is an ego? Yes, I tell you. What can it be due to if not to the ego? Just now you were asking why there is an individual ego... There is a family ego, and it is very interesting because it is the family ego which makes all the members of a family resemble Page 12 each other in some way or other; they ...
... Indianness, and that is its insistence on rta, the law of life and the law of development of individual and of the collectivity, a law which is, in a sense, eternal or the sanatana, and which is yet so supple that for each stage of life, each epoch of time, each nation, each collectivity and each individual it provides its own specific rhythms that govern Page 450 their specific and unique... assimilated properly, can ensure the rejuvenation of our individual and collective life. The west can teach us secrets of modern science, and if we can learn these lessons rightly but in accordance with Indian spirit, we can recover and even refashion our own national intellectual, moral, and spiritual resources and capacity. The message of individual freedom, productivity and prosperity flowing upon us... rashtra dharma, kula dharma", and even swadharma. The profundity and depth of the concept of dharma, which is not religion, but which is a complex principle of guidance that can lead individuals and collectivities from lower levels to higher levels, and which in reaching culminations widens itself into freedom to the infinity of the spirit. Another element that the Vedic quest provided to the ...
... of human duties and people's duties. It is only when we match rights with duties, and create a new mode of consciousness among learners in which the individual develops collective consciousness and the collectivity develops profound care of the individual that rights and duties come to be fulfilled in a meaningful manner. Ours is a world beset with tensions, injustices and discriminations. Threat... progress, will be those individuals who will inspire all to climb the heights, however difficult they may be, so that the highest ideals are held in common and are shared in common. We look forward not to the goal of individual salvation, but to the goal of salvation that is collective and which is even physical. It is in pursuit of that goal that we seek peace as a positive, collective and global ideal,... in them increasingly and progressively the light and power and wisdom derived from the cultivation of higher faculties and to create individual and collective life, in its inner and outer aspects in such a way that the law of the individual development and of collective development harmonise with each other. The purely physical life, devoid of mental interests and pursuits is the opposite of culture; ...
... Indianness, and that is its insistence on rta, the law of life and the law of development of individual and of the collectivity, a law which is, in a sense, eternal or the sandtana, and which is yet so supple that for each stage of life, each epoch of time, each nation, each collectivity and each individual it provides its own specific rhythms that govern their specific and unique development of life... properly, can ensure the rejuvenation of our individual and collective life. The west can teach us secrets of modern science, and if we can learn these lessons rightly but in accordance Page 12 with Indian spirit, we can recover and even refashion our own national intellectual, moral, and spiritual resources and capacity. The message of individual freedom, productivity and prosperity flowing... rdshtra dharma, kula dharma" , and even swddharma. The profundity and depth of the concept of dharma, which is not religion, but which is a complex principle of guidance that can lead individuals and collectivities from lower levels to higher levels, and which in reaching culminations widens itself into freedom to the infinity of the spirit. Another element that the Vedic quest provided to the ...
... the individual by all the individualists. Individualistic Democracy is the natural result of individualism. According to collectivism, the individual derives his origin and his growth from the collectivity and from his relationship with the collectivity. To achieve the perfect synchronisation of the individual will with the Collective or General Will is the highest good of the individual. A complete... the individual has an intrinsic value, not derived from his membership of the collectivity or society, but the value of this relationship is to be judged by the way in which this relationship nourishes and perfects the individual. The ultimate allegiance of the individual is not to the society, but to the intrinsic value of himself or to his inner soul, or to the Divine, from whom the individual derives... complete obedience to the Social Will is the highest freedom of the individual. To become a perfect instrument of the rational common will of the collectivity is the destiny of the individual. The ultimate allegiance of the individual is to the collectivity or to the society, to the rational State, or in more Catholic theory, to the World-State or to the totality of mankind or of cosmic Nature, which ...
... most central and recurrent as well as its most external and diverse issues. Man in every mode and field - the thinker and the scientist no less than the artist and the mystic - man individual and man collective - the modern breaker of new ground side by side with the heir of the ages - is Sri Aurobindo's material for probing and guidance. Especially is he concerned with man the conscious evolving... These essays were not always addressed directly to the disciples of Sri Aurobindo, though in one manner or another all are bound to touch them more intimately. Several were originally letters to individuals hovering on the fringe of the Pondicherry circle, and some spoke to sheer outsiders who needed to be informed of the profound experiment undertaken by Sri Aurobindo. In fact, all are basically ...
... between the individual and the collective so much so that an individual realisation is bound to be restricted and diminished in an irresponsive atmosphere. Earth life as a whole has to follow a certain curve of progress in order that a new world and a new consciousness may appear in it. So the future realisation does depend, partially at least, upon you, individually and collectively. Have you... least the consciousness of a group of individuals, an inevitable necessity and what has been and is appears to it as an absurdity that cannot last, then and then only comes the moment for the change to happen, not before. The question still remains whether the thing can happen and will happen individually before it happens collectively. But no individual realisation even can be complete or approach... human form when it became ready to receive something from above—there have been always and there are still individuals who carry in them this need of the eternal and the absolute. It is only little by little, very gradually, through cycles of enlightenment and obscurity that something like a collective consciousness in humanity awakes to the need of such a higher existence. And today this necessity seems ...
... are bound to be born in the coming decades. Geniuses? If one wishes, although the term refers to the notion of exceptional individuals—Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Napoleon, Einstein—in whom the collective unconscious culminates, without the individual members of the collective being able to equal them. In this case, on the other hand, the men of a new kind will be the prototypes of the humanity... same reality which they attempt to circumscribe. The soul of the scientist is not less spiritual than the soul of the seer. The same necessity leads both, a necessity which is not so much individual, as collective, terrestrial, cosmic. Otherwise, it would be futile to speak of the unity of beings and, even more, of the uniqueness of Being. 1 Jean Guitton, Grichka and Igor Bogdanov, Dieu... there is a phase and rhythm of Time which, as the goal of our advancement, guides it without fail? In other words, what one might call an absolute future pre-exists in what we do on the individual and collective plane, and engenders our actions from moment to moment. If men have been able to instill in us the sense of a state in which we shall one day be physically inaccessible to death, if ...
... through the aeons to reveal progressively not only in the unity of the cosmos, not only in the collectivity of living and thinking creatures, but in the soul of each individual something of its divine Mystery and the hidden truth of the Infinite. Therefore there is in the cosmos, in the collectivity, in the individual, a rooted instinct or belief in its own perfectibility, a constant drive towards an ever... spiritual power and presence within it which is one with all and in sympathy with each thing and creature and with all the collective personalities and powers of the divine Page 205 existence, and yet it transcends them and is not bound by the egoism of any creature or collectivity or limited by the ignorant controls of their lower nature. This is the high realisation in front of all our seeking... cast away or else it stands as a rigid barrier to the self-development of the individual and the race. The Shastra erects a collective and external standard; it ignores the inner nature of the individual, the indeterminable Page 203 elements of a secret spiritual force within him. But the nature of the individual will not be ignored; its demand is inexorable. The unrestrained indulgence of ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6 INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE SOUL The individual has a soul. Likewise a collection of individuals, a group too has a soul. When persons habitually meet together for a certain purpose, they form a set or society and gradually tend to develop a common consciousness which is the beginning of a soul. At school, they who read... Asia or of Africa. Indeed each cell of an organism has a consciousness of its own; it may be said to be the unit individual consciousness. Many such cells combine to form the organism, the individual (who in this way may be viewed as a composite or collective being). Many individuals form the family—-each family with its group consciousness (whence the idea of kuladharma, the genius of the family ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 Individual and Collective Soul THE individual has a soul. Likewise a collection of individuals, a group too has a soul. When persons habitually meet together for a certain purpose, they form a set or society and gradually tend to develop a common consciousness which is the beginning of a soul. At school... of Asia or of Africa. Indeed each cell of an organism has a consciousness of its own; it may be said to be the unit individual consciousness. Many such cells combine to form the organism, the individual (who in this way may be viewed as a composite or collective being). Many individuals form the family – each family with its group consciousness (whence the idea of kuladharma, the genius of the family ...
... between the individual and the collective so much so that an individual realisation is bound to be restricted and diminished in an unresponsive atmosphere. Earth life as a whole has to follow a certain curve of progress in order that a new world and a new consciousness may appear in it. So the future realisation does depend, partially at least, upon you, individually and collectively. Have you ever... at least the consciousness of a group of individuals, an inevitable necessity and what has been and is appears to it as an absurdity that cannot last, then and then only comes the moment for the change to happen, not before. The question still remains whether the thing can happen and will happen individually before it happens collectively. But no individual realisation even can be complete or approach... ready to receive something from above Page 44 there have been always and there are still individuals who carry in them this need of the eternal and the absolute. It is only little by little, very gradually, through cycles of enlightenment and obscurity that something like a collective consciousness in humanity awakes to the need of such a higher existence. And today this necessity seems ...
... of them ) It has been found necessary to change some of the forms and methods hitherto used to help by external means, the individual and collective sadhana. This has to be done especially in regard to the consecration of food, the collective meditation and the individual contact of the sadhak with the Mother. The existing forms were originally arranged in order to make possible a spiritual and psychic ...
... movements the supreme reality made of utter truth and knowledge and power and delight. This being his individual life, his collective or social life too would figure the same pattern. A new society in which men have found their soul and soul function is a harmonious, a unitary body, composed of individuals who by living each one in his self live in all and living in all each one lives in his self. Likewise... almost self-evident. The sum and substance of all he says is that man is growing and has to grow in consciousness till he reaches the complete and perfect consciousness, not only in his individual but in his collective, that is to say, social life. In fact, the growth of consciousness is the supreme secret of life, the master key to earthly evolution. Sri Aurobindo believes in evolution... if nothing else, at least the possibility was created. Page 72 Sri Aurobindo's aim, we have said, is not an individual fulfilment, however glorious and successful it might be, and not merely the fulfilment of one limb only of the individual however deep and high. Sri Aurobindo embraced the whole man and the whole society. A fulfilled life in society upon earth—the highest ...
... majority by the minority, of the individual by the collectivity, finally, of all by the relentless mechanism of the State. Democratic liberty tried to minimise this suppression; it left a free play for the individual and restricted as much as might be the role of the State. Collectivism goes exactly to the opposite extreme; it will leave no sufficient elbow-room to the individual free-will, and the more it... can be most wisely and effectively carried out by the collective reason and will of the State which is larger, better, more enlightened than the individual's; for it profits, as the average individual cannot do, by all the available wisdom and aspiration in the society. Indeed, the enlightened individual may well come to regard this collective reason and will as his own larger mind, will and conscience... truth, that every society represents a collective being and in it and by it the individual lives and he owes to it all that he can give it. More, it is only by a certain relation to the society, a certain harmony with this greater collective self that he can find the complete use for his many developed or developing powers and activities. Since it is a collective being, it must, one would naturally suppose ...
... most wisely and effectively carried out by the collective reason and will of the State which is larger, better, more enlightened than the individual's; for it profits, as the average individual cannot do, by all the available Page 15 wisdom and aspiration in the society. Indeed, the enlightened individual may well come to regard this collective reason and will as his own larger mind, will... truth, that every society represents a collective being and in it and by it the individual lives and he owes to it all that he can give it. More, it is only by a certain relation to the society, a certain harmony with this greater collective self that he can find the complete use for his many developed or developing powers and activities. Since it is a collective being, it must, one would naturally suppose... determine the whole life of the society "Moreover, since his individual reason cannot be trusted to work out naturally a right and rational adjustment of his life with the life of others, it is for the reason of the whole community to arrange that too for him. Not the reasoning minds and wills of the individuals, but the collective reasoning mind and will of the community has to govern. It is this ...
... organisation. However the crucial point arises here—how is the collective life, the group existence to be made soul-conscious? One can understand the injunction upon individuals to seek and find their souls; but how can a society be expected to act from its soul and according to the impulsions of its soul ? And then, has a collectivity at all a soul ? What is usually spoken of as the Page 141 ... How can that be done? It is done by the individual, in and through the individual. Not a single individual perhaps, but a few, a select body, a small minority who by their conscious will and illumined endeavour form the strong nucleus that builds up automatically and inevitably the larger organisation instinct with its spirit and dharma. In fact all collective organisations are made in the same way... springs precisely from this poisonous source, viz., it views man as a bundle of rights and its problem of social organisation is the problem of safeguarding and, if possible, even of increasing individual and collective rights. Thus came into being the competitive society—a society necessarily red in tooth and claw like Nature. Vivekananda pointed .out that one should rather think of one's duties, how ...
... organisation. However the crucial point arises here-how is the collective life, the group existence to be made soul-conscious? One can understand the injunction upon individuals to seek and find their souls; but how can a society be expected to act from its soul and according to the impulsions of its soul? And then, has a collectivity at all a soul? What is usually spoken of as the Page 258 ... How can that be done? It is done by the individual, in and through the individual. Not a single individual perhaps, but a few, a select body, a small minority who by their conscious will and illumined endeavour form the strong nucleus that builds up automatically and inevitably the larger organisation instinct with its spirit and dharma. In fact all collective organisations are made in the same way... springs precisely from this poisonous source, viz., it views man as a bundle of rights and its problem of social organisation is the problem of safeguarding and, if possible, even of increasing individual and collective rights. Thus came into being the competitive society-a society necessarily red in tooth and claw like Nature. Vivekananda pointed out that one should rather think of one's duties, how ...
... which our individual self-fulfilment no longer separates us from others but at each step of our growth calls for an increasing unity. But it is from the self-determination of the free individual within the free collectivity in which he lives that we have to start, because so only can we be sure of a healthy growth of freedom and because too the unity to be arrived at is that of individuals growing... its results has led to the opposite idea of State socialism, which supposes that the negation of individual liberty in the collective being of the State can be made to amount by some mechanical process to a positive sum of liberty nicely distributable to all in a carefully guarded equality. The individual gives up his freedom of action and possession to the State which in return doles out to him a regulated... the ethical idea has pushed itself forward into the other and Page 627 opposite principle of altruism. The main general results have been a clearer perception of collective egoisms and their claim on the individual egoism and, secondly, a quite uncertain and indefinable mixture, strife and balancing of egoistic and altruistic motive in our conduct. Often enough altruism is there chiefly ...
... EACH OF US ON EARTH.. Each of us on earth has a short span of dreaming and doing. But the human life which we live, whether individual or collective, is not all that is ours. Through and beyond our dreaming and doing, a larger life is being dreamt and done. Our hearts and minds have a movement which we vision as our own concern. But there... limb. Inasmuch as we participate in this evolution of a universal divinity through our small humanity, we live beyond our doom of transience. We become enfolded in all Time, persist through all individual catastrophes — caught up in God's light and liberty. And we are thus caught up because even within our brief lives we have tried our utmost to exceed ourselves and give ourselves to the mighty Will ...
... [1] It has been found necessary to change some of the forms and methods hitherto used to help by external means the individual and collective sadhana. This has to be done especially in regard to the consecration of food, the collective meditation and the individual contact of the sadhaka with the Mother. The existing forms were originally arranged in order to make possible a spiritual and ...
... kingdom or reign of the individual's own self. In effect, the world-empire or the imperial reign of the Spirit has three gradations. At the outset each element, that is, each individual human being (we limit ourselves to the human collectivity at present) has to attain svarajya, self-rule, a perfectly homogeneous integral spiritual whole in himself: then all such individuals should achieve integrality... world-empire comes when not only individuals but groups and collectivities find and establish their own selves – each its svarajya, and all combined in a yet larger and greater organisation: combined and unified they act in a unified and homogeneous living as individuals do in the world aggregate. Although the individual is the basic reality, aggregations and collectivities also are realities, even spiritual... I IT IS Integration. I am using a much used, much abused word but it happens to be the word. We have reached a status of consciousness within as distinct units, individual or collective: our effort should now be to co-ordinate, to harmonise the different and differing units or separate elements into a well-knit single whole. That means, the ego-centres that are still left ...
... word of her is always the most important thing, whether individually practised or collectively done. The Mother's music as an attendant circumstance to meditation, or by itself, for appreciation and enjoyment is also a very fine thing Readings from the Mother, selected for different occasions, individual or collective, are so inspiring and uplifting. Papers written on the Mother will need to reflect ...
... several minds—a formula which is sometimes very beautiful in theory, but which takes no account of the individuals who with their difficulties and weaknesses must form the living cells of the group. In my opinion, it is impossible to give an arbitrary form to any being, individual or collective; its form can only be the outer expression which perfectly reflects the quality of its constituent elements... arbitrarily in its formation. In short, let us become the living cells of the organism we want to bring forth, and let us not forget that on the value of its cells will depend the value of the collective being and its action, its usefulness in the work of universal harmony. Page 63 ... slowly before making any rules for its existence. Consequently, it would seem disastrous to me to attempt to organise our meetings according to a preconceived plan or to conform to the ideal of one individual or another or even of all of us. We would then be entering on the way of artificial formations shaped by theory and destined to perish even more Page 62 rapidly than those institutions ...
... existence. For every individual being is the Self, the Divine in spite of the outward limitations of the mental and physical form through which it presents itself at the actual moment, in the actual field of space, in the actual succession of circumstances that make up the web of inner state and outward action and event through which we know the individual. So, equally, every collectivity small or great... great is each the Self, the Divine similarly expressing itself in the conditions of this manifestation. We cannot really know any individual or any collectivity if we know it only as it appears inwardly to itself or outwardly to us, but only if we know it as the Divine, the One, our own Self employing its various essential modes and its occasional circumstances of self-manifestation. Until we have transformed... world. Only, while the Lord acts out of the centre of all things, we have to act by transmission of His will and power and self-knowledge through the individual centre, the soul-form of Him which we are. The Lord is subject to nothing; the individual soul-form is subject to its own highest Page 380 Self and the greater and more absolute is that subjection, the greater becomes its sense ...
... conducted and lived according to the demands of that view. It is this that humanity is one, that mankind as a whole is a single organism. Even like an individual being, the collective being too is a unit, a close knit living unit. As the individual has different parts and limbs, organs and systems, so is humanity composed of nations and races, cultures and religions. And as the parts of the "body natural"... a progressive unity and harmony in manifestation. The individual moves towards the health and growth of the body and mind and the spirit. If one life is not sufficient for the purpose, as some seers declare, several lives are at the disposal of the individual to achieve it. In what sense can the same or something similar be said of the collective or group life? There is the view, an old-world... nature. The individual will live in his total being and therefore in and through other individuals; as a consequence the nature too in each will undergo a divine transmutation, a marvellous sea-change. Humanity as a race will then present the figure of a homogeneous unit – it will be a unity of many diversified elements, not simply, however, a composition of discrete individuals, but of varied ...
... there May indeed obtain this featureless liberation, but what is the gain? The Spirit, the Self, the Divine is always there. What the Divine wants is for man to embody Him here, in the individual and in the collectivity — to realise God in life. The old system of yoga could not synthesise or unify the Spirit and life; it dismissed the world as an illusion or a transient play of God. The result has ...
... and knowledge. They never went that far. ( Soon afterwards ) Each element, let us say each individual element (even though it is not exactly like that), is in its place according to whether the Grace acts on the individual or on the collectivity. When the Grace acts on the collectivity, each thing, each element, each principle, is put in its place as the result of a karmic logic in the... When the Grace acts on the individual, it gives to each the maximum position according to what he is and what he has realized. And then, there is a super-grace, as it were, which works in a few exceptional cases, which places you not according to what you are but according to what you are to become, which means that the universal cosmic position is ahead of the individual's progress. And it is then ...
... and self-realisation. Continuity and change have been a special feature of this religion which consciously opens up towards something that lies beyond religion and shows to the individuals and the collectivities how to liberate themselves from dogma, rituals, outward ceremonies so as to enter into the kingdom of the spirit and experience of the Infinite Reality in thousand different ways. ... However, the most distinctive element of Hinduism lies in the fact that through successive stages, it built up for larger and larger gradations of human consciousness an organisation of the individual and collective life, — a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct, of mental and moral and vital development by which they could move each in one's own limits and according to one's own nature... eternal and infinite, but also to live in its power universalised, spiritualised and divinised. The aim has been not merely to bring individuals to states of integral perfection but also to help the entire humanity to find its fulfilment in the realisation of collective harmony and perfection. Page 48 ...
... threefold: a)The children of today have to be prepared to become builders of the future, - the future which would be marked by replacement of competitive individualism by the synthesis of individual liberty, collective egalitarianism and universal and spiritual fraternity; b)The future will be liberated from disabling scepticism and from comforting arrestation of quest of knowledge, and progress will... know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be; 37 7.Education for life and for the journey of life that would include the harmonious growth of the individual, family, society and the world, with special emphasis on the ideal of social service; 8.Expansion of ancient wisdom in the light of modern developments and research; 9.Education of the child should ...
... for it is likely that had I been able to start this work thirty years ago, it would have been premature. The consciousness of the others also had to develop—the two are linked, the individual progress and the collective progress, and one cannot advance if the other does not advance. I have also come to realize that for this sadhana of the body, the mantra is essential. Sri Aurobindo gave none; ...
... is behind the surface movements of negation, an aspiration and a supporting consciousness supreme in power and effectivity. The individuals here have to meet all kinds of difficulties so that a way out of them may be discovered both in the individual nature and in collective achievement. We have here in the Ashram varieties of races and religions, all social types, samples of humanity as it were... conscious effort on the part of individuals to uplift and change the human consciousness. It is however the privilege of each individual to deal with one's share in the whole in one's own way, that is to say, the individual has been given the freedom and the capacity to make the burden light or let it remain or grow more heavy. It must be remembered that behind the individual a greater conscious personality... sins, in a way; but in a truer sense he carries the burden of all. It is one single burden that lies equally upon everybody everywhere. Thus the burden of the universal movement is shared by all collectively in equal measure. 1 This is true of mankind 1 Sri Aurobindo says, "Even if our personal deliverance is complete, still there is the suffering of others, the world-travail, which the great ...
... movement is shared by all collectively in equal measure. l This is true of mankind in general; but it becomes dynamically true here among us where there is a conscious effort on the part of individuals to uplift and change the human consciousness. It is however the privilege of each individual to deal with one's share in the whole in one's own way, that is to say, the individual has been given the freedom... surface movements of negation, an aspiration and a supporting consciousness supreme in power and effectivity. The individuals here have to meet all kinds of difficulties so Page 269 that a way out of them may be discovered both in the individual nature and in collective achievement. . We have here in the Ashram varieties of races and religions, all social types, samples of humanity... freedom and the capacity to make the burden light or let it remain or grow more heavy. It must be remembered that behind the individual a greater conscious personality has emerged and taken its place to help, to guide and fulfil the individual's divine destiny: even so, behind the universal effort there is a divine helping hand growing more and more powerful and effective in its manipulation of earthly ...
... manifesting it. Disciple : Suppose the collective entity is dissolved from life? Sri Aurobindo : When the physical form of the collectivity is dissolved here the collective being withdraws into the origin. Disciple : Can a collective being, after such a dissolution take another form – a group – for manifesting itself? Sri Aurobindo : We have as yet no proof of it. ... Aurobindo : Yes, each collective being is a projection of the Cosmic Spirit for a particular purpose. You can speak of it as a particular Shakti. Disciple : How does the collective being or Shakti work? Sri Aurobindo : It identifies itself with a particular form – here of a group of individual. There is a mutual action : it acts on the individual and the individual acts on it by manifesting... cannot be considered useless, though it uses no medicine. Disciple : Some disciples here believe that there is a collective Karma for which either the group, the society or the nation has to bear the consequences like the individual. Sri Aurobindo : The collective being is non-evolutionary. It is hard to believe in the reincarnation of races. Disciple : Somebody seems to have ...
... then become the divine being. This is the message for the individual. The Veda also presents a collective ideal and enjoins upon all who want to listen to this message that they should strive to march together, to commune among themselves in harmony and arrive at a common mind and common understanding. Collective unity and collective harmony form, according to the Veda, the goal that humanity must... follow these two ideals of individual and collective perfection. Consequently, a concept that grew up and upheld the march of Indian culture was that of Dharma which is mistranslated as religion. For Dharma really means the law of ascent, and it has three applications: perennial and for all; temporal for nations and smaller collectivities; and variable for each individual. Perennial law of ascent... awaken each individual to develop himself or herself so as to arrive at powers of self-determination, the Indian experience shows that it is only through processes of integral education that higher powers of self Page 213 determination can be fostered so as to unite the law of individual development and the law of social development for purposes of individual and collective perfection. ...
... then become the divine being. This is the message for the individual. The Veda also presents a collective ideal and enjoins upon all who want to listen to this message that they should strive to march together, to commune among themselves in harmony and arrive at a common mind and common understanding. Collective unity and collective harmony form, according to the Veda, the goal that humanity must... follow these two ideals of individual and collective perfection. Consequently, a concept that grew up and upheld the march of Indian culture was that of Dharma which is mistranslated as religidn. For Dharma really means the law of ascent, and it has three applications: perennial and for all; temporal for nations and smaller collectivities; and variable for each individual. Perennial law of ascent... humanity to awaken each individual to develop himself or herself so as to arrive at powers of self-determination, the Indian experience shows that it is only through processes of integral education that tygher powers of self-determination can be fostered so as to unite the law of individual development and the law of social development for purposes of individual and collective perfection. Fifthly ...
... consummation of a better human society to a far-off date in the future evolution of the race. For it means that no machinery invented by the reason can perfect either the Page 27 individual or the collective man; an inner change is needed in human nature, a change too difficult to be ever effected except by the few. This is not certain; but in any case, if this is not the solution, then there... pressure of the Modern State and the Reaction of Anarchism "Already the pressure of the State organisation on the life of the individual has reached a point at which it is ceasing to be tolerable. If it continues to be what it is now, a government of the life of the individual by the comparatively few and not, as it pretends, by a common will and reason, if, that is to say, it becomes patently undemocratic... of the free reasoned will of millions in all the lines and most of the details of life is a contradiction in terms. Whatever the perfection of the organised State, the suppression or oppression of individual freedom by the will of the majority or of a minority would still be there as a cardinal defect vitiating its very principle. And there would be something infinitely worse. For a thoroughgoing scientific ...
... unit of collective life. In some of the social philosophies the opposition between the individual and the collective life is accepted as basic: Hence in all the applications of these outlooks the individual is pitted against the group. It is argued that the individual is only a temporary cell of the collective body and therefore not entitled to independent self-fulfilment. The collectivity Page... to be an individual problem whereas to Sri Aurobindo, it is a collective problem; in fact, it is a cosmic problem. Very often it is seen that the ignorance of the collectivity is far more dangerous than that of the individual. The Indian Puranas speak of the Asuras and Rakshasas, the titans, who symbolise the inordinate ignorance of the collectivities. The abnormal ambition of an individual may harm... aspect of the Reality and the perfection of man's collective life has, therefore, a place in his scheme of integral human perfection. The divinity in the individual when realised in the collectivity and made dynamic would lead it to collective perfection. It is the universal aspect of the Omnipresent Reality which is behind the drive for collective expression in Nature. Life is the field for the working ...
... growth in secret that pushes a limb no longer necessary or useful to decay and death. Man too in his work of reformation or regeneration should learn that lesson, whether in respect of his individual or of his 'collective growth and evolution. Discover the truth that is to replace the 'old, live it intensely and wholly – the old past will automatically slip down like old clothes or drop like yellow sapless ...
... attitude of the militant nations, the emergence of fanaticism, the Sectarian intolerance, communal strifes and competitive existence leading to unrest and disorder and disharmony in our individual and collective lives. Another problem that immediately concerns us is the population explosion in Asian and African countries. Imagine that only less than 40 years back we were half our present numbers... days. The world has become physically one. Rapid transport and communication have brought about this unique phenomenon in our lives. But so long as militancy and exploitation rule the conduct of individuals and nations there is little prospect of any global improvement in the standard of our living. But it is hoped, that when trust replaces suspicion, friendliness replaces enmity and truth replaces ...
... harmonise the individual realisation with the collective aim. For as it is the right relation of the soul with the Supreme, while it is in the universe, neither to assert egoistically its separate being nor to blot itself out in the Indefinable, but to realise its unity with the Divine and the world and unite them in the individual, so the right relation of the individual with the collectivity is neither... individually and collectively; for the Eternal affirms Himself equally in the single form and in the group-existence, whether family, clan and nation or groupings dependent on less physical principles or the supreme group of all, our collective humanity. Man also may seek his own individual good from any or all of these spheres of activity, or identify himself in them with the collectivity and live for... very element it had rejected, the element of the progressive Mind, so that it might recover what was now wanting to it. We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God's intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; ...
... perfection is to prepare or find the way by which the individual and the collective man can transcend the ego and live in its true self, no longer bound to ignorance, incapacity, disharmony and sorrow. It is by the pursuit of the eternal and not by living bound in the slow collective evolution of Nature that we can best assure even that evolutionary, collective, altruistic aim our modern thought and idealism... consciousness of collective humanity is only a larger comprehensive edition or a sum of individual egos. Made of the same substance, in the same mould of nature, it has not in it any greater light, any more eternal sense of itself, any purer source of peace, joy and deliverance. It is rather even more tortured, troubled and obscured, certainly more vague, confused and unprogressive. The individual is in this... something wider than the individual, but also from something higher than the collective ego. Altruism, philanthropy, the service of mankind are in themselves mental or moral ideals, not laws of the spiritual life. If into the spiritual aim there enters the impulse to deny the personal self or to serve humanity or the world at large, it comes not from the ego nor from the collective sense of the race, but ...
... live?... We can conceive that food will no longer be needed, that there will be another method of sustenance, but... No need of houses! ( Mother does not hear and goes on ) Individual life or collective life? A constructed house, or a... spontaneous house? They don't need houses, they draw back within! You think they can make themselves invisible? Yes, they can draw back within ...
... at least for the individual, and for the ordinary life of the common multitude; this manner of complete self-immolation of the individual serves a collective end, like the self-sacrifice of an army or a multitude of soldiers in a war. But in Sri Aurobindo's view, even for the individual, for any individual, this consummation in self-sacrifice is not the final end; for the individual too this is merely... one or more Page 287 of his lives. Through this self-sacrifice, every individual goes on developing himself along with the development of the collectivity, and this is done not by losing or abolishing oneself. No one is rejected or lost, like the dried-up leaves or flowers. For the individual too there are levels of progression. There is not merely one class of fortunate people who... upward and a, descent with a view to reshape the lower reaches anew in the mould of the heights, not a final extinction, nirvana, in the world of Brahman by a rejection of all individuality and collectivity. No level of the created universe has to be bypassed or abolished, not even the lowest material plane. On the contrary, the aim is to take one's stand on this material plane itself and transmute ...
... 4 Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Human Unity, p. 296. Page 254 is to arrive at a supremely harmonious equation of Unity and Diversity, Freedom and Order, individual Growth and collective Cohesion. Thus, unity being the very basis of existence, "the oneness that is secretly at the foundation of all things, the evolving spirit in Nature is moved to realise consciously... and establish a sense of conscious oneness with all other existences in the universe, — a real oneness and not merely "a pluralistic unity, the drawing together of similar units resulting in a collectivity or solidarity," 2 — we must enter spiritual consciousness. For when man identifies himself with the One inhabiting all bodies and manifesting Himself in everything, he sees oneness everywhere... bane of individual existence in its ordinary ignorant functioning is its false notion of itself being separate from others, separate too from the All-Existence that constitutes all that comes into form. But it is in reality the One that is all and is therefore secretly aware of its all-embracing and all-possessing infinity. Spurred by the 'lust of the embodied Self within every individual creature' ...
... are not a few subsequent Prayers depicting Remarkable transitions and new conquests. The Mother's sadhana has followed strange curves of ascent and descent, for it has not been so much an individual as a collective sadhana for the conversion of the earth-consciousness and the supramental self-expression of God in man. It would, therefore, be a great mistake to try to assess and understand it by the... the supermind. It is described there as the Truth, the Right, the Vast; as the supreme step of Vishnu; and some Vedic Rishis endeavoured to rise into its solar glory. But there is no trace of a collective ascent into it or of any attempt on their part to bring it down into the material life for a conversion of the earth-consciousness. It was even held by some Rishis that it was not possible to ... Many of her experiences are a prism or a reflex of the experiences of the earth-soul, and by far the majority a mighty prelude and preparation and prognosis. Hers has been a consecrated life of collective Page 9 conquests, and it is only when the curves of her work come full circle that the veil will be lifted from the true nature of her experiences and an illumined elite of humanity ...
... are not a few subsequent Prayers depicting remarkable transitions and new conquests. The Mother's sadhana has followed strange curves of ascent and descent, for it has not been so much an individual as a collective sadhana for the conversion of the earth-consciousness and the supramental self-expression of God in man. It would, therefore, be a great mistake to try to assess and understand it by the... the supermind. It is described there as the Truth, the Right, the Vast; as the supreme step of Vishnu; and some Vedic Rishis endeavoured to rise into its solar glory. But there is no trace of a collective ascent into it or of any attempt on their part to bring it down into Page 335 the material life for a conversion of the earth-consciousness. It was even held by some Rishis that it... Many of her experiences are a prism or a reflex of the experiences of the earth-soul, and by far the majority a mighty prelude and preparation and prognosis. Hers has been a consecrated life of collective conquests, and it is only when the curves of her work come full circle that the veil will be lifted from the true nature of her experiences and an illumined elite of humanity or super- humanity will ...
... the ignorant nature to the true and only aim of the human existence. The occasion of the war which has been presented to Arjuna can be understood only when that highest aim of human life, individual and collective, can be known." It is towards that knowledge that Sri Krishna's answer leads Arjuna from step to step. Sri Krishna reiterates the affirmations of the Upanishads in regard to immortality ...
... and transformation of all the parts of the being of man, and their perfect attunement to the supreme Divine Will. The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo promises to realise this aim in individual and collective humanity. Its method is an integral surrender to the Mother, the Consciousness- Force of the Divine, and the crown of its achievement the manifestation of God in a transfigured... stages are characterised by a large flexibility and free variation, which defy all mental formulas and clear-cui systematisation. It works according to the inner needs and potentialities of each individual, and pro- poses to bring about a full outflowering of his svabhava w essential self-law in his life. In the first nine chapters of this book, I have dwelt with the bases and preliminaries ...
... when men permit it. They are very attached to their grating, very attached, they cling to it. They don't feel alive when it doesn't grate. But they don't know. Sometimes, in the individual or collective evolution, there are phases when you have emerged from the grating, that is to say, you no longer believe in it, no longer believe in the truth and importance, the reality of those things... it's austere, dull and cold. You no longer have the excitement of one thing, and not yet the joy of the other; you are in between the two and it's a little arid. But only a small, limited number of individuals have reached that stage. They are the people who say, "I don't want this world." And then they go away. But as for the other thing... One does realize that if the other thing were constant ...
... discipline. Vedic discipline was not something personal and individual. It was essentially collective, i.e., for the community as a whole. That is why we often hear an aspirant of the Vedas calling his friends to assemble in spiritual practice and bring down the divine force with a collective effort. The collective life flourished in those days with the help of companions and helpers in ...
... a divine reality that has to come to its own – that is to say, its own soul. For there is a collective soul, as well as an individual soul. It is the presiding deity, the norm of consciousness and being that works out the growth and evolution of a collectivity that has found a common life. This collectivity is also enlarging itself in wider and wider commonalty. As we see actually today the nation... movements the supreme reality made of utter truth and knowledge and power and delight. This being his individual life, his collective or social life too would figure the same pattern. A new society in which men have found their soul and soul function is a harmonious, a unitary body, com posed of individuals who by living each one in his self live in all and living in all each one lives in his self. Likewise... too is altered and transmuted. The harmony and fullness that individuals present are automatically represented in the collective grouping. Instead of a battling competitive society we have not merely a cooperative but a unitive community striving in a common aspiration towards a single unique achievement. For all individuals know and feel that they are but various limbs of the same organism, luminously ...
... my expenditure in any way. So if I increase the wages of some of you, I shall be obliged to dismiss some others in order to compensate. It remains to be seen which is stronger: your individual egoism or your collective egoism. Page 173 Do you want to increase your own earnings at the expense of the livelihood of some of your fellow-workers? You complain that you live in misery; and I... world is full of misery. April 1952 TO THE EMPLOYEES OF SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM What I wish to do for you. I shall tell you how I view the solution of your problems, both individual and collective, and what is the truth of the relation between us. But for the working out of the programme I am going to place before you, two essential conditions are necessary. First, I must have the... actual circumstances will allow; and with the increase of truth, the welfare and happiness of all will necessarily increase. Differences of caste and class have no truth for me; all that counts is individual value. My aim is to create a big family in which it will be possible for each one to fully develop his capacities and express them. Each one will have his place and occupation in accordance with ...
... pioneer individual perfection and a progressive reproduction of the individual perfection in the general nature of the collectivity. But the individual, being a part of the collectivity, and not an isolated unit, cannot completely identify himself with the Divine until the rampant impurities of the collective nature have been to a certain extent eliminated. It is this dual work of individual and ... 1912 Page 14 perfection of individual action depends to a great measure upon the conditions which make for the perfection of the universal action. This perception of the Mother of the interdependence of all actions is an index to the line her spiritual career has consistently taken—it is the dual line of individual and collective aspiration and conquest. It must have been a basic... collective transformation that has been the mission and labour of Sri Aurobindo, and we shall miss all the significance, all the superlative greatness of it, if we lose sight of these two aspects of his ideal. No individual, however great he may be, can attain to the integral divine perfection through the integral divine union until the earth-consciousness itself has undergone a revolutionary ...
... over the external nature. He has no doubt developed the powers of reason but this reason turns traitor the moment his own self-interest is affected. And this—not only for the individual human being but also for the collective life. Greed, lust for power and domination over others are his characteristic nature even in these days of so-called enlightened self-interest which is only an euphemism for blatant... blatant exploitation of others. He is at enmity not only with his neighbour but also at loggerheads with whomsoever stands in the way of the aggrandise ment of his individual and collective ego. Thus sects are ranged against sects, tribes against tribes, religion against religion and nations against nations. He wages relentless wars against his own kind and is seeking complete destruction of his enemies ...
... fused into one by work for the Divine. Synthesis both in philosophy and Yoga of all the apparent strifes and discords is the message of Sri Aurobindo. We have to work it out in our lives both individual and collective to arrive at divine unity, peace, bliss and harmony. And this union can come only by an integral self-giving and surrender of all the parts of our being to the Divine. Page 17 ...
... in the process; for it is now no longer the featureless unity at the source but an enriched and multiple unity in expression. Furthermore the individual can proceed yet beyond. He has to and now is able to, not only in his individual but in his collective consciousness—turn back and move straight to its original unity: he can establish direct contact, commune and unite with the Divine Himself from... or emanation of many, as units, out of the undivided and indivisible Single. It meant freedom for each unit to choose: the individual became, so to say, a unit of freedom. The immediate result, however, was not very successful, apparently, that is to say. For the individual unit chose to follow a path exactly opposite to its origin: the individualisation happened as if an element shot out of the... tribal ego has now enlarged into the nation. Larger and larger aggregates are being formed in place of the original individual unities. The nations too are now approaching and interpenetrating each other and in many ways the whole of humanity has begun moving as an aggregate. The individual has thus learnt to find himself in the life of humanity as a whole. He has to look up—or will Page 96 ...
... a divine reality that has to come to its own"—that is to say, its own soul. For there is a collective soul, as well as an individual soul. It is the presiding deity, the norm of consciousness and being that works out the growth and evolution of a collectivity that has found a common life. This collectivity is also enlarging itself in wider and wider commonalty. As we see actually today the nation... movements the supreme reality made of utter truth and knowledge and power and delight. This being his individual life, his collective or social life too would figure the same pattern. A new society in which men have found their soul and soul function is a harmonious, a unitary body, composed of individuals who by living each one in his self live in all and living in all each one lives in his self. Likewise... too is altered and transmuted. The harmony and fullness that individuals present are automatically represented in the collective grouping. Instead of a battling competitive society we have not merely a, cooperative but a unitive community striving in a common aspiration towards a single unique achievement. For all individuals know and feel that they are but various limbs of the same organism, luminously ...
... Sri Aurobindo, Kena Upanishad, p. 111. 2 Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, p. 520. 3 Sri Aurobindo, On the Veda, p. 315. Page 242 reached in the individual, in the collectivity, upon earth and in the universe, when, at every moment, 1 the receptivity will be equal in quality and quantity to the force that seeks to manifest." 2 Now, no form or formation... objct in the Movement, for 'it is the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings'." (Isha Upanishad, 8). Cf. : "All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion".(Isha Upanishad, 1 "He is below, He is above, He is behind, He is in front, He is to the, right, He is to the left, He is indeed all this ...
... according to their conscience and resisted. Q: Can an organised effort help ? A : More important than organised effort is the awakening of the individual. If there are individuals who stand up to their highest values then a collectivity can come into existence. Page 80 Q: Could such disturbances be called the "churning of the ocean" by the Divine ? A : There are... boundless energy in infinite space, infinite movement in eternal time : an infinite existence and an infinite movement of energy. This existence and this movement is far more than the human individual or human collectivity. Man begins with the ego as the centre of the universe and thinks that the aim of the universal existence and movement is related to him. This is not true. Existence is for itself and... here a culture that is efficient, but in which man is not free. He labours from morning to night to earn his bread, to dress and to have a house. The life collective is like a machine that grinds the individual in order to maintain collective prosperity and political status. We are so careful about economic waste that we do not mind wasting the human material. We count in terms of production—which ...
... pioneer individual perfection and a progressive reproduction of the individual perfection in the general nature of the collectivity. But the individual, being a part of the collectivity, and not an isolated unit, cannot completely identify himself with the Divine until the rampant impurities of the collective nature have been to a certain extent eliminated. It is this dual work of individual and collective... very significant, shows that the perfection of individual action depends to a great measure upon the conditions which make for the perfection of the universal action. This perception of the Mother of the interdependence of all actions is an index to the line her spiritual career has consistently taken—it is the dual line of individual and collective aspiration and conquest. It must have been a basic... world's burden too along with it, as a continuation of his own sufficiently heavy load. Therefore his Yoga has much more of the nature of a battle than others’; but this is not only an individual battle, it is a collective war waged over a considerable country. He has not only to conquer in himself the forces of egoistic falsehood and disorder, but to conquer them as representatives of the same adverse ...
... through that experience. It seems to me that the most universal proof of the validity of an individual or collective experience would be its power to make things—these appearances that we call the world—different from what they are. From the subjective point of view, the effect of the experience on an individual consciousness is an undeniable proof; for one who attains bliss, sovereign peace, unchanging ...
... Early 1930s It has been found necessary to change some of the forms and methods hitherto used to help by external means, the individual and collective sadhana. This has to be done especially in regard to the consecration of food, the collective meditation and the individual contact of the sadhak with the Mother. The existing forms were originally arranged in order to make possible a spiritual and psychic ...
... now no longer. the featureless unity at the source but an enriched and multiple Page 280 unity in expression. Furthermore the individual can proceed yet beyond. He has to and now is able to, not only in his individual but in his collective consciousness – turn back and move straight to its original unity: he can establish direct contact, commune and unite with the Divine Himself from... or emanation of many, as units, out of the undivided and indivisible Single. It meant freedom for each unit to choose: the individual became, so to say, a unit of freedom. The immediate result, however, was not very successful, apparently, that is to say. For the individual unit chose to follow a path exactly opposite to its. origin: the individualisation happened as if an element shot out of the... tribal ego has now enlarged into the nation. Larger and larger aggregates are being formed in place of the original individual unities. The nations too are now approaching and interpenetrating each other and in many ways the whole of humanity has been moving as an aggregate. The individual has thus learnt to find himself in the life of humanity as a whole. He has to look up – or will soon have to look ...
... sentiments brought in a collective spirit amongst them and an united effort for improving the quality of life started. Normally, individual life and collective life depend on each other for their betterment. Collectivity creates opportunities for the individuals to grow and to progress. The individuals, by their achievements in various fields of human activities, make the collective life rich and fruitful... fruitful. It has often been found that an individual, having exceptional qualities, grows into a very strong personality and when selfishness creeps in him, he tries to exploit the collectivity for his selfish and personal gains. To check this tendency, the collectivity adopts certain measures, which bring in some control, but the freedom of the individual is very much restricted. With this, the p... affectionately, Pranab Page 70 Individual and Collective Progress Man is a gregarious animal. He likes to live with others and in groups. Originally, fear and the feeling of insecurity must have prompted man to do this. Then, when the finer qualities started gradually developing with the growth of the soul, the collective living gave man a higher meaning. These qualities ...
... cannot be doubted. There is, first, the experience of our individual entity as an observer who observes, experiences, acts and reacts. There is, second, a field of circumstances in which the individual finds in himself or herself and in which he or she works, learns and struggles to arrive at mastery. Arrival at this mastery, individual and collective, may be considered to be the realisation of human fulfilment... which does not wake up, although it is active and operative and produces effects upon the conscious life and its movements. It covers what Freud calls the Id, and also what Jung calls the Individual and Collective Unconscious. It is the region in which our suppressed desires and wishes find their resort and from where they surge up during our dreams or during our physical and mental illness. It is... chained to circles of lower life marked by hunger and satisfaction, strife and success, and perils of small and great disasters, and yet, on the other hand, the upward human aspiration to build individual and collective life on the basis of mutuality and harmony, of peace and concord, and ever- increasing perfectibility of our highest potentialities must continue to struggle without any sound promise of its ...
... insight into human nature and constitution, and this will determine the attitude that the teacher should take towards the growing child. The second concerns the future of man, of man the individual and humanity the collective man. Modern education, on the whole, takes the child as an undeveloped body endowed with a young life, untrained sensibilities, acute but often unrestrained emotions, an immature... unconscious to conscious evolution. He has attained a position of full spiritual responsibility and is well aware that he has the power to influence, for good or for evil, his destiny, both individual and collective. The next step of evolution can only be conscious and deliberate. Page 172 In this Sri Aurobindo sees an indication that the new being next to man in the evolutionary scale... At the same time, he has made a synthesis of the traditional systems of Indian Yoga and welded them into his all embracing "Integral Yoga". Both are thus complementary: Yoga is the individual, evolution the collective, aspect.16 In the last chapter of Sri Aurobindo's The Human Cycle we find a description of a transitional period - what he calls a "spiritualised society". It is a stage when ...
... and Playmate. The individual soul then enjoys infinity and immortality in its uninterrupted union and communion with the Divine, even while it manifests Him in the setting of the material existence and fulfils His Will in every "detail of its earthly life. This ascent to the higher divine Nature is the supreme "work of human life, both individual and collective. The collective lower Nature of the... Force of the Divine. There being no separative ego, there is no desire, or attachment to any action and its result. All individual action is an indivisible part of the universal action, and inevitably contributes to the self-fulfillment of the All-Being. And yet the individual persists as one of the multiple centers of the transcendent Consciousness, participating at once in the transcendent freedom... regarded as the sole Nature responsible for life and creation and the soul's bondage to them, and a withdrawal of the soul from her its final release and salvation. The passive status of the liberated individual soul, as in the Sânkhya, or its traceless merger in the eternal Immutable, as in the later Vedanta, would be the crowning achievement of all spiritual endeavour. But the aim of the Integral ...
... (incomplete) Our ideal is not liberation, not attaining Nirvana by being dissolved in the indeterminable Unlimited; the ideal is attainment of divine consciousness by the individual and by the collective, unity, perfection, and delight in the divine consciousness and being self-realised, life and works established in the self and inspired and directed by the divine Shatki, - works as of ...
... by circumstance or even by deliberate choice. While describing the nature of collectivities formed by mental man solely basing himself on the resources of his unregenerate ego-bound mental-vital consciousness, Sri Aurobindo writes: "In our present human existence there is a physical collectivity held together by the common physical life-fact and all that arises from it, community of interests... entered the path of spiritual progress. And how are collectivities formed? Men seek to be grouped, linked, united around a common ideal, a common action, a common realisation, but in a completely artificial way. The individual, to satisfy his communal urge, partially identifies his life with the life of a certain number of other individuals and this association is determined either by birth or by... way is a natural or artificially managed constructed order. But all such man-made attempts at the building up of a perfect collective life are bound to fail in practice and cannot but be exposed to an inevitable process of decay and disruption. For, the constituent individuals of any human order remain rooted in their egoistic nature and it is an axiom of truth that man can construct nothing that goes ...
... other and become one. It is clear that the task is colossal. It is at once individual and collective; no individual by himself can accomplish this task. The great but little known experiments have shown that there has to be a minimum collectivity, representative of the whole humanity, which must support the individual revolutionary effort and evolutionary general progression. Not speculations but... the powers of our nature. There has to be constant stress on self-perfection that gives to the soul-force its largest scope. The soul-power of Knowledge must rise to the highest degree of which the individual nature can be the supporting basis. There must develop a free mind of light, and there must develop a bottomless steadiness and illimitable calm, upholding all the illumination, movement, and action ...
... the then state of affairs in "our collectivity" meaning, it goes without saying, the Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry. She began her discourse with these words: "I have been asked if we are doing a collective yoga and what the conditions for the collective yoga are. "I might tell you first of all that to do a collective yoga we must be a collectivity, and then speak to you about the... centralised nor unified around the single central truth and consciousness and will." (Ibid., p. 140) This was about the state of our group-life. But what about the individuals constituting this special collectivity whose name is Sri Aurobindo Ashram? Sri Aurobindo remarks: "The highly sattwic are few; the abnormally rajasic are few; of the middle sort there are many. According to... Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny The Deficiencies If we in the Ashram would like to fulfil the God-given task of building a collective life in which spiritually perfect individuals would dwell in a spiritually perfect community, many of the Ashramites, or even the majority of them, would have to sincerely try to grow into a more complete spiritual nature ...
... the surrounding bodies and in the surroundings generally also; for one lives and moves through mutual interchange in the midst of others. A collective change takes more time than individual change. So it is no longer an individual consciousness, but the collective consciousness that has to do the work. The world progresses. And being in the world you too must progress. It is a progress, however ...
... the surroundings generally also; for one lives and moves through mutual interchange in the midst of others. Page 377 A collective change takes more time than individual change. So it is no longer an individual consciousness, but the collective consciousness that has to do the work. The world progresses. And being in the world you too must progress. It is a progress, however, which ...
... augurs extremely well for the future of our life and culture. In every field of activity, one observes earnest and persistent attempts at self-adaptation, coordination and cooperation, both individual and collective, national and international, meeting with varying degrees of success, in spite of all possible opposition. The prodigious work of the U.N.O. is a typical reflection of the many promises, paradoxes... modern science or philosophy, ethics or psychology. It is not enough to know the superficial layers of man's being and consciousness; it is not enough to explore some parts of his Unconscious, individual or collective; it is not enough to hold up before him a bright ideal of moral life and altruistic activity. What is indispensable for the radical conversion and integration of his being is a systematic... salvation. Already there are invasions of Light, thrills of hope, spurts of quickening energies in its hidden depths; but it is not aware of them on its surface, and in the mass of mankind, the stricken collectivity. The Age of kali has been the nurse of the Age of satya, — a long, dark night preparing the glory of the coming dawn. It is passing now. The splendour of the spring will soon burst forth out ...
... of action, scientific domains, all belonging to the mind—not a very high and abstract mind, a mind above the physical mind which, without our knowing it, pours out constantly through the individual and collective mind to manifest in action. Some people, through a special faculty, are in contact with these domains, take up one formation or other that is there, draw them to themselves and give them ...
... England, France, Italy or Germany. The geographical boundary of each stands distinctly like the contour of an individual human body. The collective existence of Europe, awake and alive, belongs separately to each of the European countries and nations and in no way represents the collective being of all Europe. On the other hand, if we look at India we find that the whole of India possesses a we... personality of the collective being has not emerged there. In fact every European country has a well-developed and distinct personality of its own; each wants to secure a separate fulfilment, each is self-sufficient and distinct from the rest. There is a mutual give-and-take among them, often they Page 243 move together for a common cause; but the collective existence of each... example, can be mentioned for comparison. Britain is a homogeneous country or nation. Its collective being has a separate living individuality. As in Great Britain there are Scotland, Wales and England, so in India the separate states like Bengal, Maharashtra and the Punjab are the different limbs of the collective being of India. But the thing is that just as Asia is far larger than Europe, the states ...
... loose formation, but as it develops and becomes more complete and even vigorous, a strictly unified order will not necessarily involve a considerable overriding of the liberties of mankind, individual and collective, and an oppressive mechanism by which the free development of the soul-life of humanity will be for some time at least seriously hindered or restricted or in danger of an excessive repression... and the only hope of healthy progress would lie in a new formulation of liberty produced by a new powerful movement spiritual or intellectual of the human mind which will reconcile individual liberty with the collective ideal of a communal life and the liberty of the group-unit with the new-born necessity of a more united life for the human race. Meanwhile, we have to consider how far it is either... the circumstances being favourable to the narrower power, both national and individual liberty are likely to go to the wall—happy if they are not set against it before a firing platoon of laws and restrictions to receive a military quietus. This might not happen if within the nations themselves the spirit of individual liberty still flourished in its old vigour; for that would then demand, both ...
... creation, polity, society, ethical order, intellectual system, which vary from the pure to the mixed, from the simple harmony to the complex; each and all of these are so many experiments of individual and collective self-formation in the light of a progressive and increasing knowledge. That knowledge is governed by a number of conflicting ideas and ideals around which these experiments group themselves:... knowledge, there is as perfect a purity and satisfaction as in that of the poet and artist creating forms of beauty for the aesthetic delight of the race. Whatever individual error and limitation there may be, does not matter; for the collective and progressive knowledge of Page 119 the race has gained the truth that has been discovered and may be trusted in time to get rid of the error. It... whose obscure and ill-understood struggle it intervenes. It can in its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea, theory of life, system of society or government, ideal of individual or collective action to which the will of man attaches itself for the moment or through the centuries. In philosophy it gives equally good reasons for monism and pluralism or for any halting-place between ...
... not the best either for a man or a nation. One thing seems to me clear that the future will deny that principle of individual selfishness and collective self-interest on which European society has hitherto been based and our renovated systems will be based on the renunciation of individual selfishness and the organisation of brotherhood,—principles common to Christianity, Mahomedanism and Hinduism. ... are like a limpet is not the dharma, neither is leaping without looking the dharma. The eternal religion is to realise God in our inner life and our outer existence, in society not less than in the individual. Esha dharmah sanatanah . God is not Page 53 antiquity nor novelty: He is not the Manava Dharmashastra, nor Vidyaranya, nor Raghunandan; neither is He an European. God who is essentially... manifestation Satyam, Prema, Shakti ,—Truth, Strength and Love. Whatever is consistent with the truth and principle of things, whatever increases love among men, whatever makes for the strength of the individual, the nation and the race, is divine, it is the law of Vaivaswata Manu, it is the sanatana dharma and the Hindu shastra. Only, God is the triple harmony, He is not one-sided. Our love must not make ...
... treachery and suspicion have come to govern the conduct of nations. A civilised existence would ensure freedom from fear and suspicion in our individual, national and international relations. No treachery or breach of faith should vitiate individual and collective life. Mentally, humanity has progressed beyond imagination from the beginnings of our ancestors, the cavemen, hunters and nomads who lived... deterioration of moral and spiritual values applies equally to individuals and nations of the whole world as we know it at present. There is hardly any exception. No country or community can claim to be completely civilised in the light of what constitutes real as opposed to faked civilisation barring some hundreds, nay, even thousands of individuals to be found amongst the various nations who constitute... developed various arts and sciences. A fairly civilised existence commenced with pursuits of higher arts and sciences. Music, poetry, literature, painting, architecture, sculpture were cultivated. A collective life with ideas and ideals of philanthropy, humanitarianism and social services was built up in course of a few centuries. Medical, engineering and other sciences grew. Man began slowly and consciously ...
... importance to the society and to regard the individual as a subordinate unit. Some doctrines go so far as to deny to the individual any legitimate right and aspiration except what the collectivity sees and decides. Even when such an extreme position is rejected, it is certain that nowadays the collective aim in education has overshadowed the individual, so that the problem of education becomes almost... I The Purpose of Education The aim of education is always twofold: there is a collective aspect and there is an individual aspect. From the collectivity point of view, education is expected to turn the individual into a good citizen, i.e., into a person who has harmonious relations with the other members of the community, who is useful to the... are justified and we should take them into account while aiming at their reconciliation. We can achieve this only by a correct understanding of the relation between the individual and the society We shall see later that the individual and the society can grow together and help each other in their growth. Sri Aurobindo has indeed shown how such a harmonization is possible, although it has never yet been ...
... meet the challenges of life and of the cultural context in which one is required to meet the demands of the individual and collective life; At a deeper level, human growth is aided by the development of arts, sciences, and technologies that enable the individual and collectivity to build up bridges between the past and the future through accumulation of experience and transmission of valuable... employed for aiding human growth require to be constantly subtilised so that the processes of growth attain increasing acceleration at an optimum level, which may differ from individual to individual and from collectivity to collectivity. Pedagogy and Aim of Life The greatest educationists, who have played important roles in fashioning educational systems have, in their quest to develop ideal... totality of life is to be embraced if one has to gain integral knowledge and integral realisation. It also recognised that each individual has his own unique method of experiencing life and it provided to each individual a free adaptability in the manner and type of the individual acceptance of the object of knowledge that one encounters in the experience of life. The Indian pedagogy also laid down the ...
... Activities of such an organised system of physical education promote sportsmanship, leadership, obedience to leadership and spirit of fair play so necessary for a healthy and progressive life, individual and collective. The vital, the life-energy part of man, is more difficult. "The vital being in us is the seat of impulses and desires, of enthusiasm and violence, of dynamic energy and desperate... for harmony and beauty must be cultivated. A good amount of the vital energy is needed for the normal life-process. But still a good part remains unutilised. That must be tapped for individual and collective progress, and there is so much to build and create in this beautiful world of ours. To conclude in Sri Aurobindo's own words: "Our life, still full of obscurity and confusion and ...
... elementary: it's just "the way things are." ( silence ) Your vision... obviously it's mental constructions standing in the way of the takeoff—that's obvious. But it isn't an individual experience: it's a collective thing. It was very black, and it was a church... like a church steeple. But the gold ciborium, what is that? It was very pretty, besides; it was beautiful, but hidden. But... but nothing sensational, nothing to make a "nice picture," no. But first, I had asked you to tell me if you saw something. I did see something, but I don't think it's very interesting, or collective either. I seemed to kind myself in an enormous plane, a very powerful one, which managed to take off (a takeoff which, besides, gave me a very pleasant sensation). It took off, but it was hedgehopping... becomes crookedness (you know their word). I hadn't tried to have that experience, I hadn't thought about it or anything—it came as something massive, and it stayed. But I had the feeling it was individual: I didn't feel it was something descending on earth. I felt it was something given to me, given to this body. That's why I didn't attach much importance to it. The feeling of a grace given to this ...
... consummation. Fire then is the energy of consciousness secreted in the heart of things. It is that which moves the creation upward, produces the unfolding evolution that is history, both individual and collective. It is kindled, it increases in volume and strength and purity and effectiveness, as and when a lower element is offered and submitted to a higher reality and this higher reality impinges... of the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving union—his is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and ...
... consummation. Fire then is the energy of consciousness secreted in the heart of things. It is that which moves the creation upward, produces the unfolding evolution that is history, both individual and collective. It is kindled, it increases in volume and strength and purity and effectiveness, as" and when a lower element is offered and submitted to a higher reality and this higher reality impinges... the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving union—his is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and ...
... there? We make an offering of all our daily actions. Yes, this is the individual side. And collectively, what is this concentration for? (He is on the way, note, he has taken half the first step). We concentrate on our weak points and aspire for their disappearance. Page 105 That is also an individual aspect. In the meditations we formerly used to have there [ at the Ashram... For a long time meditations used to take place in the Ashram building. Then, as the number of disciples increased and sports gained importance, these meditations were replaced by collective "concentrations" at the Ashram Playground. ... in his music, nothing more. He used to come to our spiritual meetings and, all of a sudden, he had the experience of the infinite in the finite; it was an absolutely true experience; in the finite individual came the experience of the infinite. But this upset the boy so much that he could make nothing at all of it! He could not even play his music any longer. The experience had to be stopped because ...
... consummation. Fire then is the energy of consciousness secreted in the heart of things. It is that which moves the creation upward, produces the unfolding evolution that is history, both individual and collective. It is kindled, it increases in volume and strength and purity and effectiveness, as and when a lower element is offered and submitted to a higher reality and this higher reality impinges... of the vast consciousness (Brihat), the wide universal, the Infinite. His eye naturally penetrates everywhere and nothing can escape his notice. Mitra is harmony and rhythm of the infinity. Every individual element he embraces and he holds them all together in loving union-his is the friendly tie of comradeship with all. Finally Yama is the master of the lower regions, the underworld of physical and ...
... residential place of the disciples), and everyone had his house and his garden: a little house and a garden for everyone. And there were means of communication; I wasn't sure if it was individual transportation or collective transportation (like those small open trams in the mountains, you know) that crossed the city in all directions to bring the disciples back to the center of the city. And around all... from the world, and it's quite possible in her park with a road around it and someone to stop people from entering—one can be really in peace—but if I am there, that's an end to it! There will be collective meditations and so on. So if I have signs (physical signs, first), then the inner command to go out, I will go there in a car and spend an hour in the afternoon—I can do it from time to time.... ...
... conduct. It is the dominance of the crude, ignorant, selfish and dangerous vital nature of man that is at the base of all our troubles and difficulties, perturbations and upheavals both individual and collective ; for the vital in us is not concerned Page 68 with truth, right or justice. It seeks self-affirmation, life-growth and satisfaction of all its desires and impulses. "It ...
... on earth, to fix it there, to create a new race with the principle of the supramental consciousness governing the inner and outer individual and collective life. Therefore the existence of the Asram, whatever difficulties it created for ourselves or for the individual, was inevitable. The method was the preparation of the earth consciousness in the human being as represented by the members of the... done individually in a solitary way only ." No individual solitary transformation apart from the work for the earth (which means more than any individual transformation) would be either possible or useful. (Also no individual human being can by his own power alone work out the transformation, nor is it the object of the Yoga to create an individual superman here and there.) The object of the Yoga... the Asram and others (with also a certain working in the general earth consciousness) so as to make the descent of the supramental Force possible. That Force accepted by individual after individual according to their preparation would establish the supramental consciousness in the physical world and so create a nucleus for its own expansion. As far as I can see, once the supramental is established ...
... the terrible nervous tension which they provoked, as a sign, perhaps, of the decline of civilisation and social decay, a growing vulgarity seems to have taken possession of human life, individual as well as collective, particularly in what concerns aesthetic life and the life of the senses. A methodical and enlightened cultivation of the senses can, little by little, eliminate from the child whatever... of conflict and misery, disappointment and discouragement, and very often ends in catastrophe. In the world as it is now the goal of life is not to secure personal happiness, but to awaken the individual progressively to the Truth-consciousness. Page 18 The second idea arises from the fact that a fundamental change of character demands an almost complete mastery over the subconscient... task. But there is one fact which the old traditions knew and which can serve as the clue in the labyrinth of inner discovery. It is that everyone possesses in a large measure, and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, two opposite tendencies of character, in almost equal proportions, which are like the light and the shadow of the same thing. Thus someone who has the capacity ...
... sign, perhaps, of the decline of civilisation and decompo- Page 110 sition of society, has come a growing vulgarity which seems to have taken possession of human life, individual as well as collective, particularly on the level of aesthetic life and the life of the senses, A methodical and enlightened cultivation of the senses can, little by little, remove from the child whatever is... conllict and misery, deception and discouragement, ending often in a catastrophe. In the world, as it actually is, the goal of life is not to secure personal happiness, but to awaken the individual progressively towards the Truth-consciousness. The second idea arises from the fact that a fundamental change in character needs an almost complete mastery over the subconscient and a very... task. But there is one fact which the old traditions knew and which can serve as the clew in the labyrinth of inner discovery. It is that everyone possesses in a large measure, and the exceptional individual in an increasing degree of precision, two opposite tendencies in the character, almost in equal proportions, which are like the light and the shadow of the same thing. Thus a man who has the capacity ...
... freedom—things not very common in the old world; and yet, at the same time, it is a clarion that calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has sanctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also, pari passu, developed a fissiparous tendency in human organization. Society based on or living by the principle of Rights becomes naturally and inevitably a competitive... mostly an undifferen-tiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside themselves. Growth and evolution bring about differentiation, specialisation, organization. And this means consciousness of oneself, of the distinct and separate existence of each and every one, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become... most primitive society men lived totally in a mass conciousness. Their life was a blind obedience—obedience to the chief, the patriarch or pater familias —obedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty, it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation; in reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning ...
... – things not very common in the old world; and yet at the same time it is a clarion that calls for and prepares strife and battle. If the conception of Right has s anctified the individual or a unit collectivity, it has also pari passu d eveloped a fissiparous tendency in human organisation. Society based on or living by the principle of Right becomes naturally and inevitably a... mostly an undifferentiated collective existence, they helplessly move about acted upon by forces outside them. A rise in growth and evolution brings about differentiation, specialisation, organisation. And this means consciousness of oneself of the distinct and separate existence of each and everyone, in other words, self-assertion, the claim, the right of each individual unit to be itself, to become... lived totally in a mass consciousness. Their life was a blind obedience – obe dience to the chief – the patriarch or pater familias –obedience to the laws and customs of the collectivity to which one belonged. It was called duty; it was called even dharma, but evidently on a lower level, in an inferior formulation. In reality it was more of the nature of the mechanical functioning ...
... eternal individual, the Purusha. It is because of the spiritual Person, the Divinity in the individual, that perfection or liberation, — salvation, as it is called in the West, — has to be individual and not collective; for whatever perfection of the collectivity is to be sought after, can come only by the perfection of the individuals who constitute it. It is because the individual is That... eternal largeness. For human thought falls apart towards two opposite extremes: one, mundane and pragmatic, regards the fulfilment and satisfaction of the mental, vital and physical ego-sense individual or collective as the object of life and looks no farther, while the other spiritual, philosophic or religious which regards the conquest of the ego in the interests of the soul, spirit or whatever be... death of the body; the one abiding truth is eternal Nature working in the race — this or another — and her purpose should be followed, not ours. The fulfilment of the race, the collective ego, and not that of the individual should be the rule of life. Another trend of thought, more vitalistic in its tendencies, fixes on the conscious ego as the supreme achievement of Nature, no matter how transitory ...
... ; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells... inquiry in the realm of pure science, has permitted massive misuse as well as right use in the service of man. What engineers the wrong use is not the knowledge itself, but the vitalistic pull, individual or collective, that exploits that knowledge. Only, with the present pace in scientific advancement, the possibilities of proper use and criminal misuse have acquired a like exponential range. As an answer... supramental action? Writing on 7 July 1947, Sri Aurobindo explained that, after all, he was using, not the infallible supramental, but only the overmental force which in its operation on individuals and human collectivities might meet with sinister resistances resulting in unforeseen distortions. And he added with a touch of wry humour: That is why I am getting a birthday present of a free India on ...
... Divine Will in the individual discoverable by him. Gita teaches that Life and action are not to be renounced but their ignorant-egoistic - basis has to be rejected and it has to be changed into the true basis. It declares that a Divine Will is actively at work and can, and does, intervene. in a critical life-situation in the case of an individual or a collectivity. When the individual gives up his egoistic... over and above - independent of all such intermediate, permissible standards, there is a Divine Will which is to be discovered. A divine purpose is at work in the universe in the individual's life and in that of the collectivity. Gita points out psychological processes and methods by which one can gradually progress towards the discovery of the Divine Will. It can be arranged in the form of a graded... that purpose and even the battle-field of Kurukshetra is not exempted from it. By implication, and even by open declaration, Gita says that life is not altogether governed by the ego - either individual or collective. In fact Sri Aurobindo suggests that Kurukshetra can be taken as the symbol of the battle of life in which forces of Light and Darkness are constantly clashing. As regards the dilemma of Arjuna ...
... are doing at the moment: everywhere something pushes them on. Behind this "quiver," there is a will for disorder that tries to prevent Harmony from being established. It's there in the individual, in the collectivity, and in Nature. And then, it's such a painstaking, persistent teaching, which forgets nothing and is repeated every time something isn't totally understood, and is repeated in greater detail ...
... have is that all knowledge is only probable in character. We began at that time with the idea that human life can be lived in harmony with affectivity and fruitfulness because both the individuals and the collectivity can be harmonised by the ethical and social principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. Today we find increasing force of the idea that morality is a matter of emotional responses... become so huge that it is unmanageable; it is a structure of great complexity meant to provide political, social, administrative, economic and cultural machinery; and its focus is on providing collective means for intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfactions. This system of civilisation has become too big for the limited mental capacity and understanding and for the still more... Krishna as one of the divine gifts. 1 ) It may be that the soul resistance does not succeed on the external plane and the force of injustice conquers; even then, the argument would be that the individual will still have preserved his virtue and vindicated by his example the highest ideals. In a third possible answer, one may advocate a more insistent extreme of the inner spiritual direction, passing ...
... residential place of the disciples), and everyone had his house and his garden: a little house and a garden for everyone. And there were means of communication; I wasn't sure if it was individual transportation or collective transportation (like those small open trams in the mountains, you know) that crossed the city in all directions to bring the disciples back to the center of the city. And around all... the world, and it's quite possible in her park with a road around it and someone to stop people from entering — one can be really in peace - but if I am there, that's an end to it! There will be collective meditations and so on. So if I have signs (physical signs, first), then the inner command to go out, I will go there in a car and spend an hour in the afternoon - I can do it from time to time.. ...
... formed the area for the disciples' residences, and each one had his own house and garden—a small house and a garden for each one. There was some means of transport, I wasn't sure if it was individual transport or collective transport—like those small open tramcars in the mountains, you know—going in all directions to take the disciples back towards the centre of the town. And around all that, there was a... in Auroville and work for its realisation. Blessings. 28.2.1969* * Auroville anniversary To all Aurovilians My blessings for the progress and the growth of the collective and individual consciousness 28.2.1971 * Opening of the Aspiration School A sincere will to know and to progress. 15.12.1970 * Opening of the Last School The future... working to manifest the truth of the future. Q : Until this group consciousness appears, and until we can work collectively in the true and right way, what should we do? A hierarchical organisation grouped around the most enlightened centre and obeying a collective discipline. Q : Must we use organisational methods which have proved effective but which are based on human logic ...
... Individualism refuses to allow the collective to crush the individual; indeed, it admits rational and reasonable Subordination of the individual to the collective good; but it admits it on the condition that the collective good includes the rational and reasonable good of the individual. Individualism goes farther. It seeks increasing affirmation of individual freedom, and it aims at the discovery... verification. Science rejects dogma and unsupported authority. In the work of the scientists, there is perfection of purity and satisfaction, and even if there is any individual error or limitation, it will not matter, since in the collective progression. of knowledge the error will get eliminated. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly clear that the balance sheet of science is a mixed one, pa... potentialities of the individual and his or her integral fulfilment. In education, individualism has given rise to the concepts of child-centred education, of individual differentiation, and of integral perfection for each individual on the lines appropriate to his or her temperament and law of being, These concepts advocate radical reforms in education and insist on individual freedom not only in choice ...
... have is that all know-ledge is only probable in character. We began at that time with the idea that human life can be lived in harmony with effectivity and fruitfulness because both the individuals and the collectivity can be harmonised by the ethical and social principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. Today we find increasing force of the idea that morality is a matter of emotional responses... become so huge that it is un- manageable; it is a structure of great complexity meant to provide political, social, administrative, economic and cultural machinery; and its focus is on providing collective means for intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfactions. This System of civilisation has become too big for the limited mental capacity and understanding and for the still more'... Sri Krishna as one of the divine gifts.¹) It may be that the soul resistance does not succeed on the external plane and the force of injustice conquers; even then, the argument would be that the individual will still have preserved his virtue and vindicated by his example the highest ideals. In a third possible answer, one may advocate a more insistent extreme of the inner Spiritual direction, passing ...
... equality is the idea of mutuality and harmony and its message is to restore sound equation between the individual and the individual and between the individual and collectivity. Its call is to awaken into us the vision of one underlying reality that can harmonise diversity into unity. It is consonant with the ancient Indian vision of samam brahma, one equal brahman, and it counsels us that when this... applications in the individual and collective life. The current economic field, whether competitive or socialistic, is a field of the job market, which is being fed by human resources trained by educational factories providing courses and programmes not related directly to the needs of the job market nor to the demands of the fulfilment of intrinsic human ends. An individual who gets a bit of training... created the framework of training each individual according to the predominant nature, swabhava, that the individual represented. But the deepest justification for this fourfold order was spiritual in character. The entire system emphasised that the intellectual, ethical and spiritual growth of the individual is the central need of the race, and that the individual and social life should be so organised ...
... provides a means and a framework for a better, richer, more happy and puissant individual and collective life. But hitherto the experience of mankind has not favoured the view that huge aggregations, closely united and strictly organised, are favourable to a rich and puissant human life. It would seem rather that collective life is more at ease with itself, more genial, varied, fruitful when it can ... widespread material well-being. Therefore this earlier form of collective life tended to disappear and give place to the organisation of nations, kingdoms and empires. And here we notice, first, that it is the groupments of smaller nations which have had the most intense life and not the huge States and colossal empires. Collective life diffusing itself in too vast spaces seems to lose intensity... ge is that the individual, the city, the region sacrifice their independent life and become mechanical parts of a machine; life loses its colour, richness, variety, freedom and victorious impulse towards creation. The organisation is great and admirable, but the individual dwindles and is overpowered and overshadowed; and eventually by the smallness and feebleness of the individual the huge organism ...
... powers, Tagore's voice rang clear and emphatic in tune with the cry of the ancients: "What shall I do with all this mass of things, if I am not made immortal by that?" When men, in their individual as well as collective egoism, were scrambling for earthly gains and hoards, he held before them vaster and cleaner horizons, higher and deeper ways of being and living, maintained the sacred sense of human ...
... marking a decisive advance in his evolution. It is true that a somewhat similar attempt was made by the Vedic Rishis, but it was confined to some parts of human. nature, and undertaken on an individual, and not a collective scale. The Tântrics also laboured towards some such- objective, but with nothing better than very partial and precarious, though often spectacular, results. The Al- chemists, at their... divine Power which alone can transmute,. without coercing or crippling, the teeming elements and. Page 411 energies of human nature; third, the time was not ripe for such a global collective endeavour, and the evolutionary march of man had not yet arrived at the stage from which the culminating saltus could be confidently taken. But today, in spite of the materialist's denial of Spirit... human nature will imply in its practical results a combined and perfectly coordinated action of the fourfold type of human temperament— Brāhman, Ksatriya, Vaiśya and Śūdra— in a single, integrated individual. It will be, in fact, a sublimation, transfiguration, and integration of the whole being of man with all its powers and faculties in full and unrestricted divine play. It will be a spontaneous, unified ...
... first sight to be a vast arena where individuals and collectivities, communities and nations, all are feverishly seeking after self-expression and self-fulfilment. But where is the guarantee that all these diverse self- affirmations xxx will move in perfect harmony and mutual adaptability? Where is the assurance that the self-affirmation of the individual will not go counter to the self... self-affirmation of the collective being and vice versa? Harmony, and not disharmony and discord, should be the keynote of all true living, whether individual or collective. But till this day, man's attempts at harmonisation have all miscarried and failed. He has tried his hand at a number of remedies, educational, administrative, social and religious, but the disease seems to have defied all... now. But the question is, why so? Why is all this clash and collision and disharmony? What is the root-cause of this ignoble failure on the part of man as a species to organise his individual and collective life on the basis of universal harmony and union? If we really want to reconstruct our society on an ideal basis, we have to touch and tackle the problem at its very root. To manipulate only ...
... man the individual and man the collective being to realise the great destiny that is awaiting the race. And, be it noted, all the principles of education enunciated by Sri Aurobindo are designed to fulfil that very task. We have advisedly employed the expression "man the individual and man the collective being". For, the insistent problems of man do not pertain to his isolated individual existence... the State as a political, social and economic being. The whole life and education of the individual man will, in that case, be turned towards a satisfaction of his legitimate vital propensities under the precarious government of a trained mind and reason and for the best advantage of the personal and collective ego. But Sri Aurobindo cannot accept this view of man nor, therefore, these goals... aptly observed: "...it has not been found in experience, whatever might have once been hoped, that education and intellectual training by itself can change man; it only provides the human individual and collective ego with better information and a more efficient machinery for its self-affirmation, but leaves it the same unchanged human ego." (SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 1057-58) Where do we go then ...
... to the notion of exceptional individuals—Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Napoleon, Einstein—in whom the collective unconscious culminates, without the individual members of the collective being able to equal them. In this case, on the other hand, the men of a new kind will be the prototypes of the humanity to come. Externally resembling the rest of the collective, they will surpass it, or more... future may be, to set fire to their conscious and unconscious being, to what they are individually and in relation to the collectivity, to all images without exception of what both stimulates and limits our thinking and sensibility in such a way that subsequently, as the collective unconscious enters through the breaches they have made in their consciousness, we might be able to in turn go beyond the... with the foundations of personality that one must begin if one wishes to have an idea of what the humanity to come will be like. The sense of ego—individual and collective—enables us to presently clarify and impose our existence—individual and collective—in a world which, as perceived by the mental consciousness, is governed by duality, restricted in all parts, subject to the idea of beginning and ...
... whereas the former with its dogmas of master race and absolute dictator and merciless regimentation was a current contrary to the drive of human evolution with its many-sided variation both individual and collective. Churchill was England's Prime Minister at the time. He had been known as a die-hard Imperialist. All of a sudden he appeared to have felt that in the war he was conducting against Hitler ...
... of wealth or prosperity, artha, provided that they were adequately controlled and governed by the pursuit of the ideal law of the truth and the right and of the harmonic balance of the individual and collective development, dharma. At a still higher level, dharma was allowed to be surpassed by an unconditional imperative emerging from unfettered search for spiritual freedom and liberation, moksha ...
... and mastery over the life-forces and activity in the physical world; (b) they emphasise the collective aspect of realisation; and (c) the knowledge and practice of Tantra is made available to all individuals and sections of society. Thus, the concern of Tantra for human life, both individual and collective, is unique and its contribution to the understanding of life is highly significant. Since... by which the physical would be able to sustain the inrush of an increasing vital force of prana. This new equilibrium would, according to Hatha Yoga, open a power to the universalisation of the individual vitality. Hatha Yoga also aimed at awakening by the processes of asana and pranayama, of the coiled-up serpent energy of dynamism in the vital sheath, pranamaya kosha, and opening to the yogin... which gives an entry into higher states of consciousness. Mental action is liberated from the confusions of the outer-consciousness, and it passes thence to the higher supramental planes in which the individual soul, Purusha, enters into its spiritual existence, distinct and independent of Prakriti, Nature. The ancient system of Raja Yoga aimed not only at the entire control of various states and activities ...
... in spite of his numerous weaknesses, there abides a divine Power by virtue of which even the dumb can be endowed with eloquence. The second mystery is this that not only for the individual but for the collectivity the human form of God has a special significance. God comes down to the lower level. He abides by His own laws to transform them. He destroys whatever has to be destroyed. He purifies ...
... search and realisation of psychic, spiritual and supramental reality or realities that lie beyond the body, life and mind, as also the consequences of that search and realisation for the individual and collective existence in the cosmos. Sri Aurobindo's book The Synthesis of Yoga is related to yogic experiences that can be attained by the application of yogic shastra, independent of any religion... climb thee like a ladder, O hundred powered. As one ascends from peak to peak, there is made clear the much that has still to be done. And yet in the ever-progressive movement, the individual seeker, the individual soul, discovers the stable source and foundation, the creative power of the world, and even while seated securely in that foundation, it sees luminously the progressive self-unfolding... inner spiritual guidance. Yoga is, as stated by Sri Aurobindo, "a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the potentialities latent in the being and a union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos."5 Page 17 HOME ...
... order in life— dharmasansthapan-arthaya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to something else. The Avatar means a new revelation and the uplift... the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret... at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally. The Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essence— sarvabhutantaratma —but as an individual person embodying that essence— manu-shim tanum ashritam. Man too, however earthly and impure he may be, is essentially the Page 6 Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the ...
... new order in life— dharmasamsthdpanarthaya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory to Page 26 something else. The Avatar means a... the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret... disposition as at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally. The Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essence— sarvabhutantaratma— but as an individual person embodying that essence— manusim tanum asritam. Man too, however earthly and impure he may Page 27 be, is essentially the Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the supreme ...
... new order in life – dharmasamsthapanarthaya. The Avatar brings down and embodies a higher principle of human organisation, a greater consciousness which he infuses into the existing pattern, individual or collective, which has -served its purpose, has become otiose and time-barred and needs to be remodelled, has been at the most preparatory tosomething else. Page 126 The Avatar means... the mystery of mysteries. There has not been merely a general descent, the descent of a world-force on a higher plane into another world-force on a lower plane; but that there is the descent of the individual, the personal Godhead into and as an earthly human being. The Divine born as a man and leading the life of a man among us and as one of us, the secret of Divine Incarnation is the supreme secret... as at present constituted changes automatically and fundamentally. The Divine then descends into the earth-frame, not merely as an immanent and hidden essence – sarvabhutantaratma -but as an individual person embodying that essence – manusim tanum asritam. Man too, however earthly and impure he may Page 127 be, is essentially the Divine himself, carries in him the spark of the ...
... Grace-Light to the supramental consciousness and as saying that a number of individuals, known or unknown, are likely to have brought this consciousness to the earth throughout the ages but that now instead of an individual possibility Sri Page 51 Aurobindo and she were working to establish it as a collective possibility, as a terrestrial fact and a possibility for all. On July 22 the... achievement by a revolutionary evolution, as it were, which would serve as the beginning of a race of Supermen carrying to perfection both the inner and the outer existence, the individual and the Page 45 collective being, in the immediate or near future. The physical transformation, divinisation, supramentalisation at which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother aimed has no anticipatory parallel... on the Vedanta, of ancient and modern thought. In him the values of being and becoming, of Spirit and matter, of the One and the many, of the eternal and the temporal, of the universal and the individual, of the personal God and the absolute Godhead, are integrated in a vision of the whole, which has never been surpassed in depth and comprehensiveness. In the integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the values ...
... CHAPTER 28 Asuric Upsurge I As we have seen in the preceding chapters, during the seven-year period between 1931 and 1938 there were broad indications that the Yoga at the individual and even collective levels was making steady progress. The Mother's sudden and serious illness in October 1931 had been a set-back of course, a temporary triumph for the hostile forces, but presently the divine... s among the disciples at this time should be viewed only in the wider perspective of this general progress, outer and inner, of the Ashram community. These had their part to play no doubt in the collective sadhana of the Ashram community, for many of their letters acted as catalytic agents and engineered the emanation from the Source of the much needed general and particular illumination with regard... room, she was apt suddenly to go into a trance and remain in that state for quite some time. In Nirod's words: Such trance moods were more particularly manifest at night during the collective meditation below, and in that condition she would come to Sri Aurobindo's room .... He would watch her with an indulgent smile and try all devices to bring her down to earth .... Then going ...
... Zen nor still-sitting quite gave the answer to what Mirra was seeking, even if she may have remembered these when, after her second coming to Pondicherry, she explained the roles of individual, group and collective sadhana within the larger perspective of Integral Yoga. There was, then, the Japanese Tea Ceremony that, on a first view, merely tantalised the outsider. Why should so much l... people lived walled up as it were in particular political, economic, social, religious or ethical systems, and such collectivist egoisms were apt to feed upon themselves and thrive just as individual egoisms did. Mirra thought that, in the twentieth century, the world had gone past that sort of stupid parochialism. With the advance of science and technology, with the advance in historical... analysis each and every movement comes from Him and we must always offer them to Him, return them to the parent-source from where they come; therein lies freedom, the divine detachment which the individual must possess always in order to be one with Him, feel one's identity with Him. 12 VIII It was about this time that Sri Aurobindo was publishing in the Arya , month after month, his ...
... therefore is to devise a Yoga that aims at realisation here and not in a world to come, and makes personal realisation the starting-point or the means for effecting a radical transformation of individual and collective man or the establishment of a new heaven and a new earth in our midst. The aim should be to effect a total change in body, life, mind, will, emotion, thereby outgrowing man's current limitations... everywhere in the phenomenal universe. If the scientist could smash the atom and release nuclear power, why shouldn't the Yogi be able to smash the ego which is the ultimate resistant to individual and collective liberation, and thereby release the spiritual Agni that holds the key to all other sources of energy and all the so-called "laws of Nature"? Modern science knows that Matter and Energy are... Yoga is also integral like the Yoga of the Gita, but a new dimension - the bringing down of the Supramental Light and Force - is added, and this makes all the difference. As in individual life, in collective life also there are ascending levels of conduct above the promiscuous play of personal need, preference and desire. There is the sense of the common good of the community, which governs ...
... at first sight natural that our age should be so named because. of the vast economic changes science has brought about and is even now bringing about in the individual and collective life of man. It has given a new concept of collective life by showing the possibility of ameliorating the material condition of the masses all over the world. Man has established himself as the undisputed king... Divine presents so many avenues of new approaches to problems of man's individual and collective life that it is not possible to deal with all of them in a single exposition. I choose three such: (1) the physical body in the scheme of supramental perfection; ( 2 ) the place of material, economic organisation and ethics in the collective life of man from the point of view of The Life Divine; ( 3 ) the... Tome 2, P. 338 Page 20 the individual a perfected social being in a perfected economic society."¹ " At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny, "² "Reason, science and education" are the means by which the modern spirit wants to create individual and collective perfection. What remains of the old spiritual values ...
... his emotion. His similes and metaphors are less to be realised in their sensory properties than in their meaning and mood. The sensory properties remain a little hazy - not in their individual picturisation but in collective effect: hence mixed, fused, changing images. A recent writer, noting some of these points in Shakespeare, quoted the phrase: Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself... be as alive with meaning. I make no fetish of simply avoiding any repetition: sensitive weighing of the particular occasion, sensitive perception of the general harmony, sensitive insight into the individual nature of a poet's creative afflatus must be our guides. I agree with Sri Aurobindo that we must not blindly kowtow to the rigid ban put up by "a certain kind of intellectual elegance" or "a refined ...
... his emotion. His similes and metaphors are less to be realised in their sensory properties than in their meaning and mood. The sensory properties remain a little hazy - not in their individual picturisation but in collective effect: hence mixed, fused, changing images. A recent writer, noting some of these points in Shakespeare, quoted the phrase: Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself... make no fetish of simply avoiding any repetition: sensitive weighing of the particular occasion, Page 43 sensitive perception of the general harmony, sensitive insight into the individual nature of a poet's creative afflatus must be our guides. I agree with Sri Aurobindo that we must not blindly kowtow to the rigid ban put up by "a certain kind of intellectual elegance" or "a refined ...
... chained to circles of lower life marked by hunger and satisfaction, strife and success, and perils of small and great disasters, and yet, on the other hand, the upward human aspiration to build individual and collective life on the basis of mutuality and harmony, of Peace and concord, and ever-increasing perfectibility of our highest potentialities must continue to struggle without any sound promise of its ...
... there must be a great change in the lecture system. Lectures should have a much more modest place than they have today. A greater role should be assigned to self-learning and to work on individual and collective projects. Second, the present syllabus system must undergo a major modification. Programmes of study should be much more flexible. Pupils and teachers should have the possibility of changing... examination system must be thoroughly revised. Tests should be designed to stimulate the pupils to make further progress. They should be impromptu and should vary according to the varying situations of individuals and groups. An ideal system of education would provide an environment and a framework that facilitates a harmonious blending of freedom and discipline. This harmonious blending presupposes, mainly ...
... Grace-Light to the supramental consciousness and as saying that a number of individuals, known or unknown, are likely to have brought this consciousness to the earth throughout the ages but that now instead of an individual possibility Sri Aurobindo Page 11 and she were working to establish it as a collective possibility, as a terrestrial fact and a possibility for all. On July 22... to be an achievement by a revolutionary evolution, as it were, which would serve as the beginning of a race of Supermen carrying to perfection both the inner and the outer existence, the individual and the collective being, in the immediate or near future. The physical transformation, divinisation, supramentalisation at which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother aimed has no anticipatory parallel in the resurrected... based on the Vedanta, of ancient and modern thought. In him the values of being and becoming, of Spirit and matter, of the One and the many, of the eternal and the temporal, of the universal and the individual, of the personal God and the absolute Godhead, are integrated in a vision of the whole, which has never been surpassed in depth and comprehensiveness. In the integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the values ...
... community to arrange that too for him. Not the reasoning minds and wills of the individuals, but the collective reasoning mind and will of the community has to govern. It is this which will determine not only the principles and all the details of the economic and political order, but the whole life of the community and of the individual as a working, thinking, feeling cell of this life, the development of his... for a time—could survive as can be safely allowed without the competitive individual getting enough room for his self-assertive growth to upset or endanger the equalitarian basis. But in the end the discovery cannot fail to be made that an artificial equality has also its irrationalities, its contradictions of the collective good, its injustices even and its costly violations of the truth of Nature... deny the existence of the individual or his right to exist except as a member of the society and for its sake. He belongs entirely to the society, not only his property, but himself, his labour, his capacities, the education it gives him and its results, his mind, his knowledge, his individual life, his family life, the life of his children. Moreover, since his individual reason cannot be trusted to ...
... Promised Land before he died. The Jews have been so faithful to their vow to God, that they have never worshipped him. What the Jews have presented to the world has not been Moses or any individual, but their collective ideas about God and man. That Moses has never been deified is one of the most significant facts about the ideas of God and man in the Old Testament. Even in death, Moses chose to... observance of the Sabbath, the Sabbatical year (during which the land must lie fallow), and such feasts as Passover. Moses relays God's message to the Israelite elders, and the whole nation answers collectively. "All that the Lord has spoken we will do". (Exodus 19:8). That is, a band of escaped slaves standing at the foot of Mount Sinai and pledging to God to fulfill the commandments of... of the Jewish people is to be found in the second book of the Torah (see Note), Exodus. The hero of the story is Moses. But more than being a hero, Moses, after Jesus, is the second most important individual in the entire Bible. That means for the Jewish people who accept only the Old Testament, he is the greatest of the prophets. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom ...
... Non-Being behind it, we have the starting-point for a second negation,—parallel at the other pole to the materialistic, but more complete, more final, more perilous in its effects on the individuals or collectivities that hear its potent call to the wilderness,—the refusal of the ascetic. It is this revolt of Spirit against Matter that for two thousand years, since Buddhism disturbed the balance... we arrive at an insignificance and unreality in the life of the individual and the race which leaves us, logically, the option between either a feverish effort of the individual to snatch what he may from a transient existence, to "live his life", as it is said, or a dispassionate and objectless service of the race and the individual, knowing well that the latter is a transient fiction of the nervous... definitive experience of a cosmic mind or supermind not bound up with the life of the individual body, nor, on the other hand, any firm limit of experience which would justify us in supposing that our subjective self really depends upon the physical frame and can neither survive it nor enlarge itself beyond the individual body. Only by an extension of the field of our consciousness or an unhoped-for increase ...
... of the Divine was preparing and the hostile forces would give battle with the utmost ferocity to stop it. A sort of last-ditch fight was anticipated. The Mother said it would affect individuals and collectivities alike. She warned us to be on guard and to hold out at all costs. I must, however confess that I passed nearly the whole of 1955 very enjoyably by choosing as my special cross... es, grow obstacles in a life aspiring to be in immediate relationship with the Divine. Not that one remains passive or indifferent: one gives whatever assistance is possible, but the sense of individual responsibility is put aside, the Divine is constantly invoked, one's own self and ability are offered to Him as instruments and a deep equanimity which is suffused with complete trust in the Divine's ...
... exists as much as our own and is constantly exercising an occult influence upon us,—for a great part of our thoughts and feelings come into us from outside, from our fellow-men, both from individuals and from the collective mind of humanity; and for the same reason that we are not aware of the greater part of our own being which is subconscient or subliminal to our waking mind and is always influencing and... everybody would be the same. There are not two beings with an identical combination; between the different parts of the being and the composition of these parts the proportion is different in each individual. There are people, primitive men, people like the yet undeveloped races or the degenerated ones whose combinations are fairly simple; they are still complicated, but comparatively simple. And there ...
... Godhead. By the Supermind's integral realisation the mind, the life-force and even the body would become divinised, fulfilling Nature's evolutionary labour and establishing on earth a perfect individual and collective existence manifesting in Time ever-new riches of the inexhaustible Infinite. When Sri Aurobindo passed away, the Supermind was in process of being established in his body. This means an e... But we are afraid that he is thinking in terms of the Ahankar or ego. The ego is the separative individual, a formation of Nature whose very essence is its limitation, its exclusion of others. There cannot be the same ego in two beings, for that would be a self-contradiction. But the true individual, whose distorted figure in evolving Nature is the ego and which can be realised only by overpassing... ego-cadre, is an inherent aspect of the multi-moded Spirit and is not debarred from a genuine oneness with other individuals and with the universal consciousness. Beyond the universe it has its reality in the Transcendence whose complementary manifested formulations are the universe and the individual. In a general sense we may say that the original Consciousness is a unity-in-multiplicity and that for the ...
... in the conduct and actions of the people concerned. With this scope of Culture in view, as said earlier, we can broadly identify two streams of it: individual and collective. Often an example in refinement or nobility set by an individual becomes a star to which the society hitches its wagon. Let us take the instance of King Harishchandra. He promised to grant anything a sage asked of him and... could there be some?) who had read or heard of the episode could have remained unaffected by it. Thus we have numerous proofs to establish the fact that a collective refinement emanates from the individual refinement while the quality of the individual model's consciousness remains as inexplicable as the phenomenon of consciousness itself. Why were such models unlike any other self-centred man? Why must... described by the French thinker Simone Weil in The Need of Roots ), the term has several tiers of meaning. But broadly speaking it has two aspects - Culture as individual trait or traits and Culture as an identifiable trait or traits in the collective life of a community, society, race or nation. Needless to say, the traits in question are those that convey refined and ennobling thoughts, ideas and inspirations ...
... highest possibilities that can be developed here or are in the making. Only mankind as a whole can do this with entire effect, by the mass of individual and collective action, in the process of time, in the evolution of the race experience: but the individual man can help towards it in his own limits, can do all these things for himself to a certain extent in the brief space of life allotted to him;... their energy to the life on earth, to the terrestrial needs, interests, desires, ideals of the individual and the race. It could not be otherwise; for the care of the body, the sufficient development and satisfaction of the vital and the mental being of man, the pursuit of high individual and large collective ideals which start from the idea of an attainable human perfection or nearer approach to ... living beings in other planets,—an acceptance of man's mortality and a passive endurance of it or an active dealing with a limited personal or collective life and life-aims are the only choice possible. The one high and reasonable course for the individual human being,—unless indeed he is satisfied with pursuing his personal purposes or somehow living his life until it passes out of him,—is to study ...
... destiny. The need for political freedom is not merely for securing material well-being. The chief aim is to have freedom for the expression of the nation's Soul. Just as the individual has a soul so the collectivity or nation has a soul. Nearly thirty years after the movement Sri Aurobindo wrote : "Each nation is a Shakti, or power of the evolving spirit in humanity, and lives by the principle... realisation on earth of the Kingdom of Heaven ".17 In Sri Aurobindo's vision the element of Tapas-concentrated force of consciousness, is not lacking. The programme he has put before the individual and the collective man is dynamic and its carrying out would require not only human but also divine Tapas. He advocates the pressing need of realising international unity and peace, which cannot be realised... emphasised the fundamental elements of India's culture, a spiritual attitude towards life, a dynamic faith in the guiding Divine Spirit. Culture which is a collective creation is not like a house built of bricks; it is a mould of collective consciousness that organises life round values which it evolves during the course of its history. Culture is, more truly, a living organism that must change according ...
... image. (3) A new society where every individual is given fullest freedom of action and expression is possible only when every unit of the society has transcended the present rules and ways and means of the society that have held together all the individuals. The laws of morality and compulsory rules will have no place in that society. The individual and collective life of that new society will be based... dealing, etc. that every human being possesses will be changed completely. A society free from all imperfection mental, vital and physical in which all human beings will embody the Truth of the One, individual and universal and transcendental. (4) Hostile Maya is difficult to surmount. Careful not to be dazzled by anything that imitates the Divine. Our surrender must be onepointed to the inner guide... possess all these Gunas living together and each individuality is entitled to develop all these personalities together; for that there is ample opportunity. But in actuality these working Gunas in the individual create chaos and people do not find any inner contact in their external life and workings. The result is that they remain always externalised, having nothing to do with any inner consciousness. ...
... still our largest compact and living unit. And it is best to begin with the individual, both because of his nature we have a completer and nearer knowledge and experience than of the aggregate soul and life and because the society or nation is, even in its greater complexity, a larger, a composite individual, the collective Man. What we find valid of the former is therefore likely to be valid in its... this rule of perfect individuality and perfect reciprocity is the ideal law for the individual, the community and the race and that a perfect union and even oneness in a free diversity is its goal, we have to try to see more clearly what we mean when we say that self-realisation is the sense, secret or overt, of individual and of social development. As yet we have not to deal with the race, with mankind... its general principle of the larger entity. Moreover, the development of the free individual is, we have said, the first condition for the development of the perfect society. From the individual, therefore, we have to start; he is our index and our foundation. The Self of man is a thing hidden and occult; it is not his body, it is not his life, it is not—even though he is in the scale of evolution ...
... are mere patching-up devices, temporary and restricted expedients or at best half-way houses to the basic spiritual unity-in-diversity. If we have any ideal before us of human perfection, individual and collective, the large and liberal and all-permeating Hinduism of which we have spoken is the world's prime necessity. Not for a moment must we forget or ignore the fact that India by the fundamentals ...
... empowerment of women has been taken into account. Finally, by insisting on striving towards excellence in all Page 84 the spheres of individual and collective activity, a great ideal has been stressed in respect of the perfectibility of the individual and the society and their harmonious relationships. This is not an occasion to bring out the implications of these duties and salutary... different thinkers, scholars and practitioners and how they have been applied in life and in the development of civilisations and cultures. Indeed, this information can kindle the inner urge of the individual to grow inwardly and to fashion the processes of learning, which can properly be called the processes of learning to be. But still, the part played by communication of information in the development ...
... sing his social and collective self-expression. Meanwhile, the nascent subjectivism preparative of the new age has shown itself not so much in the relations of individuals or in the dominant ideas and tendencies of social development, which are still largely rationalistic and materialistic and only vaguely touched by the deeper subjective tendency, but in the new collective self-consciousness of... religion, philosophy, science, art and society is the last inevitable outcome. It proceeds at first by the light of the individual mind and reason, by its demand on life and its experience of life; but it must go from the individual to the universal. For the effort of the individual soon shows him that he cannot securely discover the truth and law of his own being without discovering some universal law... carried with it an immense advantage as well as great dangers. The individualistic age is, then, a radical attempt of mankind to discover the truth and law both of the individual being and of the world to which the individual belongs. It may begin, as it began in Europe, with the endeavour to get back, more especially in the sphere of religion, to the original truth which convention Page 27 ...
... receives, but the quality of the Work acts upon this receptivity and imposes itself on it in a more and more efficient and imperious way. There is an interdependence between the individual progress and the collective progress, between that which works and that which is worked upon. It proceeds like this ( gesture of intermeshing ), and as one progresses, the other progresses. The progress above... the distance increases, in others it decreases (although on the whole, the distance remains relatively unchanged), but my feeling is that the collective receptivity will increase as the action becomes increasingly supramentalized. And the need for an individual receptivity—with all its distortions and alterations and limitations—will decrease in importance as the supramental influence increasingly imposes ...
... only? Perhaps the reason is that none has been able to satisfy the two-fold demand which society places on education - of individual and collective growth, of competition and cooperation, of right and left-brain development, of self and life mastery. One does come across individuals who are a delight and a marvel because they combine in themselves the qualities of the scientist and the artist and the... thing about modern education is that it has created a schism between who the individual is in totality and what he will learn or become. And, therefore, what we learn in school we rapidly abandon as irrelevant to our real life and our real selves. Integral Education bridges the gulf between the different parts of the individual by giving them an equal scope of development systematically. Its first focus... religious education. Life itself is the great teacher - we all learn our moral lessons best from the living examples of people real to us and our natures are trained through our daily interactions and collective work. Keeping this in mind, the teacher uses each opportunity that the school life offers to put before the children a high ideal which something in their own deeper selves, their soul, responds ...
... Ramayana and Mahabharata are "products of inspired intelligence with a high poetic tone," and both are "ensouled images of a great culture." These epics give us the spiritual significance of individual and collective life from a strong and noble thought-power of a mind that has high social, political and ethical ideals and is artistically delicate and refined. Savitri too offers us a whole world of... created Satan and Christ." His angels are not like Homer's Gods. To Homer the Gods are close and real, but Milton's angels are far and seem abstract. Milton's story deals with the mystery of the individual will in external opposition to the Divine Will. It seems certain that, after Milton, an epic dealing fully with an objective story is not possible; in modem age it is pushing towards a subjective... and life of India. It is said popularly of it and with a certain measure of truth that whatever is in India is in the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind but of the mind of a nation." And about the Ramayana he says: "The Ramayana is a work of the same essential kind as the Mahabharata; it differs only by a greater simplicity of plan, a more ...
... social-political organisation, the economic and industrial set-up. In a deeper and truer sense, the culture of India is a way of life intended to prepare man for a greater existence. Both the individual and collectivity seek to achieve that aim through this culture. But each depends on the other for its growth. Therefore in social orders and institutions every facility is given for man to develop and grow... beings. India is a living entity, a pre-siding genius, the one self of all these human beings and the one consciousness that is at work in them. You cannot make a nation with a mere aggregate of individuals. A nation is a single being.... "The sense of India as the living Mother is what we are aiming to kindle everywhere in this country. But to kindle this sense is not to answer the whole need... all the affinities and contrasts of existence, the ethical nature which longs to turn the varied conditions of life into equal occasions for striking into unegoistic shapes the interrelations of individuals. The second movement does not only testify to the idealist in the thinker, the artist and the moral man: it also gives evidence of a gradation in Values. Truth is seen as of many planes - outer ...
... environment and empowerment of women has been taken into account. Finally, by insisting on striving towards excellence in all the spheres of individual and collective activity, a great ideal has been stressed in respect of the perfectibility of the individual and the society and their harmonious relationships. This is not an occasion to bring out the implications of these duties and salutary effects... different thinkers, scholars and practitioners and how they have been applied in life and in the development of civilisations and cultures. Indeed, this information can kindle the inner urge of the individual to grow inwardly and to fashion the processes of learning, which can properly be called the processes of learning to be. But still, the part played by communication of information in the development ...
... on of the whole active nature of man, so that the gulf between his outer consciousness and the divine Consciousness may be bridged and he may manifest the Divine in every movement of his individual and collective life on earth. The Ashram of Sri Aurobindo is the Mother's creation, and she has built it up, brick by brick, arch by arch, so that one day it may become a temple and a radiating centre ...
... the whole active nature of man, so that the gulf between his outer consciousness and the divine Consciousness may be bridged and that he may manifest the Divine in every movement of his individual and collective life on earth. The Ashram of Sri Aurobindo is the Mother's creation, and she has built it up, stone by stone, arch by arch, so that one day it may become a temple and a radiating ...
... Consciousness is spontaneously perfect. It is man's ascent to it and its descent into Man that can eliminate the fundamental ignorance of the Mind and fulfil man's seeking for perfection of individual and collective life. This upward movement of consciousness is the real sense of man's religious, philosophical and artistic efforts throughout the ages. It has been seen that man is endowed with... regard to subject matter and the method or the technique. There is demand for newness,—shall I say novelty?—, there is demand for the expression of the artist's personality. The artist wants to give individual interpretation of his experience. In India there is, perhaps a long standing fear and inferiority complex in the minds of our artists that unless they run with the current fashion they will be called ...
... himself, the perfectibility of the individual, a full development of the collective being, the perfectibility of society, and, more pragmatically restricted, the perfect or best possible relations of individual with individual and society and of community with community. An exclusive or dominant emphasis is laid sometimes on the individual, sometimes on the collectivity or society, sometimes on a right... gnostic individual. In our present human Page 1067 existence there is a physical collectivity held together by the common physical life-fact and all that arises from it, community of interests, a common civilisation and culture, a common social law, an aggregate mentality, an economic association, the ideals, emotions, endeavours of the collective ego with the strand of individual ties and... cease to exist if separated or expelled from the collective mass. For the collectivity, the community is not even the whole of humanity and it is not the world: the individual can exist and find himself elsewhere in humanity or by himself in the world. If the community has a life dominating that of the individuals which constitute it, still it does not constitute their whole life. If it has its being which ...
... competitive and cooperative ego that takes up both the individual and the family into a more complex organism and uses them for the collective satisfaction of its vital needs, claims, interests, aggrandisement, Page 161 well-being, enjoyment. The individual and family consent to this exploitation for the same reason that induced the individual to take on himself the yoke of the family, because... life. Instead of peace they seem to bring rather a sword; for they increase the number and tension of conflict of the unreconciled forces, ideas, impulses of which the individual human consciousness and the life of the collectivity are the arena. The ideal and practical reason of man labours to find amidst all this the right law of life and action; it strives by a rule of moderation and accommodation... the old existing forms, the family, the society, the nation and it has two impulses, individualistic and collective. The primary impulse of life is individualistic and makes family, social and national life a means for the greater satisfaction of the vital individual. In the family the individual seeks for the satisfaction of his vital instinct of possession, as well as for the joy of companionship ...
... apply more and more refined means and instruments, not only to arrive at the union of the individual consciousness with the universal consciousness and transcendental consciousness, but also to manifest the consequences of this union for arriving at ever increasing perfection of the individual and collective life in the physical world and even to transform earthly life into what can be called divine... prescribe belief in the dogma. Whatever spiritual discipline is proposed, it becomes encrusted and overlaid with ceremonies, rituals, and institutional prescriptions regarding conduct, both individual and collective. In this situation, religion may be seen as a first approach to yoga, but even then it may not be an indispensable gate of yoga. Yoga proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change... faculties in search and realisation of psychic, spiritual and supramental reality or realities that lie beyond the body, life and mind, and the consequences of that search and realisation for the individual and collective existence in the cosmos. Sri Aurobindo's book The Synthesis of Yoga is related to yogic experiences that can be attained by the application of yogic shastra, independent of any religion ...
... Inconscience and substitute for it a right gradation in which the perfection and divinisation would be possible. Certainly, the way for the individual would be open; whatever group of human beings aspire as united in an endeavour at a perfect individual and collective living or aspire to the divine life, would be assisted towards the attainment of its aspiration: that at least the Supermind would make... d, spiritualise whatever can be spiritualised, cast its influence on the rest and effectuate either a radical or an uplifting change, bring about a deeper communion between the universal and the individual, invade the ideal with the spiritual truth of which it is a luminous shadow and help to uplift into or towards a greater and higher existence. Mind it will uplift towards a diviner light of thought ...
... was when I received the Command from the Supreme, who was right here, this close ( Mother presses her face ). He told me, 'This is what is promised. Now the Work must be done.' And not individual but collective work was meant. So naturally, because of the way it came, it was joyously accepted and immediately implemented. But when I remember that experience and consider what I have now... (... all conscious tension have gone. Only—there is an 'only' in all this—if there were a more liberal proportion between the 'refreshing' (if I may say so) freedom of solitude and the necessity for collective work, there would probably be fewer difficulties.... Towards the end of the first year after I retired upstairs 3 (perhaps even before, but anyway, some time after I began doing japa while walking) ...
... environment and empowerment of women has been taken into account. Finally, by insisting on striving towards excellence in all the spheres of individual and collective activity, a great ideal has been stressed in respect of the perfectibility of the individual and the society and their harmonious relationships. This is not an occasion to bring out the implications of these duties and salutary effects... different thinkers, scholars and practitioners and how they have been applied in life and in the development of civilisations and cultures. Indeed, this information can kindle the inner urge of the individual to grow inwardly and to fashion the processes of learning which can properly be called the processes of learning to be. But still, the part played by communication of information in the development ...
... ideal. On the contrary, we shall never find out their true meaning or resolve their harsh and often agonising problems until we learn to see in them a means towards the discovery and the individual and collective expression of our highest and, because our highest, therefore our truest and fullest self, our largest most imperative principle and power of existence. All life is only a lavish and manifold... whether concealed in his nature or conscious in his higher self or inner genius. He obeys an inner ideal, not an outer standard; he answers to a divine law in his being, not to a social claim or a collective necessity. The ethical imperative comes not from around, but from within him and above him. It has been felt and said from of old that the laws of right, the laws of perfect conduct are the laws... that dangerous pretender expediency, whose whole method is alien to the ethical. Moreover, the standard of utility, the judgment of utility, its spirit, its form, its application must vary with the individual nature, the habit of mind, the outlook on the world. Here there can be no reliable general law to which all can subscribe, no set of large governing principles such as it is sought to supply to our ...
... emotion. His similes, and metaphors are less to be realised in their sensory properties than in their meaning and mood. The sensory proper- ties remain a little hazy - not in individual picturisation but in collective effect: hence mixed, fused, changing images. A recent writer, noting some of these points in Shakespeare, quoted the phrase: Was the hope drunk Wherein you ...
... Bertrand Russel and others; the trend is towards child-centred education, and the basic idea is that the individual is not merely a social unit, but a soul, a being, who has to fulfil his own individual truth and law as well as his natural or his assigned part in the truth and law of the collective existence. Happily, this Western idea agrees at its root with the profoundest and highest spiritual ... barbarism, ignorance and division so as to inspire among the youth a burning quest for wisdom and courage, for excellence in works and skills, and for universality and all that contributes to individual and collective perfection. Page 61 Once of the best means of achieving this goals is the task that we have begun earnestly during the last few years the task of Value-Oriented Education... of education can now become very effective, but it will also open new channels of communication of the message of value-oriented education, since they can be at once adapted to the needs of the individual and of groups and masses. At a higher dimension, one question that will have to be answered is of the ways and means to ensure that knowledge does not get lost in information, and wisdom does ...
... it depends upon progressive understanding of the principles underlying the process of self-exceeding; and thirdly, it depends upon clearer perception and commitment to the higher goals of individual and collective welfare. And, if we look at the educational history of thought and practice, we shall find that glorious periods of education have been marked by the participation of people in combining these... respects each individual's rhythms of development which, in Indian psychology, are called rhythms of swabhava and swadharma. In this process, individualised learning and variations arising from each one's special needs of growth and of the integration of the different aspects of personality are indispensable. Integral being is being of unity and this unity can be arrived at only if individual rhythms ...
... Rebirth in the sense of reincarnation is especially an individual phenomenon, the individual forming a divine centre, a focus of consciousness which the group is not; the group is more a field and a frame for the individual in spite of a conscious existence of its own. In any case, the revival or renaissance of a nation – a collective consciousness and being – is quite possible, and the normal... different times and with a varying tempo. The view implies two conclusions or rather postulates: (l) that whatever is born must die, there is no resurrection or rejuvenation, neither in the individual nor in. the collective life and (2) that humanity remains on the whole more or less the same, there is no global progress: there is no continued march forward towards a kingdom of heaven upon earth, even as... We may compare with profit perhaps in this regard the life of an individual person with that of a people or nation. Even as an individual has a soul beyond his body and mind, a spiritual personality behind his apparent name and form, a nation too has a soul apart from its political, economic and cultural life. As in the individual, in the aggregate too a spiritual principle seeks to express and incarnate ...
... before humanity a ladder of ascendance by which individuals and collectivities can rise higher and higher beyond the borders conceived and determined by Shastra. In other words, the Gita recognises law beyond law and recognises even freedom beyond law. "The name that the Gita gives to the element which enables individuals and collectivities to obey shastras is Shraddha, a term which is highly... is the inevitable drive towards the highest ideal that the individual and collectivity can aspire for. "Let me summarise three important points which you can derive in regard to the task of leaders of law : The first is to draw out from the existing shastra the very best and put it forward as the ideal to which the present formulation of law must strive for. The second is to try to discern with... life, and yet, on the other hand, there is an imperative and urgent need to provide to mankind those ideals and those laws which, if accepted, can bring about an ideal harmony between the individual and collectivity. The crisis has arisen because the conflict between the lower law of desire and the higher law of self-control, self-knowledge and perfection is not being sought to be resolved by lawyers ...
... spiritual and eternal individual, the Purusha. It is because of the spiritual Person, the Divinity in the individual, that perfection or liberation—salvation, as it is called in the West—has to be individual and not collective; for whatever perfection of the collectivity is to be sought after, can come only by the perfection of the individuals who constitute it. It is because the individual is That, that... mind and soul of the collectivity, depends on the individual, on his sufficient freedom and independence, on his separate power to express and bring into being what is still unexpressed in the mass, still undeveloped from the subconscience or not yet brought out from within or brought down from the Superconscience. The collectivity is a mass, a field of formation; the individual is the diviner of truth... secret cosmic consciousness and an individual consciousness manifest on the surface. The secret cosmic consciousness remains secret and subliminal to the surface individual; it organises itself on the surface by the creation of separate objects and beings. But while it organises the separate object and the body and mind of the individual being, it creates also collective powers of consciousness which are ...
... why and wherefore of it, and probing into causes and the profundities of it, and then giving it not merely a philosophy but also a line of growth toward that Light, thereby explaining the individual and the collective life of man—these things are lacking. What I have seen is that the modern mind is faced with so many different problems that the Bible though a great revelation in a certain sense, does... limited egoistic consciousness. Then, instead of receiving the universal contact, one reduces oneself to a small being and reduces the universal to individual contact. The universal contact coming through the individual machinery of the small individual channel, completely changes its character from delight into pleasure, pain, and indifference. Instead of trying to contact, or having a universal reception... Delight. This support of the Being full of Delight—behind this variable inexhaustible play of multiple variant rhythm of its own Self, is our true Self, the true Self of the human individual. The true Self of the human individual is the one infinite Delight-Self, throwing Itself out, pouring Itself out, into an infinite inexhaustible Delight of Becoming. The mental self that we have is only representative ...
... and its materials in proper order and neat and tidy is a very necessary element in our life upon earth. I do not know to what extent we have yet been able to assimilate this teaching in our individual or collective living. How many of us have realised that beauty is at least half the sense of life and serves to double its value? And even if we do sometimes realise, how many are impelled to shape our... names and became great favourites with the Mother; one was Big Bay and the younger one was Kiki. It is said about one of them – I forget which, perhaps it was Kiki – that he used to join in the collective meditation and meditated like one of us; he perhaps had visions during meditation and his body would shake and tremble while the eyes remained closed. But in spite of this sadhana, he remained in ...
... them, is a mate- rial growth, a covenant and convenience agreed upon for the sake of a smooth running of the wheels of life. But the origin of ethics lies not in the outer mechanism of the individual and collective existence, but in the evolutionary development of reason and the balancing and enlightening principle of sattwa in man. It can be said that morality is a gift of religion, if by religion... is opening before it of an integral freedom and self-fulfilment. It has already begun to knock at the doors of the subliminal, peer into the caves of the subconscient, and in a few exceptional individuals, here and there, gaze up into the superconscient. It will not, therefore, be without some help to the seekers of Truth and a harmonious perfection in life, if we try to study, in the light of the... ious, half- superstitious cult of sacraments and sacrifices out of which later on branched off magic, thaumaturgy, etc. At this stage of evolution, there was no distinct conception of morality; individual and social life automatically adjusted themselves to the varying demands of circumstances and environment. There was not much sense of sin or guilt chilling or curbing the natural expression of ...
... injure us if we do not recognise them. It points out that the messages from the West of liberty, equality and fraternity, if rightly received and assimilated, have the power to rejuvenate our individual and collective life; it also welcomes the Western messages of original, critical and scientific thought; it also stresses the Western insistence on creativity, prosperity and unity. On the other hand, it... of character. It aims at a curriculum inspired by holism at every terminal point of education, and which would yet take care of adequate specialization Page 38 appropriate to each individual's growth and employability. It also aims at enabling students to equip themselves to arrive at frontiers of knowledge and which would yet prune the load in such a way as to reduce the burden of books ...
... its materials in proper order and neat and tidy is a very necessary element in our life upon earth. I do not know to what extent we have yet been able to assimilate this teaching in our individual or collective living. How many of us have realised that beauty is at least half the sense of life and serves to double its value? And even if we do sometimes realise, how many are impelled to shape our... names and became great favourites with the Mother; one was Big Boy and the younger one was Kiki. It is said about one of them—I forget which, perhaps it was Kiki —that he used to join in the collective meditation and meditated like one of us; he perhaps had visions during meditation and his body would shake and tremble while the eyes remained closed. But in spite of this sadhana, he remained ...
... formed the area for the disciples' residences, and each one had his own house and garden―a small house and a garden for each one. There was some means of transport, I wasn't sure if it was individual transport or collective transport―like those small open tramcars in the mountains, you know―going in all directions to take the disciples back towards the centre of the town. And around all that, there was a... with their hands, that is what I meant. Page 265 "There will be no taxes as such, but each one will contribute to the collective welfare in work, kind or money." So that is clear: there will be no taxes, but each one will have to contribute to the collective welfare by his work, in kind or in money. Those who have nothing but money will give money. But to tell the truth, "work" can be... to have; an individual cannot pretend to have it, either he has it or he hasn't, because ( Mother laughs ) in any circumstance of life, if it is a pretension, it will show clearly! On top of that, it does not give you any material power. There again, X once said―he was speaking of the true hierarchy, the hierarchy based on each one's power of consciousness―the individual or individuals who are at the ...
... Synthesis of the four main theories of the aim of life: Supracosmic Supraterrestrial Cosmic-terrestrial Integral Development of a vision of ideal perfection, individual and collective. Man's present condition and possibilities of his further evolution. Psychological experiences of various parts and domains of being. Conflicts between the rational being, the aesthetic... study). Need for physical fitness: what it means (topic for study and reflection). Teachers may recommend the following exercises according to circumstances and in response to the individual needs of each student: Resolve daily to be truthful, to be free from fear and to have goodwill for everyone. Works of labour and community service with an inner motive of dedication. ...
... Brahma, the people was a life body of Brahman in the samaṣṭi , the collectivity, it was the collective Narayana, as the individual was Brahman in the vyaṣṭi , the separate Jiva, the individual Narayana; the king was the living representative of the Divine and the other orders of the community the natural powers of the collective self, prakṛtayaḥ . The agreed conventions, institutes, customs, co... anything more than a vision on a shining cloud constantly run after in a circle and constantly deceiving the hope and escaping the embrace. That will be when man in the collectivity begins to live more deeply and to govern his collective life neither primarily by the needs, instincts, intuitions welling up out of the vital self, nor secondarily by the constructions of the reasoning mind, but first, foremost... the organic totality of the social existence. A people, a great human collectivity, is in fact an organic living being with a collective or rather—for the word collective is too mechanical to be true to the inner reality—a common or communal soul, mind and body. The life of the society like the physical life of the individual human being passes through a cycle of birth, growth, youth, ripeness and ...
... exists as much as our own and is constantly exercising an occult influence upon us,—for a great part of our thoughts and feelings come into us from outside, from our fellow-men, both from individuals and from the collective mind of humanity; and for the same reason that we are not aware of the greater part of our own being which is subconscient or subliminal to our waking mind and is always influencing and... materialised mental plane, sees the reality of the spiritual; and then the will of the individual Purusha unifying itself with this poise of knowledge rejects the lower and draws back to the supreme plane, dwells there, loses mind and body, sheds life from it and merges itself in the supreme Purusha, is delivered from individual existence. It knows that Page 446 this is not the whole truth of our... eternal fact or potentiality and the powers of its becoming. That existence in its relations with and its experience of the becoming is what we call soul or Purusha, Page 448 individual soul in the individual, universal soul in the cosmos; the principle and the powers of the becoming are what we call Nature or Prakriti. But since Being, conscious force and delight of being are always the three ...
... Dharma is not any religious creed or dogma nor a system of rituals, but a deeper law of the harmonious and interdependent growth of the deepest aspirations of the collectivity and of the individuals that constitute the collectivity. Dharma can be regarded as an ordered system of moral and spiritual values. Spirituality proceeds directly by change of consciousness, change from the ordinary... self-aggrandisement. • But no individual can live in isolation, and no individual can be allowed by the very fact of his social existence, to impose upon others what an individual considers to be his good, based upon his personal need, preference or desire. Hence, every social group tends to create its own standards of conduct and impose it upon its individual members. • In erecting the... progressive law of self-perfection spontaneously expressing itself through the individual nature. In this operation, no more is the imposition of a rule or an imperative on the nature of an individual. The spiritual law respects the individual nature, modifies it and, perfects it, and in this sense, it is unique for each individual and can be known and made operative only during the course of the change ...
... many-branching and always enlarging way of knowledge and spiritual or religious discipline. Lastly, they were led to provide, for those not yet ready for the higher steps, an organization of the individual and collective life, a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct, of mental and moral and vital development by which they could move each in his or her own limits and according to his or her... the real self of man is indivisibly one with the universal Self or the supreme Spirit. According to another school or sect, the individual is one with the Divine in essence but different from him in Nature. According to a third school or sect, God, Nature, and the individual soul in man are three eternally different powers of being. The Advaitin, the Vishishta-advaitin and the Dualist, however they... comes, in which all lives and moves without knowing it and of which all must one day grow aware, returning towards that which is perfect, eternal and infinite. Secondly, they tended to lay upon the individual life the need of self-preparation by development and experience till one is ready for an effort to grow consciously into the truth of this greater existence. Thirdly, they tended to provide in the ...
... Initiative must be the collectivity's, execution the individual's. But where was that vague thing, the collectivity, and how could it express itself not only as a self-conscious, but an organised and efficient collective will and self-directing energy? The State, there was the secret. Let the State be perfect, dominant, all-pervading, all-seeing, all-effecting; so only could the collective ego be concentrated... ideas and cultures, a war of collective personalities each seeking to possess the world or at least to dominate and be first in the world. Here there can enter no morality except that of success, though the pretence of morality may be a useful stratagem of war. To serve the State, the German collectivity which is his greater and real self is the business of the German individual whether at home or abroad... fulfil then the collective German ego and secure its growth and domination was at once the right law of reason, the supreme good of humanity and the mission of the great and supreme Teutonic race. 4 From this egoistic self-vision flowed a number of logical consequences, each in itself a separate subjective error. First, since the individual is only a cell of the collectivity, his life must be ...
... Aurobindo's contribution to spiritual experience. The systematic detailed exposition of them is his contribution to philosophy. And the direct application of them to the problems of individual and collective living in his Ashram at Pondicherry is his contribution to practical world-work. These three contributions render Sri Aurobindo the most important influence for humanity's future... thousands of eye-witnesses to this phenomenon. Page 7 modernity of the Aurobindonian Yoga is the insistence that the production of a few extraordinary individuals is not the object. A collective, a social transformation is wanted. And that is why the spiritual work, though unimplicated in politics, is never indifferent to the crises brought about in any part of the world... presence alone, with its descending and ascending movement, can provide the exact goal and ground of evolutionary fulfilment, it alone can be the genuine significant Truth of the cosmos and of the individual centres through which the involved cosmic possibilities blossom forth. Sri Aurobindo calls it Supermind, Gnosis, Creative Truth-Consciousness. The Aurobindonian Supermind is not an entirely ...
... is that our surface being is not conscious of it. Nor is the hidden region of the mind merely individual: Jung has noted a common pool of memories and symbols, a depth of racial responses, motives and mythological attitudes preserved through the ages. And he has invented for it the expression: "Collective Unconscious." An immense range of psychological being, unhindered by space or time and full of... with the "subliminal" of the psychologists and with their "Collective Unconscious". Modern research has, in a very practical manner, provided a jumping-board to the greater claims of this very ancient research. Yoga chooses as a starting-point the part of one's being which is most natural to one from day to day according to one's individual constitution. Thus there are different Yogas for those who... matter how or where one starts. The moment life here is emphasised, the moment the stress on earth which modem science has given is accepted and the ideal is not only of individual development and salvation but also of collective and social fulfilment, the need arises of taking up the entirety of our being and making our Yoga integral. To cope adequately with this need is the way of Sri Aurobindo. ...
... the evolutionary process which is concerned not only with individuals but also with collectivities. The Supramental Yoga takes all mankind as its material. It is not for just a few extraordinary individuals: its call is to the whole of humanity, declaring to all the divine destiny awaiting them. It is a collective and not a merely individual Yoga and it promises a perfect society, a new world of complex... be. Whatever creative action is needed will be achieved by subtle means, by a pure play of conscious energy. This is as it should be, for the sexual function comes into existence because the individual body is mortal and the race has to be continued through one's offspring. The Supramental Body, being what it is, cannot degenerate and die or be subject to fatal accident. The necessity of death... spite of linkage with the others, a kind of self-sufficient structure like a stanza, but in general no two such "stanzas" are equally long. The units also of each block tell markedly in their own individual mass and force of Word and rhythm, though a concordant continuity is maintained in the sense. Enjambment (overflow from line to line) which was used to impetuous effect in Sri Aurobindo's early ...
... completely expelled from the normal waking consciousness, it sinks into the sub-conscient and re-emerges from there in sudden, fretful spurts, playing havoc with the order and security of individual and collective life. Besides, violence cannot be regarded with indifference, but has to be met and combated, not certainly out of any love of revenge or retribution, but for the protection and preservation... It is one of the prerequisites of the manifestation of the Divine in and through the liberated soul of man. It is only in this boundless, nameless Page 22 peace that the liberated individual develops what the Gita calls Para Bhakti, and by this transcendent love and adoration knows and unites with the Supreme and becomes a vehicle of His Light and Love and Force upon the earth. ...
... impossible for the mind to forecast in detail what the supramental change must be in its parts of life-action and outward behaviour or lay down for it what forms it shall create for the individual or the collective existence. For the mind acts by intellectual rule or device or by reasoned choice of will or by mental impulse or in obedience to the life-impulse; but supramental nature does not act by... statement of his being. Each is the whole Eternal concealed. Man himself, who takes up all that went before him and transmutes it into the term of manhood, is the individual human being and yet he is all mankind, the universal man acting in the individual as a human personality. He is all and yet he is himself and unique. He is what he is, but he is also the past of all that he was and the potentiality of all ...
... true life-unity, a mental unity or a spiritual oneness. "All that is there is a chaos of clashing mental ideas, urges of individual and collective physical want and need, vital claims and desires, impulses of an ignorant life-push, hungers and calls for life-satisfaction of individuals, classes, nations, a rich fungus of political and social and economic nostrums and notions, a hustling medley of slogans... spiritual realities and bring their riches into active manifestation in our life, is one of the functions of Yoga and Spirituality. For, to reach a satisfactory solution of the problems, both individual and collective, that are besetting the life of humanity today, men must know not only what Matter is and what its processes and potentialities are, but also spirit and soul and all that is behind the material... one of the greatest mystics and thinkers. Science against Spiritual Knowledge: Charges and their Refutation I. Argument: Spiritual experiences are individual and have no general validity independent of the individual seeker's supposed testimony. Critique: This statement arises out of a complete misreading of facts as they stand. For the truth is that yogic experiences run ...
... evolution of man and of his purpose also is admitted. Man has been trying to discover, or "uncover" his Self— and in this great discovery he is bound to discover also this purpose as an individual and as a collectivity. Efforts at writing an epic in European languages after Milton have, so far, not been successful. The feeling among the critics is that epic-manner and epic-content are trying... pervades his temperament and works, in high poetic achievement, in complexity and subtlety of intellect, in a rare synthesising and integrating power, in a total view of human perfection individual and collective, I could not find anybody except perhaps Veda-Vyasa, the great seer-poet of India. But, Veda-Vyasa has been regarded as a mythical figure by European scholars, for they could not believe... Mahabharata and the Ramayana are "products of inspired intelligence with a high poetic tone." Both are "ensouled images of a great culture." These epics give us the spiritual significance of individual and collective life from a strong and noble thought-power of a mind that has high social, political and ethical ideals Page 102 and is artistically delicate and refined. Savitri ...
... evolution of man and of his purpose also is admitted. Man has been trying to discover, or "uncover" his Self—and in this great discovery he is bound to discover also this purpose as an individual and as a collectivity. Efforts at writing an epic in European languages after Milton have, so far, not been successful. The feeling among the critics is that epic-manner and epic-content are trying for... pervades his temperament and works, in high poetic achievement, in complexity and subtlety of intellect, in a rare synthesising and integrating power, in a total view of human perfection individual and collective, I could not find anybody except perhaps Veda-Vyas, the great seer-poet of India. But, Veda-Vyas has been regarded as a mythical figure by European scholars, for they could not believe that... and the R ā m ā yana are "products of inspired intelligence with a high poetic tone". Both are "ensouled images of a great culture". These epics give us the spiritual significance of individual and collective life from a strong and noble thought power of a mind that has high social, political and ethical ideals and is artistically delicate and refined. Sāvitrī too offers a whole world of experience ...
... humanity; but in humanity too we have to find and to serve him. The cult of humanity means an increasing kindliness, tolerance, charity, helpfulness, solidarity, universality, unity, fullness of individual and collective growth, and towards these things we are advancing much more rapidly than was possible in any Page 187 previous age, if still with sadly stumbling footsteps and some fierce relapses... too much their action in the individual, limited too narrowly the working of their ideals in the social order, tolerated for instance and even utilised for the ends of Page 188 church and creed an immense amount of cruelty and barbarism which were contrary to the spirit and truth from which they had started. What they discouraged in the soul of the individual, they yet maintained in the... earthly life to be constantly pressed towards and not shunting off the social ideal to doomsday to be miraculously effected by some last divine intervention and judgment, they cleared the way for a collective advance. For they made these nobler possibilities of mankind more imperative to the practical intelligence. If they lost sight of heaven or missed the spiritual sense of the ideals they took over ...
... Psychological powers in this synthetic yoga of the Veda are sought to be purified, cultivated, developed and perfected by the constant aid sought and received from the cosmic powers in their individual or in their collective combinations. This is where the role of the Gods comes into our view prominently. Gods in their combination manifest the integrality of the one supreme Deva, one integral Divine Existent... change of consciousness leading up to the total transformation of consciousness in which the individual stands united with the universal and transcendental Divine, which leads to a further step of the reign of the divine consciousness on the psychological and even physical instruments and limbs of the individual in their action of transformation. It is true that as long as the divine consciousness is... finally, refer to the important verses, which appear at the close of the Rig Veda, since they bring out the futuristic vision of humanity and harmony, which can come about by intense aspiration for collective yoga that aims at highest welfare and solidarity of people. These verses express exhortation of Rishis for building up the future divine man, "Be, first, the mental being, and manifest, then, the ...
... closes with the following additional paragraph : For, in truth, saviours they will be, as each being of this new type will not live either for himself or for State or society, for the individual ego or the collective ego, but for something much greater, for God in himself and for God in the world. ... was recognised and studied long ago. It is by surrounding women with forms of art and beauty that, little by little, the ancient Greeks created the exceptionally harmonious race that they were. Individual instances of the same fact are numerous. It is not rare to see a woman who, while pregnant, had looked at constantly and admired a beautiful picture or statue, giving birth to a child after the perfect... of Nature, each manifestation of a new capacity and principle upon earth is marked by the appearance of a new species. In the same way, the progressive forms of the life of races, of peoples, of individuals, follow each other through the human cycles, ceaselessly inspired, fecundated, renewed by the efforts of the guides of humanity. And all these forms aim at the same goal, the mysterious, the glorious ...
... We must remember that our aim of self-fulfilment is an integral unfolding of the Divine within us, a complete evolution of the hidden divinity in the individual soul and the collective life. Otherwise we may simply come back to an old idea of individual and social living which had its greatness, but did not provide all the conditions of our perfection. That was the idea of a spiritualised typal society... place for ourselves on the earth as the animals do, not only having made to keep it and develop its best vital and egoistic or communal use for the efficiency and enjoyment of the individual, the family or the collective ego, substantially as is done by the animal families and colonies, in bee-hive or ant-hill for example, though in the larger, many-sided way of reasoning animals; it is also, and much... culture governed by the enlightened reason of man and led by the wisest minds of a free society, nor the modern ideal of an efficient culture and successful economic civilisation governed by the collective reason and organised knowledge of mankind can be either the highest or the widest goal of social development. The Hellenic ideal was roughly expressed in the old Latin maxim, a sound mind in a ...
... the fact of ignorance and ultimately to eliminate it from the life of the individual and ultimately from the life of the collectivity. And there is no other way than that of spiritual contemplation; and even spiritual contemplation has to be matured in spiritual realisation. And considering that even when a few individuals live in spiritual realisation, the world continues to live in struggle and... and destruction, in strife and pain, we are obliged to conclude that even the individual spiritual realisation is not enough. We have to contemplate collective self-realisation. In any case, if unity is to be realised, if unity is to actualised, it seems that it Page 489 can only be done by the abolition of the root cause of division and conflict. This means that abolition of ignorance; and... greater social or political unity is not necessarily a boon in itself; it is only worth pursuing in so far as it provides a means and a framework for a better, richer, more happy and puissant individual and collective life. 3 Page 492 Let us take the example of the Roman Empire; for it provides a historical illustration of an organisation of unity which transcended the limits of the nation ...
... intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result... traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of. evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the "gnostic individual" in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A Supramental gnostic individual will be a Spiritual Person, but not a 1 Essays on the Gita, p. 258. ² Ibid ³ Ibid p. 258. personality, in the sense of a pattern... marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the Universal and the Transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says : "We feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and ...
... simplist theory of the individual soul's transmigration in perfect insularity. The theory of karma, as it is expounded from different standpoints, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina, errs on the side of oversimplification, and bypasses the important truth that karma is not only individual, but collective; that there is a constant intermingling of all karmas, and that no individual karma can pursue its solitary... solitary course completely uninvaded and unaffected by the environmental and collective karma. A new, revealing light is thrown upon the problem of rebirth and the grouping of souls by the following words of the Mother : "To understand rightly the problem of what is called reincarnation, you must perceive that there are two factors in it which require consideration. First, there is the... rebirth, but the real reason, the compelling cause and drive is the irrepressible urge in the soul for evolution. Originally a spark of the sempiternal Fire, the soul develops here in Matter into an individual being through the chequered process of rebirth, even as a new-born child grows into a man, .or a seed grows into a tree. The cycle of births and deaths is, therefore, an indispensable means of evolution ...
... field for the manifestation of the Divine. Its main aim is not liberation merely but the manifestation of divine perfection. In his vision not only the individual but the collectivity also is a term of the Divine. Acceptance of life includes the collective life. There is a deeper reason for accepting life. In his vision of the Reality Sri Aurobindo shows the rationality and the inevitability of an... all the visions of perfection of the human Spirit on earth, I found the synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo the most rational and the most satisfying. It meets the need of the individual and collective life of man today. It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture. It is, as Dr. S. K. Maitra says, the message which holds out hope in a world of despair. This... earth-consciousness, then not only should it descend into the lowest plane of physical consciousness – the subconscient – but it must become a part of the collective consciousness on earth too. I asked him many questions about the organisation of a collective life based on spiritual aspiration. On the last day of my stay of eleven days I met Sri Aurobindo between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. The main ...
... intensive evolution and formation through the individual that anything radical of an expanding or dynamically diffusive character can be expected or any attempt at collective spiritual life,—such attempts have been made, but mostly as a field of protection for the growth of the individual's spirituality,—acquire a successful permanence. For till then the individual must be preoccupied with his own problem... the needs of the body, unspiritual and superficial in his outlook, ignorant of his own self and the forces that drive and use him. His life constructions have a value as expressions of his individual and collective being in the stage to which they have reached or as a machinery for the convenience and welfare of his vital and physical parts and a field and medium for his mental growth, but they cannot... nothing or very little more is possible. It is true that the spiritual tendency has been to look more beyond life than towards life. It is true also that the spiritual change has been individual and not collective; its result has been successful in the man, but unsuccessful or only indirectly operative in the human mass. The spiritual evolution of Nature is still in process and incomplete,—one might ...
... to bring about the right relationship between the individual and collectivity. Reason also erected three great ideals of progress, viz., ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, and promised their harmonious fulfillment in a rational order of society. But now Reason has demonstrated that Reason can neither harmonise the individual and collectivity nor can it synthesise freedom, equality and brotherhood... foundation. Thirdly, therefore, there must be created atmosphere under which increasing number of individuals grow towards the necessity of the discovery of spiritual reality and its manifestation in all aspects of life. Finally, this effort must aim not merely at individual perfection but at collective perfection." The full moon was shining bright high above us, and all around was great quietude... I have virtually experienced how my ego is nothing but a puppet in the cosmic dance of prakriti. I have often remembered Krishna's words which describe how an individual is mounted on a revolving machine and how helpless is the individual on that machine. "No, I do not think there are any simple or ready-made basis of unity, mutuality and harmony for the common life of the people. If man consisted ...
... & all that is unknown to our Knowledge. What matters in the universe is the play of the All in Itself & its ultimate self-fulfilment in Knowledge, Bliss & Being. There is an individual self-fulfilment, a collective, a cosmic & an extra-cosmic. We may move towards any of these ultimate affirmations, but he who accepts them all & harmonises them, is the highest human expression of Parabrahman.... all exists by it, it is all. Whatever be [the] plane of being, whatever be the cosmos, whatever be the individual, the truth of its existence is the same; that it or he is the One; for there is and can be no other. The Transcendent is the Divine, the universal is the Divine, the individual is the Divine; all are the one Reality. Not only what we see as the Infinite, but the finite also is that... itself and apart from That, nothing that is of an individual essence other than the one Essence of the universe. What we see as finite is not other than the Infinite. All is in the Infinite, all exists by the Infinite, all is of the stuff of the Infinite. No object or person could come into being or remain in being by its own finite and individual power; none exists by its own limited substance and ...
... mystic and occult experience, that is to say, to the data of other planes of consciousness than the physical, as also on the nature of the relations between the cosmic consciousness and the individual and collective consciousness of man. From the point of view of spiritual and occult Truth, what takes shape in the consciousness of man is a reflection and particular kind of formation, in a difficult medium... part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their influence. It is natural for man who only sees his own consciousness individual, national or racial at work and does not see what works upon it and shapes it, to think that all is created by him and there is nothing cosmic and greater behind it. The Krishna consciousness is ...
... Dharma is not any religious creed or dogma nor a system of rituals, but a deeper law of the harmonious and interdependent growth of the deepest aspirations of the collectivity and of the individuals that constitute the collectivity. Dharma can be regarded as an ordered system of moral and spiritual values. Spirituality proceeds directly by change of consciousness, change from the... Page 406 But no individual can live in isolation, and no individual can be allowed by the very fact of his social existence, to impose upon others what an individual considers to be his good, based upon his personal need, preference or desire. Every social group tends to create its own standards of conduct and impose it upon its individual members. In erecting the group's... progressive law of self-perfection spontaneously expressing itself through the individual nature. In this operation, no more is the imposition of a rule or an imperative on the nature of an individual. The spiritual law respects the individual nature, modifies it and perfects it, and in this sense, it is unique for each individual and can be known and made operative only during the course of the change of ...
... intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result... "gnostic individual" in his masterpiece The Life Divine . He says : "A Supramental gnostic individual will be a Spiritual Person, but not a personality, in the sense of a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the Universal and the Transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says... the few inmates of the house used to have informal talk with Sri Aurobindo in the evening. In the beginning the inmates used to go out for playing foot-ball, and during their absence known local individuals would come in and wait for Sri Aurobindo . Afterwards regular meditation began at about 4 p.m. in which practically all the inmates participated. After the meditation all of the members and those ...
... drives towards consummating in the most integral sense both the Vedantic discovery, "All here is Brahman", and the perfectionist dream of modern science — a totally realised existence, both individual and collective, in the field of matter. In this context arises, between Teilhard and Sri Aurobindo, the issue which Dr. Beatrice Bruteau has discussed in a penetrative article, "Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard... cosmic, and individual. The evolving temporal world is essentially nothing but the Absolute itself. So is every individual." Sri Aurobindo understood the true condition required for evolutionary fulfilment. "The world and the individual must be divine by right of nature; the evolving world must have all divine values involved in it awaiting unfoldment; evolution, both cosmic and individual, must infallibly... pre-existence of its own as the ground of its individual personality? And, if it pre-exists, must we not posit a series of births for it, contributing to its development? It would be logical to assent to Sri Aurobindo's argument: 31 "...if there is an evolution of consciousness in an evolutionary body and a soul inhabiting the body, a real and conscious individual, then it is evident that it is the progressive ...
... mystic and occult experience, that is to say, to the data of other planes of consciousness than the physical, as also on the nature of the relations between the cosmic consciousness and the individual and collective consciousness of man. From the point of view of spiritual and occult Truth, what takes shape in the consciousness of man is a reflection and particular kind of formation, in a difficult... whether the Krishna ofBrin-davan and the details of His lila are to be accepted as literally true or merely as beautiful symbols of deep spiritual realities. Are these symbols creations of the individual human genius or are they creations of the Cosmic Mind, perceived by the bhakta or the sage. “The question extends itself to the forms of the great Powers of the Ishwara: is the Goddess... Cosmic Mind, having an otherwise independent existence of their own (dependent only on the Cosmic Mind) with a definite form of their own, or does the Supreme pour itself into any form which the individual or a nation may create for his or its use? “The question may appear to be purely academic, but I would be glad if you can help to clarify my mind? “) Page 187 The answer ...
... Upanishads, but the earlier Upanishads are quite explicit in their acceptance of a larger Vedic ideal and in their synthesis of the transcendental and the cosmic, even the integration of the individual and collective life on the earth with the supra-terrestrial life and the supra-cosmic existence. The Upanishads have been rightly looked upon as the supreme work of the Indian mind. They are a record... language and with a very vivid figure of that soul as "no bigger than a thumb", a figure which has been adopted in the later development of the Indian yoga to indicate the inmost individual soul, distinct from but constituting individual mind, life and body. Mandukya Upanishad speaks of the four-fold Self and describes the process of rising from stage to stage in terms of psychological symbolism, which... in unmindful and even unclear, and wanders in the cycle of phenomena. 39 Avidya is a veil of nescience that hides the real reality of the individual, universal and the transcendence and projects a false view centred on ego-consciousness. In avidya, the individual lives in his ego-consciousness, which tends always to assert its finitude and yet its independence, as though it were self-existent. Ego is ...
... intended by Sri Aurobindo to be the independent expression of his views on the subjects, events or the persons discussed. Very often what he said was in answer to the spiritual need of the individual or of the collective atmosphere. It was like a spiritual remedy meant to produce certain spiritual results, not a philosophical or metaphysical pronouncement on questions, events or movements. The net result... traditional idea of the Vibhuti and the Avatar in terms of. evolutionary possibilities of man. But more directly he has worked out the idea of the "gnostic individual" in his masterpiece The Life Divine. He says: "A Supramental gnostic individual will be a Spiritual Person, but not a 1 Essays on the Gita, p. 258. ² Ibid ³ Ibid p. 258. Page 6 personality, in the... marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character; he cannot be that since he is a conscious expression of the Universal and the Transcendent." Describing the gnostic individual he says : "We feel ourselves in the presence of a light of consciousness, a potency, a sea of energy, can distinguish and describe its free waves of action and quality, but not fix itself; and yet ...
... renunciation we enjoy, without ego-sense, all that we outwardly possess, all that others possess and all that none but God possesses, and we enjoy it not only with our own enjoyment but with the individual and collective enjoyment of all our fellow beings animate and inanimate and with the divine enjoyment of God in the universe. Finally, we enjoyed before renunciation many separate things all of a limited... energies to individual movements and creatures; from their store, the individual receives whatever he possesses of capacities, desires & enjoyments; at their hands he must seek whatever, not possessing, he desires firmly to acquire. But the principle of Nature, that great motion and complex rhythm, stands in the harmony & interdependence of the individual & general, jagatyam jagat; the individual, therefore ...
... often goes to other powers, even an ultimate conquest of the Right comes usually by an association with some form of Might. But still there is always a moral element among the many factors of individual and collective or national success and a disregard of acknowledged right has at some time or other disastrous or fatal reactions. Moreover, man in the use of his energies has to take account of his fellows... wall of an invisible measure. It is as fatal to a blind self-righteousness and the arrogations of an egoistic virtue as to vicious excess and selfish violence. It appears to demand of man and of individual men and nations that they shall keep within a limit and a measure, while all beyond that brings danger; and therefore the Greeks held moderation in all things to be the greatest part of virtue. ... Accordingly we find that its working is occasional and intermittent rather than regular, variable and to our minds capricious rather than automatic and plainly intelligible. At times in the individual's life the rebound of this kind of Karma is decisively, often terribly clear and penal justice is done, although it may come to him in an unexpected fashion, long delayed and from strange quarters; ...
... universal ideas and expressions that can be appreciated and welcomed by all without any distinction of race, caste or creed. No doubt, the poet also is a man and every man is endowed with individual as well as collective traits. Life and conduct, social laws and customs, culture and education, that is to say, the materials from which literary themes are derived differ in different climes and times. Every... compass of his surrounding and time as vast and gigantic. The universe, the universal does not get a chance to be reflected in him. He can at best be a poet of a particular sect, of a group or limited collectivity. So we find in literature another ideal which seeks to remove all the mist, the narrow horizon of the heart and emotions and stand supported by the mind and intelligence. And this ideal aims... truth confined to a small area to be the absolute truth so also he must not have a bias for the abstract philosophical truth which does not come into contact with a particular time, space and the individual. In fact, the formless universality that does not or cannot bear the touch of the physical world is particularly a matter of philosophy. The philosophical truth always likes to shun the local colour ...
... in the age of cosmonauts, the age of technical advance and it seems at first sight natural that it should be so called because it has brought about and is even now bringing about in the individual and collective life vast changes by showing the possibilities of ameliorating the material conditions of the masses by technology all over the world. Man has been enabled to establish himself as the undisputed... consciousness and of true freedom. The witness watches not merely the Page 31 individual nature but the whole of cosmic movement. Modern psychology has begun to admit the existence of the cosmic consciousness in another sense than what the ancients knew. It is now called "the collective unconscious", whatever it may mean. The ancient seers and mystics had the experience of the... the content of 'other' consciousness. He begins as an individual and expands into cosmic consciousness. When he takes up his individual station again he is able to identify himself with the content of consciousness of what, to him as an individual, are "others". He is able to know the content of consciousness which is not that of his individual self. That is one test. When we live in it, we live ...
... life and action of the gnostic individual so far as we can follow the evolution with our mental conception up to that point where it will emerge out of overmind and cross the border into supramental gnosis. This nature of the gnosis would evidently determine all the relations of the life or group-life of gnostic beings; for a gnostic collectivity would be a collective soul-power of the Truth-consciousness... as the gnostic individual would be an individual soul-power of it: it would have the same integration of life and action in unison, the same realised and conscious unity of being, the same spontaneity, intimate oneness-feeling, one and mutual truth-vision and truth-sense of self and each other, the same truth-action in the relation of each with each and all with all; this collectivity would be and act... in the gnostic truth-consciousness of a supramental being there must necessarily be a truth of relation of all the parts and movements of the being,—whether the being of the individual or the being of any gnostic collectivity,—a spontaneous and luminous oneness and wholeness in all the movements of the consciousness and all the action of the life. There could be no strife of the members; for not only ...
... of the world when there was a great need to subordinate the individual to the collectivity or to the state. This attitude has been challenged by the modern theory of individualism, according to which, the fulfillment of the individual is more important than the needs of the society or the collectivity. According to this view, the individual ought to act according to the injunction of the law of the... the Right, which may be opposed to the social or state law. Therefore, the individual should disregard the social or state law, even if it means a revolt against the collectivity, and follow the dictate of the law of the Right which may be directly received by the individual through his own developed moral or spiritual sense. This is the reason why individualists are often in collision with the authority... of critical appreciation. The political and social organization of the Greek city-states is regarded as an important step in the evolution of mankind's collective organization, for it was an attempt to realize freedom and equality for the individual. Although the rights of free expression and political participation were confined to Greek citizens, and although they were not extended to the slave labour ...
... pursuit of beauty, a pursuit of ethical good or evil, a pursuit of power, love, joy, happiness, fortune, success, pleasure, life-satisfactions of all kinds, life-enlargement, a pursuit of individual or collective objects, a pursuit of the health, strength, capacity, satisfaction of the body. All this makes an exceedingly complex sum of the manifold experience and many-sided action of the Spirit in... 115 Every individual human being has a particular line of development. And every action done by the individual, every quantum of energy released by him in some deed is sure to sprout and have its 'parinama' at some stage or other of that line of development and the doer will have to bear the consequences thereof. The nature and the circumstances of an individual life are the products... Ed., p. 814) Now, these "reactions of things" Sri Aurobindo speaks of are popularly interpreted as "karma-phalas" in the case of an individual man and may assume different forms depending on the situation, circumstances and the antecedents of the individual j ī va. To satisfy the curiosity of the readers we give below the names of a few of these "reactions" otherwise called the "Laws of Nature" ...
... affirms a Supracosmic Reality, a Creator of the Universe, and lays down rules to govern man's relation with Him and with his fellow beings. It attempts to bring a higher Truth into man's individual and collective life. Art, too tried to reach out to the same Reality through aesthetic sensibility, creative urge and a sense of beauty. It *Lecture delivered at the Benares Hindu University... the vibration of the form but of That which is behind. The experience of beauty can be independent of any outer equipment, ornamentation, or environment, the subjective state alone of the individual can make the form beautiful. Sri Aurobindo clarifies the nature of the experience of beauty and its highest seeking: " When it (the soul) can get the touch of this universal, absolute... of unity with the cosmic spirit. One identifies himself with the spirit of the poem, with a character in a drama or story, and at the same time a detachment keeps all personal elements aside. The individual outgrows the limits of his ego, enlarges his being, and has the joy of the universal consciousness. That is why Vishwanath, the Sanskrit critic, speaks of the delight or Rasa — as " Brahmānanda ...
... relation with __________________________ ¹ Future Poetry, Sri Aurobindo. ² Ibid. Page 72 Him and with his fellow beings. It attempts to bring a higher Truth into man's individual and collective life. Art too tried to reach out the same Reality through aesthetic Sensibility, creative urge and a sense of beauty. It created forms which attempted to bring the invisible reality into... merely the vibration of the form but that which is behind. The experience of beauty can be independent of any outer equipment, ornamentation, or environment; the subjective state alone of the individual can make the form beautiful. Sri Aurobindo clarifies the nature of the experience of beauty and its highest seeking : " When it (the soul) can get the touch of this universal absolute... unity with the cosmic spirit. One identifies himself with the spirit of the poem, with a character in a drama or a story, and at the same time a detachment keeps all personal elements aside. The individual out- grows the limits of his ego, enlarges his being, and has the Page 89 joy of the universal consciousness. That is why Vishwanath the Sanskrit critic, speaks of the delight or Rasa ...
... mind has come into being. And this is "a pitiless miracle," in the language of the LifeDivine. Because man is the representative of this mind, he struggles helplessly as an individual and, a little more powerfully, collectively against this colossal ignorance. That is what happens actually when out of this no-mind, mind appears. And this "heartless Inconscient" slowly gives rise to hearts "which are... divine and so we respect them, we evoke their help so far as it can be of help in the present conditions, but the highest help that one can have in his mind, in his vital life, in his individual life, in his collective life today, is from a Light like Sri Aurobindo, because he gives you the full expanded view of that perfect world; its relation with this world; then the way to reach it; the way to bring... Q: Does that second birth come at the meeting, right at the beginning of the meeting, of the Guru or does it come all the way through? A. No, the second birth comes when the soul of the individual perceives the necessity of outliving the present attractions of life, the ordinary way of life,—career, money, fame, family, and all that. Now, when he sets the growth of his inner being as his aim ...
... humanity the possibility and inevitability of the supramental manifestation on the earth, The Synthesis of Yoga shows to the mind, heart and spirit of humanity those methods by which the individual and collectivity can arrive at that manifestation. A significant message of The Synthesis of Yoga is that Yoga should be distinguished clearly from philosophy and religion with which it is likely to... Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. Page 22 Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic achievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing in of a... necessity of spiritual transformation. Sri Aurobindo points out that a change from the vital and mental to the spiritual order of life must necessarily be accomplished in the individual and in a greater number of individuals before it can come to have an effective hold upon community. What is necessary is that the common human mind begins to admit the ideas proper to the higher order that is in the ...
... de revivre en Toi,. la terre attend Ton arrêt dans une grandiose prosternation. . ¹ This is the second status of the Mother's being, the first is the personal and individual, the second is this collective and universal being. But she is not merely the universe, she is the Mother of the universe. Hers is not merely earth's prayer, but the prayer of the Mother of the earth. It is not... terre est dans nos bras comme un enfant malade qu'il faut guérir et pour lequel on a, ài cause même de sa faiblesse, une tendresse toute spéciale.¹ The triple status of the Mother, the individual, the collective and the transcendental (or, in other words, the personal, the universal and the supra-personal) has been condensed and epitomised in the magical note describing her first meeting with the... all men, the entire humanity itself. She has identified herself with each person in her being and consciousness, she is one with all, all are merged in her. Her voice utters the cry of the human collectivity. Mother's Prayers and Meditations are the prayers and meditations of man. Thus again: . . il m' a semblé que j' adoptais tous les habitants de ce bateau, que je les enveloppais tous dans ...
... the means for achieving it on earth is the realisation of human unity through awakening and manifesting "the inner Divinity which is One" in individual and collectivity alike. More specifically, the task before us is fourfold: firstly, for each individual to realise in himself the one Divine Presence; secondly, individualising "the states of being that were never till now conscious in man and... there, but basically the 1912 document only set down Mirra's own dreams and visions of the future. A great change - a supreme transformation - is to be effected, both on !he individual and the social (or collective) planes, and these are to be integrated into a harmonious and creative whole. In Sri Aurobindo's Page 51 poem, The Rishi, (written in 1907 and revised in 1911), the... tree. Begin with the individual, even one individual; and ultimately alchemise the race, the earth itself! The individual has to awaken to the divine light within, he has to seek and find his soul; only then will he be in rapport with the soul of humanity, the soul of the world, which are also of the divine substance and essence. In his external action, the individual has to find his right ...
... Synthesis of the four main theories of the aim of life: -Supracosmic -Supraterrestrial -Cosmic-terrestrial -Integral 3. Development of a vision of ideal perfection, individual and collective. 4. Man's present condition and possibilities of his further evolution. 5. Psychological experiences of various parts and domains of being. Conflicts between the rational being,... stories, selections from poems and plays should also be a part of the programme. Inspiring passages and interesting essays also should be utilised. Exhibitions play a great role in creating collective atmosphere and also in opening vaster vistas before the children's vision and imagination. The programmes should also include exercises of contemplation, purification and of aesthetic experience... entirety of the contents, and mere meditation would suffice as entirety of method. But this would not suffice in each and every case or when we have to deal with a large number of students, where each individual will need to have a special programme appropriate to his or her needs of growth and his or her special approach and method of growth. It is for this reason that we need to formulate methods and contents ...
... de revivre en Toi; la terre attend Ton arret dans me grandiose prosternation .. 1 This is the second status of the Mother's being, the first is the personal and individual, the second is this collective and universal being. But she is not merely the universe, she is the Mother of the universe. Hers is not merely earth's prayer, but the prayer of the Mother of the earth. It is not... dans nos bras comme un enfant malade qu''il faut guerir et pour lequel on a, a cause meme de sa faiblesse, une tendresse toute speciale. 1 The triple status of the Mother, the individual, the collective and the transcendental (or, in other words, the personal, the universal and the supra-personal) has been condensed and epitomised in the magical note describing her first meeting with the... all men, the entire humanity itself. She has identified herself with each person in her being and consciousness, she is one with all, all are merged in her. Her voice utters the cry of the human collectivity. Mother's Prayers and Meditations are the prayers and meditations of man. Thus again: - .. il m'a semble que j'adoptais tous les habitants de ce bateau, que je les enveloppais tous dans ...
... insisting, that reason is in its nature an imperfect light... It can in its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea, theory of life, system of society or government, ideal of individual and collective action to which the will of man attaches itself for the moment or through the centuries. In philosophy it gives equally good reasons for monism and pluralism or for any halting-place between... just three examples. 1.From The Life Divine: "It is so that ascetic philosophy tends to conceive it. But individual salvation can have no real sense if existence in the cosmos is itself an illusion....Who then profits by this escape? ... For the Illusionist the individual soul is an illusion and nonexistent except in the inexplicable mystery of Maya. Therefore we arrive at the escape of ...
... de revivre en Toi; la terre attend Ton arrêt dans une prosternation grandiose..." (7-11-1915) This is the second status of the Mother's being, the first is the personal and individual, the second is this collective and universal being. But she is not merely the universe, she is the Mother of the universe. Hers is not merely earth's prayer, but the prayer of the Mother of the earth. It is not... nos bras comme un enfant malade qu'il faut guérir et pour lequel on a, à cause même de sa faiblesse, une tendresse toute spéciale." (14.10.1914) The triple status of the Mother, the individual, the collective and the transcendental (or, in other words, the personal, the universal and the supra-personal) has been condensed and epitomised in the magical note describing 1er first meeting with the... men, the entire humanity itself. She has identified herself with each person in her being and consciousness, she is one with all, all are merged in her. Her voice utters the cry of the human collectivity. Mother's Prayers and Meditations are the prayers and meditations of man. Thus again: 1 "...il m'a semblé que j'adoptais tous les habitants de ce bateau, que je les enveloppais tous dans ...
... into the acosmic static Reality of featureless Nirvana or into superaterrestrial planes of heavenly existence, but establishment of the kingdom of the Spirit on the earth; not merely individual achievement but a collective one for the earth; not merely realisation of the Divine, but realisation of the integral Divine and its integral manifestation in the physical life, this is the aim which, according... Page 26 perfection by conversion, the liberating Truth, Beatitude and Infinity. Its method is a direct commerce, a direct contact, a direct concentration of the human individual or Purusha in the individual body with the Divine, the Purusha who dwells in every body and yet trascends all form and name. This analysis of the systems of Yoga indicates a solution to the problem of their... the Master. All life is a Yoga of Nature seeking to manifest God within itself. Yoga marks the stage at which this effort becomes capable of self-awareness and therefore of right completion in the individual. It is a gathering up and concentration of the movements dispersed and loosely combined in the lower evolution.'8 By this integral method is proposed to achieve an integral realisation and p ...
... , many-branching and always enlarging way of knowledge and of spiritual or religious discipline. Lastly, for those not yet ready for these higher steps it provided an organisation of the individual and collective life, a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct, of mental and moral and vital development by which they could move each in his own limits and according to his own nature in... adjudged even from this alien outlook to have been the creation of a wide and noble spirit. Inspired in the heart of its being by a lofty principle, illumined with a striking and uplifting idea of individual manhood and its powers and its possible perfection, aligned to a spacious plan of social architecture, it was enriched not only by a strong philosophic, intellectual and artistic creativeness but... from which all comes, in which all lives and moves without knowing it and of which all must one day grow aware, returning towards that which is perfect, eternal and infinite. Next, it laid upon the individual life the need of self-preparation by development and experience till man is ready for an effort to grow consciously into the truth of this greater existence. Thirdly, it provided it with a well-founded ...
... cognition at a considerable approach towards a total comprehensiveness and catholicity, but to organise that in action and life seems to be beyond its power. Evolutionary Mind, manifest in individuals or collectivities, throws up a multiplicity of divergent view-points, divergent lines of action and lets them work themselves out side by side or in collision Page 298 or in a certain intermixture;... and the truth of its individual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains in them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpenetration and a free and full consciousness of each other: but in Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Over mind is well aware of the essential Truth of things; it embraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations without... that nothing in the original nature of Mind, Life or Matter necessitates a fall from Knowledge. It has been shown indeed that division of consciousness is the basis of the Ignorance, a division of individual consciousness from the cosmic and the transcendent of which yet it is an intimate part, in essence inseparable, a division of Mind from the supramental Truth of which it should be a subordinate action ...
... interlinked, for there was the Yoga - there were the two Gurus (who were really one in consciousness) - and there were the many disciples; and since the yogic battle was being waged on the individual as well as collective fronts, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo were as much concerned with the disciples' sadhana as with their own, and some of the disciples felt perpetually intrigued by what was happening... a positive movement towards a solution - in the 1930s in what was little less than the invisible spiritual battle-ground of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. First: How did the sadhaks, individually and collectively, respond to the challenge for a change of consciousness (from the human to the divine) posed by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? Second: How far did they, as the two "Leaders of the Way", succeed... unsuspected artistic veins in themselves, and the atmosphere of the Ashram quickened the flowering of the consciousness of most of the inmates. All this clearly showed that, generally speaking, the collective sadhana of the Ashram was not failing to show results that were by no means unimpressive. III Since the very beginning, indeed, there has reigned an atmosphere in the Ashram which ...
... research is done in collective groups. It is not possible for an individual to do it. Collectivity must take advantage of scientific progress and apply it so that it is now the result of the groups. An individual is only a means to make this collective progress possible. But this scientific will or this will to increase knowledge in the collectivity— is it conscious ? In the collective, it is not conscious... conscious. The group does not think of scientific progress. The group only takes hold of the advantage which the individual gives Page 19 to it by progressing. So this will is not conscious in the collectivity of mankind but something beyond the collectivity is dictating. And this cosmic impulse to increase knowledge is what the modern scientist is serving without knowing—the cosmic... The yogic life in Sri Aurobindo's path is divided into two parts : the personal effort and the Divine Grace. Personal effort is to be done by the individual and not by the Divine; aspiration, rejection and surrender are within the field of the individual effort. But to bring perception, to develop power, to give him the Truth, to give him the cosmic consciousness, to give him the experience of the ...
... power and knowledge - each aspect of human expression has a divine perfection and that perfection has to be brought into mankind. So the perfection of mankind and the perfectibility of life, individual and collective, is now a filled-in concept because of Sri Aurobindo. Take the problem of pain, regarded as a problem which has to be solved. Some solve it in one way, another in another way, but... pain owing to disease and weakness and fatigue and illness. In the collective life you will find that the problem of pain, the infliction of pain, is in the whole record of human history. If you study history, you will find that there is war and death and pestilence and killing and all kinds of ills: that is pain on the collective side. The area of pain is rather large. Why did the Eternal... into poetic expression. Savitri has to go on her quest. She grows up into a young girl and she finds no companions quite fit to deserve her intimacy. She meets many groups of people, many individuals; some are nice, some look up to her as their guide. Page 67 some come to her for a while, some have such demands that she cannot meet them on the human plane. All different kinds ...
... or gnostic community. “He has of course said that, to this end, the individuals constituting this collectivity should themselves have the supramental consciousness. But even without attaining an individual perfection – even while still being very far from it – there was at the same time an inner effort to create this ‘collective individuality’, so to speak. The need for a real union, a deeper bond... bond has been felt and the effort has been directed towards that realisation … The effort which you will be able to make individually, instead of being only an individual progress, will spread, it will have very important collective results .” 39 And the Mother said in the same month: “[The global condition] is not very bright. But for us one possibility remains. Even if on the outside things ... of its history. Nothing which any individual race or nation can triumphantly realise, no victory of their self-aggrandisement, illumination, intellectual achievement or mastery over the environment has any permanent meaning or value except in so far as it adds something or recovers something or preserves something for this human march.” 68 “The collective being is a fact; all mankind may ...
... ধৰ্ম্মস্য ত্রায়তে মহতাে ভয়াৎ ৷ যে একবিন্দু শক্তি হইয়াছে, তাহাতেই কৰ্ম্ম করিতে প্রবৃত্ত হই ৷ ফল ভগবানের হাতে কিন্তু এই পথের পুরা সিদ্ধির দূরের কথা ৷ এই পথ শুধু ব্যষ্টিযােগের, individual সিদ্ধির নয়, সমষ্টিযােগের, collective সিদ্ধির পন্থা, একজনের যদি ভগবৎকৃপায় পূর্ণযােগের সিদ্ধি হয়, তাহাকে সিদ্ধপুরুষ বলিব না ৷ এই পথ আরােহণের পথ, সিদ্ধির উপরেও সিদ্ধি আছে, শেষ পর্যন্ত না উঠিয়া উত্তম যােগারূঢ় না হইয়া ...
... of the major conditions without which no real transformation of the basic human impulses could be initiated, I cannot admit the right of any outsider to adjudicate on our net achievements, individual or collective, unless and until he himself faces up to what we were struggling against. Which reminds me — let me add, parenthetically — of a remark of Tagore's about human judgements in general. He... the responsibility of the instrument, the devotee, ceases ______________________ * Quoted from Sri Aurobindo's poem "In the Moonlight". Page 75 and the consciousness of the individual ego is merged in the Divine consciousness. Then all his actions, thoughts and words emanate from the divine source, leaving him entirely free from all doubts, desires and bonds.... Question:... and insight into Yogic happenings appreciably deeper than mine. I was, indeed, critical and sometimes resentful, but not, I believe, undiscerning or unfair. So, I was genuinely impressed by many an individual instance of loyalty, sincerity, humility and, above all, hard Page 79 ungrudging labour undertaken with no other motive than that of pleasing the Guru. I could see that they comported ...
... art, its ideals and methods in the school at Calcutta. It is not that European culture has done India no good. Far from it. Some great and eternal values like freedom, value of the individual, need of organising collective economic life for general progress—these are elements that are bound to lead men to progress. Today when the world wants to be free and India has secured her freedom let us... painters wanted to represent the " impression " produced on their mind or on the sense, by objects, persons or Nature. De la Croix was a romantic; he used to interpret Nature and incidents through his individual temperament. Cezanne wanted to express in his painting his " Sensation " of the object. He found that forms of objects in Nature could be classified into simple geometric shapes-cubes, pentagones ...
... no organised manifestation would have been possible. 9 III While the disciples could see that Sri Aurobindo's Siddhi on 24 November 1926 had a key importance to the Sadhana - individual and collective - and meant a decisive victory on the path generating a new fervour and ananda in the atmosphere, few of the inmates were quite prepared for what immediately followed. On the 27th... community of sadhaks now placed under the Mother's care was to grow into a "spiritual collectivity" which Sri Aurobindo decided to put under a protective spiritual Name. It is said that he considered for three days 3 - perhaps consulting the Mother before taking the final decision of naming the collective establishment "Sri Aurobindo Ashram", notwithstanding the ideas of austerity, asceticism... complete, and then take the people forward too; and second, with whatever gains of Yoga had already accrued to them (and they were momentous enough), to get a group together, and carry whole collectivity forward. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother opted for the latter course. Page 241 Many years later, when the question was directly put to him "Why did you retire?", Sri Aurobindo ...
... being formed, and then setting out all together on the path.¹ But the aim of yoga was not individual salvation; the aim was collective, even cosmic. And, as Mother explained years later, no individual, however great he may be, can by himself achieve a collective realisation. A representative collectivity—at the very minimum—is needed. Here the yoga was the yoga of conscious evolution, and it needed... afternoon, and the whole night up to six in the morning. Mother herself used to meet each individual daily or periodically in various ways and in various contexts. Each individual was given a specific work, and every one was expected to spend at least 8 hours a day on a work useful for the entire collectivity. The work had to be done with a certain attitude and in a certain state of consciousness in... acosmic static Reality of featureless Nirvana or into supraterrestrial planes of heavenly existence, but the establishment of the kingdom of the Spirit on the earth; not merely an individual achievement but a collective one for the earth; not merely the realisation of the Divine, but the realisation of the integral Divine and its integral manifestation in the physical life,—this is the aim which, according ...
... whose obscure and ill-understood struggle it intervenes. It can by its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea, theory of life, system of society or government, ideal of individual or collective action to which the will of man attaches itself for the moment or through the centuries. In philosophy it gives equally good reasons for monism and pluralism or for any halting-place between... is being used instead for the multiplication of new wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego. At the same time Science has put at his disposal many potencies of the universal Force and has made the life of humanity materially one; but what uses this universal Force is a little human individual or communal ego with nothing universal in its light of knowledge or its movements, no inner... Anderson) Conclusion: postmodernism says that truth is a human creation, as varied (and partial) as the humans who create it, be they individuals or societies. Consequences: according to postmodernism 1. There is no such thing as a “true self”, the individual does not exist on a ground of being;” 12 2. There are no “grand narratives” (metanarratives, métarécits ), i.e. true philosophical systems ...
... supramental consciousness on earth, to fix it there, to create a new race with the principle of the supramental consciousness governing the inner and outer individual and collective life. That force accepted by individual after individual according to their preparation would establish the supramental consciousness in the physical world and so create a nucleus for its own expansion. (Letters... ly or in a solitary way only. No individual solitary transformation uncon Page 101 cerned with the work for the earth (which means more than any individual transformation) would be either possible or useful. Also no individual human being can by his own power alone work out the transformation, nor is it the object of the yoga to create an individual superman here and there. The object... the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. 2. Because the object sought after is not a an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to the-gained for the earth-consciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic achievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing in of ...
... down to promote collective life; what they do would depend upon their identification with the others, first of of all. For the individual is egoistic even there. And his ego is not submerged into the larger collective ego of the race or culture or nation or humanity. Until it becomes indentified in the soul,—not in the mind, not in self-interest, not in the power-aspect of the collectivity but in the ... people and bring difficulties to others who have nothing to do with it. The imperfections of the collective life have far-reaching bearing on vast masses of mankind; and therefore, it is necessary in collective life to see that we do not put the collectivity in place of the Divine, because collectivity, though a manifestation of the Universal Divine, is not divine in its operation and because it is... that the individual perishes and the aggregate continues, therefore the collectivity is to be accepted as the real entity—there is some basic truth. The aggregate profits by the perishing of the individual, by whatever contribution the individual gives to the aggregate, to the group life. But in this process of reversal this is not the final stage. The mistake comes in when the collectivity is accepted ...
... the ego, which was in fact the resistance to Truth; and when there was complete adhesion to Truth, suffering must cease. What was true of individuals would apply to collectivities as well - a State, or a Country! Instead of nations being ruled by individual functionaries with their inflated egos, there would emerge a divine authority; and this very possibility was creating "all the unnameable chaos... School could be opened again with good will on all sides. "Surendra Nath," she said, "I advise you to close down the School. Nothing useful can be done if it is not established on the basis of a collective good will in all sincerity." And this was how the crisis ultimately resolved itself and the Mother's School has since continued on its dedicated career of building up the coming generation. ... people around him.... Page 785 And, of course, each one was unique, and had his own way of changing. It would therefore be unwise to attempt regimentation in a matter so personal as the individual's dynamic of self-transformation. 9 Because of the publicity Auroville had received, and the claims made on its behalf by popular speakers at different centres in India and abroad, a certain ...
... none of you know what to do. None of you know the solution to the twofold problem presented by life and your own goodwill. I say a twofold problem, for in fact it has two aspects, one individual and the other collective: how can one fully realise one's own good and the good of others? None of you have found the solution, for this riddle of life cannot be solved by mental man, however superior he may... explicit instrument is the novel which is perhaps more agreeable to the scientific and enquiring spirit of the age. For it is both illustrative and explanatory. I have given you the life history of individuals and social aggregates and I have attempted to give you too something of the life history of humanity taken as a whole, the massive aggregate in its circling, coiling, mounting movements. But I knew ...
... the perfection of his being. The harmony exists in its nature, by the force of a settled purity; but afterwards it begins to break down and man upholds it, in the Treta, by force of will, individual and collective; it breaks down further and he attempts to uphold it in the Dwapara by intellectual regulation and common consent and rule; then in the Kali it finally collapses and is destroyed. But the... because they are satisfied with the mere intellectual assent to the idea without waiting for the whole system and life to be full of it. A continual remembrance of God in others and renunciation of individual eagerness ( spṛhā ) are needed and a careful watching of our inner activities until God by the full light of self-knowledge, jñānadīpena bhāsvatā , dispels all further chance of self-delusion. ... everything. Watch his way and wait for his time. Understand also the importance of accepting the Shastra and submitting to the Guru and do not do like the Europeans who insist on the freedom of the individual intellect to follow its own fancies and preferences which it calls reasonings, even before it is trained to discern or fit to reason. It is much the fashion nowadays to indulge in metaphysical d ...
... religious creed or dogma nor system of Page 625 rituals, but a deeper law of the harmonious and interdependent growth of the deepest aspirations of the collectivity and of the individuals that constitute the collectivity. Dharma can be regarded as an ordered system of moral and spiritual values. g.Spirituality proceeds directly by change of consciousness, change from the ordinary... ement. b.But no individual can live in isolation, and no individual can be allowed Page 618 by the very fact of his social existence, to impose upon others what an individual considers to be his good, based upon his personal need, preference or desire. Every social group tends to create its own standards of conduct and to impose it upon its individual members. c.In erecting... progressive law of self-perfection spontaneously expressing itself through the individual nature. In this operation, no more is the imposition of a rule or an imperative on the nature of an individual. The spiritual law respects the individual nature, modifies it and perfects it, and in this sense, it is unique for each individual and can be known and made operative only during the course of the change of ...
... received the Command from the Supreme, who was right here, this close [Mother presses her face, her body, her hands]. He told me, "This is what is promised. Now the Work must be done." And not individual but collective work was meant. 2 And Mother added this, which suddenly left me pensive: Well, what Sri Aurobindo did by leaving his body is somewhat equivalent, although far more total and complete and... in the cage of that character and by that character—precisely with the view to single out or enclose a given individual in a personalizing cage that gives him the sensation of being separate from the others: I, a person. Such was the first evolutionary aim. We have been shaped as individuals through strokes of falsehood. And now the Falsehood is crumbling—everything is different, we are completely different... the Infinite (it is the infinite that X, Y or Z have found in their own experience), what could be called their own Infinite. But this is not what WE want, not this.... So then it is no longer an individual or personal contact with the Infinite, it's a total contact. And Sri Aurobindo insists on this, He says that it's absolutely impossible to have the supra-mental transformation without becoming u ...
... environment and empowerment of women has been taken into account. Finally, by insisting on striving towards excellence in all the spheres of individual and collective activity, a great ideal has been stressed in respect of the perfectibility of the individual and the society and their harmonious relationships. This is not an occasion to bring out the implications of these duties and salutary effects... Russell and others; the trend is towards child-centred education, and the basic idea is that the individual is not merely a social unit, but a soul, a being, who has to fulfil his own individual truth and law as well as his natural or his Page 35 assigned part in the truth and law of the collective existence. Happily, this Western idea agrees at its root with the profoundest and highest spiritual... barbarism, ignorance and division so as to inspire among the youth a burning quest for wisdom and courage, for excellence in works and skills, and for universality and all that contributes to individual and collective perfection. One of the best means of achieving these goals is the task that we have begun earnestly during the last few years—the task of Value-Oriented Education. V The ...
... body. This is very relevant even in today's society. *There are two major aims of education. One is individual development and the other is collective development. Over emphasis on individual's education will lead to disharmony. The collective education will make the person a good individual and a useful member of the society. *The process of social engineering in our country is not effective... Bertrand Russell and others; the trend is towards child-centered education, and the basic idea is that the individual is not merely a social unit, but a soul, a being, who has to fulfil his own individual truth and law as well as his natural or his assigned part in the truth and law of the collective existence. * The UNESCO's Reports: 'Learning to Be' brought out in 1971 and 'Learning: Treasure Within'... barbarism, ignorance and division so as to inspire among the youth a burning quest for wisdom and courage, for excellence in works and skills, and for universality and all that contributes to individual and collective perfection. * One of the best means of achieving these goals is the task that we have begun earnestly during the last few years—the task of Value-Oriented Education. * We must first ...
... field for the manifestation of the Divine. Its main aim is not liberation merely but the manifestation of divine perfection. In his vision not only the individual but the collectivity also is a term of the Divine. Acceptance of life includes the collective life. There is a deeper reason for accepting life. In his vision of the Reality Sri Aurobindo shows the rationality and the inevitability of an... all the visions of perfection of the human Spirit on earth, I found the synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo the most rational and the most satisfying. It meets the need of the individual and collective life of man today. It is the international form of the fundamental elements of Indian culture. It is, as Dr. S. K. Maitra says, the message which holds out hope in a world of despair. This... should Page 297 it descend into the lowest plane of physical consciousness – the subconscient – but also must become a part of the collective consciousness on earth. I asked him many questions about the organisation of a collective life based on spiritual aspiration. On the last day of my stay of eleven days I met Sri Aurobindo between three and four in the afternoon. The main ...
... , the vital nature: it looks on physical existence as a field for the life-impulses' self-fulfilment, for the play of ambition, power, strong character, love, passion, adventure, for the individual, the collective, the general human seeking and hazard and venture, for all kinds of life-experiment and new life-experience, and but for this saving element, this greater power, interest, significance, the... to the heart of the matter. First, this taking up of the lower parts of life reveals itself as a turning downward of the master eye of the secret evolving spirit or of the universal Being in the individual from the height to which he has reached on all that now lies below him, a gazing down with the double or twin power of the being's consciousness-force,—the power of will, the power of knowledge,—so... capable of opening to it, admitting it, rising towards it, taking hold of it. It is in his human nature, in all human nature, to exceed itself by conscious evolution, to climb beyond what he is. Not individuals only, but in time the race also, in a general rule of being and living if not in all its members, can have the hope, if it develops a sufficient will, to rise beyond the imperfections of our present ...
... theories of the aim of life: Page 238 Supracosmic Supraterrestrial Cosmic-terrestrial Integral 3. Development of a vision of ideal perfection, individual and collective. 4. Man's present condition and possibilities of his further evolution. 5. Psychological experiences of various parts and domains of being. Conflicts between the rational... 6. Need for physical fitness: what it means (topic for study and reflection). III. Teachers may recommend the following exercises according to circumstances and in response to the individual needs of each student: 1. Resolve daily to be truthful, to be free from fear and to have goodwill for everyone. 2. Works of labour and community service with an inner motive of dedication... olves working with pigment, wax, and heat 47. Chinese/Japanese painting (including Sumi-e), both of which are distinctive and very beautiful styles of brush painting. 48. Portraits individuals, groups of people, couples and self-portraits. 49. Comic animation II COMPUTER RELATED COURSES (Five year course) Computer Teacher Course (5 year course) 1 st year 1 ...
... nt of the arts and sciences of civilisation to a poetic primitiveness, a simple and uncorrupted life in imaginative accord with elemental earth, in which there is utter freedom of the individual and yet a collective harmony, a blissful blend of anarchy and order, the establishment of a Golden Age such as the myths and legends of all humanity report to have existed in a pre-history when the human was... ty and indeed of all established religion changed into an exclusive cult of the private conscience: God and the dwelling by the individual on his own ethico-religious impulse were taken to be the same thing so that ultimately whatever ethico-religious self the individual felt within him replaced the sense of deity and the whole of ethics and religion was summed up in the formula: "Il faut etre soi"... mood, a response of satisfaction and possession or of dissatisfied yearning and seeking, in the whole an attempt to relate or harmonise the soul and mind and sensational and vital being of the human individual with the soul and mind and life and body of the visible and sensible universe." Man's modern outlook on himself, in the warp and weft of Space and Time and in the stress of the universe and ...
... the Mother has acknowledged, the Ashram had been only "a collection of individuals... without a collective organisation... one could say it had a general value, but it was something very floating, without a collective reality".28 The aim, then, was to make collectivity as real as individuality, and besides to make the collective reality embrace even the individualities of those sadhaks who couldn't... established and is being maintained - enables the sadhaks in the Ashram and outside to accomplish the desired and destined inner change as well as the consequential collective change- To reach the Light, to manifest it in oneself and in the collectivity - that is the essence of the sadhana of this Yoga. But although it could be stated so simply, to practise it and register unqualified success - oh how difficult... garden of his personality and to lose himself in a larger collectivity. At one moment he dares to be all alone, but at other times he is eager to mingle and merge his individual identity in his family, his tribe, his caste, his guild, his nation; or he joins a club, or a professional society, or even a political party. And sometimes individual man is athirst for certainty in the realm of ends and means ...
... informal, structured or unstructured? A: The approach must be from both sides - individual and collective. Each individual must try for his inner and outer progress. At the same time, by his example and teaching he must exert his influence to bring about spiritual and material perfection in the collectivity. Various methods can be followed depending on the peculiarities of each circumstance... Mother and Sri Aurobindo. If we are truly worthy of the Grace and Compassion that Mother and Sri Aurobindo have poured on us abundantly, we must remain absolutely loyal to them. Individually and collectively, we must do our inner and outer work, with absolute dedication and efficiency, and then wait and see what happens. Mother will never fail her children. (69) S ome time back... material needs of the sadhaks staying in the Ashram. She gave several darshans throughout the day. Thus we had Balcony darshan at 6:30 a.m. Before coming for the Balcony darshan she would meet some individuals. At about 8 a.m. there was the Window darshan. At about 10 a.m. Terrace darshan. After that there was Staircase darshan. At about 12 noon there was Children's darshan. Then for some time we had ...
... complex, and human nature was complex. Whether for individual or collective man, the key to progressive development lay in the realisation of inner unity and the willing acceptance of the play of outer variety. Ātma-vidyā, certainly; but also the minutiae of Dharma — "special for the special person, stage of development, pursuit of life or individual field of action, but universal too in the broad... the country into the new religion of the new age; in him appeared in seed-form the potentialities of all future creation; sparks of his illumined mind entered into every important domain of the collective life of the race — politics, society, religion, education, literature, language — and brought to the country a new birth, a new life, a new creation. 28 A Colossus though Rammohan was, he too... the wider vision and the inattention to the greater good. Following that glorious Age of creative harmony, India did go through a period of decadence, a time of narrow ends and muddled means, of individual decay and social disruption. At first, it was no more than a slight disturbance of the old delicate balance: a shift towards artha and kama and away from dharma and moksa, a craving for ...
... universal unity determining an absolute interdependence of all action.” 4 A comprehensive consciousness embraces all, feels itself in all, grapples with the forces and problems of life, individual and collective, ¹ Words of the Mother. ² Words of the Mother, Second Series. ³ Words of the Mother. . . 4 Prayers and Meditations of the Mother, November 2... and its instrumental nature to an automaton. There is no active participation or collaboration of the individual in the work of the Divine, no rapture of the dynamic union. That cannot surely be the intention of the Divine in the individual. In a pure and perfect Yogic action the individual soul with its integrated and transformed nature must be an active agent and participant in the divine action... completely fade out of the individual nature, or does it persist even when the soul is in command ? With the blunt, disarming candour, characteristic of him, Sri Ramakrishna says, "If the obstinate ego would not go, well, let it then remain as a servant of God." The implication is unmistakable that the ego does not altogether disappear out of the nature of the liberated individual, but persists, subdued ...
... on earth, to fix it there, to create a new race with the principle of the supramental consciousness governing the inner and outer individual and collective life. Therefore the existence of the Asram, whatever difficulties it created for ourselves or for the individual, was inevitable. The method was the preparation of the earth consciousness in the human being as represented by the members of the... Sadhana in the Ashram Communal Sadhana In respect to Yoga, what is the meaning of communal sadhana? There is no communal sadhana. It is the individuals who do the sadhana and that creates a collective atmosphere with a character and movements of its own. In the commune can sadhaks help each other in their sadhana? What commune? There is no commune here, there is... and opens the gate. What I would like to know is whether all this can be done individually. I do not seize the significance of the question. It has to be done in each individual—otherwise it cannot be done in the collective at all. But there can be a general descent of the Force by which Page 655 each can profit to have it done in him if he is ready or when he is ready. 25 January ...
... Puranas and conceived by some Vaishnava saints or poets; but it is a devotional idea, no philosophical basis is given for the expectation. I think the Tantric overcoming of imperfection is more individual, not collective. It is the Vaishnava theory—that if you only repeat the name of Hari it is enough—nothing else needed. Even if you do it by accident, you will go posthaste to Heaven. It has always... intensity when it wants to sublimate and cannot maintain either the continuity or the extension or the sublimated paroxysm of Page 485 these things. But as the individual becomes cosmic (the universalising of the individual without his losing his higher individuality as a divine centre is one of the processes which lead towards the supramental Truth), this disability begins to disappear. The... vast and ample continuous state,—if by chance they lose something of their briefer intensities by this extension of themselves, they recover them a thousandfold in the movement of the universalised individual towards the Transcendence. There is an ever enlarging experience which takes up the elements of spiritual realisation and in this uplifting and transforming process they become other and greater ...
... for those needs which the not-self can supply to it: it must learn to know in some way all that surrounds it so as to be able to master it and make it as far as possible a servant to the individual and collective human life and ego. The body provides our consciousness with the gates of the senses through which it can establish the necessary communication and means of observation and action upon the... with cosmic being, feel itself universal, one with all existence. In this freedom of entry into cosmic self and cosmic nature there is a great liberation of the individual being; it puts on a cosmic consciousness, becomes the universal individual. Its first result, when it is complete, is the realisation of the cosmic spirit, the one self inhabiting the universe, and this union may even bring about a ... and body and the sense of individual action ceases. But more usually there are results of less amplitude; there is a direct awareness of universal being and nature, there is a greater openness of the mind to the cosmic Mind and its energies, to the cosmic Life and its energies, to Page 561 cosmic Matter and its energies. A certain sense of unity of the individual with the cosmic, a perception ...
... both from a political and a spiritual point of view. A few excerpts from Sri Aurobindo's long reply in Bengali.) What the Divine wants is for man to embody Him here, in the individual and in the collectivity—to realise God in life. The old system of yoga could not harmonise or unify Spirit and life; it dismissed the world as Maya or a transient play of God. The result has been a diminution... the Indian mind the least important part of religion is its dogma; the religious spirit matters, not the theological credo____ Hinduism has always attached to [the organisation of the individual and collective life] a great importance; it has left out no part of life as a thing secular and foreign to the religious and spiritual life The people of India, even the "ignorant masses" have this distinction... sufficiency, dignity and affluence to the individual, and paths of service to the country. For the men who come out equipped in every way from its institutions will be those who will give that impetus to the economic life and effort of the country without which it cannot survive in the press of the world, much less attain its high legitimate position. Individual interest and National interest are the ...
... pursuit of beauty, a pursuit of ethical good or evil, a pursuit of power, love, joy, happiness, fortune, success, pleasure, life satisfactions of all kinds, life enlargement, a pursuit of individual or collective objects, a pursuit of the health, strength, capacity, satisfaction of the body. All this makes an exceedingly complex sum of the manifold experience and many-sided action of the spirit in... that the result of the energies and actions of the individual may accrue not to himself but to others when he is gone; for that we see constantly happening,—it happens indeed even during a man's lifetime that the fruits of his energies are reaped by others; but this is because there is a solidarity and a continuity of life in Nature and the individual cannot altogether, even if he so wills, live for... attention to the merits and demerits, the sins and virtues of individual human beings. Nor can good fortune and evil fortune, pleasure and pain, happiness and misery and suffering be taken as if they existed merely as incentives and deterrents to the natural being in its choice of good and evil. It is for experience, for growth of the individual being that the soul enters into rebirth; joy and grief, pain ...
... 588 Christmas day 364 New Year day 364-6 messages, origin of 365-7 prayers and messages 74, 422-3, 446, 449, 458, 463, 479, 518, 547, 606, 689, 706, 721, 738, 758, 770-1 individual and collective movement 367-8 atmosphere 374, 434-5 condensation of force 373 at Darshan time 628-9 Yoga not a Grand Trunk road 382 no escapist retreat 394 threat of closure due to wrong... Chadwick) 255, 259ff, 321 Ashram, Sri Aurobindo 53-5, 105, 126, 215, 220-1, 226, 240-2, 247, 445, 449, 460, 532, 548, 561-3, 573, 636-8, 658, 769 Deva Sangha 200-1, 204, 215, 241, 281 collective meditation and Pranam 213,287, 319-20, 340-2, 349-50,353,417-8,522 Darshan day 223-6, 263, 286, 358ff, 400, 628-9, 708 messages 365-7, 662, 771, 773-4 'birth': 24 November 1926 234-6, 239ff... going down 207-8 moves to Sri Aurobindo's house 210 managing the household 210-1, 215, 217-8, 223 (also 78) as Mahalakshmi 211, 225, 296, 529 tackles black magic (stone throwing) 213-4 begins collective meditations 213 Page 905 moves with Sri Aurobindo to Library House 215 installs Sri Aurobindo as the Master of the Yoga 217 interest in cats 218-9 knee-joint inflammation 226 ...
... self according even to its own restricted sense of the good, the beautiful, the true. Unavoidably, when our highest power is like this, impulse and emotion tend ever to tear individual as well as collective life with discords and imbalances, and whatever little harmony and happiness is the human lot proves precarious and superficial. If Page 111 bodily... Spiritual Mind, culminates in the fall from Higher Mind into the sharp 18. Ibid., p. 71. Page 118 division felt between self and self, object and object, individual and universe, on the plane of our mentality. Given the Overmind, there is an inevitability of ignorance happening at some point in the series of worlds issuing from it below. The presence... Aurobindonian Yoga and the same essential power manifesting afterwards in humanity in general as an effect of this formation or in those who have not gone far in that Yoga. The one presupposes in the individual a whole history of spiritual realisations and it climaxes a long series of descents and it preludes the descent of the Supermind into bodily life-force and bodily matter. The other is a condition ...
... first point of his re-thought Christology. The second is no less uncompromisingly unorthodox. In orthodox Christianity, sin occurs with the first Man, whether we take Adam in an individual or in a collective sense. As a result of Adam's violation of God's command, evil entered the world and ruined the paradisal state: all life, and not only humanity, underwent a catastrophe and man lost the... sanction which punishes or spares, allows or disallows, approves or disapproves, is external and social; society is the individual's judge. Finally, in the higher stage of evolution, the sanction is internal and individual; the individual is his own judge. The indulgence of individual desire in disobedience to a general law is the origin of sin. With the rejection of this theory of an originally... by the risen Christ at the Centre and peak of Creation" (in Letters from a Traveller, pp. 42-3). Actually, in the idea of life's having a spearhead in man and of an axis in a convergent human collectivity and of a consummation at Creation's centre and peak we have the idea of a natural development towards the ultra-human through an organising and unifying energy drawn ever higher by Point Omega - ...
... put it-.. as strongly as I can... above all for unifying, penetrating the whole and endeavouring to make of it something cohesive which can express collectively the Force from above. In the morning it is an individual work, in the evening... a collective work.' - Sep 29 Receives, at the Playground, Jawaharlal Nehru accompanied by Kamaraj Nadar, Lal Bahadur Sastri and Indira Gandhi. - Oct... of the relation of the sexes.' - Dec 9 'Once again... I entered that state in which the consciousness is scattered in a multitude of different elements, centres of consciousness both individual and collective, to carry out a certain action there or rather as many actions as these elements comprise....' - Dec 10 The British ambassador to Japan refuses her a visa to cross British India on her... higher planes of consciousness and 'put the earth in connection with one or more of the fountains of universal force that are still sealed to it'; 'to speak again to the world the eternal word'; and 'collectively, to establish an ideal society... for the flowering of the new race'. - Aug 15 Sri Aurobindo experiences 'a prolonged realisation and dwelling in Parabrahaman for many hours'. Later that ...
... whose obscure and ill-understood struggle it intervenes. It can in its nature be used and has always been used to justify any idea, theory of life, system of society or government, ideal of individual or collective action to which the will of man attaches itself for the moment or through the centuries. In philosophy it gives equally good reasons for monism and pluralism or for any halting-place between ...
... subjection, but it is an all-inclusive order, each individual occupying its true place and playing the role it has play in accordance with its own essential nature, which is a part of the divine Unity. Thus, a rich diversity harmoniously blended and supported by an underlying unity is the highest manifestation of the Divine in any collectivity or nation, or even in mankind and the whole world... every knowledge that he acquires is fresh. Page 62 The real gain that one can expect from a well organized and thorough mental education has an individual aspect and a social or collective aspect. The individual aspect is culture. Culture is not erudition, it does not depend on the amount of knowledge, but on the way knowledge has been assimilated, integrated, transformed... human contacts, etc.); whatever is retained and assimilated will be welcome; it may be deep or shallow according to one's capacity. The collective aspect of education is utilitarian and functional. It is connected with the professional life of the individual and his relations with his fellow-beings. The present trend of the technological society makes it likely that specialization will increase ...
... legal force, and even so one couldn't be sure that such peace would be permanent. It was Sri Aurobindo's view that, Page 283 while peace was part of the highest ideal of individual and collective life, it must be spiritual or at the very least psychological in its basis; without a change in human nature - the supersession of egocentric thought and action by something far more widely... not:..."18 But when the bird eats the bitter fruit, the spell is broken, and he looks at his brilliant companion, sitting higher up: This is evidently a parable concerning the salvation of individual souls who, when they enjoy the sweets of the world, forget to look upwards -to the Paramatma who is really none else than their own highest self, and when they forget themselves in this way through... needed first, and on its base alone could be enacted the political or outer revolution that would change the emasculated subject nation into a resurgent India, alive, strong and free. Alike for individual and national salvation, spiritual and material health had to go together. In what was probably one of the last articles written for the Bande Mataram, 'The Parable of Sati', Sri Aurobindo ...
... value is also involved here. The people's criterion to judge or create balance between various values is also different. Then they also differ as to how the values are to be implemented in individual and collective lives. Given the diversity of world population such differences are not unnatural, specially when we see that they have different views about God, the universe and man's place in it. ... fountain-head of its moral philosophy. As a result we see that the Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (Pbuh) have given mankind a comprehensive moral code to guide them in their individual as well as collective lives. Islam is a social religion; it believes in fashioning a socio-political order that would try to implement the desirable moral code in the society. But it does not rely on this... value is also involved here. The people's criterion to judge or create balance between various values is also different. Then they also differ as to how the values are to be implemented in individual and collective lives? Given the diversity of world population such differences are not unnatural, specially when we see that they have different views about God, the universe and man's place in it. ...
... Page 156 true that here, in the outer aspect of our existence. Life and Mind seem to be the only powers that can and do create their structures of dreams including the ideals of individual and collective perfection. But if the Realty is to be built up here it cannot be done by these powers. It has to be built here by a power as yet unborn which, however, must be born in and must act on life... the inconscience was the force with which she was equipped by nature to fulfil her mission. The idea of a single individual will challenging the cosmic rule of Ignorance seems difficult to grasp. The mind naturally doubts if it is at all possible. How can the feeble individual stand against and overcome the operations of the gigantic cosmic machinery where enormous powers, irresistible forces... featureless semblance of the unknown", (2) An Ignorant force. Is this, one may ask, the faint beginning of subjectivity and objectivity? 4. This "Ignorant force" is a "Cosmic Drowse"—not an individual force. The very "Slumber" of this force is "creative", for it kindles the suns and "Carries our lives in its somnambulist whirl". The whirling of this force,—the Ignorant force which is slumbering ...
... The comprehensive Supramental Manifesto for the future - comprising the plea for change, the programme of spiritual evolution (or revolution) and the promise of individual, social and terrestrial transformation, involving man and collective man and global humanity - the grand Manifesto had been broadcast in all its sovereign amplitude and self-sufficiency . While this testament of the Life Divine was... Clearly, the descent is imminent, and "then things may happen...." For five or six years previously, the small (if steadily growing) Ashram community were registering experiences - individual as well as collective - and the group seemed to be set on the high road to newer and newer goals of realisation. Several sadhaks had also the human - only too human! - tendency to be impatient, to "expect"... because it manifests something of the Divine Consciousness." Page 541 and trembling vitality and a new intensity and tone to the collective life of the sadhaks with Sri Aurobindo. The talks and discussions didn't interfere with the collective meditation, and everything in fact seemed to find its proper place like the several notes in a piece of music. Sri Aurobindo's birthdays were special ...
... not by himself be able to bring Page 437 about the transformation of the earth-nature; a "critical mass" of such individuals too would be necessary: The inner change can begin to take shape in a collective form only if the gnostic individual finds others who have the same kind of inner life as himself and can form with them a group with its own autonomous existence or else... can be fulfilled in his proper role by nothing except this largeness which overpasses all religions and their possible dialogue and ushers in a new age of comprehensive spirituality - both individual and collective - where the Phenomenon of Man will be a part of a Divine Milieu in the most explicit, concrete and complete sense. 90 So, then, the East and the West at their quintessential best... for whom? Not simply for the Divine at the expense of the individual "victims" involved in the play. Rather, it is a game in which these latter are themselves consenting parties eager for the play; if the will of the Divine Purusha made the cosmic creation possible, equally the assent of the individual Purusha must have preceded the individual manifestation. And yet, and yet, why all this bother? Why ...
... utilise his world for the service of his individual and collective ego; he is here as a medium in which the Spirit within, the secret growing Consciousness can evolve farther its self-manifestation, arrive from a partial to a complete consciousness and, since life itself is there only as a means of this evolution and an image of it, at a complete and perfect individual and social life. If the psychological... it is the individual that evolves from birth to birth and the hierarchy of the vegetal, animal, human kinds [is] a fixed unchanging ladder for its ascent. A successive creation of higher and higher species is envisaged in the Upanishads as well as the Puranas and heredity affirmed as a means of conscious continuity of the human embodiment of the Spirit, but still the evolution is individual and not cosmic... birthless and deathless Eternity from which it came. These two discoveries seem at first sight quite unconnected and disparate. In one it is a physical Life in the cosmos that evolves and the individual is only an ephemeral member of the species, the species a means of this cosmic evolution. Mind is indeed the term and the mental human being the crown of this inexplicable emergence; when human progress ...
... life body Page 507 of Brahman in the samasti, the collectivity, it was the collective Narayana, as the individual was Brahman in the vyasti, the separate Jiva, the individual Narayana; the king was the living representative of the Divine and the other orders of the community the natural powers of the collective self, prakrtayah. The agreed conventions, institutes, customs,... is, first, the belief in an omnipresent Reality; there is, second, the individual's acceptance of the need for inner development and outer discipline; third, the practice of one of the prescribed religious or spiritual disciplines with a view to Grace or Knowledge; and, fourth, conformity to the laws of individual and collective life. For the Hindu, then, "all life and thought are in the end a means... system". 50 So much for the dawn and morning glory of Indian history. But the career of a society, of a nation, is broadly similar to the career, the life-history, of an individual. A nation, even like an individual, "passes through a cycle of birth, growth, youth, ripeness and decline, and if this last stage goes far enough without any arrest of its course towards decadence, it may perish, ...
... the ignorant nature to the true and only aim of the human existence. The occasion of the war which has been presented to Arjuna can be understood only when that highest aim of human life, individual and collective, can be known." It is towards that knowledge that Sri Krishna's answer leads Arjuna from step to step. Sri Krishna reiterates the affirmations of the Upanishads in regard to immortality... The first is the fact that each individual in the world, despite many common characteristics with other individuals, has such a distinctive outlook of its experience in the world that its uniqueness can be explained only if each individual is ontologically different from the others. The second fact that had to be explained by the Sankhya was that when one individual gets liberated, all others do not... symbolic individual soul, aspiring for liberation from three cords of Prakriti. Varuna sunders the threefold restraint, and the individual soul is freed towards divine riches and immortality. Thus uplifted, the individual soul, jiva, the real man, rises to his true kingship in the undivided being of the Supreme Purusha of whom he is the eternal portion. In the Upanishads, the individual soul is ...
... Indeed, during that second phase, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother would realize that transformation is not just an individual problem but one involving the earth and that no individual transformation is possible (or at least complete) without some degree of collective transformation. Once collective evolution reaches a satisfactory state of progress, the present material difficulties of transformation, which... then be modified by the greater law of the psychic, and so on. Freedom means to move to a higher plane. And the same applies to the earth, because the very same forces drive the individual and the collective. As individual meeting points of all these determinisms in matter, if we are capable of rising to a higher plane, we automatically help change all the lower determinisms and give the earth access... future from an individual standpoint instead of a collective one, the overmind does not bring us, either, the living fulfillment to which we aspire. If the goal of evolution is merely to produce more Beethovens and Shelleys, and perhaps even a few super Platos, one cannot help thinking that this is really a paltry culmination for so many millions of years and so many billions of individuals expended along ...
... it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a. psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells... enrings the entire domain of human preoccupations; it embraces and relumes all truths that secretly build and inspire man's integral being - his mental and vital and even physical, his individual as well as collective formations. So one line of our interest will lie in the direction of scanning and understanding human movements - spiritual, intellectual, social, literary or scientific - in the light... the meeting as requested by Gandhiji, Surendra Mohan had to offer "individual satyagraha", and was jailed again; and the interview between Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo did not, after all, take place. The withdrawal of the Congress Ministries, the truculence of Mr. Jinnah and the Muslim League, the launching of individual satyagraha, the ignoble course of! the 'phoney war', the cold cynicism ...
... for the individual, so now to discover for the race its integral collective expression and found for mankind its new spiritual and communal order. Our first object shall be to declare this ideal, insist on the spiritual change as the first necessity and group together all who accept it and are ready to strive sincerely to fulfil it: our second shall be to build up not only an individual but a... flooding the whole country, nothing of that regenerating flood could find an entry here, except for one or two individuals who had felt a touch. It was like a backwater of the sea, a stagnant pool by the shore. There was here no such thing as public life or youth movement or any kind of collective effort, or an experiment in educational reform, - there was no sign whatsoever of an awakening to life.... and its materials in proper order and neat and tidy is a very necessary element of our life upon earth. I do not know to what extent we have yet been able to assimilate this teaching in our individual or collective living. How many of us have realised that beauty is at least half the sense of life and serves to double its values? And even if we do sometimes realise it, how many are impelled to shape ...
... knew and wanted to establish. But short of the Aurobindonian philosophy and Yoga there has been no solid ground of theory and practice for what he envisaged as total supramentalisation of individual and collective life. Now to other matters. I won't discuss the doctrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary nor Karl Rahner's generalising Page 22 suggestion. It may interest you... should have a proper sense of the tremendous Yogic labour he was at for bringing divinity to humanity and that they might endeavour to collaborate with it in order to bring about on a collective no less than an individual scale an evolutionary breakthrough. To me it is a pity that the response is so poor or else so conditional. Some hold that he, with his dream of a total divinisation of man, was pursuing... mass and assume all the difficulties of that mass and try to carry it along and go as far as one can under the burden of a collective Yoga. The choice was at once made in favour of the second alternative. If they had accepted the first, they would have finished their individual supramentalisation but there would have been an impassable gulf between them and the race and perhaps even a cataclysmic effect ...
... pushes them on. Behind this “quiver,” there is a will for disorder that tries to prevent harmony from being established. It's there in the individual, in the collectivity, and in Nature. So, we begin to see that this “web” is not just a matter of individual cells: it covers the entire human earth. A constant microscopic trepidation that envelops the world in its net. Then in 1969: 69.105... THE CONTACT: the exact vibration of falsehood in each one or each thing that allowed the contact. So if that consciousness [of the other state] that was there had been collective, if it had been possible to receive it collectively, nothing would have been touched: the stones would have been thrown, but wouldn't have hit anyone. For instance, a brickbat was flung and hit my window and I saw at that... cells, and everywhere, not just the cells of this body: I have an impression of many bloods, many cells, many nerves participating. Which means that the central consciousness of individuals isn't always aware of it, the individual isn't aware of it (it has an extraordinary feeling, but it doesn't know what it is), whereas the cells are aware of it, but they cannot express it. You see, there are DEGREES ...
... the world if it were confined to only a few individuals. Actually, from the very beginning, from the very first steps, the seeker has realized that this yoga of the superman was not an individual yoga, though the individual is the starting point and instrument of the work, but a collective yoga, a form of concentrated evolution in which the individual is but an outpost, the spreader of the possibility... protect his little life, his little family, his little clan, draw a line here, a line there, boundary markers, and generally insure his precarious existence by encasing it in a shell of individual and collective self. It follows that there is good and evil, right and wrong, useful and harmful, dos and don'ts – we have slowly become entangled in a huge police network in which we scarcely have the... poor whirling machine; deprived of its matter, our heaven is a pale nebula filled with the silent medusas of the disembodied spirit; deprived of the individual, our societies are dreadful anthills; and deprived even of his “sins,” the individual loses a focus of tension that helped him to grow. The fact is, no idea, however lofty it may seem, has the power to undo the Artifice – for the very good ...
... song of Sri Aurobindo's soul - India rising for humanity. As each individual worker must rise above his lower normal self in order to qualify for the service of Mother India, so the nation must rise from its lower collective self so as to be able to serve a supra-national entity, humanity. And, as in the case of the individual, so in the case of the nation, service of humanity is the only true... whose natural rhythm was revolution all over the world. Man yearned for freedom, for an unhampered growth of his whole personality, for progress towards an integrated and harmonious life, individual and collective. Synthesis, integrality, harmony, and unity were the goal towards which humanity aspired and advanced. In the poet's dream it figured as the emergence of the universal man, in the mind... permanence of the movement we have found in the celebrations of the 7th August and the 16th October 172 . They are to us what sacred days are to the ordinary religions. The individual religious man can do without them, collective religion cannot. These are the sacred days in the religion of Nationalism, the worship of God the Mother." Sri Aurobindo started a new weekly paper in Bengali, Dharma ...
... universal progress -that progress being expressed in tangible developments of mankind.... This can only mean that under different names (communist or national-socialist, scientific or political, individual or collective), for the last hundred years we have been witnessing the positive birth and the building up of a new faith: the religion of evolution" (Comment je crois, 1934). 30 Finally: "Contrary... physical complexity and psychological centreity - in the direction, that is, of the physically organised "personal" consciousness and, beyond it, to the physical organisation of a unified collectivity of persons, a psycho-social ensemble on an earth-wide scale, charged with a "cosmic sense", inspired by a love of the Universal, the All, who is felt to be a supreme Person attracting them from... are the dimensions of the universe itself." 5 Teilhard starts with human beings and says: "If we wish to discern the phenomenon of spirit in its entirety, we must educate our eyes to perceiving collective realities.... Like drops of water scattered in the sand and subjected to the same pressure, that of the layer to which they belong; like electrical charges distributed along a single conductor and ...
... the picture of an invading campaign. What remains is a milieu in which a different religion than the Rigvedic exists in some part of the subcontinent and in this milieu there exist also individuals or collectivities who for some reason are unfriendly or ill-wishing. The hymns offer to the laity incantations against the adverse effects of the thoughts or words or actions issuing from them - incantations... 'citadels' at Indus cities were taken to be the seats of government but B.B. Lai (1981) has now conclusively proved that at least at Kalibangan it was not at all so; it was possibly the place where collective religious ceremonies were held around the 'fire altars'. In other words, underlying the mature Indus Civilization or Harappan Culture was a great deal of social change, all of which is not easy... arts, unbending God!" The Sanskrit original of the translator's 'men' is janānām which has a very broad spectrum covered by the meaning 'creatures' and the basic word can refer even to the Gods collectively, as in daívyá or divya jána, the divine race. 309 In our verse the fort-builders are not specified as humans - the creatures, the living beings are simply those whose strongholds Indra is ...
... 1978 (Letter to two Aurovilians) You have completely misunderstood the meaning of my last letter. I have never thought that the meaning of Auroville consisted in living like individual sardines in a collective tin nor that the unity of Auroville lay in everyone living on the same model, at the same place, and making their genuflections at the same hour — even Marx's egalitarian heavens never... capitalism, socialism and even (or specially) gandhism — and rightly so, a holy prison is nevertheless a prison. The only free place is in the heart of each individual being and as long as this free place does not become the law of the collective body, we will go on stumbling and falling. In other words, we have to become living souls, there is no other "system" or solution. Meanwhile.... Yes, there... all the external things) is probably an individual "self" a little stronger than the others, something that strongly delimits itself — and this too, is an indispensable quality, because what the Divine asks for is not wise and worshipping little sheep, but for strong, rich beings, endowed with active qualities. For these strong, fully-formed individuals, it is more difficult than for others to ...
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