... to project itself into the waking state. But it is through the inner consciousness and primarily through the inner mind that these things come; so, if there is not a clear passage from the inner to the outer, it must be in the inner states that they first appear. If the waking mind is subject or surrendered to the inner consciousness and willing to become its instrument, then even from the beginning... Harmony also is there. November 11, 1934 I see that your dreams are becoming more and more experiences, realities in the deeper being—it is a very good sign of progress in the inner consciousness. I thought it best to write myself to Harin—I have done so tonight. I have no doubt there will be no difficulty—for Harin has repeatedly written that his feelings towards others have entirely... dreams which were vital dream experiences, those in which you met the Mother and recently you had one such contact on the mental plane which, for those who understand these things, means that the inner consciousness is preparing in the mind as well as in the vital, which is a great advance. You will ask why these things take place either in sleep or Hi an indrawn meditation and not in the waking state ...
... and Samadhi When one tries to meditate, there is a pressure to go inside, lose the waking consciousness and wake inside, in a deep inner consciousness. But at first the mind takes it for a pressure to go to sleep, since sleep is the only kind of inner consciousness to which it has been accustomed. In Yoga by meditation sleep is therefore often the first difficulty—but if one perseveres then gradually... sleep is good only when it is Yogic enough to contain something, to be an inner consciousness or an experience of other planes. The jāgarti is important—to be conscious in the sleep, an inner waking. But when the mind is not accustomed, it tends to respond to the impulse towards this "going inside" into an inner consciousness caused by meditation by simply falling into the usual sleep to which it is... to be difficult to recover from; but if the consciousness itself gets invaded or else drawn Page 312 out, it takes time to get back. In the end a condition develops in which the inner consciousness is always concentrated and in a poise, samāhitaḥ , and outside things take place only on the outermost surface. Then it becomes easy. It is quite natural that at first there should be ...
... because the Mother's force is at work and is developing the inner consciousness. For it is one of the powers of this inner consciousness to bring about what it sees to be the right thing by simply communicating in entire silence to the consciousness of another. That is the true way of acting—through the power of the inner consciousness, its knowledge, vision and will. The other thing, the coming of... the hold of outer things, dealing with them from an inner consciousness (felt as separate from the outer consciousness) according to an inner truth of the soul and spirit and no longer according to the demands of the outer Nature. If one lives within, then it is the inner consciousness that one depends on, not the outer. The inner consciousness can then always go on independent of the outer state... grows till it can influence wholly and possess the outer being. To change the outer consciousness entirely without developing this inner consciousness would be too difficult. That is why these inner experiences are going on to prepare the growth of the inner consciousness. There is an inner mind, an inner vital, an inner physical consciousness which can more easily than the outer receive the higher ...
... or over-consciousness. But to be more precise and accurate I should add another source, an inner consciousness. As the super-consciousness is imaged as lying above the normal consciousness, so the inner consciousness may be described as lying behind or within it. The movement of the inner consciousness has. found expression more often and more largely than that of over-consciousness in the artistic... show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret Page 311 consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety... artistic creation of the past: and that was in keeping with the nature of the old-world inspiration, for the inspiration that comes from the inner consciousness, which can be considered as the lyrical inspiration, tends to be naturally more "spontaneous", less conscious, since it does not at all go by the path of the head, it evades that as much as possible and goes by the path of the heart. But ...
... The condition in which all movements become superficial and empty with no connection with the soul is a stage in the withdrawal from the surface consciousness to the inner consciousness. When one goes into the inner consciousness, it is felt as a calm, pure existence without any movement, but eternally tranquil, unmoved and separate from the outer nature. This Page 239 comes as a result... Experiences of the Inner Being and the Inner Consciousness Letters on Yoga - III Chapter II Inner Detachment and the Witness Attitude Inner Detachment It [ the individual consciousness ] is not by its nature detached from the mental and other activities. It can be detached, it can be involved. In the human consciousness it is as a rule always involved... is a stage in the sadhana in which the inner being begins to awake. Often the first result is the condition made up of the following elements: (1) A sort of witness attitude, in which the inner consciousness looks at all that happens as a spectator or observer, observing things but taking no active interest or pleasure in them. (2) A state of neutral equanimity in which there is neither joy nor ...
... like X says that he is not dispersed when he is wandering about with a companion like Y , I would say he is either not telling the truth or he is deceiving himself. If one is always in the inner consciousness, then one can be not dispersed even when doing outward things—or if one is conscious of the Divine at all times and in all one does, then also can one read newspapers or do much correspondence... able to remain back [ while conversing with others ], entering only superficially without being involved is really the first step towards the secret of mixing with others without lowering the inner consciousness. Vital Expansiveness That [ mixing with people, laughing and joking with them ] is a kind of vital expansiveness, it is not vital strength—this expansiveness is also expensive. For when... living more and more within, standing back from outward things but not throwing them aside, looking at them with a new consciousness, Page 327 a new view and acting on them from this inner consciousness is the best way. But there is need for some at some stages to minimise outward contacts without abolishing them during part of the process of this shifting of the consciousness. No absolute rule ...
... We want an integral transformation, the transformation of the body and all its activities. Formerly when one spoke of transformation, one meant solely the transformation of the inner consciousness. One endeavoured to discover in oneself the deeper consciousness and rejected the body and its activities as a burden and a useless thing, so that one might be engaged solely in the inner ... all with what was happening within — which is of course not quite true. Before you take up the work of physical transformation, which is of all things the most difficult, you must have your inner consciousness firmly, solidly established in the Truth.... (The Mother, Bulletin, Vol. XV, No. 4, p. 51) The goal of our Sadhana is not merely the liberation of some isolated individuals... that will resolve the age-old deadlock and open the portals to the transfiguration of our body. Now, we have seen before that a 'static seizure' of the domains of the spirit in our inner consciousness is not sufficient for the physical transformation; for this to be possible there must occur a dynamic descent of the higher consciousness into our physical nature and a luminous awakening evoked ...
... first stage is when one works with the outer energy, but there is an inner consciousness supporting it which relies wholly on the Mother. The second is when there is an inner consciousness and force which uses the outer instruments - the outer energy being quiescent or else a part only of the inner - while this inner consciousness knows that the force is the Mother's or feels the Mother's presence in... How are we to come out from the subconscient root? By standing back from it and refusing to be made its instrument of the subconscient nature, - by a persistent will to live in the inner consciousness and live not for ego but for the Divine. How is it that the "subconscient root" has been reached while the purification of the vital is still to be completed? The descent ...
... We want an integral transformation, the transformation of the body and all its activities. Formerly when one spoke of transformation, one meant solely the transformation of the inner consciousness. One endeavoured to discover in oneself the deeper consciousness and rejected the body and its activities as a burden and a useless thing, so that one might be engaged solely in the inner ... all with what was happening within - which is of course not quite true. Before you take up the work of physical transformation, which is of all things the most difficult, you must have your inner consciousness firmly, solidly established in the Truth... (The Mother, Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Vol. XV, No. 4, p. 51.) Our sadhana has for its... clue that will resolve the age-old deadlock and open the portals to the transfiguration of our body. We have seen before that a 'static seizure' of the domains of the spirit in our inner consciousness is not sufficient for the physical transformation; for that to be possible there must come about a dynamic descent of the higher consciousness into our physical nature and a luminous awakening ...
... into an inner consciousness; in this inner consciousness one is awake inside, but not outside, not conscious of external things but of inner things only. Your inner consciousness was busy doing what your outer mind had been trying to do, that is to work upon the thoughts and suggestions that bring restlessness and to put them right; it can be done much more easily by the inner consciousness than by... Experiences of the Inner Being and the Inner Consciousness Letters on Yoga - III Chapter III Inner Experiences in the State of Samadhi Samadhi or Trance The experience you had is of course the going inside of the consciousness which is usually called trance or samādhi . The most important part of it however is the silence of the mind and vital which... vivid experiences feels as if it were itself that was having the experience; the numbness was the effect on it of the pressure. The pressure on the whole body would mean a pressure on the whole inner consciousness, perhaps for some modification or change which would make it more ready for knowledge or experience; the 3rd or 4th rib would indicate a region which belongs to the vital nature, the domain of ...
... that decision—stand by it, do not let the storms of the vital quench the aspiration of your soul. March 10,1936 All can be done by the Divine, the heart and nature purified, the inner consciousness awakened, the veils removed, if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence—and even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the more one does so, the more the inner help and guidance... important, even fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said to have a great inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated to effect and had great realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature ? It does not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute generalisations in this field, because the development of spiritual consciousness is an exceedingly... come within a certain number of years or not at all. There are some who begin to succeed after a few years some who take longer, succeeding only in work but not in meditation or activity of the inner consciousness, but finally the veiled inner preparation of so many years has prevailed and they begin to get the psychic change, the inner opening of head and heart, the descents, the growth through frequent ...
... one does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and... and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother. One is then aware of two consciousnesses, this inner one and the outer which has to be changed into its counterpart and instrument—that also must become... At present you are moving between the two and in this period all the feelings you have are quite natural. You need not be at all anxious about that, but wait for the full development of the inner consciousness in which you will be able to live. There is always a double nature in human beings, the inner (psychic and spiritual) which is in touch with the Divine; the outer, mental, vital and physical ...
... consciousness or part of it replies to by trying to go inside . How can the slumber be changed into insideness? There is no device for it. It comes with the growth of the inner consciousness. Is our normal sleep such that the physical consciousness can go inside and reply to the higher pressure? No. But when the pressure gives a tendency to insideness... not take place, but there is still a pressure habitual at the time under which the consciousness goes inside not into sleep but into some kind of samadhi in which a working takes place in the inner consciousness. As yet you have not developed the power of being conscious in this state nor the power of remembering what took place. Page 189 Why does the tendency for sleep... deep within meant for the preparation of the inner being. Should the trance become a normal state of our consciousness? No. It is the waking realisation of the inner consciousness separate from the outer that has to be the normal state. But it is the trance experience that is bringing this separateness. Sometimes a strong pressure to go into sleep or samadhi ...
... distant influence and guidance and controlling-without any external means, well known in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of the power of this Inner Consciousness. But there is not only an outward and an inner consciousness; there is also a deeper or nether consciousness. This is the great field that has been and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called the subconscious... spiritual power and consciousness. We have spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is also, we must now point out, an Inmost Consciousness. As the Super-consciousness is a consciousness-energy in height, the Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness. If we wish to put it geometrically, we can say, the vertical section... perceptions and memories, impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions against or in the midst of one's actual environment. The second potential is that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness here is no longer trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or One with the world ...
... distant influence and guidance and controlling without any external means, well known in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of the power of this Inner Consciousness. But there is not only an outward and an inner consciousness; there is also a deeper or nether consciousness. This is the great field that has been and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called the subconscious... of spiritual power and consciousness. We have spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is also, we must now point out, an Inmost Consciousness. As the Superconsciousness is a consciousness-energy in height, the Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness. If we wish to put it geometrically, we can say, the vertical section... perceptions and memories, impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions against or in the midst of one's actual environment. The second potential is that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness here is no longer trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or one with the world ...
... distant influence and guidance and controlling without any external means, well known in all yogic disciplines, are various manifestations of the power of this Inner Consciousness. But there is not only an outward and an inner consciousness; there is also a deeper or nether consciousness. This is the great field that has been and is being explored by modern psychologists. It is called the subconscious... degrees of spiritual power and consciousness. We have spoken of the Inner Consciousness. But there is also, we must now point out, an Inmost Consciousness. As the Superconsciousness is a consciousness-energy in height, the Inmost Consciousness is a consciousness-energy in depth, the deepest depth, beyond or behind the Inner Consciousness. If we wish to put it geometrically, we can say, the vertical section... perceptions and memories, impressions and associations. It is a system of outward actions and reactions against or in the midst of one's actual environment. The second potential is that of the Inner Consciousness: its characteristic is that the consciousness here is no longer trenchantly separative and individual, narrowly and rigidly egoistic. It feels and sees itself as part of or one with the world ...
... would go into, but simply the inner consciousness,—that going quite inward which is the result of intense dhy ā na [meditation] and the beginning of a certain kind of sam ā dhi. October 1932 ? What the Mother said was that a star [?] moving persistently from up below is frequently seen when there is a process going on of joining the inner consciousness and the outer together. It... the very object of this kind of premayoga. Again, this method was only applied to the inner, not to a physically embodied Divine and had a reference to certain states and reactions of the inner consciousness in its seeking after the Divine. In the relations with the embodied Divine Manifestation, or, I may add, of the disciple with the Guru, such things might rise as a result of human imperfection ...
... For the chakras are the centres of the inner consciousness and belong organically to the subtle body. So much as is active in ordinary people is very little—for in them it is the outer consciousness that is active. The centres of consciousness [ are meant by the term "centres" ], the chakras. It is by their opening that the Yogic or inner consciousness develops—otherwise you are bound to the... channel. The Ajnachakra or Forehead Centre There are different centres in the body which are represented in vision by these lotuses—one is between the eyebrows in the forehead, a centre of inner consciousness, will and visions—that is opening in you. If the forehead centre opens, it is fairly certain that the crown centre must have opened sufficiently at least to allow the passage of the higher ...
... rest of the being is not yet in it. Writing a novel means then going out of the inner state of experience and stimulating the rest of the nature. If the writing is something in harmony with the inner consciousness, then there would be no necessity for one to stop. On the other hand if one has attained the full consciousness in Page 725 both the inner and the outer nature then also one could... and painstaking labour are very good for the literary man, but even for him they are not the cause of his good writing, only an aid to it. The cause is within himself. If one lives in the inner consciousness, if the inner mind or higher mind become dynamic, all the ideas in the world and all sorts of knowledge come crowding in from within or from above; there is little or no need of outside food... dawdling over the sadhana and having no particular inner endeavour one can read newspapers—it is no worse than anything else. On the other hand if the newspapers do not affect the formed or forming inner consciousness in any way (by dispersion, lowering, externalisation etc.) one can read them. I read the newspapers mainly because I have to see what events are happening which might any day have an effect on ...
... the psychic will return and eventually come down into the physical consciousness itself; then there will be very little difficulty. The second is the inner consciousness always awake. At present that is difficult, because to keep the inner consciousness awake at all times can only come by a deepening of yourself so that the veil between the outer and inner which lifts only in concentration may cease... fatigue. Even so, even when the force and rasa are there, one must keep one's sense of measure. Work is a means of self-dedication to the Divine, but it must be done with the necessary inner consciousness in which Page 382 the lower vital and physical must also share. A lazy body is certainly not a proper instrument for Yoga, it must stop being lazy. But a fatigued and unwilling ...
... is silent, there is peace and in peace all things that are divine can come. When there is not the mind, there is the Self which is greater than the mind. You have attained the silent inner consciousness, but that can be covered over by disturbance—the next step is for calm and silence to be established as the basis in the more and more outer consciousness—probably these [ higher ] forces are... are working for that. Then the play of the ordinary forces will be only on the surface and can be more easily dealt with. Silence and True Activity The silence is the silence of the inner consciousness and it is in that silence unmoved by outward things that the true activity of the consciousness can come without disturbing the silence—true perceptions, will, feelings, action. There also one can... the inner being. The absolutely silent state, which is one of lightness, voidness and release, prepares the other and supports it when it comes. The passive silence is that in which the inner consciousness remains void and at rest, not making any reaction on outer things and forces. The active silence is that in which there is a great force that goes out on things and forces without disturbing ...
... Seal, the admirable Crichton, Gandhi, Tagore, Roosevelt, Lloyd George etc. etc. All Avatars or all full of the essential principle! The inner consciousness is there. All that does not apply to me alone. There are hundreds of others. The inner consciousness is not so rare a phenomenon as all that. There are some people, I hear, who are to all external appearance debauchees or moral insolvents... the attitude of most sadhaks in the Asram. Shall man know of your divinity only after the supermind has descended? 10 There is no necessity of the supermind for that. It is the inner consciousness that has to recognise—it is impossible for the outer mind to know it by its own reasonings. Page 432 The Divine Incarnate? I have a strong faith that you are the Divine Incarnate ...
... the inner vision or the subtle sight or the occult sight—not the psychic vision. The "sight" spoken of [ in passages of the Upanishads ] is not a sense vision but an experience in the inner consciousness which is more true and living and dynamic than the experiences given to the external consciousness by the material senses. There is also a psychic vision by which one can see the forms of... as the seminal force can be turned by brahmacharya into ojas. This gazing on a flame or a bright spot is the traditional means used by Yogis for concentration or for awakening of the inner consciousness and vision. You seem to have gone by the gazing into a kind of surface (not deep) trance, which is indeed one of its first results, and begun to see things probably on the vital plane. I do not... and give it its natural medium. If seen with the eyes shut, it would be no longer a subtle physical form, but an object or formation of the vital, mental or other plane. Unless, indeed, the inner consciousness had progressed so far as to be able to project itself into the physical planes; but this is a rare and, in most cases, a late development. (2) It is not, usually, the object that vanishes; ...
... chance to project itself into the waking state. But it is through the inner consciousness and primarily through the inner mind that these things come; so, if there is not a clear passage from the inner to the outer, it must be in the inner states that they first appear. If the waking mind is subject or surrendered to the inner consciousness and willing to become its instrument, then even from the beginning... which were vital dream experiences, those in which you met the Mother, and recently you had one such contact on the mental plane which, for those who understand these things, means that the inner consciousness is preparing in the mind as well as in the vital, which is a great advance. You will ask why these things take place either in sleep or in an indrawn meditation and not in the waking state ...
... conscious of the kind of attunement you want to realise. You must become aware of the points where this harmony does not exist; you must feel them and understand the contradiction between the inner consciousness and certain outer movements. You must become conscious of this first, and once you are conscious of it, you try to adapt the outer action, outer movements to the inner ideal. But first of all... aspiration", they protest. They are not aware. Therefore, the first step is to become aware, to become conscious of what is not in tune. To begin with, most people will say, "What is this inner consciousness you are telling me about? I don't know it!" So, obviously, they cannot establish any harmony if they are not even conscious of something within which is higher than their ordinary consciousness... the being is, the aspiration, the descending force, what receives it—everything must become conscious. And then, afterwards, you must look at the outer movements in the light of this inner Page 1 consciousness and see what is in tune and what is not. And then, when you have seen what does not harmonise, you must gather the will and aspiration to change it and begin with the easiest part. ...
... development, but the general mass will remain in the same state of misery. If only the inner consciousness is changed, won't some impurities still remain in the outer being? Yes, of course. That is the essential difference between our yoga and the old yogic disciplines which dealt only with the inner consciousness. The old beliefs used to say—and some people interpret the Bhagavat Gita in this way—that... have realised this, but at least quite a few. What is the difference between this experience and the integral transformation? In the integral transformation both the outer nature and the inner consciousness are transformed. The character, the habits, etc. are completely changed, as well as the thoughts and the mental outlook on things. Yes, but there is something which remains unchanged unless ...
... nature, and purpose of that force. It is the power that we discover in the general atmosphere, or that emerges in the stress and rhythm of the cultural life of the people, in the level of its inner consciousness, in the expression of its highest and most wide-spread aspirations, in the particular stamp of its soul. The psychological atmosphere in India is of a luminous tenuity. Here, it appears... familiar ground; it is in a - domain which it has the impression of having frequented often and anon and for long. But. in Europe the division between this world and the other, in the inner consciousness of the people, is more rigorous, a thick wall divides the two and to pass from the one to the other demands a violent break, a total revolution; and even when the Rubicon is crossed, one feels... forces— especially between those of this world and the other—is delicately held; and the adjustment that obtains at a given moment is liable to be disturbed by the least change, either in the inner consciousness, or in the outer conditions. In other words, when we speak of the spirituality of the Indian people, it is to the disposition of their psychic elements that we refer, to the tone and temper ...
... Still this cannot be called a change of nature, let alone transformation. Then only will our nature consent really to change when we become, when even our sense-organs become subject to our inner consciousness, when Page 63 our actions and activities are inspired, guided and formed by the power and influence of this inner light. In the beginning, the sadhaka finds himself a divided... actualise itself and give a material shape to the integral fulfilment. Hence the Mother gives the direction that though external lapses may be natural to our external nature, now that our inner consciousness has awakened, the vision and the earnestness to see and recognise our mistakes have developed – assuming that this much of development has taken place in us – we must awake to the situation and... that if victory has come within the range of possibility, it has done so in just proportion to their sincerity, by the magic grace of the Mahashakti, the grace which the aspiration of their inner consciousness has called down. And what is now but possible will grow into the actual if we keep moving along the path we have so far followed. Otherwise, if we falter, fail and break faith, if we relapse ...
... the Great Delight, the Supreme Beatitude. NOTES 1. Midnight: the absence of the ordinary daylight consciousness, entry into inner consciousness. Lotus: the inner consciousness and being. 2. Sisters: the powers that control the ādhāra: 32, perhaps body, life, mind, and each containing five... receptacle) – it is not her own house, she comes from elsewhere. 6. Day – the light of ordinary consciousness – in which birds of ignorance revel. 7. Night – when the inner consciousness is awake and the soul's ardent yearnings are in play. Page 256 III She is the common ale-wife, she goes into both the rooms ...
... Still this cannot be called a change of nature, let alone transformation. Then only will our nature consent really to change when we become, when even our sense-organs become subject to our inner consciousness, when our actions and activities are inspired, guided and formed by the power and influence of this inner light. In the beginning, the sadhaka finds himself a divided personality—in his... actualise itself and give a material shape to the integral fulfilment. Hence the Mother gives the direction that though external lapses may be natural to our external nature, now that our inner consciousness Page 5 has awakened, the vision and the earnestness to see and recognise our mistakes have developed—assuming that this much of development has taken place in us—we must awake... that if victory has come within the range of possibility, it has done so in just proportion to their sincerity, by the magic grace of the Mahashakti, the grace which the aspiration of their inner consciousness has called down. And what is now but possible will grow into the actual if we keep moving along the path we have so far followed. Otherwise, if we falter, fail and break faith, if we relapse ...
... The ordinary ignorant man passes through life, plying the boat of his ignorant ordinary consciousness with its cargo of worldly cares. But the free inner consciousness moves along other paths. Kahnu would sail on the boat of that inner consciousness and take to those paths. The world is as if a lake where lies hidden a lotus-stalk which is no other than the Cherished Deity of Kahnu. So we find... appears as Beauty and Delight, but It transcends all thought or image; who then can unravel Its mystery? The three elements here may well represent the body, life and mind, and the Light is the inner Consciousness that rules over them. The Vedantin may say that this Light is no Page 126 other than his Brahman whose attributes are Existence, Conscious Power and Bliss, saccidananda ...
... the presence of vulgarity is simply unbearable, nay, past correction. Verily the greatness of the poet is the greatness of the inner consciousness. And the expression of his inner consciousness is the essence of his poetic creation. So long as this inner consciousness is vigilant and active in the poet, his creations and activities never suffer in manners. His creations will not be vitiated by gross ...
... transformed into a flexible medium of the self-expressing Spirit. What are the means of purifying and enlightening the physical mind? Sri Aurobindo lays particular stress on detachment. The inner consciousness, seeking identification with the soul, must detach itself from the physical mind and refuse to give sanction to its mechanical, self-repetitive movements, which are an obstacle to sadhana. First... birthright to the light and bliss and freedom of our spiritual existence. Detachment from the physical mind gives us a release from the grossness of the material consciousness; it gives wings to our inner consciousness to soar into the Spirit- skies. Referring to the recurrence of material thoughts and the consequent obscuration of consciousness, which is a common enough experience in sadhana the Mother says... another remedy which may prove more immediately effective: it is to step back from the unpurified physical mind, which is the home of doubt and despondency, and try to take one's stand in the inner consciousness. Those who have practised the technique of self-withdrawal—it is a primary, fundamental technique in the Integral Yoga— will find it very helpful in such cases. As soon as they step back, they ...
... the Power is all right, but there is really nothing incompatible between the inner silence and action. It is to that combination that the sadhana must move. It [ concentration of the inner consciousness ] can happen in several forms. It can become concentrated in silence as the witness—it can become concentrated in the feeling of the Divine Force flowing through it, the work being a result—it... Divine. One part of the Force in it works and offers the work to the Mother, another part lives in the experience of the Mother, the third hears what the others say and answers without losing the inner consciousness. No—it is only if it [ turning inwards during work ] is an inner absorption that it would come in the way. But what I mean is a sort of stepping backward into something silent and observant... one does something (not all the time one is doing, but at the beginning or whenever one can remember), then that slowly becomes easy and habitual to the nature. Secondly, by the meditation an inner consciousness begins to develop which, after a time, not at once or suddenly, becomes more and more automatically permanent. One feels this as a separate consciousness from that outer one which works. At first ...
... certain sounds that are heard, which are supposed to be signs of the awakening of the subtle senses and the inner consciousness. Page 111 Sounds in the ear indicate a pressure to open the inner consciousness. The sound is a very good sign. It comes when the inner consciousness is opening or preparing to open to the Yoga-force and the deeper experiences it brings. They [ subtle... Chapter III Subtle Sights, Sounds, Smells and Tastes Sights and Sounds of Other Planes The sounds of bells and the seeing of lights and colours are signs of the opening of the inner consciousness which brings with it an opening also to sights and sounds of other planes than the physical. Some of these things, like the sound of bells, crickets etc., seem even to help the opening. The Upanishad... the soul—like the flute of Krishna. Subtle Smells and Tastes It [ experiencing subtle smells and tastes ] was not an opening of occult knowledge and powers, but simply an opening of the inner consciousness. Subtle smells of that kind [ sweet smells ] are a common feature of occult experience. Their exact nature and provenance varies, but they have no gross physical cause. The smell ...
... spiritual is the higher or superconscient consciousness which is above the normal mental consciousness. Distinguishing between the subliminal or inner consciousness and the spiritual or higher consciousness, Sri Aurobindo writes: The inner consciousness means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical and behind them the psychic which is their inmost being. But the inner mind is not the higher... narrow terms -runs riot here. 9 What lies behind the superficial consciousness of the outer being has been referred to earlier as the inner being, often called the subliminal or inner consciousness. Regarding the subliminal, Sri Aurobindo states: Even in Europe the existence of something behind the surface is now very frequently admitted, but its nature is mistaken and it is called... of what Jung called the collective unconscious are related to the subliminal. 13 The subliminal is often mistaken for the spiritual because of the failure to distinguish between the inner consciousness, which is behind the surface consciousness, and the higher consciousness which is above the normal consciousness. The 11. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - Part Four, SABCL, Vol ...
... does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality... reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother. One is then aware of two consciousnesses, the inner one and the outer which has to be changed into its counterpart and instrument — that also... The outer consciousness is shut up in the body limitations and in the little bit of personal mind and sense dependent on the body — it sees only the outward, sees only things. But the inner consciousness can see behind the thing, it is aware of the play of forces, personal or universal — for it is in conscious touch with the universal action. Letters on Yoga, p. 312 ...nothing ...
... tug-of-war takes place! That is because you are accustomed to submit to your outer consciousness and not live within in your inner consciousness. If one lives within, then it is the inner consciousness that one depends on, not the outer. The inner consciousness can then always go on independent of the outer state to which it gives attention only when it chooses. The Mother's inner... from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 3 PART II IMPORTANCE OF THE INNER BEING When I speak of the inner being I mean the inner consciousness and inner existence. Through which centre does the inner being manifest itself? Do you not know that the inner being means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical with... separation between the lower nature and the higher, a full stabilising of the central consciousness in the higher nature. That would mean staying above and leaving the lower nature including the inner consciousness to themselves until this had been done. I questioned whether this was possible so long as the inertia was so strong. Usually the full stabilising can only come if the inner being is separate ...
... or over-consciousness. But to be more precise and accurate I should add another source, an inner consciousness. As the super-consciousness is imaged as lying above the normal consciousness, so the inner consciousness may be described as lying behind or within it. The movement of the inner consciousness has found expression more often and more largely than that of over-consciousness in the artistic... show. The supreme creators are precisely those in whom the receptacle, the instrumental faculties offer the least resistance and record with absolute fidelity the experiences of the over or inner consciousness. In Shakespeare, in Homer, in Valmiki the inflatus of the secret Page 83 consciousness, the inspiration, as it is usually termed, bears down, sweeps away all obscurity or contrariety... artistic creation of the past : and that was in keeping with the nature of the old-world inspiration, for the inspiration that comes from the inner consciousness, which can be considered as the lyrical inspiration, tends to be naturally more "spontaneous", less conscious, since it does not at all go by the path of the head, it evades that as much as possible and goes by the path of the heart. But ...
... say if it had been indicated what flower it actually was that you had given. These experiences are normal when the inner consciousness is growing and becoming more and more the natural seat of the being—it is the spontaneous intuitive knowledge of this inner consciousness which is becoming prominent in place of the ordinary reliance of the external mind on sense data and external happenings.... only a few of them that come through and even these it records in an incoherent way. Really one is acting or working on one plane or another throughout sleep except for a few minutes. When the inner consciousness grows, then one becomes more and more aware of what is going on, what one is doing and sleep is no longer quite the same thing—for it is more conscious. They [ people who speak of "sound... insurrection of the French soldiers is a figure of some disturbance on the vital plane which wants to happen and affect the inner life. The import of the dream is the readiness of the vital inner consciousness to put its reliance on the Mother and take refuge in her against all possible disturbances or perils of the inner life. These dreams are of the vital plane. Those about going home come ...
... Light. It is, I suppose, the full Inertia that has come upon you. Now you have to get the true Energy down into it. It must be the tamas of the physical that has enveloped the inner consciousness. The one way to get out of it is to remain very quiet inwardly and call down persistently the Force from above. It [ a condition of great inertia ] means that you are in full grips with... move after deep concentration or trance, till there is the full consciousness in the body. Restlessness Yes, this is the time when you have to persist till you are quite settled in the inner consciousness and the persistence of the silence and peace is a sign that it is now possible. When one feels this kind of silence, peace and wideness, one may be sure that it is that of the true being, the... will be overcome. The push to externalisation must be rejected always—it is a way the physical consciousness has of slipping out of the condition of concentrated sadhana. To keep in the inner consciousness and work from it on the external being till that also is ready is very necessary when the work of change is being specially directed towards the physical consciousness. As for the going ...
... sleep is good only when it is Yogic enough to contain something, to be an inner consciousness or an experience of other planes. They art? is important—to be conscious ]n the sleep, an inner waking. But when the mind is not accustomed, it tends to respond to the impulse towards this "going side" into an inner consciousness caused by meditation by Page 229 simply falling into the usual... Krishna's grace." It was very vivid and beautiful when I woke up at about 5, I think I woke in great joy. The effect lingered. How do you call that a dream? It was a realisation by the inner consciousness in some kind of swapna samadhi. Very often a realisation comes like that as the inner being wakes in what seems to be sleep. Violet is indeed the colour of light of Divine Compassion, as also... you—let them grow and the third should necessarily follow. The psychic opening first, the higher consciousness and its experiences afterwards—this is the safe road and it seems to be the one your inner consciousness wants to follow. Why not follow it? To go back to the vital's demand for experiences at this stage—whether as a right or as a reward for being good—is surely an anachronism when once the psychic ...
... stage is when one works with the outer energy, but there is an inner consciousness supporting it which relies wholly on the Mother. The second is when there is an inner consciousness and force which uses the outer instruments—the outer energy Page 245 being quiescent or else a part only of the inner—while this inner consciousness knows that the force is the Mother's or feels the Mother's presence ...
... Some Answers from the Mother: 20 September 1969 You must become aware of the points where this harmony does not exist; you must feel them and understand the contradiction between the inner consciousness and certain outer movements. You must become conscious of this first, and once you are conscious of it, you try to adapt the outer action, outer movements to the inner ideal. But first of all... aspiration”, they protest. They are not aware. Therefore, the first step is to become aware, to become conscious of what is not in tune. To begin with, most people will say, “What is this inner consciousness you are telling me about? I don’t know it!” So, obviously, they cannot establish any harmony if they are not even conscious of something within which is higher than their ordinary consciousness... aim of the being is, the aspiration, the descending force, what receives it—everything must become conscious. And then, afterwards, you must look at the outer movements in the light of this inner consciousness and see what is in tune and what is not. And then, when you have seen what does not harmonise, you must gather the will and aspiration to change it and begin with the easiest part. You should ...
... view of the inner consciousness and the inner life. Merely following external rules cannot of course be sufficient. They are only an aid to the inner effort until the inner consciousness is thoroughly established. Usually much reading of newspapers in the ordinary way keeps one attached to the ordinary view and vision of things and interested in that—when one has the inner consciousness one can ...
... is usually by an awakening of the inner consciousness or by the going in of the consciousness more deeply within from its outward poise that this happens. This is supported in his case by the fact that he feels himself halfway to trance, his body seems to melt away, he does not feel the weight of the book etc.; all these are well-known signs of the inner consciousness getting awake and largely replacing... replacing the outer. The moral effects of his new condition would also indicate an awakening of the inner consciousness, the psychic or psychic-mental perhaps. But on the other hand, he seems to feel this other voice as if outside him and to have the sense of Page 199 another being than himself, an invisible presence in the room. The inner being is often felt as someone separate from or other ...
... Experiences of the Inner Being and the Inner Consciousness Letters on Yoga - III Chapter IV Three Experiences of the Inner Being Opening into the Inner Mental Self The three experiences of which you speak belong all to the same movement or the same stage of your spiritual life; they are initial movements of the consciousness to become aware of your... knowledge. Occasionally we get a dream from these planes, something more than a dream,—a dream experience which is a record direct or symbolic of what happens to us or around us there. As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experience and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to understand them... present he lives in the outer consciousness, the outer being and sees within the inner self—but he will go more and more inward, till the position is reversed and he lives within in this new inner consciousness, inner self and feels the outer as something on the surface formed as an instrumental personality for the inner's self-expression in the material world. Then from within a Power works on the ...
... they are exceptional, abnormal or supernormal, and therefore comparatively rare, difficult, incomplete in their occurrence. It is only if we can open up the wall between the outer mind and the inner consciousness to which such phenomena are normal, or if we can enter freely within or dwell there, that this realm of knowledge can be truly explained and annexed to our total consciousness and included in... tied by a very partial sympathy and mutual experience; we do not know enough, do not know as well as we know ourselves—and that itself is little—even those nearest to us. But in the subliminal inner consciousness it is possible to become directly aware of the thoughts and feelings around us, to feel their impact, to Page 557 see their movements; to read a mind and a heart becomes less difficult... constantly in the midst of a whirl of unseen mind-forces and life-forces of which we know nothing, we are not even aware of their existence. To all this unseen movement and action the subliminal inner consciousness can open our awareness, for it has a knowledge of it by direct contact, by inner vision, by a psychic sensitiveness; but at present it can only enlighten our obtuse superficiality and outwardness ...
... physical being distinguishable from surface body consciousness. Occultists in different traditions have developed varieties of methods by which one can enter into inner consciousness. If one succeeds in entering into these domains of inner consciousness, one can observe the springs of one's thoughts and feelings, the sources and the motives of one's action and the operative energies that build up one's surface... the corresponding objective reality which can be contacted by the inner being. In order to understand occultism, it would be convenient to distinguish between the surface consciousness, inner consciousness, (which can be called subliminal consciousness), inmost consciousness, higher consciousness, and highest consciousness. There is, also, a large domain of the Page 17 subconscious ...
... no development of knowledge and powers since the opening of the subtle faculty two years ago? It was not an opening of occult knowledge and powers, but simply an opening of the inner consciousness. In your book Bases of Yoga one reads, "It is with the Mother who is always with you and in you that you converse." Will you kindly explain how the sadhak in question converses... practical sadhana. If one develops the occult faculty and the occult experience and knowledge, these things can be of great use, therefore practical. In themselves they are a part of opening of the inner consciousness and also help to open it further - though they are not indispensable for that. It is difficult to develop the faculty of hearing inner voices, whereas all can develop the co... does his work with the right attitude and calls down the Mother's Force into him freely and directly, how does it act to remove his defects? SRI AUROBINDO: It acts by awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them ...
... and it is difficult and takes time to establish such a condition. During yesterday's meditation, on one side I saw the inertia active in its usual way and on the other the inner consciousness receiving the Mothers working as usual! This is something new to me. For up to now, whenever there was tamas a free reception (from the Mother) was always disturbed. Also I noticed that the inner... am always above with the Mother. It is the lower nature which gives me the false impression of mixing me up with the Prakriti." Yes, that much at least everybody who has felt the inner consciousness should be able to do. Your attitude is all right. It is only in some part of the external physical being that the difficulties seem to weigh too much. The resistance... early stages one can have only intermittent experiences of one's true self? That is so, so long as the whole consciousness is not open or so long as one cannot live always in the inner consciousness, looking at the outer when necessary but not involved in it. Page 184 ...
... nature and purpose of that force. It is the power that we discover in the general atmosphere, or that emerges in the stress and rhythm of the cultural life of the people, in the level of its inner consciousness, in the expression of its highest and most wide-spread aspirations, in the particular stamp of its soul. The psychological atmosphere in India is of a luminous tenuity. Here,... familiar ground; it is in a domain which it has the impression of having frequented often and anon and for long. But in Europe the division between this world and the other, in the inner consciousness of the people, is more rigorous, a thick wall divides the two and to pass from the one to the other demands a violent break, a total revolution; and even when the Rubicon is crossed, one feels... forces – especially between those of this world and the other – is delicately held; and the adjustment that obtains at a given moment is liable to be disturbed by the least change, either in the inner consciousness, or in the outer conditions. In other words, when we speak of the spirituality of the Indian people, it is to the disposition of their psychic elements that we refer, to the tone ...
... and this is true not only of external shapes, but of the unseen formations of mind and life which we seize only by our thought and those sensible forms of which only the subtle grasp of the inner consciousness can become aware. Name in its deeper sense is not the word by which we describe the object, but the total of power, quality, character of the reality which a form of things embodies and which... plunging into itself, into a state in which self-awareness exists but not as knowledge and not as all-knowledge; the all would then be involved in pure self-awareness, and knowledge and the inner consciousness itself would be lost in pure being. This is, luminously, the state which we call the Superconscience in an absolute sense,—although most of what we call superconscient is in reality not that ...
... even mysticism is not a monopoly of overhead verse, he ascribes to this verse a special virtue: "Mystic poetry can be Written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do unless something comes down into them from... ed realm of a deeper look than the normal vision of the subtle-physical, vital or intellectual mentality. There are glimpses too of the "occult", snatches of a poetry communicating from the inner consciousness a pattern of delicately suggestive or dynamically piercing symbols with mysterious reverberations, and occasionally giving rise to a chequer of baffling beautiful surrealism. Parts four ...
... and this is true not only of external shapes, but of the unseen formations of mind and life which we seize only by our thought and those sensible forms of which only the subtle grasp of the inner consciousness can become aware." 123 But still there has to be a limiting finis to this ascending march of vision and therefore of shapes and forms. When one reaches the horizons of manifestation, standing... its itineary here? Or, who knows, has it any further evolutionary prospect? As Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is a Yoga of Integral Transformation, it is understood that it is not merely the inner consciousness which has to undergo divine transformation; even the outer physical system of man, including all its forms and functions, has to submit itself to the unrelenting process of supramental tr ...
... are exceptional, abnormal or supernormal, and therefore comparatively rare, difficult, incomplete in their occurrence. It is only if we can open up the wall between the outer mind and the inner consciousness to which such phenomena are normal, or if we can enter freely within or dwell there, that this realm of knowledge can be truly explained and annexed to our total consciousness and included... as object to the subject. The more partial view concedes no substantive reality to anything which exists only in the consciousness, or, to put it more accurately, to anything to which the inner consciousness or sense bears testimony but which the outer physical senses do not provide with a ground or do not substantiate. But the outer senses can bear a reliable evidence only when they refer their ...
... knowledge. Occasionally we get a dream from these planes, something more than a dream, — a dream experience which is a record direct or symbolic of what happens to us or around us there. As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experience and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to understand... view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at Page 232 rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded in something of us that is near to the surface, we remember. There is maintained in ...
... on the sparkles and the dreams. Are they dreams, though, or experiences on one of the inner planes? I think I have told you that the sparkles usually indicate an opening of the doors of the inner consciousness. August 3, 1931 There can be no objection to your going to your sister's place for meals; the point in the notice was aimed at quite another target. If you observe its language... experiences of your own inner being which are a thousand times more reliable than this imaginative chit-chat built upon nothing. If the Mother makes you a communication when you are in your inner consciousness, why not put your faith in that and not in all this external noise and blather? And who, by the way, told you that the Mother is seeing those for whom she has love and confidence and that for ...
... is just what one has to learn not to do. For that matter, thought and feeling also can externalise one in the same way; but it is a question of linking thought, feeling and act firmly to the inner consciousness by living there and making the rest an instrument. Difficult? Even bhakti is not easy and nirvana, for most men, is more difficult than that. "You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna... condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do, from the divine realisation, the divine works and speak, from the inner consciousness, of the divine world? If the last, then perhaps, in spite of the dictum, his example at least is rather in my favour. "I do not know why you drag in humanitarianism, X's activism, philanthropical ...
... an integral transformation, which, as we know, is the aim of the Integral Yoga. She read the following paragraph from that text: ‘In the integral transformation both the outer nature and the inner consciousness are transformed. The character, the habits, etc., are completely changed, as well as the thoughts and the mental outlook on things.’ And she commented: ‘Yes, but there is something which remains... that 1954 appears to have been a peak year in her yoga of the cells. For example, on 24 February she said: ‘If one wants to transform one’s body, one has to put it into perfect harmony with the inner consciousness. This is to be done “in every cell,” in the most insignificant activity, in every activity of the organs.’ And on 21 April: ‘It will take a certain number of years before we can speak knowledgeably ...
... influence the evolutionary process on the surface. Overmind and Supermind are also involved and occult in earth-Nature, but they have no formations on the accessible levels of our subliminal inner consciousness; there is as yet no overmind being or organised overmind nature, no supramental being or organised supermind nature acting either on our surface or in our normal subliminal parts: for these greater... world and in a sense take the world into himself, this cannot be dynamically done without receiving the world influences through one's own circumconscient or environmental being. The spiritual inner consciousness has then to deal with these influences in such a way that, as soon as they approach or enter, they become either obliterated and without result or transformed by their very entry into its own ...
... sequence is created by our minds and does not actually exist in life, that does not remove the difference of the two states of consciousness. For in dream the coherence given by an observing inner consciousness is absent, and whatever sense of sequence there is seems to be due to a vague and false imitation of the connections of waking life, a subconscious mimesis, but this imitative sequence is shadowy... that is a superficial view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded in something of us that is near to the surface, we remember. There is maintained in sleep ...
... not the Avatar; otherwise Arjuna, Vyasa, Ushanas would be Avatars as well as Krishna, even if in a less degree of the power of Avatarhood. The divine quality is not enough; there must be the inner consciousness of the Lord and Self governing the human nature by his divine presence. The heightening of the power of the qualities is part of the becoming, bhūtagrāma , an ascent in the ordinary manifestation;... Buddhahood according to the doctrine of the Buddhists, it is the soul awakened from its present mundane individuality into an infinite superconsciousness. That need not carry with it either the inner consciousness or the characteristic action of the Avatar. On the other hand, this entering into the divine consciousness may be attended by a reflex action of the Divine entering or coming forward into ...
... doing so. You have become conscious of it, because of the development of your inner consciousness by Yoga—and yet there are likely to be times when you still write from the external awareness only, and then you will see the words only without being aware of what is behind. So owing to the development of the inner consciousness, you are able to understand what contacts are and get the true contact, but ...
... to awaken before the dream concludes or before it begins or in some way preventing the thing forbidden from happening. Also one can develop a more conscious sleep in which there is a sort of inner consciousness which can intervene. This [ unconsciousness in sleep ] is quite usual. Consciousness in Page 449 sleep can only be gradually established with the growth of the true consciousness... Hearing Music after Waking The expression [ of sweet melodious music ] was of the psychic plane—and the music was of that domain. Very often coming out of a conscious sleep like that the inner consciousness (which heard the music) lasts for a few seconds even after waking, before it goes back and is entirely covered by the waking mind. In that case what was heard or seen in sleep would continue ...
... emerges as soon as the outer preoccupation ends; afterwards it remains behind, but as something just felt, and in a later stage it is always there, so that there are two consciousnesses, the inner consciousness always connected with the Mother and full of her working or her presence or both and the surface consciousness occupied with outer things. Finally, even the surface consciousness begins to feel... condition is not there. It does not prove that you are unfit; it is only a period Page 457 in which what is not yet changed comes up to be worked upon and prepared for change. When the inner consciousness is well established, then these periods take place only in the surface consciousness and are no longer troublesome as before. P. S. Probably the difficulty you feel is in the externalising ...
... heat is the result of the psychic fire burning away obstacles—the coolness and complete quietude come as a result. The tendency to sleep is really a tendency to go inside into the depths of the inner consciousness due to the pressure for the change. The wideness of light you saw was the wideness of the true consciousness liberated from the narrow limits of the human mind, human vital, human body co... were true perfumes but not of the physical world. This body of flesh and blood is not the whole of ourselves; there is unseen by the eyes a subtle body also and one becomes aware of it when the inner consciousness opens. It was from deep within there that the perfumes came, perfumes of purity, of love and surrender (rose) etc. It is there deep within that the psychic being dwells and it is there that you ...
... within; but that is just what one has to learn not to do. Thought and feeling can also externalise one in the same way; but it is a question of linking thought, feeling and act firmly to the inner consciousness by living there and making the rest an instrument. Difficult? Even bhakti is not easy and Nirvana is for most men more difficult than all. You again try to floor me with Ramakrishna. But one... reached a condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do from the divine realisation the divine work and speak from the inner consciousness the divine word? If the last, perhaps in spite of his dictum, his example at least is rather in my favour. I do not know why you drag in humanitarianism, activism, philanthropical sevā etc ...
... into a lower and more external consciousness because talking comes from the external mind. But it is impossible to avoid it altogether. What you must do is to learn to get back at once to the inner consciousness—this so long as you are not able to speak always from the inner being or at least with the inner being supporting the action. You have to learn not to allow the speaking to alter your... energies or externalises the consciousness. It is especially this chat for chat's sake tendency that has to be overcome. It is one thing to speak simply and easily with others, keeping the inner consciousness, and another to let oneself go in the vital stream of an externalised consciousness—it was that which I said I had told you not to do. It [ a feeling of dispersion ] is of course because ...
... is it to be kept and changed into the nature of the true vital? In either case, what is the need of an external vital at all if the true vital is already there? The true vital is in the inner consciousness, the external is that Page 126 which is instrumental for the present play of Prakriti in the surface personality. When the change comes, the true vital rejects what is out of tune... him at present. I have indicated what is necessary at present for you, the growth of the psychic being which had begun and the power of contact and communication which it will bring with the inner consciousness and through it with the Divine Power or Presence. But for that to grow the mind must keep more quiet, not insisting, not desponding at every moment, but steadily aspiring and letting the things ...
... sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create Page 323 vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening of the consciousness... effect. Page 326 Namajapa or Repetition of the Name The name of the Divine is usually called in for protection, for adoration, for increase of bhakti, for the opening up of the inner consciousness, for the realisation of the Divine in that aspect. As far as it is necessary to work in the subconscious for that, the Name must be effective there. It [ the effectiveness of namajapa ...
... circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit in at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done or not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic, this can be increasingly done. ... these things, you throw yourself out into a very small and ignorant consciousness in which your vital defects get free play and this is likely to bring you out of what you have developed in your inner consciousness. That was why we said that if you felt a reaction against these things when you went to X 's, it was a sign of (psychic) sensitiveness coming into you—into your vital and nervous being—and we ...
... on it: We want an integral transformation, the transformation of the body and all its activities. Formerly, when one spoke of transformation one meant solely the transformation of the inner consciousness. One tried to discover in oneself this deep consciousness and rejected the body and its activities like an encumbrance and a useless thing, in order to attend only to the inner movement. Sri... in the least about what was happening within—naturally this is not quite true. Before you can undertake this work of physical transformation, which of all things is the most difficult, your inner consciousness must be firmly established, solidly established in the Truth, so that this transformation may be the final expression of the Truth—"final" for the moment at least. The starting-point of this ...
... discipline of Yoga, you speed up in yourself this process. The work that would require years in the ordinary course, can be done by Yoga in a few days and even in a few hours. But it is your inner consciousness that obeys this accelerating impulse; for the higher parts of your being readily follow the swift and concentrated movement of Yoga and lend themselves more easily to the continuous adjustment... being done." But the truth is that it is the time needed for assimilation; a pause is made for the body to open itself more and become receptive and approach nearer to the level attained by the inner consciousness. The parents have been walking too far ahead; they must halt so that the child left behind may run up and catch them by the hand; only then can they start again on the journey together. Each ...
... difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must come through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation;... were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's ...
... We do not know. 2 1965 3 Auroville is going well and is becoming more and more real, but its realisation does not proceed in the usual human way and it is more visible to the inner consciousness than to the outer eye. 4 January 1966 Page 190 You say that Auroville is a dream. Yes, it is a "dream" of the Lord and generally these "dreams" turn out to be true ―much... very good. To establish order around oneself helps to bring order within oneself. One should organise one's life not according to outer and artificial rules, but according to an organised inner consciousness, for if one lets life go on without subjecting it to the control of the higher consciousness, it becomes fickle and inexpressive. It is to waste one's time in the sense that matter remains without ...
... full of the essential principle. If one has the essential principle, what does it matter if one has no urge towards spirituality? The inner consciousness is there. All that does not apply to me alone. There are hundreds of others. The inner consciousness is not so rare a phenomenon as all that. There are some people, I hear, who are to all external appearance debauchees or moral insolvents ...
... of it descended into you by the usual path and filled you with the light. From there it descended into the subconscient and brought the light there. As a result the consciousness (it was the inner consciousness) became like a crystal pillar connecting the heights with the depths, the superconscient with the subconscient. In it the image of the Mother filled with the light in her. You were then shown... May 1973. Nishikanto was lying on his bed and looking at the sun setting in the west. When Aparna asked him how he was feeling, he replied: “The exterior consciousness is becoming hazy but the inner consciousness is fine.” Little did Aparna realize that it would be the last sunset Nishikanto would witness. As the night approached Aparna saw Nishikanto looking for something; on her enquiry he asked whether ...
... overt activities and manifestations. For behind our conscious physical, vital and mental operations there is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a deeper and inner consciousness, which we need to look into in some detail. (f) The inner consciousness is, in fact, what can be called the subliminal consciousness, because it is behind the threshold of our outer consciousness. It includes the large ...
... Page 87 militates against our goal of the complete spiritualisation of the totality of our existence. (v)The Yogic trance helps us to fix the spiritual experiences in our inner consciousness alone; it cannot automatically lead to the spiritualisation of the outer waking consciousness. So for us who aim at a total spiritual And supramental change, even, and in particular, of the... outer being; (ii)to establish the highest possible realisation in the waking state and make it endure there; (iii)not only to experience the Truth subjectively and in one's inner consciousness alone, but to manifest it even in full activity; (iv)an integral possession of the integrality of the Divine in the life of this world and not only beyond it. In short, in the ...
... on the surface. How to remember the Mother during work? I have tried to follow a mental rule, without success. Perhaps it is the inner consciousness that remembers while the outer is busy? One starts by a mental effort—afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her. May 31, 1933 ...
... education is remembrance. You remember what is imbedded or secreted within, you bring to the light, the light of your physical mind, what you have within, what you already possess in your being and inner consciousness. Acquisition is not education. Indeed a miser is not a rich man, rich is he who knows how to utilise his wealth, even so a possessor of much information is only a carrier of loads. True... to the mounting fire; they must not be merely piled up upon and around the fire or be as so many wet faggots crushing it down with their weight. A true learner is one who seeks sincerely this inner consciousness which is one's own; the true teacher is one who knows how to lead the learner towards this inner light. Page 198 ...
... 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 private and the public sector in modern jargon – is not of today. It is as old as Sophocles... life of the cross, you have to choose that or it is imposed upon you. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and in spite of what the world and life are, you can create within you, possess in your inner consciousness something of the divine element, the peace that passeth understanding, the purity and freedom and harmony with oneself and with the entire creation, including even one's neighbours. Inner ...
... consciousness. It can come, in the first place, from the depths of our inner and inmost being; that is the consciousness of the inner self, the indwelling inner Being. It may be called the inner consciousness. And secondly, the right consciousness can come, not from within or at least not primarily from there but from the environment, from a wider expanse, a universal wideness extending beyond the... beyond the mind-planes including the Overmind. These then are the main gradations or steps in the growth of consciousness: (1) unconsciousness, (2) consciousness, (3) active consciousness, (4) inner consciousness, (5) environmental consciousness, (6) Supramental consciousness, (7) Supreme or Transcendental consciousness. These correspond Page 282 to the seven layers of our being, ...
... enemy has clothed himself in a material form and armed himself with material weapons, you are almost helpless. To save yourself from a physical blow, it is not always enough to have the proper inner consciousness only. Something more is needed. Therefore misery stalks large upon the earth. Nothing com-parable to it, either in quality or quantity, can history offer as an example. Man finds no remedy... consciousness and existence. In the present make-up, the body, at a certain stage has to be given up; for the frame becomes too rigid and stiff to keep pace with the growing and fast moving inner consciousness. The thread is taken up again in another life; but there is always a considerable reduplication in this natural process, one has to repeat the stage of babyhood and immaturity, a retempering ...
... not of one piece: the whole of his nature is not worked to the same pitch and amplitude, it is not equally responsive everywhere. Thus, when the psychic brings forward an experience and the inner consciousness is full of the light and energy and joy and faith, even then, in the background or by the side, if you are vigilant and observe carefully, you will see that the mind, the external mind, has its... the body consciousness may not at all participate in the experience; it may remain indifferent, listless, lethargic with no impulse or enthusiasm to carry out in practice the experience of the inner consciousness. Any of these drags or cross-currents is sufficient to maim and diminish and even wipe out the experience: and usually all Page 229 the three are finally there to combine ...
... beyond as the same Reality becomes realizable to the awakened human soul. Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act puissantly in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness, in his action the most powerful personality that we know of as having lived and produced results upon earth. "...It is possible to pass into a Silence beyond the Silence. But this is not... embrace to the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight of union. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: "The heart is the scene of this supreme idyll of the inner consciousness, but a heart which undergoes increasingly an intense spiritual change and becomes the radiantly unfolding lotus of the spirit. And as the intensity of its seeking is beyond the highest power ...
... manifestations. For behind Page 59 our conscious physical, vital and mental operations there is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a deeper and inner consciousness, which we need to look into in some detail. VI The inner consciousness is, in fact, what can be-called the subliminal consciousness, because it is behind the threshold of our outer consciousness. It includes the large action ...
... Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo, Birth Centenary Library Edition, Pondicerry, 1970. Page 79 The aim of the yoga is to open the consciousness to the Divine and to live in the inner consciousness more and more while acting from it on the external life, to bring the inmost psychic into the front and by the power of the psychic to purify and change the being so that it may become ready... the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in the inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforehand by our limited mental conceptions ...
... in the inner consciousness. But this withdrawal is not very easy nor is it very spontaneous; it needs a long and arduous discipline. And one must also make a distinction between the dynamic consciousness and the thought-movements; the two are not the same. Thought-movements are only one of the movements of consciousness, not the consciousness itself. There is an inner consciousness behind the ...
... himself possessed by a greater personality than the human, or he would feel the presence of the Master within him. It is then that man opens to a wider inner consciousness and doses himself from the outer and in the depths of his inner consciousness the mind is hushed "...to a bright Omniscient". In that silence of the mind one hears the voice of inspiration. Very often, he gets indications which assure ...
... stiffness of D's experience — that the consciousness is with drawing from the outer or physical sheath and retiring in side. The crystallisation was the form in which he felt the organisation of an inner consciousness which could receive at once firmly and freely from above. The crystals Page 41 received at once indicate organised formation and a firm transparence in which the greater vision... presence, it would have been better, — he should rather, if he can, take it with him into the inner planes; then he would have had no occasion to fear. In any case if he wants to go into the inner consciousness and move in the inner planes — which will inevitably happen if he shuts off the waking consciousness in his meditation — he must cast away fear. Probably, he expected to get the silence or the ...
... CHAPTER XXVII THE INTEGRAL TRANSFORMATION PART I WHAT IS TRANSFORMATION? "SPIRITUAL experiences can fix themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self in all and all in the Self, the universal śakti doing all things; one can feel merged in the cosmic... throw a flood of light upon the capital distinction between the object of the Integral Yoga and the ideals and achievements of the other yogas. Sri Aurobindo says that the transformation of the inner consciousness, even if complete, is not the transformation aimed at in the Integral Yoga. "One can realise the Divine everywhere"—a realisation which is almost universally regarded as the summit experience ...
... 21 May 1933 How to remember the Mother during work? I have tried to follow a mental rule, without success. Perhaps it is the inner consciousness that remembers while the outer is busy? One starts by a mental effort—afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her. 31 May 1933 Page 258 ...
... thought necessary for his health to take fish, meat or eggs he can do it. Sadhana also does not depend on the dressing of hair or non-dressing. Sadhana in this Yoga at least is a matter of the inner consciousness mainly. One has to get over greed of food but not abandon food, to get over tamas and inertia, but not abandon all rest and sleep. To injure the body by excessive physical tapasya is forbidden... is it a Yoga of the satisfaction of desire. In this Yoga quite as much as any other, one must be free from servitude to the mind, the vital and the body. It is to be done by the growth of an inner consciousness free from demand and desire, not by the principle of an outer suppression of the objects of desire. It is to be done by having a perfect equality with regard to food as to other things. But this ...
... Yoga. If I have to explain philosophically to others, I must write a few more volumes of the Arya . I have no time just now. I may say that spiritual experiences can fix themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like, one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self, the universal Shakti Page 141 doing all things, one can feel merged in the Cosmic Self or... combined and the fundamental being of all the beings—the vital, the psychic and others? चैत्य पुरुष [ caitya puruṣa ] means rather the पुरुष [ puruṣa ] in the चित् [ cit ], the fundamental (inner) consciousness. जीव [ jīva ] is the fundamental, or as we call it, the central being. But the fundamental being is not combined of the mental, vital, psychic etc., these are only expressions of the Jivatman; ...
... his sadhana deeper, less mental, more psychic, by a stronger aspiration and more devout surrender, before he can hope to come. Let him learn too to face the difficulties of life and keep his inner consciousness amongst them. It is not always the best thing for everybody to have the external circumstances made easy and favourable for the sadhana. 6 September 1927 The best thing will be for him... important because the principle of this Yoga is not perfection of the human nature as it is but a psychic and spiritual transformation of all the parts of the being through the action of an inner consciousness and then of a higher consciousness which works on them, throws out the old movements or changes them into the image of its own and so transmutes lower into higher nature. It is Page 585 ...
... difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must come through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; whether... were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; whether ...
... include the consciousness of Samadhi when one is unaware of outward things but conscious of things going on within. Experience is a wide term which covers almost everything that happens in the inner consciousness—usually it indicates either a spiritual happening, e.g. the descent of peace, the feeling of the presence of the Mother, or an occult experience, e.g. a going into the other worlds in dream and... that the seer is not limited by his outward surface or waking consciousness but has a latent capacity (which can be perfected by training and practice) for entering into the experiences of the inner consciousness of which most people are unaware but which opens by the practice of Yoga. By this opening one becomes aware of subtle planes of experience and worlds of existence other than the material. For ...
... that removes obstacles and the horse the force of tapasya that gallops to the summits of the spiritual realisation. The sun is the symbol of the higher Truth. The lotus is the symbol of the inner consciousness. The vision you saw was a symbol of the outward physical consciousness obscured by the ordinary movements (clouds), but with the spirituality (the moon) still spreading its light everywhere... the vital nature whose flood is pursuing you (desires are the sea water) on your road of sadhana. The Mother is there in your heart but sleeping—i.e. her power has not become conscious in your inner consciousness because she is surrounded by the thin curtain of skin (the obscurity of the physical nature). It is this (it is not thick any longer but still effective to veil her from you) which has to go ...
... consciousness can see the play of invisible forces at every step which act on men and bring about events without their knowing about the instrumentation. The difference created by Yoga or by an inner consciousness—for there are people like Socrates who develop or have some inner awareness without Yoga—is that one becomes conscious of these invisible forces and can also consciously profit by them or use... practical sadhana. If one develops the occult faculty and the occult experience and knowledge, these things can be of great use, therefore practical. In themselves they are a proof of opening of the inner consciousness and also help to open it farther—though they are not indispensable for that. He [ Ramana Maharshi ] discouraged his disciples [ from having any occult dealings ] because his aim was the ...
... before the establishment [ of the higher consciousness ] can be complete . Others that are unnecessary have to be put aside if they are incompatible with the full sadhana or the growth of the inner consciousness, but can be continued if the consciousness established is such that doing or not doing makes no difference to it. Vital Reactions A vital reaction means a response of the vital to the touch... the vital trouble. There is no reason for it. When the vital is to be changed (fundamentally) it always gives constant trouble like this until one can seat oneself fixedly in the calm of the inner consciousness and keep the vital movements quite on the surface. It is always better to have peace. As for the vital, there is always something in it that resists and tries to retard, but if the inner ...
... vivid experiences feels as if it were itself that was having the experience; the numbness was the effect on it of the pressure. The pressure on the whole body would mean a pressure on the whole inner consciousness, perhaps for some modification or change which would make it more ready for knowledge or experience; the 3rd or 4th rib would indicate a region which belongs to the vital nature, the domain of... necessary for us always to be physically conscious of the action, for it is often carried out when the mind is occupied with outward things or when we sleep. The Mother's sleep is not sleep but an inner consciousness, in which she is in communication with people or working everywhere. At the time she is aware, but she does not carry all that always into her waking consciousness or in her memory. A call would ...
... charmed by the music. I was very happy and played more and more; many new fine tunes were coming from the drum as if they were simply ready made. Always keep open to the Mother's Force—let the inner consciousness develop—only that will help and deliver from all difficulties as the openness in the physical grows in you. 12 January 1935 Page 196 There are some people here who remain constantly... When a sadhak works with the right attitude and the higher Force acts in him directly, how does the Force work to purify or remove his defects and imperfections? It acts by awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them ...
... even mysticism is not a monopoly of overhead verse, he ascribes to this verse a special virtue: "Mystic poetry can be written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. Naturally, the lower planes cannot express the Spirit with its full and native voice as the higher planes do unless something comes down into them from... ed realm of a deeper look than the normal vision of the subtle-physical, vital or intellectual mentality. There are glimpses too of the "occult", snatches of a poetry communicating from the inner consciousness a pattern of delicately suggestive or dynamically piercing symbols with mysterious reverberations, and occasionally giving rise to a chequer of baffling beautiful surrealism. Parts four ...
... lives in particularly good conditions. It is very well taken care of. ( silence ) How is it over there? 6 I have to get used to it.... I find it very difficult to reconcile the inner consciousness with material life. Material life is a dreadful burden to me: all material things are so heavy, so leaden.... I find it very difficult. I can't seem to reconcile the two. Oh!... Did you go... .. But the consciousness of the inner being ultimately gets stronger, you follow? Stronger even than the consciousness of the material being. So the material being can be dissolved, but the inner consciousness remains stronger. It is of that consciousness that we can say, "This is me." Yes. There you are. THAT is the important thing. The important thing. As for me, the purpose of this ...
... receive letters by the dozens, as you know, and each person comes to me with his own little misery or problem, inner or outer (a tiny pimple becomes... a mountain). When people come to me, my inner consciousness always responds in the same way, with a kind of... equality and compassion for all. But when people are talking to me or I am reading a letter and my body grows conscious of what it calls the... of cells fail to respond, and the Force cannot act. So what must be found is.... ( silence ) Even in this, right now, in what I am saying, there's a sense of tapasya; there's the whole inner consciousness making the body do a tapasya. But my knowledge and my certainty (what I KNOW) is Page 101 that it may be a necessary preparation, but it is NOT what accomplishes the work. 15 Rather ...
... sit in his room to meditate and then when he had got into the full swing of the inner consciousness he would come to the general meditation of the evening. In order to keep his room-meditation going he would open only one eye and keep the other shut and come like that all the way so that all of the inner consciousness might not escape, (laughter) With one eye shut, naturally several sorts of disasters ...
... been Self-realisation, there is one part of the being that remains untouched amid the play of the cosmic forces — while if the peace and purity of the self has been established in the whole inner consciousness, then the outer touches of the lower nature can't come in or overpower. Page 222 This is the advantage of Self-realisation preceding the cosmic consciousness and supporting... or external, yet this world here would remain fundamentally the same — there would be a gulf of difference between the Spirit within and its medium and stuff on which it acted, between the inner consciousness and the world in which it is working. The achievement inner, subjective, individual might be perfect, but the dynamic outcome insufficient, disparate, a mixture, not a perfect harmony of the ...
... traditional meditation, when effectively practised, the consciousness of the sadhaka splits into two distinctly different disjoint parts: one the inner one and the other the outer one. The inner consciousness of the sadhaka gets flooded with the downpour of supernal Light and Love and I Peace and Delight, abiding and self-existent, while the outer untransformed life is left outside to fend for... liberation somehow or other acquired. But the Integral Yoga does not favour this kind of escapist spirituality. It demands that the Truth, the Light, the Power, the Bliss realised in the inner consciousness should enter into the outer waking consciousness also and become entirely effective there. Hence for the sadhaka of the Integral Yoga each act of meditation has to be outwardly dynamic and ...
... each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happenings, come across formations, influences, suggestions which belong to these planes." (Ibid. , p. 1500) When experiences of the wandering inner consciousness get transmitted to the obscure layer floating over the deep subconscience in which our physical being seems submerged for the time being, and our physical mind, in a state of sleep-wakefulness... and 'dream-trance' — nidr ā -sam ā dhi and svapna-sam ā dhi — to which we shall allude in the sequel. We have come to know by now that during our body's sleep different parts of our inner consciousness travel to various supra-physical planes, participate in their happenings and bring back their records which, if we remember them aright, we call 'dreams'. Now, believe it or not, this dreaming ...
... things: (i)to make spiritual experiences real to the whole consciousness of man including that of his outer being; (ii)not only to experience the truth subjectively and in one's inner consciousness alone, but to manifest it even in full activity; (iii)an integral possession of the integrality of the Divine in the life of this world and not merely beyond it. In... of physical transformation, which is of all things the 1 The Life Divine, pp. 655-56. 2 Ibid., p. 844. (Italics ours) most difficult, you must have your inner consciousness firmly, solidly established in the Truth Here are her forthright words uttered on another occasion: "You must begin from within. I have said a hundred times, you must begin ...
... Silence, of inner Light and Bliss, of growing inner Knowledge, of increasing inner Power, of the Divine Love, of all the infinite fields of experience that open to one with the opening of the inner consciousness. The true rasa of poetry, painting or any other activity is truly found when these things are part of the working of the Divine Force in you and you feel it is that and it exists in the joy of... for the consciousness to be ready. I cannot quite follow you when you say, "... to show you in what direction you must travel." Does it imply that I should first establish myself in the inner consciousness? But surely that is the primary concern of everyone, as well as mine! Yes, but I was not writing to everyone and everyone had not asked for the রস [rasa] in work. Will it do any harm ...
... restless, irresistible flutterings of the wings', of 'Balaka', the same style shows itself in a fast and almost merry stepping. A restlessness for an uninterrupted forward march of the soul and the inner consciousness to proceed ever still more, still further, still higher is the nature of the divine flame residing in the heart. So the delight of journeying incessantly, without a halt anywhere in any shelter... this urge has reached its acme. It is there that his insight has fully opened up. The poet has attuned all the strings of his Page 188 life-energy to the highest note of his inner consciousness. The realisation is as profound as the language is gathered and condensed, the metre and rhythm too are of the finest and richest quality. Here at least once the glory of a real Epic has shown ...
... what is ka and what kha ?" The Fires replied, "What is ka is kha , what is kha is ka." Both are terms that express the ether pervading life. Ka is the ether of the inner consciousness, kha the ether pervading physical space. Space represents the extension of the life-force. Fire is power, the power that achieves by force of austerity; and life-energy is the expression... moves upward in a spiral curve, it goes on opening the body consciousness wider and wider in a clockwise or right-handed motion: that is the Fire of the Right, the fire of aspiration, in the inner consciousness of which mid-air is the symbol here. It is a right-handed motion because the movement is full of knowledge, instinct with the power of right discrimination, daksa , daksnna, between the truth ...
... is remembrance. You remember what is imbedded or secreted within, you bring to the light, the light of your physical mind, what you have within, what you already possess in your being and inner consciousness. Acquisition is not education. Indeed a miser is not a rich man, rich is he who knows how to utilise his wealth, even so a possessor of much information is only a carrier of loads. True... the mounting fire; they must not be merely piled up upon and around the fire or be as so many wet faggots crushing it down with their weight. A true learner is one who seeks sincerely this inner consciousness which is one's own; the true teacher is one who knows how to lead the learner towards this inner light. Page 40 ...
... But what is ka and what kha ?" The Fires replied, "What is ka is kha, what is kha is ka." Both are terms that express the ether pervading life. Ka is the ether of the inner consciousness, kha the ether pervading physical space. Space represents the extension of the life-force. Fire is power, the power that achieves by force of austerity; and life-energy is the expression of... moves upward in a spiral curve, it goes on opening the body consciousness wider and wider in a clockwise or right-handed motion: that is the Fire of the Right, the fire of aspiration, in the inner consciousness of which mid-air is the symbol here. It is a right-handed motion because the movement is full of knowledge, instinct with the power of right discrimination, dakṣa, dakṣiṇa , between the truth ...
... 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 private and the public sector in modem jargon—is not of today. It is as old as Sophocles... of the cross, you have to choose that or it is imposed upon you. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and in spite of what the world and life are, you can create within you, possess in your inner consciousness something of the divine element, the peace that passeth understanding, the purity and freedom and harmony with oneself and with the entire creation, including even one's neighbours. ...
... has clothed himself in a material form and armed himself with material weapons, you are almost helpless. To save yourself from a physical blow, it is not always enough to have the proper inner consciousness only. Something more is needed. Therefore misery stalks large upon the earth. Nothing comparable to it, either in quality or quantity, can history offer as an example. Man finds no remedy... consciousness and existence. In the present make-up, the body, at a certain stage has to be given up; for the frame becomes too rigid and stiff to keep pace with the growing and fast moving inner consciousness. The thread is taken up again in another life; but there is always a considerable reduplication in this natural process, one has to repeat the stage of babyhood and immaturity, a retempering ...
... not of one piece: the whole of his nature is not worked to the same pitch and amplitude, it is not equally responsive everywhere. Thus, when the psychic brings forward an experience and the inner consciousness is full of the light and energy and joy and faith, even then, in the background or by the side, if you are vigilant and observe carefully, you will see that the mind, the external mind, has... body consciousness, may not at all participate in the experience; it may remain indifferent, listless, lethargic with no impulse or enthusiasm to carry out in practice the experience of the inner consciousness. Any of these drags or cross-currents is sufficient to maim and diminish and finally even wipe out the experience: and usually all the three are there to combine and reinforce each other's ...
... done for you. I think that means keeping always the inner connection with the force within. Yes. Till you become one with the force. All things will be directed from within. The inner consciousness will remain calm and peaceful though for some work you may enter again the outer movement and come back again. I suppose this idea of self will also disappear, for it has no "raison d'etre"... away in the process. This outer being is only the aggregate of what belongs to this life-time with a personality that is not your true personality. How will it disappear ? When the inner consciousness will be fully awake, it will absorb the outer one. Or what cannot be absorbed will be rejected. There is no doubt that the change will occur. You spoke of your experience with Lele.* ...
... Aurobindo : I do not know what it is physiologically, but it is a condition of Tamasic withdrawal into the inner consciousness. It is likely that as the normal functions are suspended the nerves recoup themselves. Disciple : Do you think that such a retirement into the inner consciousness is a necessary condition for maintaining the body ? Sri Aurobindo : No. It is merely a habit, if you ...
... capacities. We would say that the human body holds a marvellous juste milieu. By its solid concreteness it acts as a fortress for the inner consciousness to dwell in safe from easy attacks of the hostiles: it acts also as a firm weapon for the same inner consciousness to cut into the material world and indent and impress its pattern of truth upon an otherwise hard and refractory material made of ignorance ...
... habits – and yet within, when aloof, you are in contact with the deeper and larger breath of the Spirit. The next stage is one of external control and of modification of behaviour. You have the inner consciousness of the spirit grown strong in you and you are no longer a helpless prey to the physical outbursts of inferior nature: a kind of brake has been put upon the outgoing passions. Still at this stage... spiritual life lose all earthly props whenever they wish to lean upon them, they lose their endeared objects whenever they are eager to cherish them. At a certain stage of the growth of the inner consciousness, the demand of the soul makes it impossible for the vital (or physico-vital), so far as it is unpurified and unprepared, to secure its objects: even if the lips yearn, the cup is taken away. ...
... education is remembrance. You remember what is imbedded or secreted with in, you bring to the light, the light of your physical mind, what you have within, what you already possess in your being and inner consciousness. Acquisition is not education. Indeed a miser is not a rich man, rich is he who knows how to utilise his wealth, even so a possessor of much information is only a carrier of loads. True education... to the mounting fire; they must not be merely piled up upon and around the fire or be as so many wet faggots crushing it down with their weight. A true learner is one who seeks sincerely this inner consciousness which is one's own; the true teacher is one who knows how to lead the learner towards this inner light. Page 202 ...
... actions, verifying tangibly that consciousness is a force, a substance , which can be handled as one handles hydroxides or electric fields: If one becomes aware of the Page 57 inner consciousness , wrote Sri Aurobindo, one can do all sorts of things with it, send it out as a stream of force, erect a circle or wall of consciousness around oneself, direct an idea so that it shall enter... in its character. It is the use made of it in the Ignorance by brute, man or Titan that has to be cast aside and replaced by its greater natural – even if to us supernormal – action led by an inner consciousness which is in tune with the Infinite and the Eternal. The integral Yoga cannot reject the works of Life and be satisfied with an inward experience only; it has to go inward in order to change the ...
... circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit in at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done or not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic, this can be increasingly done... ³ Ibid., before text. Page 276 surely be acting for the best and in a greater light than that of ordinary human knowledge.¹ The Mother's sleep is not sleep but an inner consciousness in which she is in connection with people or working everywhere.² 28-9-1936 I had the same kind of violent objection to Gurugiri, but you see I was obliged by the irony of things or ...
... shaking. POLYDAON ( As he speaks, his utterance is hacked by pauses of silence. He seems unconscious of those around him, his being is withdrawing from the body and he lives only in an inner consciousness and its vision. ) I was Poseidon but this moment. Now he departs from me and leaves me feeble: I have become a dull and puny mortal. ( half rising ) It was not I but thou who fearedst ...
... arātīḥ ), against the undivine hosts with their formations of a dark and false creative knowledge, Avidya, illusion, ( adevīr māyāḥ ). For he seizes these invading enemies in the net of the inner consciousness; he is the master of a profounder and truer setting of world-truth and world-experience than that which is formed by the senses and the superficial mind. It is by this inner setting that he seizes ...
... who cannot in a mass give up sex. He is not altogether wrong in thinking that mystical development is possible with sex going on; but this development is only on the plane of the mind and the inner consciousness and that too to a certain extent: the emotional part, the sense-self, the outer consciousness remain gross and the full freedom of the mental and the inner is also never attained or, if attained ...
... elaborated and set forth step by step as follows. Even when the Atman is realised in a universal poise free from the mental-vital-physical nature and there is no sense left of the ego in the inner consciousness, the ego still keeps colouring one's thoughts and impulses and activities. To erase that colour there must be in wake of the realisation of the static Atman a silence imposed by it on all ...
... 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. Interesting it is that even in the most externalised social organisation of the West there is a class system. The fourfold class system (the four forms of the Indian system) has also roots ...
... Dreams come when one is asleep... when one has no longer the waking consciousness; whereas in vision one is in the waking consciousness, but one quietens or immobilises it, and it is another more inner consciousness which awakens.... Vision is another plane of perception which awakes. It is the senses in the mind or vital or physical which wake up and manage to pass their experiences to the outer consciousness ...
... heat is present is often due to a thought-stir or a nervous reaction which builds rhetoric rather than poetry. The impression in general is of a verse drawn not sufficiently from the creative inner consciousness but thrown up from the hasty surface of the excited brain. Something elemental is wanting in the main mass of modern blank verse. The defect may be caused by a predominance of thought-ten- ...
... the seer is not limited by his outward surface or a waking consciousness but has a latent capacity (which can be perfected by training and practice) for entering into the experiences of the inner consciousness of which most people are unaware but which opens by the practice of yoga. By this opening one becomes aware of subtle planes of experience and worlds of existence other than the material. For ...
... from the higher consciousness (lake). Then, the golden light of Supramental Truth spreads all around from the huge figure. This would bring in its wake the increase in the activities of the inner consciousness and progress in sadhana (indicated by the ringing of many bells). ...
... protective sheath of the inner self and absorbs their consciousness into the psychic plane. His hands with their various colours are imbuing each person with various phases of the beautiful inner consciousness. Being tied in the same bundle would suggest that a deep unity and harmony are created and a collective movement made towards a goal which lies far from the outer common world vitalistic activity ...
... refrain; But who gives up this bodily attachment? These words were sung again and again, and were infused with such feeling that they could penetrate the listener's heart and awaken his inner consciousness. The voice came from the window of a house on the riverside. I was attracted to it and felt like going there. While I was wondering which way to go, a student passed by on his way to the ghat ...
... yoga, which teaches the consecration of all one's actions to the Divine, calls for the performance of every act with one-pointed concentration of the outer consciousness on the act and of the inner consciousness on the Divine. Concentrating on the present is particularly stressed in doing work for the Divine. As the Mother has remarked: Your work can never be good if you go on thinking of the next ...
... the right attitude and calls down the Mother's Force into him freely and directly, how does it act to remove his defects? Page 81 Sri Aurobindo: It acts awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them ...
... the physical body — it is only the Page 363 external consciousness which feels like that. As soon as one gets over this feeling of limitation, one can feel first the inner consciousness which is connected with the body, but does not belong to it, afterwards the planes of consciousness above the body, also a consciousness surrounding the body, but part of oneself, part ...
... but by a change of consciousness that one can pass from the ignorance to the Knowledge — the Knowledge by which we become what we know. To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; to widen consciousness out of the limits of the ego and the body; to heighten it by an inner will and aspiration and opening to the Light till it passes in its ascent beyond Mind; to bring ...
... we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.” With my inner consciousness I understood immediately: a few hours later the creation was gone…and from that moment we started anew on other bases. [CWM, Vol. 9, pp. 147-48] The Mother quietly went to her room and dissolved ...
... faithful and go on to the end. You have so often taken that attitude — stand by it, true to the inspiration of your soul. "All can be done by the Divine: the heart and nature purified, the inner consciousness awakened, the veil removed — if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence and even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the more one does so, the more the inner help and guidance ...
... that we want: we want to establish the Supermind upon earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.’ With my inner consciousness I understood at once,” said the Mother. “A few hours later the creation did not exist any more, and from that moment we started upon another foundation.” 12 Had the Mother continued this ...
... how Auroville was going, she answered: ‘Auroville is going well and is becoming more and more real, but its realisation does not proceed in the usual human way and it is more visible to the inner consciousness than to the outer eye.’ 5 ‘Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and ...
... physical mind cannot understand what the Mother does, its values and standards and ideas are not hers.’ And: ‘If people want to understand why the Mother does things, let them get into the same inner consciousness from which she sees and acts.’ Or: ‘The Mother does not act by the mind, so to judge her action with the mind is futile.’ 43 Building a World in Miniature All creation and tran ...
... inward-going. When you shut your eyes let a mantra take shape - the best I can offer is: "Ma-Sri Aurobindo sharanam mama" ("Mother and Sri Aurobindo are my refuge"). I feel sure your way to the inner consciousness will be made smooth and the obstructing force take flight. Furthermore, during your meditation, let the image of Sri Aurobindo's face and that of the Mother's hang before you. with all the a ...
... 28 The whole basis of the Vibrational Theory which you present as the way to supramentalise the body's cells is most shaky in the sense that without a supramentalisation of the inner consciousness one can't hope to supramentalise the body. Of course, by mantra-power one may subtilise the physical being but to supramentalise it is a different cup of tea - or, to hark back to Rigvedic t ...
... borders of vision, Plain as of old to the demigods out of their glory emerging Heard by mortal ears and seen by the eyeballs that perish. Page 59 Then the inner consciousness which these shapes symbolise and focus is evoked, with all its tremendous breadth and plunge: Mighty they came from their spaces of freedom and sorrowless splendour. Sea-vast, ...
... Aurobindo, necessarily includes this experience. When the Overmind came down into his body and the Mother's, the highest range of past realisation of the Immortal Being was compassed not only in the inner consciousness but also in the outermost, with wonderful consequences in the material sheath itself and an earnest of the full and final result which would come by the arrival of the Supramental Truth: ...
... pilgrimage in the summer of 2000. Amal enjoys, gazing at the waves of the Pondicherry sea through the windows of the Nursing Home. During one of my visits, he seemed to plunge into the vast inner consciousness while enjoying the perpetual shore-bound motion of sunlight reflective luminous waves. It has been my privilege to take his photographs during my visits and so many of them have his affectionate ...
... and to become a part of the psychic being.’ (1 July 1970) ‘This body belongs to this, to the earth,’ 39 the Mother said of her gross material body. ‘There is what we might call the “inner” consciousness of the cells and which is fully, fully conscious, but there is something that remains like this,’ 40 like a crust on the surface, untransformable. ‘It will only be the untransformable residue ...
... produces in this part of the mind a sense of exhaustion or of unease or dullness. Trance or Samadhi is a way of escape—the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experience. The disadvantage is, that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved, it remains imperfect. Sri Aurobindo ...
... those who come down upon earth fully conscious and had their consciousness veiled and dulled by the contact of Matter, sleep is often a revelation. Because the body is asleep, inactive, the inner consciousness is more free, and in contact with what it knows more directly.... So all those who have come down upon earth fully developed and fully conscious at night when the body rests, remember what they ...
... This is a way out, but it does not look like the true and only way, nor are the other solutions altogether satisfactory. It is a fact that by excluding the discordant manifestation from our inner consciousness as a superficial externality, by insisting only on the pure and perfect Presence, we can achieve individually a deep and blissful sense of this silent Divinity, can enter into the sanctuary, ...
... s as object to the subject. The more partial view concedes no substantive reality to anything which exists only in the consciousness, or, to put it more accurately, to anything to which the inner consciousness or sense bears testimony but which the outer physical senses do not provide with a ground or do not substantiate. But the outer senses can bear a reliable evidence only when they refer their ...
... reality, but by a change of consciousness that one can pass from the ignorance to the Knowledge—the Knowledge by which we become what we know. To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; to widen consciousness out of the limits of the ego and the body; to heighten it by an inner will and aspiration and opening to the Light till it passes in its ascent beyond Mind; to bring down ...
... spiritual experiences would then be a supramental being; the Asram would be chock-full of supramental beings and every other Asram in India also. Spiritual experiences can fix them selves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self in all and all in the Self, the universal Shakti doing all things; one can feel merged in the Cosmic Self ...
... obscurity remain only on the surface; in this condition the exterior parts can be dealt Page 185 with more potently and they also made free and perfect. The true vital is in the inner consciousness, the external is that which is instrumental for the present play of Prakriti in the surface personality. When the change comes, the true vital rejects what is out of tune with its own truth from ...
... The individual is not limited to the physical body—it is only the external consciousness which feels like that. As soon as one gets over this feeling of limitation, one can feel first the inner consciousness which is connected with the body but does not belong to it, afterwards the planes of consciousness above the body—also a consciousness surrounding the body, but part of oneself, part of the ...
... as in painting and in thought) and grope after a deeper truth of things which is not on the surface. The Dream Consciousness as it is called—meaning not merely what we see in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which we get into contact with deeper worlds which underlie, influence and to some extent explain much in our lives, what the psychologists call the subliminal or the subconscient (the latter ...
... and Italy imposed the foot measure on English; perhaps the hidden seeking for freedom, for elbow-room, for the possibility of a varied rhythmic expression necessitated by the complexity of the inner consciousness might find some vent in a measure which would depend not on feet but on lengths Page 232 and stresses. I have sometimes thought that and it recurred to me while looking at your second ...
... spiritual or external, yet this world here would remain fundamentally the same—there would be a gulf of difference between the Spirit within and its medium and stuff on which it acted, between the inner consciousness and the world in which it was working. The achievement inner, subjective, individual might be perfect, but the dynamic outcome insufficient, disparate, a mixture, not a perfect harmony of the ...
... quiet. The last of the four experiences, that of the being within arranged in layers one under the other like the steps of a ladder, is also very significant and very true. It is so that inner consciousness is arranged. There are five main divisions of this ladder. At the top above the head are layers (or as we call them planes) of which we are not conscious and which become conscious to us only ...
... planes, Prajna or Ishwara = the Superconscient Spirit, Master of all things and the highest Self on which all depends. The Mental cannot be Ishwara. It is the external consciousness, the inner consciousness, the superconscient that are meant [ by vaiśvānara, taijasa and prājña in the Mandukya Upanishad ]. The terms waking, dream, sleep are applied because in the ordinary consciousness of man ...
... stanza I begin to find what seems to me the real poetic touch. The fifth and seventh have the substance and diction of very fine poetry—what I miss is the rhythm that would carry it home to the inner consciousness and leave it with its place permanently there. There seems to be in this technique an unwillingness to get too far away from the characteristic manner of prose rhythm, an unwillingness either ...
... there is the physical Page 68 self-opening to the Divine, then the Divine can intervene. The Will to Surrender All can be done by the Divine, the heart and nature purified, the inner consciousness awakened, the veils removed, if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence—and even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the more one does so, the more the inner help and guidance ...
... constant will towards faith and self-offering. It is understood that it is not possible for the human nature to be always without movements of doubt, obscurity or things not yet offered until the inner consciousness has sufficiently grown to make these impossible. It is because it is so that the will is necessary so that the Force may work to remove these things with full consent and will of the mind and ...
... vital conscious being or Purusha within it, the capacity of the mental energy less than the capacity of the intellectual and emotional soul, the mental Purusha within it. For the soul is the inner consciousness which aspires to its own complete self-realisation and therefore always exceeds the individual formation of the moment, and the Force which has taken its poise in the formation is always pushed ...
... fulfilment and embrace, the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight Page 575 of reunion. The heart is the scene of this supreme idyll of the inner consciousness, but a heart which undergoes increasingly an intense spiritual change and becomes the radiantly unfolding lotus of the spirit. And as the intensity of its seeking is beyond the highest power ...
... but it is quite immaterial whether we regard them as myths or historical facts, because their permanent truth and value lie in their persistence as a spiritual form, presence, influence in the inner consciousness of the race and the life of the human soul. Avatarhood is a fact of divine life and consciousness which may realise itself in an outward action, but must persist, when that action is over and ...
... or else share in the inner vision, whichever may be the thing to be conveyed by the poem. Mystic poetry can be written from any plane, provided the writer gets an inspiration from the inner consciousness whether mind, vital or subtle physical. 20 October 1936 The Aim of the Mystic Poet There are truths and there are transcriptions of truths; the transcriptions may be accurate or may ...
... has been self-realisation, there is one part of the being that remains untouched amid the play of the cosmic forces—while if the peace and purity of the self has been established in the whole inner consciousness, then the outer touches of the lower nature cannot come in or overpower. This is the advantage of self-realisation preceding the cosmic consciousness and supporting it. When there is the ...
... these things, you throw yourself out into a very small and ignorant consciousness in which your vital defects get free play and this is likely to bring you out of what you have developed in your inner consciousness. That was why we said that if you felt a reaction against these things when you went to X 's, it was a sign of (psychic) sensitiveness coming into you—into your vital and nervous being—and we ...
... still rise in you because they have been for so long prominent difficulties and, as far as the first is concerned, because you gave it much justification from the mind at one time. But if the inner consciousness is growing like that they are sure to go. Only if they rise, don't give them harbourage. Perhaps with regard to the greed for food, your attitude has not been quite correct. Greed for food has ...
... entirely inside and lose consciousness of the outside world—this is what people call Samadhi. But it is also necessary to be able to have the same experiences (of the Self, the workings in the inner consciousness etc.) in the waking state. The best rule for you will be to allow the entire going inside only when you are alone and not likely to be disturbed, and at other times to accustom yourself to have ...
... the psychic opening itself. But so also the opening of the higher centres is helpful for the influence of the psychic on the mental being. All the centres have to open, because otherwise the inner consciousness is not opened out and liberated to its full working in all its parts. There is however no invariable rule as to the order of the opening. By concentration on the heart centre that can open ...
... when you feel it only as external, it is because you are very much in the external physical consciousness—but in reality it is there in your inner being working in you. When you recover the inner consciousness, you feel it again within and it wakes in you your own true consciousness, the psychic—and it is only the psychic that gives faith and devotion. It is however a great progress if, even when in ...
... ordinary life, on the personality of the superior, his influence on the subordinates, his firmness, tact, kindness in dealing with them. But the sadhak depends on a deeper force, that of his inner consciousness and the Force working through him. Page 277 [ Discipline: ] To act according to a standard of Truth or a rule or law of action (dharma) or in obedience to a superior authority ...
... foreign to these things. It is only by faith, aspiration and surrender that this self-opening can come. The aim of the Yoga is to open the consciousness to the Divine, to live in the inner consciousness more and more while acting from it on the external life, to bring the inmost psychic into the front and by the power of the psychic to purify and change the being so that it may become ready ...
... nature. If there were not this plasticity and variety, if all had to be cut in the same pattern, Yoga would be a rigid mental machinery, not a living power. When you can sing out of your inner consciousness in which you feel the Mother moving all your actions, there is no reason why you should not do it. The development of capacities is not only permissible but right, when it can be made part of ...
... automatically the true answer and the true guidance. Your mistake is to attach so much importance to the external mind and its ideas and perceptions instead of concentrating on the growth of the inner consciousness. Such [ mental ] questions should not be allowed to stop the flow [ of higher knowledge ]. Afterwards one can consider them and get the answer. The knowledge that comes is not necessarily ...
... them. You know now what this depression and the feelings that come with it are—they are the recurrences of the old unconsciousness attempting to prevent the rapid or full flowering of the inner consciousness which was growing in you. You should therefore not accept the suggestions of the depression or the idea of not being the Mother's. The eye within is growing—it is sure to be full and open after ...
... because when there are letters of this kind I take it as an unburdening of the mind and always either remain silent in so far as it concerns others or else I say that we must rely on the growth of inner consciousness to get rid of the faults and deficiencies and mistakes of the sadhaks. Silence does not imply that these defects and mistakes do not exist. But all have defects in various forms and make mistakes ...
... consciousness was established. That is what I meant. It would seem to me that there would be no impropriety if forms like Pranam, Dhup, Dip or Naivedya are continued even after a true inner consciousness is established. I was thinking not of Pranam etc. which have a living value, but of old forms which persist although they have no longer any value—e.g. Sraddha for the dead. Also here forms ...
... mantra, the expressive sound-symbol of the Brahman Consciousness in its four domains from the Turiya to the external or material plane. The function of a mantra is to create vibrations in the inner consciousness that will prepare it for the realisation of what the mantra symbolises and is supposed Page 825 indeed to carry within itself. The mantra OM should therefore lead towards the opening ...
... raised, I no longer answer them or answer in such a way as to discourage a repetition of any such challenge. If people want to understand why the Mother does things, let them get into the same inner consciousness from which she sees and acts. As to what she is, that also can only be seen either with the eye of faith or of a deeper vision. That too is the reason why we keep here people who have not yet ...
... with the rule of living more and more within, standing back from outward things but not throwing them aside, looking at them with a new consciousness, a new view and acting on them from this inner consciousness is the best way. But there is need for some at some stages to minimise outward contacts without abolishing them during part of the process of this shifting of the consciousness. No absolute rule ...
... practical sadhana. If one develops the occult faculty and the occult experience and knowledge, these things can be of great use, therefore practical. In themselves they are a proof of opening of the inner consciousness and also help to open it farther—though they are not indispensable for that. Those who have the faculty of vision may not use it properly or take full advantage of it. Take X. She claims ...
... that is a ray of the Mother's light, the white light, and the illumining of the heart by this light is a thing of great power for this sadhana. The intuitions she speaks of are a sign of the inner consciousness growing in her—the consciousness which is necessary for Yoga. 28 July 1937 It [ the Mother's light ] is always there in the inner Purusha. That means the light of the divine con ...
... against the obstacles to meditation, ie wandering of the mind, forgetfulness, sleep, physical and nervous impatience and restlessness etc. The second is an increasing purity and calm of the inner consciousness ( citta ) out of which thought and emotion arise; ie a freedom from all disturbing reactions, such as anger, grief, depression, anxiety about worldly happenings etc. Mental perfection and moral ...
... at which there is always something within which in spite of any surface disturbance is always quiet, unshaken, holding on to the Mother—then these things will no longer be able to cloud the inner consciousness as now. Plenty of people have this condition (it is human nature) and there is naturally a way of coming out of it—having full faith in the Mother to quiet the inner mind (even if the ...
... feel at the top of the head the joining with the Brahman, but they are not aware of a consciousness above the head. In the same way in the ordinary Yoga one feels the ascent of the awakened inner consciousness (Kundalini) to the brahmarandhra where the Prakriti joins the Brahman-consciousness, but they do not feel the descent. Some may have had these things, but I don't know that they understood ...
... afraid. The first movement of fear comes automatically. There was a Page 211 great scientist who was also a great psychologist (I don't remember his name now); he had developed his inner consciousness but wanted to test it. So he undertook an experiment. He wanted to know if, by means of consciousness, one could control the reflex actions of the body (probably he didn't go far enough to be ...
... within certain limits and there is a similarity, but even so, it is quite different from what it was at your birth; you may almost say, "It was not I." So much for the physical. Now, take your inner consciousness when you were five and now. Nobody would say it is the same person. And your thoughts, at five and now? All are different. But in spite of everything, what is it that gives you the impression ...
... For like a Yogi an artist goes into deep contemplation to await and receive his inspiration. To create something truly beautiful, he has first to see it within, to realise it as a whole in his inner consciousness; only when so found, seen, held within, can he execute it outwardly; he creates according to this greater inner vision. This too is a kind of yogic discipline, for by it he enters into intimate ...
... not mean that you have become nothing or have become a dead and inert mass. Making yourself an empty vessel, you invite that which shall fill it. It means that you release the stress of your inner consciousness towards realisation. The nature of the consciousness and the degree of its stress determine the forces that you bring into play and whether they shall help and fulfil or fail or even harm and ...
... everywhere in the same way. Difference comes in because between the experience and its formulation there is almost an abyss. Directly you have spiritual experience, which takes place always in the inner consciousness, it is translated into your external consciousness and defined there in one way or another according to your education, your faith, your mental predisposition. There is only one truth, one reality; ...
... with him; when these things are gone, it is well also; he is totally indifferent to both. That is the right attitude: when it is there he uses it, when it is not he does without it. And for his inner consciousness this makes no difference. That surprises you, but it is like that. If one has the power to acquire a lot of money, does this mean that one has a certain control over terrestrial forces? ...
... *The individual is not limited to the physical body—it is only the external consciousness which feels like that. As soon as one gets over this feeling of limitation, one can feel first the inner consciousness which is connected with the body but does not belong to it, afterwards the planes of consciousness above the body—also a consciousness surrounding the body, but part of oneself, part of the ...
... in one's consciousness. This is learnt gradually. One learns to discern among one's ordinary, external movements and the different gradations of the Page 421 movements of one's inner consciousness. And if one continues to do this with a certain persistence, one realises what it is that puts this highest part of one's being into motion, which represents the ideal of the being. There is ...
... by this regular return of circumstances analogous to those in which he was born. And all movements—when you observe them, you become aware that they have a certain rhythm—the movements of inner consciousness, for example, not only from the point of view of understanding but that of personal reactions, of the ups and downs in progress; of a fairly regular periodic return, at once of advancing and ...
... so many things; and this ignorance brings fear. One fears what one does not know. Take a child, if it is brought before someone it does not know (I am not speaking of a child with an awakened inner consciousness, I am speaking of an ordinary child),—you bring it before someone it does not know, its first movement will always be one of fear. Only very rare children—and they have another consciousness—are ...
... prayer, if it is sent forth into the world, does its work. But where is this perfectly pure and true thought when it passes into the human brain? There are degradations. If through an effort of inner consciousness and knowledge, you can truly overcome in yourself a desire, that is to say, dissolve and abolish it, and if through inner goodwill, through consciousness, light, knowledge, you are able to dissolve ...
... outwardly active, how to keep the concentration?... Oh, this should not be very difficult. Truly it should not be very difficult. For me what seems difficult is not to keep a kind of intensity of inner consciousness, to be separated from it; this seems something impossible. Once one catches that within oneself, how can one separate oneself from it, if you have had it once, if it has become a reality for ...
... consciousness can see the play of invisible forces at every step which act on men and bring about events without their knowing about the instrumentation. The difference created by Yoga or by an inner consciousness—for there are people like Socrates who develop or have some inner awareness without Yoga—is that one becomes conscious of these invisible forces and can also consciously profit by them or use ...
... vital being and the physical mind and the secret body-consciousness. It is not to be confused with the subliminal: the subconscient is a nether diminished consciousness, the subliminal is an inner consciousness larger than our surface existence. the subliminal —the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical, with the soul or psychic entity supporting them. The ...
... When one is living in the world, one cannot do as in an Ashram - one has to mix with others and keep up outwardly at least ordinary relations with others. The important thing is to keep the inner consciousness open to the Divine and grow in it. As one does that, more or less rapidly according to the inner intensity of the sadhana, the attitude towards others will change. All will be seen more and more ...
... of one's body is very good. To create order around us helps to create order within us. We should organise our lives not according to outer artificial rules, but according to an organised inner consciousness, for if we let life go on without subjecting it to the control of the higher consciousness, it becomes dispersed and inexpressive. It is a waste of time in the sense that no conscious use is ...
... for news of Auroville, She will answer: Auroville is going well and is becoming more and more real, but its realisation does not proceed in the usual human way and it is more visible to the inner consciousness than to the outer eye. +Jan , 1966 Page 12 ...
... the true union; always you will be divided; you will have at best only glimpses of this greater life. For although certain experiences and realisations may come to you in meditation or in your inner consciousness, your body and your outer life will remain unchanged. An inner illumination that does not take any note of the body and the outer life, is of no great use, for it leaves the world as it is. This ...
... condition of the world, but do not correspond to any deep reality. 2) In the actualities of life the power of a man does not depend on an official title, but on the force and the light of his inner consciousness. I have read your letters and am well satisfied with the confidence you have in your capacity to do the work. It is true that you have the capacity, but you will agree that there is a ...
... around oneself helps to bring order within oneself. One other thing too: One should organize one's life not according to outer and artificial rules, but according to an organized inner consciousness, for if one lets life go without subjecting it to the control of the higher consciousness, it becomes fickle and inexpressive. It is to waste one's time, in the sense that matter remains without ...
... the true union; always you will be divided; you will have at best only glimpses of this greater life. For although certain experiences and realisations may come to you in meditation or in your inner consciousness, your body and your outer life will remain unchanged. An inner illumination that does not take any note of the body and the outer life, is of no great use, for it leaves the world as it is. ...
... forward step, a progress in consciousness, and that frequently corresponds with a crisis, an extremely intense situation when there comes a call in the whole being, a call so strong that the inner consciousness pierces the layers of unconsciousness covering it and is revealed all luminous on the surface. This call of the being, when very strong, can also bring about the descent of a divine emanation ...
... upon the whole process of spiritual development. We speak rather loosely of the 'soul', but Sri Aurobindo has clearly explored and articulated for us the various levels or degrees of inner consciousness, and the methodologies whereby we can grow towards the Divine. In his formulation, the key concept is of what he calls the 'Psychic Being'. As he defines it: What is meant in ...
... principles of this highest development and activity of our nature and the truth of all that lies behind it. Spiritual realisation and experience, an intuitive and direct knowledge, a growth of inner consciousness, a growth of the soul and of an intimate soul-perception, soul- vision and a soul-sense, are indeed the proper means of this evolution: but the support of the reflective and critical reason is ...
... service. You have been and still remain a faithful servitor. Do not worry: f your body is no longer fit for physical work, take advantage of all the time at your disposal to develop your inner consciousness and unite more and more consciously with the Divine. Reading, meditation, contemplation, self-giving, in silence Page 349 and concentration, to the Divine who is always present ...
... There is a sort of abstraction of something (and even that is putting it too concretely). And sometimes it succeeds, the body floats in the Light; sometimes it's only partial. Sometimes all the inner consciousness is there, full and total—but HERE things remain as they are, stupid, stupid, utterly stupid! Blind, in shifting sands, painful (and it's not a thought, it's not even a sensation; I don't know ...
... believe in rebirth? What were we before our present state? Those who have had the memory of past lives have declared the reality of rebirth. There have been—and there still are—beings whose inner consciousness is sufficiently developed for them to know for certain that this consciousness has manifested in bodies other than their present one and that it will survive the disappearance of this body. ...
... step forward; a progress in consciousness, and they frequently result from a crisis, a situation of extreme intensity, when a call surges forth from the whole being, a call so strong that the inner consciousness pierces through the unconscious layers that envelop it and is revealed fully luminous upon the surface. This very strong call of the being can also call forth the descent of a divine emanation ...
... not have a complete knowledge of the classification of the being—the psychic being, the inner Truth were not known to them. These systems had very simplistic notions, such as the outer and the inner consciousness, Page 306 the waking and the sleep consciousness. They had no detailed knowledge of human psychology, or if they had one, they did not think it advisable to impart it to everybody ...
... think of nothing but the future." "Auroville is doing well and growing more and more real. But its realization is not progressing in the habitual human way, and it is more visible to the inner consciousness than to the outer vision." Soon afterwards Something still rather indefinable is happening. The body was in the habit of fulfilling its functions automatically, as something ...
... radical and extreme a phenomenon as the total supramentalisation of the body — a most difficult task which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who were in possession of the entire Supermind in their inner consciousness and had suffused with it even their subtle forms, considered nobody to have done and which they were themselves still seeking to do? With the help of Grace-Light Ramalingam must have had ...
... aratih), against the undivine host with their formations of a dark and false creative knowledge, Avidya, illusion (adevir may ah). "For he seizes these invading enemies in the net of the inner consciousness; he is the master of a profounder and truer setting of world-truth and world-experience than that which is formed by the senses and the superficial mind. It is by this inner setting that he seizes ...
... world, a world devoid of existence, false, empty. Page 478 Mechanical. Yes, with dressed little puppets moving about. It's... nonexistent. Yes, that's right, there's no inner consciousness. It's painful, almost. Yes. ( Soon afterwards, Mother looks at some old letters. ) It's from Y. She'd like to see me, wouldn't she? Yes: "I would really like to see you ...
... experience two days ago, and it taught me a lot—I looked, studied and studied until I had understood. It was during the afternoon rest (I don't sleep at all in the afternoon, but just enter the inner consciousness), and I had decided beforehand that I would "wake up," that is, get up, at such and such a time. When the time came, I was still very much in my action and it went on, the state of consciousness ...
... clear, the shapes very precise. ( silence ) Three or four days ago, after lunch (I rest before going to take my bath, I lie down here), I fell asleep (I sleep very little: I go into an inner consciousness, but I don't sleep). I fell asleep. I woke up, then got up and started towards the bathroom—I felt as I did before: I was walking by myself, I had my balance. And spontaneously, without thought ...
... for a long time, even in the morning, until I was obliged to see people and do things. It was very particular, it's the first time it has happened like that. Which means that this slightly inner consciousness was more concrete than the ordinary consciousness. The funny thing is that this ordinary consciousness, these ordinary things, it's not that they fade away and are effaced: they become... ...
... around oneself helps to put things in order in oneself. Another point: One should organize one's life not according to external and artificial rules, but according to an organized inner consciousness, because if one leaves life alone without imposing on it the control of a higher consciousness, it becomes hazy and inexpressive. It means wasting one's time, in the sense that matter remains ...
... absolutely has to change. And that was so vivid... I was gripped by it all night and all day, even while seeing people, with such an intensity: it must change, it must change.... The being, the inner consciousness can say and be conscious that that suffering is unreal, but the physical consciousness can't—it can't, it HAS to change. It's not a matter of merging with a consciousness, leaving this physical ...
... essentially anti-Aurobindonian in motive and influence no less than anti-Indian in general by his single-tracked drift towards a heart-drying thought-impoverishing "void" in the inner Page 180 consciousness of the mental self. I am sorry if you find me too negative - and sorry too that I have taken up so much space about a matter which may not be of much interest to you. Let me ...
... radical and extreme a phenomenon as the total supramentalisation of the body - a most difficult task which Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who were in possession of the entire Supermind in their inner consciousness and had suffused with it even their subtle forms, considered nobody to have done and which they were themselves still seeking to do? With the help of Grace-Light Ramalingam must have had ...
... theorist to mean "guess-work", but Einstein warns us against equating the theoretical effort to "idle day-dream-ing". 64 A great ardour and rigour of the inner consciousness are needed. And when he asks the theorist to "give free rein" to the faculty which a carping critic might dub "fancy" he exacts "much intense hard thinking" ...
... the inner parts of our being, but in the very physical consciousness and the material organisation of the body. Our body has to be brought into complete harmony with the demands of our own inner consciousness and with the infinite cosmic rhythm. But "that means", in the words of the Mother, "a work in each cell of the body, in each small activity, in each movement of the organs .... You ...
... universal Nature is the miraculous garden of the play that tires never.... This biune being of Purusha-Prakriti is as if a flaming Sun and body of divine Light self-carried in its orbit by its own inner consciousness and power at one with the universe, at one with a supreme Transcendence. Its madness is a wise madness of Ananda, the incalculable ecstasy of a supreme consciousness and power vibrating with ...
... attitude *Detachment and Harmony in Human Relationships *Emotional Security *Faith—a tool to conquer fear *From Darkness to Light—ajourney into facilitation *Growing in the Inner Consciousness *How to Bring up a Child Page 495 *Overcoming the Attitude of Self-Justification *Physical, Vital, Mental and Psychic Clarity—a blueprint for the future *Positive ...
... the meeting and fulfilment and embrace, the pain of separation, the wrath of love, the tears of longing, the increased delight of reunion. The heart is the scene of this supreme idyll of the inner consciousness, but a heart which undergoes increasingly an intense spiritual change and becomes the radiantly unfolding lotus of the spirit. And as the intensity of its seeking is beyond the highest power ...
... that if you have expression and rhythm, you should not only write on things which you feel within you and what you are interested in, you should not only express what is experienced in your inner consciousness and is true to your own self, but you should also express things that don't interest you, you should write in the romantic, erotic, classical, realistic styles for the sake of variety and for ...
... it then her Force alone that works in the actions and do the gunas remain quiescent? No, the gunas are there and not quiescent - for they are the instrumentation. If the force and the inner consciousness are very strong, then there is a tendency for the rajas to become like some inferior form of tapas and the tamas to become more like a kind of inert shama. That is how the transformation begins ...
... New Testament came precisely with the mission of cleaning the Augean stables, in place of the dross and coverings, the false and deformed godheads, to instal something of the purest ray of the inner consciousness, the unalloyed urge of the soul, the demand of our spiritual personality. The Church sought to build up society on that basis, attempting a fusion of the spiritual and the temporal power, so ...
... formative delight; the Indian artist reveals something more than that – the faculty through which he seeks to create is more properly termed vision, not imagination; it is the movement of an inner consciousness, a spiritual perception, and not that of a more or less outer sensibility. For the Indian artist is a seer or rishi; what he envisages is the mystery, the truth and beauty of another world ...
... according to its saṁskāras and conditionings shaped in the lifetime before death." (Translated.) Well, all this relates to the outer cosciousness of the dying man. But what happens to his inner consciousness behind the veil when he is departing? Sri Aurobindo writes: "Sometimes, however, there are signs or fragments of the inner action that come up on the surface, e.g. some people have a vision ...
... were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; whether ...
... in all ages and countries far apart from each other and in systems practised quite independently from each other." 25 The substance of spiritual experience, which takes place always in the inner consciousness, is identical everywhere; only when it gets translated into the external consciousness of the seeker, difference of colour comes in because of the difference of mental language. II. Argument: ...
... 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 trans-cendentalise his being. There must be ...
... Then what did I do? I feel as if my body has become inert, it is not laziness. It is not sleep - you go inside losing the outer consciousness, that is all. The body remains inert — the inner consciousness is elsewhere. Mother, Since 11.30 a.m. today, I feel like crying. Although I am trying to remain calm, I cannot. Mother, I wish to have peace with Thy Grace. Mother, Mother, ...
... as possible, and then offer them to the Divine as a fit instrument for his divine manifestation upon earth. Our aspiration is not merely to enjoy the delight of spiritual realisation in our inner consciousness; what we aim at in our yoga is that our outer nature and being too should fully and integrally participate in the spiritual fulfilment. In the inimitable words of Sri Aurobindo: "...we have set ...
... Divine in the field of earthly existence. A sadhaka of this path cannot therefore consider his sadhana fulfilled, simply when he has achieved union with the Divine in the profundities of his inner consciousness or on the heights of his being, leaving his outer nature imperfect and untransformed. An integrated and well-harmonised simultaneous realisation of divine Being and divine Becoming: such is ...
... detail has to be transformed, to be divinised. Otherwise one will always remain divided. For although certain experiences and realisations may come to the aspirant in meditation or in his inner consciousness, his outer life will remain unchanged. An ideal of this mutilated kind may be good for those who want it, but it is not our Yoga. For we want the divine conquest of this world, the conquest ...
... not remain "limited by his outward surface or waking consciousness". Everyone has "a latent capacity [which can be perfected by training and practice] for entering into the experiences of the inner consciousness' '. (Letters on Yoga, p. 932) The upshot of all this discussion on consciousness is that a particular "seer" focussing his attention on a given object with the employment of a particular ...
... sight, the conditions that have to be fulfilled are: (i) the quietening and the purification of the surface mind and vital; (ii) the opening up of the wall separating the outer mind and the inner consciousness; and, preferably, (iii) the capacity to enter freely within and dwell there at will. In this connection we may read with profit the following letter of Sri Aurobindo addressed to one of his disciples ...
... its itinerary here? Or, who knows, has it any further evolutionary prospect? As Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is a Yoga of Integral Transformation, it is understood that it is not merely the inner consciousness which has to undergo divine transformation, even the outer physical system of man, including all its forms and functions, has to submit itself to the unrelenting process of supramental transformation ...
... science and spirituality. 5. Science and the discovery of the fourth dimension. 6. Discovery of the manifold dimensions of human personality. II. Central Experience of Inner Consciousness: 1. Experience of the true individuality: (a) Experience of the Witness Self. (b) Experience of the Psychic Being in formation. (c) Experience of the discovery ...
... Integral Yoga. And if he can do that, he will find to his happy surprise that the Divine Providence itself will arrange at every moment all that is really good and beneficial to the growth of his inner consciousness. And that is what is most important in life, not the acquisition of outer prosperity and happiness, or the avoidance of what is ordinarily considered as failures and sufferings. For, the object ...
... that is a superficial view of the matter. What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us; but the inner consciousness is not suspended, it enters into new inner activities, only a part of which, a part happening or recorded in something of us that is near to the surface, we remember. There is maintained in sleep ...
... Essentiality of the process of Yoga lies in effecting this reversal. All the various methods of Yoga are basically methods by which our outward consciousness is reversed in such a way that inner consciousness, and inmost consciousness and loftiest consciousness become the object of our consciousness. Sri Aurobindo speaks of sevenfold knowledge in which one can approach the Absolute as the source of ...
... development of the state of equality or samattvam. This is the state where all circumstances, favourable or unfavourable, success or failure, gain or loss, pleasure or pain, — all received by the inner consciousness without like or dislike, unmoved and tranquil, seated high above all happenings, detached with impartial mastery. The second is the knowledge and growth of universal and transcendental consciousness ...
... the inner feeling everything is quite clear. You have to look at it not from the brain but from the solar plexus! Anyhow the rise of light is a spiritual illumination to the silent day of the inner consciousness—the night and the abyss are the outer ignorance, its brief mortal existence, but even there it brings a momentary relief and an after-effect (trace on the clustered memories of the dark outer ...
... difficulties were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must come through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; ...
... force and rasa are there, one Page 98 must keep one's sense of measure. Work is a means of self-dedication to the Divine, but it must be done with the necessary inner consciousness in which the outer vital and physical must also share. A lazy body is certainly not a proper instrument for Yoga, it must stop being lazy. But a fatigued and unwilling body also cannot ...
... at once from the ordinary nature and its actions is obvious. It is lessening, though, after reading your answer, "Detachment is absolutely necessary." But even during the engrossed state, my inner consciousness was rarely allowed to lose itself and suffer. Perhaps there was always one part of my being that kept itself separate. I pray to the Mother to see the plight of her child, and know how much he ...
... through the forehead. It descends swiftly and power-fully. It is the higher consciousness sending its force down into the inner mind centre. In the morning my inner consciousness was lifted up above the head. There if found a plane which was filled with force — a force of great intensity and power. Even the air there was full of fiery vibrations. What was this experience ...
... true that unless the being is filled with peace, there is always a chance of falling? Yes—if the peace is established, then the falls are only on the surface, and do not affect the inner consciousness. Page 123 In one's working time, one's self can experience peace and watch quietly, but mechanical thoughts of an obscure type can still keep running. Is it the vital ...
... (2) to learn by practice to direct that Force towards its object. I don't suppose you will find it easy to do either of these things at once — one must first learn to live more deeply in the inner consciousness than you have done hitherto. At present what I often feel is the silence and the Force. They are the two first things that have to be frequent till they are stabilised ...
... New Testament came precisely with the mission of cleaning the Augean stables, in place of the dross and coverings, the false and deformed godheads, to instal something of the purest ray of the inner consciousness, the unalloyed urge of the soul, the demand of our spiritual personality. The Church sought to build up society on that basis, attempting a fusion of the spiritual and the temporal power, so ...
... consciously to surpass himself, he has begun to do it in the physical field with remarkable results and a great promise. True, there is another factor, indeed the major factor behind, within the inner consciousness of man and within the inner regions of the world. As I have said, it is a revolutionary change there that is forcing itself upon the outside and the surface of existence. Thus ...
... , the Divine in you. The body, the flesh may not continue but the holy light remains. The outward frame may have to yield or dissolve in a material surrounding that was unready—not that the inner consciousness was unready. Indeed the passing body releases the light and it adds to the growing light in the earth's atmosphere. That is the central creed of the Christian martyr. The blood of the martyr ...
... consciously to surpass himself, he has begun to do it in the physical field with remarkable results and a great promise. True, there is another factor, indeed the major factor behind, within the inner consciousness of man and within the inner regions of the world. As I have said, it is a revolutionary change there that is forcing itself upon the outside and the surface of existence. Thus there is a ...
... In Japan she came to the Far East. She spent five years, five long years in that country. Japan is the land of the Zen system of meditation, that is to say, a special way of entering into an inner consciousness, not a rational mental consciousness but a gaze inward into an occult and more sensitive region. The Japanese as a nation represent indeed a very sensitive vitality, an artistic vitality that ...
... to know, has no need of knowing that there is a terrestrial purpose and a diviner fulfilment of the mortal life upon earth. The Vaishnava dwells more or less absorbed in the Vaikuntha of his inner consciousness; the outer world, although real, is only a symbolic shadow-play to which he can but be a witness—real, is only a nothing more. A modern idealist of the type of a reformer would not be satisfied ...
... and should not replace the outer knowledge, but supplement it, both should support and complete each other. But there is a mixture about which you must be very careful. Your silent mind, your inner consciousness receives the necessary knowledge, but as you want to express it or translate in normal terms, that is to say, as your brain gets active again, it may and often does supply its own materials and ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 Here or Elsewhere IT is easy and comfortable to go within and in an inner consciousness find and maintain a union, even a close union with the Divine. It is because of such a state of peace and bliss that many, nay, most who go there do not want to come back, to normal life upon this earth. And teachers, great ...
... sun is visible as such exactly from the point of the North Pole for a while, the ring of the Rishi's utterance is unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but Page 27 refer to a fact of inner consciousness-that is at least what the physical fact conveys to the Rishi and what he seeks to convey and express primarily. Now this is what is sought to be conveyed and expressed. The five movements ...
... consciously to surpass himself, he has begun to do it in the physical field with remarkable results and a great promise. True, there is another factor, indeed the major factor behind, within the inner consciousness of man and within the inner regions of the world. As I have said, it is a revolutionary change there that is forcing itself upon the outside and the surface of existence. Thus there is a twofold ...
... . Man cannot remain idle even for a moment: not only the inferior Nature, but the higher Nature too is always active in him – remember the words of the Gita – though behind the veil, in the inner consciousness. Secondly, if it is really so, if man is not labouring and working and making the attempt, then it must be understood that the time has not yet come for him to undergo the change; he has still ...
... Page 9 not the physical or material object that he means and yet it is that in a way. It is the materialization of something that is fundamentally not material: some movement in an inner consciousness precipitates itself into the region of the senses and takes from out of the material the form commensurable with its nature that it finds there. And there is such a commensurability or p ...
... absolute, follows a single line of movement and possesses a rigidly predetermined disposition. The principle is equally applicable either to a phenomenon of the physical world or to that of man's inner consciousness. But we have arrived today at a stage when this old-world view has perforce to be discarded. We can no longer take Laplace seriously: for scientists themselves have established as a fact ...
... they die their progress does not stop. The body is on the decline, because it cannot keep pace with the inner march forward, it cannot transform itself and mould itself into the rhythm of the inner consciousness. The discrepancy increases so much between the two, that there is a snap at the end and that is death. However, on the purely spiritual level too there is no progress. The domain of the pure ...
... formation. I t means divinisation of the person. The individual divinises Page 7 himself into the individual Divine and then around him, first of all, in his inner consciousness, the frame or field changes also into a divine structure. Thus even the family for such a consciousness changes not only its connotation but even its denotation. We may in this connection remember ...
... possible etc., etc. The task is formidable. And yet that is the thing to be done if you want the body to be transformed. First of all, you must bring the body into complete harmony with the inner consciousness. That means a work in each cell of the body, in each small activity, in each movement of the organs. Only that and nothing more can keep you busy day and night with no other thing to look to ...
... and even of them only of their outer overt activities and manifestations. For behind our conscious physical, vital and mental operations, there is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a deeper and inner consciousness which is subliminal, but it is sometimes called the subconsciousness, because, as already stated, it is behind the threshold of our outer consciousness, and of this subliminal consciousness ...
... "realised" person (siddha puruṣa) the consciousness gets divided into two distinctly separate parts, one the outer superficial one constituting the mind, the vital and the body, the other the inner consciousness where one is in union with the Spirit. This inner one progressively transmits its divine quality even to the outer one, so much so that the surface instruments, including even the physical body ...
... fulfils the nature of the gods. What is externally the sacrifice of physical elements ¹ Gita, III.15 ²Gita, II.10 Page 95 represents aYoga of union in the inner-consciousness. The discipline of human life is also a sacrifice. What is the aim of such a sacrifice? Evolution, ascension, from the little to the vast, from suffering, weakness and ignorance to delight, strength ...
... and reckon our age at less than the true figure. This recourse to a slight falsehood comes. of an attempt to express and maintain the fact of our youth that is still effective in our life and inner consciousness in spite of our years. But the inexorable law of the external physical nature is still in operation; It invades our mind and' afflicts it at times. Moreover, in addition to this resistance in ...
... carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And that is why at times—not unoften—there occurs a crack, a fissure ...
... by itself. By itself, it is nothing. As the Prayer says, "it knows nothing, it can do nothing, it is nothing." This realisation must not be merely a mental perception, a perception in the inner consciousness alone; but the body, the physical existence itself must be conscious and in that consciousness see and experience the truth that by itself it is a void, non-existence: it becomes so however ...
... should not replace, the outer knowledge, but supplement it, both should support and complete each other. But there is a mixture about which you must be very careful. Your silent mind, your inner consciousness receives the necessary knowledge, but as you want to express it or translate in normal terms, that is to say, as your brain gets active again, it may and Page 20 often does ...
... need not fear its shadow or ghostly regeneration. But the ideal which inspired it in secret and justified its advent and reign is a truth that has still its day. The drive of Nature, of the inner consciousness of humanity was always to find a greater and larger unit for the collective life of mankind. That unit today has to be a federation of free peoples and nations. In the place of nations, several ...
... reckon our age at less than the true figure. This recourse to a slight falsehood comes of an attempt to express and maintain the fact of our youth that is still effective in our life and inner consciousness in spite of our years. But the inexorable law of the external physical nature is still in operation. It invades our mind and pains it at times. Moreover, in addition to this resistance in our ...
... 9 September 1946 Mother divine, In spite of enough physical movement, my constipation persists and there is a consequent lethargy in the body. Since my inner consciousness is still subjected to the body, there is often a depression in the vital and mental parts. If a purgative such as Milk of Magnesia is taken, this disturbance may be avoided. But that will mean ...
... impurities of human nature were not traced to their ultimate roots, but lashed or lulled, and left to seethe or slumber in their unlit depths. It was, indeed, deemed an achievement if the inner consciousness could be separated from the turmoil of the outer and launched upon the Infinite,— the outer, thus abandoned and discouraged, usually lapsed into a chafing quiescence or, in some cases, consented ...
... experience and of intuitive knowledge. Above the head is the universal or Divine Consciousness and Force. The Kundalini is the latent power asleep in the Chakras."¹ " It is so that the inner consciousness is arranged. There are five main divisions of this ladder. At the top above the head are layers (or as we call them planes) of which we are not conscious and which become conscious to us only ...
... Mother's Light Divine Union THERE are as many kinds of divine union as there have been mystics to realise it. Any supra-sensible and decisive experience in the inner consciousness is called divine union. Some Yogins, descending into the deeps of their being, realise an ineffable peace and call it divine union, some find themselves engulfed in an illimitable ocean of bliss ...
... therefore called the hidden third method of God — Murarir Tritiya Pantha. It has three stages - Involution, Revolution and Evolution. Firstly, descent of higher consciousness and power in the inner consciousness of man and society. Then there starts an imbroglio, a churning within to create a revolution. After the descent of Supramental Power and Consciousness upon earth we have seen all around us a ...
... five!... So I thought you must have been preoccupied with it since a long time". 27 Such close self-examination, as if one were both witness and judge of the movements and skirmishes in the inner consciousness, can yield beneficial results. "I think," the Mother adds, "that is what the sages of the past meant when they said: 'Know thyself", and she clinches the whole discussion with the exhortation: ...
... It is indeed a vibration with the intensity of a higher fire. The body even felt several times, that it is the equivalent of a fever. 60.1211 We must learn to widen, widen, not only the inner consciousness, but even this conglomeration of cells, to widen this sort of crystallization, if we want to be able to hold this force. I know. Two or three times, I felt that the body was going to burst. I ...
... circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit in at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done or not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic, this can be increasingly done. ...
... breakdown occurs, man will open his eyes to a... rather frightening realization about himself and his condition. He will abruptly find himself as if at the beginning of civilization, but with the inner consciousness of the entire cycle he has undergone. And he will say to himself, "What... what is it?" Page 187 What will he feel he has accomplished? That's when, perhaps, he will come to ...
... the ever undefined and indefinable Absolute, and the proper way to reach him is to get rid of all Page 298 that we have become in the manifestation, not to carry up to it our whole inner consciousness in a combined concentration of the mind's knowledge, the heart's love, the Yogic will, the vital life-force. Especially, bhakti seems inapplicable to the Absolute who is void of every relation ...
... cannot rest satisfied. It must seek always a complete affirmation; it can find it only by a luminous reconciliation. To reach that reconciliation it must traverse the degrees which our inner consciousness imposes on us and, whether by objective method of analysis applied to Life and Mind as to Matter or by subjective synthesis and illumination, arrive at the repose of the ultimate unity without ...
... . There is therefore no reason to suppose that others will be able and you will not be able. The change of the old habitual movements of the nature cannot be done in a single stroke; the inner consciousness has to grow in such a way that finally it occupies the outer being also and renders these things impossible. What I have written to you about these things and the attitude to be taken is the ...
... some instruction in asanas and pranayama. Tell him that this is a different way of Yoga and it does not include Asanas and Pranayam. The seeing of light depends on a certain opening of the inner consciousness—it can come by pranayam or without pranayam. If he does not see, there must be some obstacle not yet removed in himself. But whatever difficulties he has, he should seek their solution from his ...
... Does this consciousness [mentioned in the preceding letter] come only by aspiration or can one have it by following a mental discipline? One starts by a mental effort—afterwards it is an inner consciousness that is formed which need not be always thinking of the Mother because it is always conscious of her. 31 May 1933 We cannot approve of your idea—there are already enough intellectuals ...
... when one is asleep, that is, when one has no longer the waking consciousness; whereas in vision one is in the waking consciousness, but one quietens or immobilises it, and it is another more inner consciousness which awakens; yet one is not asleep, the body is not asleep, it is just made quiet. One can have visions even while remaining active. Some people have visions even amidst activity. Vision ...
... possibility of higher progress, etc... it is a formidable task. And yet, it is that which must be done if one hopes to transform one's body. First it must be put completely in harmony with the inner consciousness. And to do that, it is a work in each cell, so Page 36 to say, in each little activity, in every movement of the organs. With this alone one could be busy day and night without having ...
... the Divine, but has the power to govern the circumstances of life and, in fact, to organise them in spite of the outer will which very often revolts and does not want the circumstances as this inner consciousness—which is fully clear-sighted—has organised them. And it is only much later, when one becomes aware of it and looks back at his life, that one realises that all this was wonderfully organised ...
... it the Mother's Force alone that works in one's actions while the gunas remain quiescent? No, the gunas are there and not quiescent—for they are the instrumentation. If the force and the inner consciousness are very strong then there is a tendency for the rajas to become like some inferior form of tapas and the tamas to become more like a kind of inert shama. That is how the transformation begins ...
... into our eyes. Are these mysteries to remain uninterpreted forever? You have to develop the inner intuitive response first—i.e. to think and perceive less with the mind and more with the inner consciousness. Most people do everything with the mind and how can the mind know? The mind depends on the senses for its knowledge. 10 July 1936 ...
... atmosphere is not easy to keep when one is in constant contact with people who are living in another consciousness—it is only when one has got a complete foundation in the outer as well as the inner consciousness that one can do it completely in all surroundings. That is why the Mother has always insisted on keeping the Asram and the sadhaks as much as possible out of contact with the outer world. ...
... is a difficulty which all have and it can be overcome by patient sadhana and time. One thing these realisations ought to remove from you—the idea of giving up the body. Once there is the inner consciousness established, the possibility of realisation in the outer life [ ] 5 is established also and, whatever the obstacles and difficulties, the disappointments from people or circumstances, the ...
... her dealings with us are divine. How to have a firm conviction of this? It is only if you see the divinity of the Mother that there can be a settled conviction—that is a question of the inner consciousness and vision. 5 June 1937 It seems to me that the part of my external nature which was not accepting the Mother as divine is now being convinced of her divinity. But why do I forget her ...
... important, even fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said to have a great inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated to effect and had great realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature? It does not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute generalisations in this field, because the development of spiritual consciousness is an exceedingly ...
... outward contacts is necessary only in order to help in this—but it is not necessary nor desirable to avoid all contacts with people. What is necessary is to meet these contacts with the right inner consciousness, not throwing yourself out—treating them as things of the surface—not getting attached to them or absorbed by them in any way. 28 October 1933 I wanted to ask you whether what I have said ...
... not pretend to give up desire and keep it in a corner, because then one becomes very unhappy. You must do it sincerely. Source Win Your Little Victories If through an effort of inner consciousness and knowledge, you can truly overcome in yourself a desire, that is to say, dissolve and abolish it, and if through inner goodwill, through consciousness, light, knowledge, you are able to dissolve ...
... 22 September 1934 I found it difficult to read, because the higher consciousness was trying to come down and I felt much pressure on the head. It ought to be possible to read with the inner consciousness looking on and, as it were, seeing the act of reading. In the condition of absolute inner silence I was making speeches and conducting a newspaper, but all that got itself done without any thought ...
... some circumstances might fit in and under others might not fit at all. A general principle can be laid down if it is in consonance with the Truth, but its application must be determined by the inner consciousness seeing at each step what is to be done and not done. If the psychic is uppermost, if the being is entirely turned towards the Mother and follows the psychic, this can be increasingly done. ...
... is it to be kept and changed into the nature of the true vital? In either case, what is the need of an external vital at all if the true vital is already there? The true vital is in the inner consciousness, the external is that which is instrumental for the present play of Prakriti in the surface personality. When the change comes, the true vital rejects what is out of tune with its own truth from ...
... universal and eternal in one’s consciousness. This is learnt gradually. One learns to discern among one’s ordinary, external movements and the different gradations of the movements of one’s inner consciousness. And if one continues to do this with a certain persistence, one realises what it is that puts this highest part of one’s being into motion, which represents the ideal of the being. There is ...
... has to build [against undesirable things]. Consciousness is not something abstract, it is like existence itself or ananda or mind or prāṇa, something very concrete. If one becomes aware of the inner consciousness one can do all sorts of things with it, send it out as a stream of force, erect a circle or wall of consciousness around oneself, direct an idea so that it shall enter somebody’s head in America ...
... constantly in the midst of a whirl of unseen mind-forces and life-forces of which we know nothing, we are not even aware of their existence. To all this unseen movement and action the subliminal inner consciousness can open our awareness, for it has a knowledge of it by direct contact, by inner vision, by a psychic sensitiveness; but at present it can only enlighten our obtuse superficiality and outwardness ...
... were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; ...
... long time before that happens? All depends upon your point of view. For time is relative; you can speak of it from the ordinary external human standpoint or from the deeper viewpoint of an inner consciousness or from the outlook of the Divine. Whether the thing to be done takes a thousand years or only a year according to the human computation, does not matter at all, if you are one with the Divine ...
... see from an external point of view and because matter and its difficulties have never been seriously or thoroughly dealt with up till now. Still internally there has been a progress; in the inner consciousness there have been descents of the Light. But as to any realisation in matter, it is difficult to say anything, because we do not exactly know what might have happened there. Page 39 ...
... become nothing or have become a dead and inert mass. Making yourself Page 281 an empty vessel, you invite that which shall fill it. It means that you release the stress of your inner consciousness towards realisation. The nature of the consciousness and the degree of its stress determine the forces that you bring into play and whether they shall help and fulfil or fail or even harm and ...
... the torture becomes almost unbearable, it is stifling; there is an inner effort to break through and you cannot manage to break through. This also is one of the first signs. It means that your inner consciousness has reached a point where its outer mould is much too small for it—the mould of ordinary life, of ordinary activities, ordinary relations, Page 97 all that becomes so small, so petty; ...
... consciousness you must not play in order to win. You must play for the sake of playing and to learn how to play and to progress in games and in order that your play may become the expression of your inner consciousness at its highest—is this which is important. For example, people who like to play well do not go and choose bad players to play with, simply for the pleasure of winning—they choose those who are ...
... have greater capacities have an over-plus of suffering and misfortune. Page 44 But there are people who are above all misfortune and yet misfortunes exist for them. Why? Because the inner consciousness in them is stronger, more developed than the other consciousness (I do not speak here of "transformed" beings, for in them one can visualise a state of things in which even the physical being ...
... overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and Page 272 the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers. Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; whether ...
... we want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality." With my inner consciousness I understood immediately: a few hours later the creation was gone... and from that moment we started anew on other bases. Well, I announced to you all that this new world was born. But it ...
... with him; when these things are gone, it is well also; he is totally indifferent to both. That is the right attitude: when it is there he uses it, when it is not he does without it. And for his inner consciousness this makes no difference. That surprises you, but it is like that. The Mother Reconquering money for the Mother How can money be reconquered for the Mother? Ah!... There ...
... reality, but by a change of consciousness that one can pass from the ignorance to the Knowledge-- the Knowledge by which we become what we know. To pass from the external to a direct and intimate inner consciousness; to widen consciousness out of the limits of the ego and the body; to heighten it by an inner will and aspiration and opening tthe Light till it passes in its ascent beyond Mind; to bring down ...
... this or puts it more precisely: "A subjective or psychical experience which corresponds to no objective or no physical reality." There could be no better definition of these phenomena of the inner consciousness, which are most precious to man and make him something more than a mere thinking animal. Human reason is so limited, so down to earth, so arrogantly ignorant that it wants to discredit by a ...
... smallest fragment of evidence to disprove these charges which the officials impugned have Page 392 not tried and the Anglo-Indian journals have not been able to disprove. No, the inner consciousness, the subliminal self of Mr. Garth has assured the outer barrister in him of the innocence of Messrs. Clarke, Loghman and Co., and they are acquitted. Mr. Garth is equally cocksure that the Mahomedans ...
... there is no excitement, it is a calm and happy and intense spiritual state or spiritual movement. The joy also should be deep within, then it will not conflict with the deeps of peace and inner consciousness. Shanti is peace or calm—it is not Ananda. There can of course be a calm Ananda. Peace is a sign of mukti—Ananda moves towards siddhi. There are two conditions, one of Ananda ...
... remain outward-going is of great importance—to arrive at the inner call, the inner experience, the inner Presence. The help you ask will be with you. Let the aspiration grow and open the inner consciousness altogether. One has only to aspire sincerely and keep oneself as open as possible to the Mother's Force. Then whatever difficulties come, they will be overcome—it may take some time, but ...
... the very object of this kind of prema-yoga . Again, this method was only applied to the inner, not to a physically embodied Divine and had a reference to certain states and reactions of the inner consciousness in its seeking after the Divine. In the relations with the embodied Divine manifestation, or, I may add, of the disciple with the Guru, such things might rise as a result of human imperfection ...
... are we not to call them experiences? Of course it is an inner sight, an inner feeling, subtle feeling, not material like the feeling of a cold wind or a stone or any other object, but as the inner consciousness deepens it is not less vivid or concrete, it is even more so. In this case what you felt was not an emotion, though something emotional came with it. You felt a condition in the very substance ...
... are only an episode in the journey which will lead to greater progress when they are once over. As for the work, it is a means of preparation, it can also be a means of growing into the inner consciousness. But then it must be done not as work only but as an offering to the Mother, without insisting on the ego, with an aspiration to feel her Force working in one, her Presence presiding over the ...
... work the Self or the Divine demands from us. Until then our life and action can only be a help or means towards finding the Divine and it ought not to have any other purpose. As we grow in the inner consciousness, or as the spiritual Truth of the Divine grows in us, our life and action must indeed more and more flow from that, be one with that. But to decide beforehand by our limited mental conceptions ...
... on everybody or in all conditions and circumstances; it is not a physical but a spiritual Force and its action cannot be reduced to rules. It [ the higher Force ] acts by awakening the inner consciousness gradually or swiftly, by replacing the principle of ego-service by the principle of service of the Divine, by making him watch his actions and see his own defects and pushing him to rectify them ...
... important, even fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said to have a great inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated with effect and had great realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature? It does not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute generalisations in this field, because the development of spiritual consciousness is an exceedingly ...
... Page 65 prevent the ultimate liberation, but does cause delay. Yes—if the peace is established, then the falls [ of consciousness ] are only on the surface and do not affect the inner consciousness. Fall of the concentration happens to everybody—it has not to be taken as if it were something tragic or allowed to be the cause of depression. Fatigue, Inertia and Lowering of the ...
... joy of it or the satisfied peace of the self or sense of wideness or quiet release and freedom. Usually the cessation of the lower activities brings a sense of freedom, release, repose. The inner consciousness does not miss the mental jumpings or the vital swirl—it feels as if the silence were its native element. Emptiness is not in itself a bad condition, only if it is a sad and restless emptiness ...
... that removes obstacles and the horse the force of tapasya that gallops to the summits of the spiritual realisation. The sun is the symbol of the higher Truth. The lotus is the symbol of the inner consciousness. February 1937 I suppose the golden child is the Truth-Soul which follows after the silver light of the spiritual. When it plunges into the black waters of the subconscient, it releases ...
... and physical vital are concerned with the small ordinary movements of life and are governed by a very external view of things and by habitual small reactions and do not respond at once to the inner consciousness not because they are in active opposition to it, as the vital mind and vital proper can be, but because they find it difficult to change their habitual movements. It is this now that you feel ...
... temperament, is another. The first may be a help for developing the other, but it is not the same thing. The Yogic faculty has to be and it can be complete only with a great development of the inner consciousness. To have the true intuition one must get rid of the mind's self-will and the vital's also, their preferences, fancies, fantasies, strong insistences, and eliminate the mental and vital ...
... consciousness possible? and again, is the consciousness synonymous with mind, is all consciousness mental or are other forms of it, supramental or submental, possible? Outer Consciousness and Inner Consciousness Consciousness is inherent in Being, though it is here involved and Page 19 concealed in things so that it has to emerge out of an apparent unconsciousness and organise itself in ...
... caitya puruṣa as the equivalent in Sanskrit of the psychic being. Jivatma is the individual Self—the central being. Caitya puruṣa means rather the Purusha in the cit , the fundamental (inner) consciousness. Jiva is the fundamental, or as we call it, the central being. But the fundamental being is not combined of the mental, vital, psychic etc., these are only expressions of the Jivatman; ...
... supramentalised, we are beyond the Ignorance and conversion of consciousness is no longer needed, though a farther divine progression, even an infinite development is still possible. The inner consciousness means the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical and behind them the psychic which is their inmost being. But the inner mind is not the higher mind; it is more in touch with the universal forces ...
... have been arranged in four parts dealing with these broad subject areas: 1. The Place of Experiences in the Practice of Yoga 2. The Opening of the Inner Senses 3. Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness 4. The Fundamental Realisations of the Integral Yoga The letters in this volume have been selected from the extensive correspondence Sri Aurobindo carried on ...
... special power of its own. Writing and Sadhana Writing by itself on ordinary subjects has the externalising tendency unless one has got accustomed to write (whatever be the subject) with the inner consciousness detached and free from what the outer is doing. Writing and reading absorb the mind and fill it with images and influences; if the images and influences are not of the right kind, they ...
... Consciousness can more easily descend into the body and be felt working there to change the nature. The feeling of your body and eyes being drawn upwards is part of the same movement. It is the inner consciousness in the body and the inner subtle sight in the body that are looking and moving upward and trying to meet the divine consciousness and divine seeing above. Page 421 Yoga means ...
... consciousness in the body itself that refuses to allow these things to impose themselves upon it. But to get that, still more to get it completely is difficult. One step towards it is to get the inner consciousness separate from the body—to feel that it is not you who are ill but it is only something taking place in the body and not affecting your consciousness. It is then possible to see this separate ...
... in this part of the mind a sense of exhaustion or reaction of unease or dullness. Trance or samādhi is a way of escape—the body is made quiet, the physical mind is in a state of torpor, the inner consciousness is left free to go on with its experiences. The disadvantage is that trance becomes indispensable and the problem of the waking consciousness is not solved; it remains imperfect. The Dual ...
... (2) to learn by practice to direct that Force towards its object. I do not suppose you will find it easy to do either of these things at once—one must first learn to live more deeply in the inner consciousness than you have done hitherto. I suppose it must be [ weakness of the will ] because you have not been in the habit of using the will to compel the other parts of the nature—so when you ...
... remedy is (1) to get the higher consciousness, its light and the workings of its power down into the obscurer parts of the nature, (2) to become progressively more conscious in sleep, with an inner consciousness which is aware of the working of the sadhana in sleep as in waking, (3) to bring to bear the waking will and aspiration on the body in sleep. One way to do the last is to make a strong and ...
... of it descended into you by the usual path and filled you with the light. From there it descended into the subconscient and brought the light there. As a result the consciousness (it was the inner consciousness) became like a crystal pillar connecting the heights with the depths, the superconscient with the subconscient. In it the image of the Mother filled with the light in her. You were then shown ...
... within a certain number of years or not at all. There are some who begin to succeed after a few years, some who take longer, succeeding only in work but not in meditation or activity of the inner consciousness, but finally the veiled inner preparation of so many years has prevailed and they begin to get the psychic change, the inner opening of head and heart, the descents, the growth through frequent ...
... small habits of the lower vital being which gather all their strength to resist eviction and try to occupy the consciousness. Page 256 When they come you must learn to detach your inner consciousness from them entirely so that even when they strongly come they will not be able to occupy the consciousness or get any assent. The vital in the physical easily slips back to its old small ...
... effect of the physical consciousness being uppermost (so long as it is not entirely changed) that one feels like this—like an ordinary man or worse, altogether in the outer consciousness, the inner consciousness veiled, the action of Yoga power apparently suspended. This happens in the earlier stages also, but it is not quite complete usually then because something of the mind and vital is active in ...
... experiences of your own inner being which are a thousand times more reliable than this imaginative chit-chat built upon nothing. If the Mother makes you a communication when you are in your inner consciousness, why not put your faith in that Page 41 and not in all this external noise and blather? And who, by the way, told you that the Mother is seeing those for whom she has love and confidence ...
... principles of this highest development and activity of our nature and the truth of all that lies behind it. Spiritual realisation and experience, an intuitive and direct knowledge, a growth of inner consciousness, a growth of the soul and of an intimate soul perception, soul vision and a soul sense, are indeed the proper means of this evolution: but the support of the reflective and critical reason is ...
... many-branching crookedness of thought and will and sense and feeling. Nor can we deal rightly with others so long as they are to us others, beings who are strangers to ourselves and of whose inner consciousness, soul-need, mind-need, heart-need, life-need, body-need we know little or nothing. The modicum of imperfect sympathy, knowledge and good-will that the law, need and habit of association engender ...
... of it made in the Ignorance by brute, man or Titan Page 174 that has to be cast aside and replaced by its greater natural—even if to us supernormal—action led by the Light of an inner consciousness which is in tune with the Infinite and the Eternal. The integral Yoga cannot reject the works of Life and be satisfied with an inward experience only; it has to go inward in order to change the ...
... each must follow his nature, and there are always difficulties that have to be accepted for some time if we are to pursue our natural path of Yoga. Yoga is after all primarily a change of the inner consciousness and nature, and if the balance of our parts is such that this must be done first with an initial exclusiveness and the rest left for later handling, we must accept the apparent imperfection of ...
... beyond as the same Reality becomes realisable to the awakened human soul. Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act puissantly in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness, in his action the most powerful personality that we know of as having lived and produced results upon earth. When we ponder on these things, we begin to perceive how feeble in their self ...
... him and mastering and carrying him blissfully on her bosom for ever. This biune being of Purusha-Prakriti is as if a flaming Sun and body of divine Light self-carried in its orbit by its own inner consciousness and power at one with the universal, at one with a supreme Transcendence. Its madness is a wise madness of Ananda, the incalculable ecstasy of a supreme consciousness and power vibrating with ...
... greatness within it. This is the tragedy of ineffectivity, of the hiatus between ideal and effective will, of our constant incapacity to work out in living form and action the truth we feel in our inner consciousness that pursues all the aspiration of mind and life towards the divinity behind them. But the vijñāna or gnosis is not only truth but truth power, it is the very working of the infinite and divine ...
... the sound, whatever our senses seize, are seen as this Presence; they cease to be physical and are changed into a substance of spirit. This transformation means a transformation of our own inner consciousness; we are taken by the surrounding Presence into itself and we become part of it. Our own mind, life, body become to us only its habitation and temple, a form of its working and an instrument of ...
... forces of darkness, the evolution would become a graded progression from lesser light to greater light; in each stage of it the conscious beings belonging to that stage would respond to the inner Consciousness-Force and expand their own law of cosmic Nature towards the possibility of a higher degree of that Nature. This is at least a strong possibility and might be envisaged as the natural consequence ...
... dharmas , and take refuge in the Divine alone. Free from desire and attachment, one with all beings, living in the infinite Truth and Purity and acting out of the profoundest deeps of his inner consciousness, governed by his immortal, divine and highest Self, all his works will be Page 274 directed by the Power within through that essential spirit and nature in us which, knowing, warring ...
... spiritual experiences would then be a Supramental being; the Ashram would be chockfull of Supramental beings and every other Ashram in India also. Spiritual experiences can fix themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self in all and all in the Self, the universal Shakti doing all things; one can feel merged in the Cosmic Self ...
... turn towards the Infinite, the Eternal, the Divine by a poet drawing upon any source for his inspiration, spiritual poetry will break forth. If one goes below the surface of things into the inner consciousness, mystic poetry will emerge with its subtleties and shadows from any level. No doubt, the Psychic will yield the sweetest secrets of the spiritual and the mystic, and the Overhead the amplest ...
... unexpectedly opened and was rap-turously responding to a never-sleeping eye in the ethereal dis-tances. As soon as we catch the imaginative turn of the lines, our outer eyes tend to shut and the inner consciousness starts enjoying not a landscape or waterscape or skyscape but a soulscape. And the dominant aspect of this soulscape is a bright mono-tone: the lake and the sky and the moon are a spacious ...
... cyclic pilgrimage each individual can hasten in himself if he directs life's pain to a sacred end, "a holy Mecca" of prayer — that is, if he invites it to perform a mystic worship through his inner consciousness. Another remarkable poem tinged by the same mood is "Challenge"; it has, besides, a more personal note: You have done well By having hurled me into such deep hell, Since ...
... green wood. Birds bringing from the depths of dawn Music of God-beatitude. A more typical way of Nirodbaran's of treating Nature is to see her through a strong mood of the inner consciousness and project that mood through the outer eye rather than receive through that eye a picture to create a mood. A faultless snatch of such Nature-poetry is: A smothered sigh is the heavy air ...
... know our nether origins and the origin of the most part of what we are and do. And the Inconscient is not all. For behind our little frontal ego and nature is a whole subliminal kingdom of inner consciousness with many planes and provinces. There are in that kingdom many powers, movements, personalities which are part of ourselves and help to form our little surface personality and its powers and ...
... phenomenon which is now growing, the double or triple samadhi, in which the outside world is experienced accurately in an outer consciousness of sleep, by the sukshma and not the sthula indriya. The inner consciousness remains in swapna, a deeper is in sushupti of some kind, for the most part swapnamaya sushupti. Sometimes the outer world is experienced by the subtle sense with a fringe of waking physical sense ...
... that perish. 1 This is Sri Aurobindo turned Homer—the Indian intimacy with occult presences is riding on the Aegean's "dance of the surges". Now comes Homer turned Sri Aurobindo. The inner consciousness which the depicted superhuman forms and dynamisms 1 P. 4. Page 124 symbolise and focus is evoked with all its tremendous breadth and plunge. The Greek "Immortals" are ...
... the depths of dawn Music of God-beatitude. Page 77 A more typical way of Nirodbaran's of treating Nature is to see her through a strong mood of the inner consciousness and project that mood through the outer eye rather than receive through that eye a picture to create a mood. A faultless snatch of such Nature-poetry is: A smothered sigh is the ...
... A glow means a subdued but rich light or else a sort of warm exhilaration of a luminous kind. The sounds of bells and the seeing of lights and colours are signs of the opening of the inner consciousness which brings with it an opening also to sights and sounds of other planes than the physical. What one sees or hears of the other planes depends on the development of the inner sense.... ...
... - Experience, Transformation, Realisation Spiritual experience means the contact with the Divine in oneself.... Directly you have spiritual experience, which takes place always in the inner consciousness, it is translated into your external consciousness and defined there in one way or another according to your education, faith and mental predisposition. There is only one truth, one reality, ...
... its effect on my body. Does this mean anything? It was not Purani himself, but a force which took his figure, a force of discontent and dissatisfaction and externalisation from the inner consciousness. This tried to touch you and hold you after coming in though unwanted into your (and others') intimate relation within with the Mother. As the Mother disapproved it tried to attack her but ...
... Champaklal got this dream on his birthday. “For me, your dreams are encouraging, inspiring and enlightening. They enhance my faith. “In this dream, I have noticed three things. “One—The inner consciousness can be separated completely from the body. “Two—The Mother's Force is transforming the mind, the vital and the body—particularly the body now. “Three—The many forms of the Mother, here ...
... Champaklal Visions of Champaklal The Vision at Lower Part of Matrimandir 1978-12-07 The smell of various flowers indicates the opening of the inner consciousness. The cutting of heads would indicate the removal of the mind consciousness which is man's ordinary instrument of inquiry and exploration. But behind the mind is the true power of which the mind ...
... presence and the Unseen Force that guides, pulls and charts out the entire course. Champaklal at one stage, the penultimate stage, feels very uneasy and greatly suffocated, indicating that his inner consciousness has reached such a height that it can no longer remain confined or imprisoned in that state ('hall'), because it is not the end of his course. This state of discomfort was finally broken with ...
... degrees somewhere in the middle range. ‘Consciousness is not something abstract, it is like existence itself or ananda or mind or prana , something very concrete. If one becomes aware of the inner consciousness, one can do all sorts of things with it, send it out as a stream of force, erect a circle or wall of consciousness around oneself, direct an idea so that it shall enter somebody’s head in America ...
... difficulties were made to overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must he universal, the central movement may be hers.’ 45 Sri Aurobindo concluded his message for All India Radio as follows: ...
... not success: we want to establish the Supermind on the Earth. One must be capable of renouncing an immediate success to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.” With my inner consciousness I understood immediately — a few hours later, the creation did not exist anymore … And from that moment onwards we have started again on different bases.’ 30 Later the Mother once more ...
... everything; (2) ego, substituting its suggestions for the right answer; (3) mental activity; (4) intruder nuisances. I think you need not be eager for this, but rely on the growth of the inner consciousness. The above is only by way of general explanation. * May 10, 1943 I am writing an article on you for “Aria”. They offered at Almora, as you may remember. They pay handsomely ...
... conscious, meticulous occupation with the body] is an enormous work. Yet, it is what must be done if one hopes to transform one’s body. It must in the first place be put in complete harmony with the inner consciousness. And that requires working in each cell, one might say, in each petty activity, in every activity of the organs.” 11 21 April 1954: “It will take a number of years before we can speak ...
... Towards Purushottama My Pilgrimage to the Spirit May 15, 1932 The aim of the Yoga is to open the consciousness to the Divine, to live in the inner consciousness more and more while acting from it on the external life, to bring the inmost psychic into the front and by the power of the psychic to purify and change the being, so that, it may become ready ...
... mind and heart, I found the pure flame of Truth blazing in its intensity." Gangadhar in Mother India, Mar 1977:176 7. "As the bud blossoms unfolding its petals all around, so the inner consciousness blossomed and expanded in that profound silence. In lonely silence again, I realised the Divine Mother, the Consciousness of all consciousness." Gangadhar in Mother India, Mar 1977:176 ...
... all directions. In the depth of a silence beyond mind and heart, I found the pure flame of Truth blazing in its intensity. As the bud blossoms unfolding its petals all around, so the inner consciousness blossomed and expanded in that profound silence. In lonely silence again, I realised the Divine Mother, the Consciousness of all consciousnesses, manifesting Herself as a luminous young ...
... not Page 197 to call them experience? Of course it is an inner sight, an inner feeling, not material like the feeling of a cold wind, or a stone or any other object but as the inner consciousness deepens it is not less vivid or concrete, it is even more so. "In this case what you felt was not an emotion —.though something emotional came with it — you felt a condition in the very substance ...
... evolving towards a perfection. Now the force that becomes operative in one who takes up the discipline of Yoga helps him to speed up in his being this process of transformation. "But it is your inner consciousness that obeys this accelerating 1 Letters on Yoga, pp. 1561-63. Page 353 impulse; for the higher parts of your being readily follow the swift and concentrated ...
... existence. "In each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happenings, come across formations, influences, suggestions which belong to these planes." 1 When these experiences of the wandering inner consciousness get transmitted to the obscure layer floating over the deep subconscience in which our physical being seems submerged for the time being and our physical mind, 1 Letters on Yoga, ...
... the physical mind whenever it gets divorced Page 155 from the immediate contact with physical things is to fall into the torpor of sleep. For, this is the only type of inner consciousness to which it is ordinarily accustomed. Now, there cannot be any spiritual life unless and until the individual being goes inward, lives within and from within, and transfers the immediate ...
... during the period of our physical sleep. "What is in abeyance is the waking activities, what is at rest is the surface mind and the normal conscious action of the bodily part of us." 1 But the inner consciousness is not in the least negatived or suspended. As a matter of fact what happens in sleep is that our consciousness withdraws from the field of its waking experiences and enters into inner realms ...
... not altogether dynamically effective. Thus a perfect transfiguration of our lower nature is a far cry if we would rely on the spiritual-mental powers alone. We may feel indeed our inner consciousness luminous and liberated and ecstatic, but our outer being and nature will still go on in their old unregenerate way, bringing in periods of dull obscurations and unwanted reactions due to the ...
... identical experience was related to me once more by an old sadhaka a few years later.) And she was staggered! I was thrilled. For this was the experience I had heard so much about of the inner consciousness showing itself distinct and separate from the physical. An experience worth having in these days when consciousness is so triumphantly dismissed by scientific materialism as a function of the ...
... experiences in the past which were clear proof of the capacity for what can be called occult spiritual experience. These things of themselves would in time bring about the necessary growth of the inner consciousness behind the surface which makes for successful concentration and meditation and renders all kinds of inner experience possible. Before coming to the main point I may as well clear ...
... in painting and in thought) and grope after a deeper truth of things which is not on the surface. The Dream consciousness as it is called—meaning not merely what we see in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which we get into contact with deeper worlds which underlie, influence and to some extent explain much in our lives, what the psychologists call the subliminal or the subconscient (the ...
... voluntary intent was the rapidity with which he let the illness develop from a ‘mild infection’ to a fatal condition. A still stronger indication was his surfacing, time and again, from the inner consciousness, where he must have been waging a battle nobody knew of, to the outer consciousness, in a most peculiar uraemic ‘coma.’ The Mother has asserted repeatedly that Sri Aurobindo did not have ...
... that we want, we want to establish the Supermind upon Earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.” With my inner consciousness I understood at once: a few hours later the creation didn’t exist any more, and from that moment we started anew on other foundations.’ 21 In another conversation she said that she undid ...
... wrote: The sketches are all right and will make very nice pictures if you invoke the inspiration. But to invoke the inspiration was no happy-go-lucky state. Once you are merged in the inner consciousness it is difficult to get out of it. Sri Aurobindo has written aptly on inspiration: Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal Knowledge; it exceeds reason ...
... For like a Yogi an artist goes into deep contemplation to await and receive his inspiration. To create something truly beautiful he has first to see it within, to realise it as a whole in his inner consciousness; only when so found, seen, held within, can he execute it outwardly; he creates according to this greater inner vision. This too is a kind of yogic discipline, for by it he enters into intimate ...
... had a communication with Sri Aurobindo: "But you're keeping it up!" he told me. "Your body still has the habit of being tense." (It's much less now, of course; it's quite different since the inner consciousness is in perfect peace, but the BODY keeps the habit of being tense.) For instance, in the short interval between the time I get up and the time I come down to the balcony, 4 when I am getting ...
... written to the effect, 'If Divine Love were to manifest now in all its fullness and totality, not a single material organism would but burst.' So we must learn to widen, widen, widen not only the inner consciousness (that is relatively easy—at least feasible), but even this conglomeration of cells. And I've experienced this: you have to be able to widen this sort of crystallization if you want to be able ...
... back and it has taught me a great deal—I looked, studied and studied until I understood. It was during my afternoon rest (I do not at all sleep in the afternoon, but I go like that into the inner consciousness) and I had fixed beforehand that I would wake up at such an hour, that is to say, I would get up. When it was time, I was deep in the midst of my action and the state of consciousness continued ...
... to awake before the dream concludes or before it begins or in some way preventing the thing forbidden from happening. Also one can develop a more conscious sleep in which there is a sort of inner consciousness which can intervene." 1 Sri Aurobindo June 24, 1934 Now I remember very well! Sri Aurobindo used to read me the things he wrote before sending them. Then, regarding a Playground ...
... say offhand what is meant in The Life Divine without the context being given. In general I should think the expression means four different things. First, the passing from the outer to the inner consciousness, culminating in the discovery of the true soul that is a pure emanation of the Divine. Then, the opening out into the Cosmic Consciousness - the still Self of selves or the dynamic play of a ...
... tune with Sri Aurobindo and the Mother is not a prospect I would encourage. Of course, one may always take an example from whoever you feel is leading a more-than-ordinary life of the inner consciousness, but you should be careful to note that the person is not entrenched bigotedly in any presently prevalent system of creed and dogma and ritual. The living awareness of someone consciously leading ...
... and on working for the world without weeping and lamenting - so great was the suffering because of his struggle with what he called the Abyss. Without the suffering being less real, it is the inner consciousness that keeps one's life sweet. And we have to find the Aurobindonian glory somewhere in us and carry on as best we can. I am glad your Eco-cardiogram finds your heart in good condition ...
... gives you pleasure; you have something tasty in your mouth, it gives you pleasure; anyway, all these little pleasures that are so futile, but help people bear existence. Those who don't have the inner consciousness and the contact with what's behind all that wouldn't be able to live if they didn't have little pleasures. So a host of tiny little problems crop up, problems of material existence, which explain ...
... saw as being possible. No, no! In a day or two, I'll be fine. That's exactly what I wanted. × In the inner consciousness. × India's prime minister, during talks in Tashkent with Ayub Khan for the settlement of the ...
... a Shakti. The first condition is that you must be master of all the movements of Kama, lust. There are many other things. One thing is that there must be complete union on every plane of inner consciousness." ¹ In the early days after the Mother's final arrival in Pondicherry in 1920 her name was still spelt this way according to its original form. She had also not yet taken charge ...
... to break the pattern of the dream; perhaps the reverse would be the true thing to say. The pattern of the dream has the power to break the impulsion — it constantly works to absorb the poet's inner consciousness and that is why he feels a "tension" in the act of speech and the breaking of some vow to remain plunged in the profundities of the Beyond. The tremulousness is not in the dream-pattern as the ...
... self-awareness. One may even affirm that it was as if she had put one foot forward Page 213 from that world into our earth-air and we could touch it not only with our inner consciousness but also with the very brain-mind that deals with the physical world. A vast opening took place in hundreds of us, blending the body-sense itself with her radiant being. With every beat the ...
... want; we want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality." With my inner consciousness I understood immediately: a few hours later the creation was gone...and from ¹. Collected Works of The Mother (CWM), Vol. 9, pp. 147-48. Page 7 that moment we ...
... About Savitri. But the symbol reverberates with other meanings too and can be experienced in other ways. I myself have sometimes experienced this momentous dawn as the re-awakening to inner consciousness within myself and found its stages described with detailed accuracy by Sri Aurobindo's words. On another level, we can understand this passage as describing the condition of the earth before ...
... fight and conquer Death and to find her soul for strengthening this fight, (vi) how in the search for her soul (in that trance-condition) the triple Soul-Forces (not the real soul) from her inner consciousness appeared one by one, each claiming to be her soul and how along with these Soul-Forces the darker forces in action also appeared to resist her. She however solaced them all, saying that she ...
... spiritual experiences would then be a supramental being; the Ashram would be chock-full of supramental beings and every other Ashram in India also. Spiritual experiences can fix themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like; one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self in all and all in the Self, the universal Shakti doing all things; one can feel merged in the Cosmic ...
... condition of the world, but do not correspond to any deep reality. 2) In the actualities of life the power of a man does not depend on an official title, but on the force and the light of his inner consciousness. The Lord and his Shakti God and his devotee The father and his child The master and his disciple The Beloved and Lover The Friend and co-worker The child and his mother A ...
... the fight remained on my body. Does all this mean anything? It was not P himself, but a force which took his figure, a force of discontent and dissatisfaction and externalisation from the inner consciousness. This tried to touch you and hold you after coming in though unwanted into your (and others') intimate relation within with the Mother. As the Mother disapproved it tried to attack her but your ...
... your instrumental capacities, purifying slowly but still steadily the vital weakness, getting much more frequent experiences than before with very promising signs of a stronger entry into the inner consciousness. Here there was no true reason for depression or despair. The reason you now allege are purely mind-made. There is the intellectual doubt about the Divine mingled with the Christian-antichristian ...
... excellent, but often each one of them is made into an exclusive gospel of right education, and in stressing this activity or that, the inner heart of learning is missed, namely, the growth of inner consciousness, inner concentration, and inner life of sincerity. Outer action may and often does help the inner; the outer perfection has undoubtedly to be a part of the total; but the foundation has to be ...
... battle in which we are engaged. And the solution that the Bhagavadgita gives us is a hint of the deepest secret through the help of which the necessary change can be so effected both in our inner consciousness and outer environment that our crisis can be resolved. It may, however, be argued that the highest message of the Gita is relevant only to men like Arjuna or to the masterminds, the great ...
... feeling. But there are occasions and there are critical states of consciousness in which mystic guides and teachers can by mere touch or will power bestow upon the seeker a sudden opening of inner consciousness, and the inner sight and inner audition begin to operate, and the resultant operations can give to the seeker that kind of proof and that kind of certainty which neither our ordinary sense p ...
... divorced from each other. And finally, if we are impartial enough, we have to take note of supraphysical experiences; for then it becomes possible for us to see that we can enter through the inner consciousness into subtler planes of existence and even to the highest and supreme experience of the Infinite. Thus the movement of knowledge must rise higher into the field of spiritual experience to ...
... to its own consciousness as object to subject. There is, indeed, a view which concedes no substantive reality to anything which exists only in the consciousness, or to anything to which the inner consciousness or sense bears testimony but which the outer physical senses do not provide with a ground or do not substantiate. But the outer senses can bear a reliable evidence only when they refer their ...
... of action. At the deepest, or highest, state of Silence, we find the Buddhahood. Thus was it possible for the Buddha to attain the state of Nirvana and yet act in the world, impersonal in his inner consciousness, in his action the most powerful personality we know of as having lived and produced results upon earth... 1.Dhammacakkappavattana-katha, Mahavagga, Part. I (Bom. Uni., 1944), pp. 15-16 ...
... vision of the viewer is liable to get distorted, falsified or even completely checkmated. Thus our mind's throbs and the vitals' heaving's have to be stilled before we can hope to have our inner consciousness awakened and functioning, offering us a vision pure and unclouded. It is worth mentioning at this point that the illuminating light itself may at times act as an obstacle to a more ...
... of these dreams are given here. "It is sometimes said that in a man's sleep his true nature is revealed" 1 , the Mother once remarked, and Sri Aurobindo said in one of his writings, "As the inner consciousness grows by sadhana, these dream experiences increase in number, clearness, coherence, accuracy and after some growth of experience and consciousness, we can, if we observe, come to understand them ...
... excellent, but often each one of them is made into an exclusive gospel of right education, and in stressing this activity or that, the inner heart of learning is missed, namely, the growth of inner consciousness, inner concentration, and inner life of sincerity. Outer action may and often does help the inner; the outer perfection has undoubtedly to be a part of the total; but the Page 186 ...
... Need for the synthesis of science and spirituality. Science and the discovery of the fourth dimension. Discovery of the manifold dimensions of human personality. Central Experiences of Inner Consciousness Experience of true individuality: Experience of the Witness Self. Experience of the Psychic Being in formation. Experience of the discovery of the Psychic Being—experience of the ...
... conceived as a training in certain Do's and Don'ts. It may be mentioned that Do's and Don'ts refer to outer actions; and outer actions derive their value only in relation to the inner motive and the inner consciousness from which they emerge. The given right state of consciousness may express itself in different forms of action, and each of these actions would be right, since behind each one of them there is ...
... not prevent this mishap from happening in my life?" The sadhaka has to banish from his heart this sort of doubting and distressing thought and believe with all the conviction of his inner consciousness that whatever may be the appearance, the divine Grace is indeed always acting, even in the midst of utter sorrows and failures, and turning them into occasions of spiritual fulfilment whose ...
... fact the principle of sadhana that I myself followed and it is the central process of yoga as I envisage it.... "All can be done by the Divine, — the heart and nature purified, the inner consciousness awakened, the veils removed, — if one gives oneself to the Divine with trust and confidence and even if one cannot do so fully at once, yet the more one does so, the more the inner help and ...
... and this is true not only of external shapes, but of the unseen formations of mind and life which we seize only by our thought and those sensible forms of which only the subtle grasp of the inner consciousness can become aware." (The Life Divine, pp. 337-38) But still there has to be a limiting finis to this ascending march of vision and therefore of shapes and forms. When one reaches the ...
... condition in which he was bound neither to rajasic work and mental prattling nor to inactivity and silence, but could do, from the divine realisation, the divine works and speak, from the inner consciousness, of the divine world? If the last, then perhaps, in spite of the dictum, his example at least is rather in my favour.... "It is not the form of the work itself or mere activity but the ...
... of science and spirituality. 5. Science and the discovery of the fourth dimension. 6. Discovery of the manifold dimensions of human personality . II. Central Experiences of Inner Consciousness 1. Experience of true individuality: (a) Experience of the Witness Self. (b) Experience of the Psychic Being in formation. (c) Experience of the discovery of the Psychic Being ...
... the idea? (A. 10): "Those who have had the memory of past lives have declared the reality of rebirth. Page 152 "There have been - and there still are - beings whose inner consciousness is sufficiently developed for them to know for certain that this consciousness has manifested in bodies other than their present one and that it will survive the disappearance of this body." ...
... as a purely mechanical action brought about by the play of Prakriti without any active participation of Purusha. The incommunicability may sometimes be so strong, the gulf separating the inner consciousness and the dynamic outer being so wide that to all outward appearances the seeker may "move about like a thing inert in the hands of Nature, jaḍavat, like a leaf in the wind, or otherwise [in] ...
... prerequisites sufficiently developed, all our external efforts at "doing sadhana" will produce a very meagre result. On the other hand, if we can become sufficiently open and receptive in our inner consciousness, our sadhana cannot but proceed in an unimpeded way, garnering more and more of spiritual wealth. Two different sadhakas may have the same intensity of seeking but there may occur a gulf of ...
... Why is there such a mad revolt in the lower Prakriti? No one has put any pressure there for a change. It is probably after the progress made about the inner consciousness receiving in spite of the inertia that the tamas rose so strongly in order to assert its right to obstruct the progress. 1 Mother India, July 1952, pp. 2-3. Page ...
... I do that? Will this device serve? Will that device help?" You have to develop the inner intuitive response first - i.e. to think and perceive less with the mind and more with the inner consciousness. Most people do everything with the mind and how can the mind know? The mind depends on the senses for its knowledge. I don't feel at all happy, gay or fixed on anything. Almost ...
... Yet this sketch of Sri Aurobindo's daily routine cannot in the least convey an idea of the vast consciousness which was behind everything he did, and we are bound to fail if we try to read his inner consciousness from his outward activities. One day he said: 'All that I see in this room, these walls, these tables, the books, etc. and yourself, Dr. Manilal, I see as the Divine. No, it is not an imaginary ...
... of consciousness that one has to build. Consciousness is not something abstract, it is like existence itself or ananda or mind or prana, something very concrete. If one becomes aware of the inner consciousness, one can do all sorts of things with it, send it out as a stream of force, erect a circle or wall of consciousness around oneself, direct an idea so that it shall enter somebody's head in America ...
... as in painting and in thought) and grope after a deeper truth of things which is not on the surface. The Dream-Consciousness as it is called—meaning not merely what we see in dreams, but the inner consciousness in which we get into contact with deeper worlds which underlie, influence and to some extent explain much in our lives, what the psychologists call the subliminal or the subconscient (the latter ...
... therefore, is not the denial of unity but the affirmation of a real unity that transcends all outer differences. True unity is built upon freedom, not conformity, and is a state of the heart or inner consciousness, not an outer condition of labels and slogans. The West has emphasized external freedom, which has given it a sense of pluralism in the outer aspects of life; Hinduism teaches inner freedom, ...
... (2) to learn by practice to direct that Force towards its object. I don't suppose you will find it easy to do either of these things at once — one must first learn to live more deeply in the inner consciousness than you have done hitherto. In order to get into touch with the true Will power, has not one to start with the mental or vital will? Everybody starts with the mental ...
... being become one? By your becoming conscious in the inner being and living in it, the outer is then only an instrument and as soon as this instrument is filled with what is in the inner consciousness, it becomes a mere prolongation of the inner. When in the state of passivity should I go on observing the movements? You can go on observing and at the same time ...
... named by her: "Opening of the centres." What does the phrase signify? What is meant by "centres"? The centres of consciousness, the chakras. It is by their opening that the Yogic or inner consciousness develops — otherwise you are bound to the ordinary outer consciousness. The more they open, the more the consciousness increases. They are reckoned as six usually — or with ...
... put into them. What do you express through your poetry? I am expressing spiritual truth or spiritual experience. It ought to be possible to read with the inner consciousness looking on and, as it were, seeing the act of reading. In the condition of absolute inner silence I was making speeches and conducting a newspaper, but all that got itself done without any thought ...
... As for the submind etc. these things have a habit of sticking so long as the higher dynamic activities are not established. The main thing is that they should not be allowed to invade the inner consciousness. Is it the mechanical mind in me that keeps the influence of a wrong movement going? That is probably the thing. Any disturbance is taken up by the mechanical ...
... Why does our being sometimes resist actively, sometimes passively? When the struggle is there, it always does like that — there is a fluctuation according as the inner consciousness reacts or not. but that reaction is not always on the surface. It is when one identifies oneself with the exterior consciousness (so that one can say, "There is no hope for ...
... into a lower and more external consciousness because talking comes from the external mind. But it is impossible to avoid it altogether. What you must do is to learn to get back at once to the inner consciousness — this so long as you are not able to speak always from the inner being or at least with the inner being supporting the action. How is one to know whether one's speech is coming ...
... being, but the body was gradually bending down, as ill was in a light sleep. I could remember that you were there. Was that a state of sleep due to a full stomach? You were going into the inner consciousness and away from the outer, that is all. Is that the medical man's explanation of the experience? If a full stomach can produce experiences, you ought perhaps to treble or quadruple your rations ...
... other half is to bring the truth out of its own home and spread abroad, make the universe its own home. In other words, man has learnt to accept or is capable of accepting the reality in his inner consciousness, but only a very faint shadow of it – if anything at all – he has succeeded in establishing as a concrete or physical reality. Man's life, even the life of the very best, is still that of a mortal ...
... side must be at least an aspirant. But I suppose a pupil, so long as he is a child, is a born aspirant. For, as the Mother says, a child's consciousness retains generally something of the pure inner consciousness for sometime at least until it is overshadowed by the development of the body and the mind in the ordinary normal way. Something of this, we know, has been expressed in the famous lines of the ...
... as on earth. You see and feel the sunlight again when you approach the sun and are about to be consumed in its fires. In the same way, we are told that on the spiritual path too, the path of inner consciousness, when you leave the ordinary consciousness, when you lose that normal light and yet have not arrived at the other higher light you grope in an intermediary region of darkness. You have lost ...
... even without your knowing it. When you are in the swimming pool you are soaked all through, aren't you? You can't help it; so here also; even without your knowing it you are soaked with the inner consciousness of your soul. It is a very precious thing — I should say, the only precious thing in the world. And through that, if you study, you learn — if you approach that way, you will get another taste ...
... supposition. Man cannot remain idle even for a moment: not only the inferior Nature, but the higher Nature too is always active in him— remember the words of the Gita—though behind the veil, in the inner consciousness. Secondly, if if is really so, if man is not labouring Page 94 and working and making the attempt, then it must be understood that the time has not yet come for him to undergo ...
... is visible as such exactly from the point of the North Pole for a while, the ring of the Rishi's utterance is unmistakably spiritual, it cannot but Page 360 refer to a fact of inner consciousness—that is at least what the physical fact conveys to the Rishi and what he seeks to convey and express primarily. Now this is what is sought to be conveyed and expressed. The five movements ...
... earth. You see and feel the sunlight again when you approach the sun and are about to be consumed in its fires. In the same way, we are told that on the spiritual path too, the path of the inner consciousness, when you leave the ordinary Page 79 consciousness, when you lose that normal light and yet have not arrived at the other higher light you grope in an intermediary region of ...
... of being and consciousness. The waking state, the dream state and the sleep state. The waking state means the physical consciousness, the material reality, earth. The dream state means the inner consciousness, the world of subtler formations. It is called the mid-world. Further beyond is the sleep-world, where all outer formations and movements are stilled into their fundamental essences. These are ...
... die their progress does not stop. The body is on the decline, because it cannot keep step with the inner march forward, it cannot transform itself and mould itself into the rhythm of the inner consciousness. The discrepancy increases so much between the two, that there is a snap at the end and that is death. However, on the purely spiritual level too there is no progress. The domain of the pure ...
... side must be at least an aspirant. But I suppose a pupil, so long as he is a child, is a born aspirant. For, as the Mother says, a child's consciousness retains generally something of the pure inner consciousness for sometime at least until it is overshadowed by the development of the body and Page 125 the mind in the ordinary normal way. Something of this, we know, has been expressed ...
... great extent as one who was rapt in a state of inwardness and devoid of external and worldly knowledge. Whatever his behaviour in the conduct of daily life, he was marvellously pragmatic in his inner consciousness and in the practice of his spiritual sadhana. Dogmatism, nebulous fantasy and sophistry eclipse the truth, the thing in itself, and in the place of truth a semblance of truth or something quite ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6 HERE OR ELSEWHERE It is easy and comfortable to go within and in an inner consciousness find and maintain a union, even a close union with the Divine. It is because of such a state of peace and bliss that many, nay, most who go there do not want to come back, to normal life upon this earth. And teachers, great or small ...
... to live a particualr life framed by the body, even the mind as well as the life are canalised in the mould of the body consciousness, and yet at the same time one can live in and through the inner consciousness immeasurably innumerably in other bodies, in the unbarred expanse of the cosmic and the transcendent. The two experiences are not contradictory, rather they reinforce each other. Uddhava ...
... the two. At the source when the difference starts, it is a matter of stress and temper and not any so-called division of labour as human mind ordinarily understands it. The soul in its inner consciousness knows all its evolutionary formations, remembers those of the past and foresees those of the future, when needed, and even determines them essentially. The mind ruling one incarnation cannot ...
... to the ordinary level. But if that were the procedure and principle in the past, one need not eternise it into the present and the future. We Believe mankind – a good part of mankind in its inner consciousness – has advanced sufficiently on the vital level as to be able to give a new turn to his life and follow a different course of development. If he has not totally outgrown the animal, at least some ...
... to live a particular life framed by the body, even the mind as well as the life are canalised in the mould of the body consciousness, and yet at the same time one can live in and through the inner consciousness immeasurably, innumerably in other bodies, in the unbarred expanse of the cosmic and the transcendent. The two experiences are not contradictory, rather they reinforce each other. Uddhava ...
... carries within him that radiant core through all the peregrinations of earthly sojourn. And though the frontal consciousness, the physical memory has no contact with it, there is a stream of inner consciousness that continues to maintain the link. That is the silver lining to the dark cloud that envelops and engulfs our normal life. And that is why at times – not unoften-there occurs a crack, a fissure ...
... connaître qu'on est misérable. Pensée fait la grandeur de l'homme. L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, Ie plus faible de la nature, mais e'est un roseau pensant." Page 112 upon his inner consciousness and spiritual achievement, his power of expression, his literary style acquired by that a special quality which is his great gift to the French language. If one speaks of Pascal, one has to speak ...
... as on earth. You see and feel the sunlight again when you approach the sun and are about to be consumed in its fires. In the same way, we are told that on the spiritual path too, the path of inner consciousness, when you leave the ordinary consciousness, when you lose that normal light and yet have not arrived at the other higher light you grope in an intermediary region of darkness. You have lost the ...
... symbols and figures, having not merely a human but a suprahuman significance. The entire Vaishnava Lila takes place not on this earth at all, but eternally in the eternal world of the inner consciousness – cinmaya – behind all earthly (and human) manifestation and expression. It is the cult of the Divine Human which enunciates the mystic truth that Man is greater than all and surpasses ...
... their sleep or dreams. They don't know it and get the disease. Moreover, the physical being is habituated to these things and easily accepts the suggestions; the vital being too. But if the inner consciousness is awake, the suggestions can't act. DR. MANILAL: I don't accept suggestions, Sir. SRI AUROBINDO: Who is "you"? DR. MANILAL: I, Manilal, Sir! (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: Who is Manilal ...
... psychic being. SRI AUROBINDO: It also means the inner physical, the inner vital and the inner mental being. The psychic is the inmost being. NIRODBARAN: A has asked if the gains in the inner consciousness are not to be worked out in the outer being. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, the ultimate aim is to transform the total being and nature. NIRODBARAN: A has requested me to convey his gratitude to you ...
... to know, has no need of knowing that there is a terrestrial purpose and a diviner fulfilment of the mortal life upon earth. The Vaishnava dwells more or less absorbed in the Vaikuntha of his inner consciousness; the outer world, although real, is only a symbolic shadow – play to which he can but be a witness-real, is only a nothing more. A modern idealist of the type of a reformer would not be satisfied ...
... religion are both great in their own respective spheres, but in a sense religion is superior in that its appeal is wider and deeper than that of science. If it is admitted that man has a soul, an inner consciousness, then religion is the best means for this consciousness to develop into a higher state of being. Even scientists in Europe don't make the statement that religion is the root of all evil. Such ...
... is not the only one we possess, for behind it is a vast and deep world of consciousness - which is why it is called the subliminal. What our conscious minds do not know is often known to this inner consciousness, a knowledge which extends even to the future. If you can take hold of a pure strand of this hidden consciousness, then your writing may reveal the past, present or future. But remember, the ...
... exist by itself. By itself, it is nothing. As the Prayer says, "it knows nothing, it can do nothing, it is nothing."1 This realisation must not be merely a mental perception, a perception in the inner consciousness alone; but the body, the physical existence itself must be conscious and in that consciousness see and experience the truth that by itself it is a void, non-existence: it becomes so however only ...
... Aurobindo pure and simple." He replied, "No objection, I only suggested that I don't know who this Sri Aurobindo pure and simple is. If you do, I congratulate you." Far be it from me to read his inner consciousness from his outer activities. Once I asked him to tell me the names of those who were enjoying the Brahmic consciousness so that I could have a practical knowledge of it! He replied, "How can you ...
... the Divine in you. The body, the flesh may not continue but the holy light remains. The outward frame may have to yield or dissolve in a material surrounding that was unready – not that the inner consciousness was unready. Indeed the passing body releases the light and it adds to the growing light in the earth's atmosphere. That is the central creed of the Christian martyr. The blood of the martyr ...
... saints, how they were tempted and obstructed by hostile forces, the armies of the undivine. The great Buddha before his illumination as he sat under the Bo-tree firmly resolved on pursuing in his inner consciousness the path of realisation till the very end, was surrounded – we should say today, 'gheraoed' – by all the varieties of dark forces, forces of ambition, of passion, of attachment, of enjoyment: ...
... soaked all through, aren't you? ¹ Book I, Chapter 1. Page 37 You can't help it; so here also; even without your knowing it you are soaked with the inner consciousness of your soul. It is a very precious thing ― I should say, the only precious thing in the world. And through that, if you study, you learn ― if you approach that way, you will get another ...
... the Vedas. - Jul-Aug Experiences, in a friend* garden in Courseulles, Normandy, 'all the life of that region between the subtle physical and the most material vital' - two planes of her inner consciousness which had seemed unbridgeable. She had worked on this problem for more than six months. 1906 Jul 14-Oct 15 First visit to Tlemcen, Algeria, to study occultism with the Théons. The very ...
... 14 In January 1966, the Mother said. Auroville is going well and is becoming more and more real, but its realisation does not proceed in the usual human way and it is more visible to the inner consciousness than to the outer eye. Mankind was on the march, evolution was active; and Auroville was to keep before it the vision of a new species. "For those who are satisfied with the world as it ...
... near her or not. To be able to see the Mother with ones physical eyes is indeed much, but always the aim should be to transcend Page 692 the physical and learn to see with the inner consciousness and establish thereby a total nearness. It is essentially a spiritual relation that needs to be established, and this is possible even when one is not physically near the Mother. But what ...
... want to establish the Supermind on earth. One must know how to renounce immediate success in order to create the new world, the supramental world in its integrality.'' 17 With her inner consciousness, the Mother at once saw that Sri Aurobindo was right. She returned to her room, concentrated for a few hours and willed the Great Renunciation; and so the new creation that was almost ...
... for us always to be physically conscious of the action, for it is often carried out when the mind is occupied with outward things or when we sleep. The Mother's sleep is not sleep but an inner consciousness in which she is in connection with people or working everywhere. At the time she is aware, but she does not carry all that always into her waking consciousness or in her memory. A call would ...
... nature were not traced Page 38 to their ultimate roots, but lashed or lulled, and left to seethe or slumber in their unlit depths. It was, indeed, deemed an achievement if the inner consciousness could be separated from the turmoil of the outer and launched upon the Infinite,—the outer, thus abandoned and discouraged, usually lapsed into a chafing quiescence or, in some cases, consented ...
... That experience must have Page 27 been the result of long period of spiritual discipline or Yoga. The vision of the All-beautiful must have come to Kabir first in his inner consciousness i.e., as an inner realisation. And then the experience must have become strong enough to influence his outer senses. So that even the physical senses were able to participate in the same vision ...
... were made to be overcome and if the Supreme Will is there, they will be overcome. Here too, if this evolution is to take place, since it must proceed through a growth of the spirit and the inner consciousness, the initiative can come from India and, although the scope must be universal, the central movement may be hers; "Such is the content which I put into this date of India's liberation; ...
... his human nature that will gude you. People mistake when they see a guru and judge him as quite an ordinary person like any other man. But his mind and outer being does not guide; it is the inner consciousness that guides. That is a truth very difficult for the modern mind to understand. Q: Didn't Sri Aurobindo say in his Synthesis of Yoga that it is possible for the person to contact the spirit ...
... remained for a long time, even in the morning, until I was obliged to see people and do things. It was very particular, it's the first time it has happened like that. Which means that this slightly inner consciousness was more concrete than the ordinary consciousness. The funny thing is that this ordinary consciousness, these ordinary things, it's not that they fade away and are effaced: they become... like ...
... to happen to this “bark”? It is the mystery of the last three years of Mother’s life. A more and more acute, painful, almost crying mystery up to that day in 1971 when She exclaimed: The inner consciousness can say and be conscious that that suffering is unreal, but the physical consciousness can't!—it can't, it HAS to change. It's not a matter of entering a consciousness where one leaves this physical ...
... AUROBINDO: It is the small habits of the lower vital being which gather all their strength to resist correction and try to occupy the consciousness. When they come you must learn to detach your inner consciousness from them entirely so that even when they strongly come they will not be able to occupy the consciousness or get any assent. Be sure that all our help will be with you. (6.9.34) ...
... view of sadhana is to use these occasions... as occasions of psychic self-training and the overcoming of things that in the matter of speech stand in the way of a complete harmony between the inner consciousness and the movement of the outer being.... Apart from that, the self-control that is desirable in these surroundings and in the midst of discussion would mean among other things: 1) Not to allow ...
... At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo 20 September 1934 Yes, this is the time when you have to persist till you are quite settled in the inner consciousness and the persistence of the silence and peace is a sign that it is now possible. When one feels this kind of silence, peace and wideness, one may be sure that that is of the true being, the real ...
... entirely inside and lose consciousness of the outside world — this is what people call Samadhi. But it is also necessary to be able to have the same experience (of the Self, the workings in the inner consciousness, etc.) in the waking state. The best rule for you will be to allow the entire going inside only when you are alone and not likely to be disturbed, and at other times to accustom yourself to have ...
... Letters) At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo 08 December 1931 This is the true reply. To remain within, above, and untouched, full of inner consciousness and the inner experience, — listening, when need be, to X or another with the surface consciousness, but with even that undisturbed, not either pulled outwards or invaded, that is the perfect ...
... evolutionary power? It is Shiva's creature. He always puts snakes on his head and around his neck, because it is the power of evolution, of transformation." The chakras are the centres of inner consciousness located in the middle of the subtle body and are attached to the spinal cord. The chakras are normally knotted, it is the awakened Kundalini that unknots each of them as she rises from centre ...
... Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Cosmic Consciousness Letters on Yoga - III Chapter III The Universal or Cosmic Forces The Nature of the Universal or Cosmic Forces Universal forces means all forces good or bad, favourable or hostile... of darkness that move in the cosmos. The cosmic forces here whether good or bad are forces of the Ignorance. Above them is the Truth-Consciousness that can only manifest when ego and desire are overcome—it is the force from the Divine Truth-Consciousness that must descend—the higher Peace, Light, Knowledge, Purity, Power, Ananda must work upon the cosmic forces in the individual so as to change... ordinary working. They [ the cosmic forces ] act on everyone, according to the person's nature—and his will and consciousness. It [ knowledge of the working of the cosmic forces ] is necessary—it comes of itself as one gets more and more forward in the cosmic consciousness. They [ pain and misery ] are perhaps rather the result of the action of universal forces—but in a certain sense ...
... Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences on the Inner Planes Letters on Yoga - III Chapter II Exteriorisation or Going Out of the Body The Experience of Exteriorisation The experience you had was that of exteriorisation or going out of the body... has the capacity to answer. Usually there is a sort of identification of consciousness with that of the person calling so that one can see the surroundings and the things happening through him. It is the physical that becomes nervous at these experiences and this must be overcome; as the inner mental, vital, physical consciousness opens to things behind the thick physical veil all kinds of experiences... one begins, the vital body is at first a little vague and the consciousness also with the result that all is at first dim and unorganised. The serpent must be the Kundalini force which had left its coiled sleeping position in the Muladhara and taken the lengthened one in which it joins the embodied consciousness with the consciousness above. The power of exteriorisation is one that can be used for ...
... Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Cosmic Consciousness Letters on Yoga - III Chapter II Aspects of the Cosmic Consciousness The Cosmic Ignorance and the Cosmic Truth I think you are speaking of two different sides of the cosmic... cosmic consciousness—kept on the spiritualised level, the vision or feeling of the Divine Ananda without seeking for possession or a gross outer enjoyment, it would have established a Yogic consciousness and made a base for knowledge and peace and power and psychic love and surrender to come down. The Cosmic Consciousness and the Physical One cannot be high in the cosmic consciousness unless... cosmic Consciousness, that which is behind all Cosmos and that which is expressed in the apparent universe. There are in the cosmic consciousness two sides—one the contact with and perception of the ordinary cosmic forces and the beings behind these forces, that is what I call the cosmic Ignorance—the other is the perception of the cosmic Truths, the realisation of the one universal, the one universal ...
... Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness The Dangers of Inner and Cosmic Experiences Letters on Yoga - III Chapter II Inner Voices and Indications The Nature of Voices There are many voices, and all are not divine; this may be only a voice of desire. All... aspiration, surrendered, and in time a real guidance from within will come. An inner voice is a voice only—it may give the direction, but not the force. A voice speaks, it does not act. There is a great difference between reading a book [ for guidance ] and receiving the inner direction. The Danger of Following Inner Voices No, these indications of time and these voices were not commands from... they are ready to represent themselves as sanctions of the Mother in her subtle unseen universal Form or Presence. Some they persuade to make not only a distinction but an opposition between their inner Mother who always tells them what they want to hear and the embodied Mother who, they find, is not so complaisant, checks them, corrects their fancies and their errors. At this stage there is the danger ...
... congenial to the poet, is intensity of vision, intensity of word and intensity of rhythm, caught from an inner intuitive consciousness. This consciousness is in touch with a one-yet-manifold universal being as well as with a higher realm of reality whose creative Delight and Truth-Consciousness have manifested all the worlds as its progressive self-expression. On the one side poetry may be called a... '"Poetry is the power of the word; the word that comes accompanied with vision; both the word and the vision mostly rising from their source in a higher consciousness - in Eternity - and coming up not necessarily to amuse, or teach, or earn, but as the inner being's own expressive impulse, an impulse for self-expression seeking liaison with Reality, the meaning of Existence, our real Home, - with Eternity... a happy play of the Gods; on the other it is a great formative and illuminative power. We have to listen to it across a thrilled silence within us, so that what has come from the inner intuitive consciousness of the poet may be received by our own 'soul' and open in us A golden temple-door to things beyond." (27.3.1976) By the grace of the Divine Mother Amal ...
... Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness Experiences of the Inner Consciousness and the Cosmic Consciousness The Dangers of Inner and Cosmic Experiences Letters on Yoga - III Chapter I The Intermediate Zone The Nature of the Intermediate Zone I mean by it [ the intermediate zone ] that when the sadhak gets beyond the barriers... observe one's experiences and try to discriminate and understand,—waiting for two things, the opening of a wider higher consciousness from above and the coming forward of the psychic being from behind. When these two things happen, then the chance of error is diminished and the true inner guidance begins to make itself more and more felt in the sadhana. Lights are of all kinds, supramental, mental, vital... concentration and effort. It is certainly better if the psychic is conscious and active before there is the removing of the veil or screen between the individual and the universal consciousness which comes when the inner being is brought forward in all its wideness. For then there is much less danger of the difficulties of what I have called the intermediate zone. Page 307 ...
... earth-Nature. The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges... the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine. This is the true attitude and only those who can take and keep it, preserve a faith unshaken by disappointments ...
... Page 92 There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical consciousness constituting another or inner self. 44 It is the inner mind just mentioned—which is perhaps what some Zen Masters call "Zen mind" or the "deeper mind"—that is the witness in... Aurobindo's psychological thought, the previously mentioned Sankhya distinction between Purusha and Prakriti is expressed in terms of the inner (or true) being and the outer or surface being. As Sri Aurobindo states: There are always two different consciousnesses in the human being, one outward in which he ordinarily lives, the other inward and concealed of which he knows nothing. 43 ... identified with the mind, one does not have a Page 91 witness consciousness. However, as stared in the previous chapter, there is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a witness consciousness in the mind, also, for he distinguishes two parts of consciousness at each level— physical, vital, mental. One part of consciousness—called Prakriti or Nature—is the part that is active and involved, and is ...
... through their physical senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee." Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness. Therefore one more step has to be taken when the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this physical earth in a concretely material frame. Page 183... the Consciousness is not the normal or mental consciousness, and Delight too is not the joy of life; they are all of quite another quality and category. In other words Purusha is given the exclusive reality, while Prakriti is negated, being identified with unconsciousness and ignorance, is relegated to a status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as maya, the illusory consciousness, the... Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee), she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti). The whole bifurcation between Tantra and Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of Vedanta is taken as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted the fact that ...
... I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee." Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation Page 11 in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness. Therefore one more step has to be taken when the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this physical earth in a concretely material frame. ... Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee), she is the Power of Delight (Hladini Shakti). The Whole bifurcation between Tantra and Vedanta hinges upon one point. The Vedanta overlooked one term of the Truth and missed thereby a whole world of experience and reality. The central term of Vedanta is taken Page 9 as Consciousness, Consciousness pure and simple. It omitted... omitted the fact that Consciousness is also Energy. That Chit is Tapas is the central principle in Tantra. The exclusive stress on Chit, Pure Consciousness, led to the realisation of the Pure Purusha as mere Witness, Observer, a passive consciousness. Subsequently it was also added that the Purusha is not merely a Witness, (s ā k ṣī ), but the Upholder (bhart ā ), even Enjoyer (bhokt ...
... live and experience what lies behind the surface waking consciousness. One comes to discover the astonishing phenomena of the subliminal consciousness in which complexities of the subtle physical consciousness, inner vital consciousness and inner mental consciousness can be experienced and studied. One even comes to acknowledge that there are inner treasures of knowledge, will and feelings of which one... the various layers in the human consciousness, there are, as noted above, not only the operations of the Involutionary Ignorance and of Inconscience; there are also lower states of subconscience which have evolved from the Inconscience. Again, there are, what Sri Aurobindo calls the subliminal levels of consciousness, of the inner physical self, inner vital self and inner mental self (those which are... comprising the material basis and a good part of our life and body; there is the subliminal, which comprises the inner being, taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them; there is this waking consciousness which the subliminal and the subconscient throw up on the surface, a wave of their secret surge. But even this is not an ...
... earth-Nature. The surrender must be total and seize all the parts of the being. It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the inner vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence. There must be in no part of the being, even the most external, anything that makes a reserve, anything that hides behind doubts, confusions and subterfuges... mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple of the Truth, of the inner Warrior who fights against obscurity and falsehood, of the faithful servant of the Divine. This is the true attitude and only those who can take and keep it, preserve a faith unshaken by di... Yoga Maya and works through the ego of the Jiva -in the lower nature. In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; ft is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal ...
... of Nature, of the force of Nature. ( It begins to rain. ) Ah! That is to cool down our minds! ( Laughter ) And that is what he calls "exceeding itself", that is, that the Being, the inner divine Consciousness, the supreme spiritual Reality in its effort to develop... ( It rains harder. ) Oh, oh! We shall have to stop talking... in its effort to develop a conscious means of manifesting itself has... itself more and more to the manifestation of consciousness. And he says here that at first this veil of inert Matter is so total that, to a superficial glance, it is something Page 210 that has neither life nor consciousness. When you pick up a stone and look at it with your ordinary eyes and consciousness, you say, "It has no life, no consciousness." For one who knows how to see behind appearances... of Matter hides the universal Consciousness-Force which works within it, so that the Energy, which is the first form the Force of creation assumes in the physical universe, appears to be itself inconscient and yet does the works of a vast occult Intelligence. " The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, p. 824 I didn't understand, Sweet Mother, what this Consciousness-Force was, so I did not understand ...
... "distance-haunted" character of the mystic mind - the inner consciousness's straining ever beyond the apparent and the immediate - that tends to free it from disturbance by the bodily life's claims and clamours. In the creative field of art with which I am dealing, there is one important thing to remember: every level of consciousness has its own pitch to confer on the aesthetic faculty. And... Poetry of the sort I write - seeking to be in tune with the Aurobindonian Muse - is not always easy to enjoy immediately: one has to live with it for a while, listen to it intently with the inner ear, brood on it with a hushed mind, before it yields fully both its meaning and its vision. One must do these things in reading it because I have done them in writing it. Not that it has not flowed... of spontaneity or, rather, various levels of spontaneity and the levels that give birth to mystical poetry are not easy of access - especially mystical poetry that is not content to mentalise the inner or higher light. To mentalise is not to lessen the poetic quality - it is not the same as intellectualising; it is only to give the substance a particular atmosphere. There can be a great glory of ...
... Since the 15th there has been a whole work of preparation for the transformation. What could one call it?... a transfer of power. The cells, the whole material consciousness obeyed the inner individual consciousness—most often the psychic or the mental (but the mind has been silent since long). But now this material mind is busy organising itself like the other or rather like all the others... no reason to be dissolved unless one chooses it—that has no meaning, it is a meaningless thing: why be dissolved? And if, at the time when one falls back—it is not exactly that—when the old consciousness comes back to the surface, if one is not very careful, that produces naturally a swoon. During oh! it was long the whole time between five o'clock and quarter to six, it was like that. That... all the old way of seeing, feeling, perceiving, is there behind, like a kind of blanket―a blanket of haze, which renders the contact woolly, imprecise. Now that I have regained the ordinary consciousness, I can express the thing; otherwise it would be difficult to express. And the contrast or the opposition is painful, a suffering; both complain: the old has the feeling that it swoons, and the new ...
... for their inner development. And naturally, if you ask the psychic to help you to fashion a pleasant life for yourself, to earn money, have children who will be the pride of the family, etc., well, the psychic will not help you. But it will create for you all the circumstances necessary to awaken something in you so that the need of union with the Divine may be born in your consciousness. At times... your judgment? If you look at it sincerely, you will find out that at each step you do not know. It is only if you have been in the habit of going within yourself, of referring to the inner psychic consciousness and letting it decide in yourself what you want to do, that you do it with certitude, without hesitation, without a question, nothing. You know that this is what must be done and there is... deliberately or consciously. It is through the work of the consciousness which pushes that this kind of thing happens. There is no decision that each element is going to be exactly in this place, like that; it is the effect of the energy which has pushed the fist that organises the elements. But that's how it is. There is the psychic consciousness at work in life, organising all the circumstances of your ...
... the 15th, there has been a whole work of preparation for the transformation.... What could I call it?... A transfer of power. The cells, the whole material consciousness, used to obey the inner individual consciousness—the psychic consciousness most of the time, or the mental (but the mind had been silent for a long time). But now this material mind is organizing itself like the other one, or the other... awakening. There has been a sort of reversal of consciousness. And at night it corresponds to thoroughly strange activities: a completely new way of seeing, feeling and observing people and things. Last night, for example, for over two hours there was a clear vision—an active vision (through action, that is)—of the way in which human consciousnesses make the most simple things complicated and difficult... difficult. It was fantastic—fantastic. And then, this consciousness was spontaneously impelled by the divine Presence, but it followed the others' human movements with the clear perception of the simple thing and of the way in which it becomes complicated. It was symbolic, with images; an activity in images in the sense that it wasn't purely material, physical as we know it here, but in a symbolic, imaged ...
... which can be very inspiring, exalting, informative, powerfully executive. A breaking out into the cosmic consciousness may also bring in an immense enlargement of the consciousness and power. An opening into the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, any range of the subliminal consciousness, can liberate an activity of abnormal or supernormal powers of knowledge, action or experience which the ... of the nature. One must first acquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary view of things, natural movements, motives of life; one must revolutionise the whole present build of our being. Next, we have to go still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and Page 281 in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature... the greater, more perfect goal of our being; for we shall remain content with an approximation and the supreme transformation will escape us. Even the achievement of a complete inner liberation and a high spiritual consciousness is not that supreme transformation; for we may have that achievement, a status perfect in itself, in essence, and still our dynamic parts may in their instrumentation belong to ...
... It is not thoughts she brings, but the higher light, force etc. Does the Mother's Light always remain in the inner being even when due to engrossment in the external activities we do not feel it? It is always there in the inner Purusha consciousness — but identification with the mental, vital and Page 172 physical movements prevents it from being effective... theirs, because they are in the atmosphere. You wrote: "Ask for the consciousness of Her force." Does it mean that I should aspire to the Mother to know about Her force and how and where are its workings in me? Yes — not know with the mind only, but to feel them and see them with the inner experience. Page 169 The year 1934 I do not... dangers. Her concentration is always on help and uplift, not on difficulty and downfall. In the morning, I experience the effect of the Mother's light dynamically. It penetrates the inner as well as the outer being in an intense way. In the evening I feel nothing of the kind. There is only silence. Why so? In the evening the Mother brings down silence, but not the silence ...
... Life Divine, p. 426 . Page 205 self-disciplining we may grow in consciousness in sleep itself so much so that in the end we may follow in uninterrupted awareness our passage through various realms of our inner being and the return journey therefrom. "At a certain pitch of this inner wakefulness this kind of sleep, a sleep of experience, can replace the ordinary subconscious... dislocation of consciousness disappears, and our "sadhana goes on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking." 2 The Lure of the Dream-Consciousness At this point of our discussion we would like to address a note of warning to the seekers after the mastery of their nights. Through a proper cultivation of the fields of sleep-existence, when the inner sleep co... existence. And although it is a fact that in the ordinary undeveloped state of our consciousness most of our sleep-experience remains unknown to our cognition and even the little that manages to reach our recording surface does so in the form of dreams and dream figures and "not in that condition which might be called an inner waking and which is the most accessible form of the trance state," 2 through ...
... your judgment? If you look at it sincerely, you will find out that at each step you do not know. It is only if you have been in the habit of going within yourself, of referring to the inner psychic consciousness and letting it decide in yourself what you want to do, that you do it with certitude, without hesitation, without a question, nothing. You know that this is what must be done and there is... manifest in the outer consciousness; then, at these moments, the whole set of physical circumstances in which one was is kept absolutely intact in the consciousness. Mother, here Sri Aurobindo speaks of "the psychic behind supporting all". What does this mean? Well, yes, the psychic is behind the whole organisation, this triple organisation of human life and consciousness, the psychic is behind... see. And this comes from the same cause: it is cut off from its Origin, with an acute sense of separation which makes one live in an absolutely obscure consciousness which has become totally ignorant, instead of living constantly in the consciousness of one's Origin. Now, to ask why it is like that is to ask too much. That's all? I didn't understand very well, Sweet Mother. You haven't understood ...
... physical mind goes after all sorts of outward things. To fix the consciousness within, to keep it concentrated on the Divine alone is a great difficulty for all, it is what makes sadhana a thing for which long time and a slow development of the consciousness is usually necessary, at first at any rate. So that need not discourage you. In your inner vital there is plenty of strong will and deep down in your... in the throat is the centre of this external mind). So long as that is there the external nature and action remain as they always were and there is no correspondence between it and the inner spiritual consciousness and experience. This cannot disappear by a single experience; a steady will to change is necessary. It means that the outer physical mind has a certain obscurity in it which impedes... the nature, that one has to do the work well oneself but not be troubled by the defects of others in their work, that a quiet inner will for their doing right is more effective than getting vexed and disturbed by their lapses. But fundamentally it is by the widened consciousness in your mind and vital and physical that you will be quite freed from these small reactions. You have only to continue with ...
... it is being borne in upon the modern mind more and more imperatively, this self-consciousness has -to be consciously transcended, lifted, transmuted—worked out into the super-consciousness. Such is Nature's evolutionary nisus and such is the truth and fact man is being driven to face in his inner individual consciousness as well as outer collective life. We can thus note, broadly speaking, three... a reacting and new-creating agent. Man gained the power to shape the order of Nature according to the order of his inner will and consciousness. This creative activity, the activity of the artisan, developed along two lines: first, artisanship with regard to one's own self, one's inner nature and character, and secondly, with regard to the external nature, the not-self. The former gave rise to mysticism... the human consciousness. This super consciousness is based upon a double movement of sublimation and integration which are precisely the two things basically aimed at by present-day psychology to meet the demands of new facts of consciousness. The rationalisation, specialisation or foreshortening of consciousness, mentioned above, is really an attempt at sublimation of the consciousness, its pu ...
... a reacting and new-creating agent. Man gained the power to shape the order of Nature according to the order of his inner will and consciousness. This creative activity, the activity of the artisan, developed along two lines: first, artisanship with regard to one's own self, one's inner nature and character, and secondly, with regard to the external nature, the not-self. The former gave rise to mysticism... it is being borne in upon the modern mind more and more imperatively, this self-consciousness has to be consciously transcended, lifted, transmuted – worked out into the superconsciousness. Such is Nature's evolutionary nisus and such is the truth and fact man is being driven to face in his inner individual consciousness as well as outer collective life. We can thus note, broadly speaking, three... the human consciousness. This super consciousness is based upon a double movement of sublimation and integration which are precisely the two things basically aimed at by present-day psychology to meet the demands of new facts of consciousness. The rationalisation, specialisation or foreshortening of consciousness, mentioned above, is really an attempt at sublimation of the consciousness, its purification ...
... a reacting and new-creating agent. Man gained the power to shape the order of Nature according to the order of his inner will and consciousness. This creative activity, the activity of the artisan, developed along two lines: first, artisanship with regard to one's own self, one's inner nature and character, and secondly, with regard to the external nature, the not-self. The former gave rise to mysticism... it is being borne in upon the modern mind more and more imperatively, this self-consciousness has to be consciously transcended, lifted, transmuted—worked out into the superconsciousness. Such is Nature's evolutionary nisus and such is the truth and fact man is being driven to face in his inner individual consciousness as well as outer collective life. We can thus note, broadly speaking, three... the human consciousness. This superconsciousness is based upon a double movement of sublimation and integration which are precisely the two things basically aimed at by present-day psychology to meet the demands of new facts of consciousness. The rationalisation, specialisation or foreshortening of consciousness, mentioned above, is really an attempt at sublimation of the consciousness, its p ...
... can be brought to the front and made active in the outer field of the sadhaka' s consciousness; (iv)but this psychic emergence is not possible unless the sadhaka undertakes the sadhana of the inwardisation of his consciousness, reaches the psychic centre and is united with it; (v)but this 'entry into the inner countries' is not feasible unless and until the mind and the vital of the sadhaka... supramental change is difficult, distant, an ultimate stage;... it can only come into the View of possibility after much arduous self-conquest and self-exceeding... One must first acquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary view of things, natural movements, motives of life;... "Next, we have to go still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under... break down the limits of the personal mind, life and physicality, dissolve the ego, enter into the cosmic consciousness, realise the self, acquire a Spiritualised and universalised mind and heart, life-force, physical consciousness. "Then only the passage into the supramental consciousness begins to become possible..." (The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 267-68 Paragraphing ours.) (3) "This can ...
... a greater and inner knowledge, consciousness, experience. Any psychic discipline by which we can pass partly or wholly into a spiritual state of consciousness, any spontaneous or systematised approach to the inner Reality or the supreme Reality, any state of union or closeness to the Divine, any entry into a consciousness larger, deeper or higher than the normal consciousness common to humankind... psychology employs subtler inner senses belonging to the subliminal consciousness. Further, unlike modern psychology which relies solely on intellectual reasoning in drawing conclusions from observations, yoga psychology utilises an intuitive perception for assessing the significance and validity of experiences which pertain to non-ordinary states of consciousness and which are therefore sup... y states of consciousness whose view of things often contradicts that of the ordinary consciousness. For example, the ego — that which gives us the sense of being someone who exists in the world and who is separate from everyone and everything else in the world — is an unquestionable fact of experience of our ordinary consciousness. However, in the Nirvana state of consciousness, previously alluded ...
... "There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical consciousness constituting another or inner self. This inner self once awake opens in its turn to our true real eternal self. It opens inwardly to the soul, called in the language of this yoga the psychic being... plaything of the forces of Nature. But the inner or higher being, the deeper consciousness, is the master and builder of our destiny. That is why it is so important to discover this sovereign consciousness and unite with it in order to put an end to all the incoherencies of life and all the conflicts of Nature." 13 "To be aware of one's central consciousness and to know the action of the forces is... Chaitya Purusha, the Purusha in the heart, which constitutes the inmost being, as distinguished from the inner being which consists of Annamaya Purusha (the Purusha in the physical), Pranamaya Purusha (the Purusha in the vital) and Manomaya Purusha (the Purusha in the mental). The outer, the inner and the inmost parts of the being are spoken of in the following extract which alludes to mastery: ...
... have a half-hour of inner absorption. In the meantime you should be more relaxed in your being, with an easy poise affably in touch with the outer world. The outer world begins with your own family with whom you should cultivate cordial relationship as a part of your Yoga. The "fear-complex" will not recur if you have a greater relaxation in your inner-outer consciousness. You have a keen sense... Presence. The pain turns into a short cut - a sharply swift passage to a sacred Sweetness which helps the hidden soul to overflow, as it were, and permeate more and more the outer consciousness, even the bodily consciousness. Thus you have had both the inspired wit and the intuitive wisdom to create out of your Page 54 hardships stepping-stones for a two-way traffic between you and your... in saying that you will have God-realisation. You have put me the question about this most anxiously. If I give some sort of answer, please don't think I am a seer or saint. I can answer from my own inner experiments. It is not possible to say prophetically that you will have God-realisation but you certainly can have it in one particular sense. God-realisation is of various kinds. Briefly ...
... Mother said that since the 15th there was in the process of the transformation of her body what could be called "a transfer of power". Until then "the cells, the whole material consciousness obeyed the inner individual consciousness - most often the psychic or the mental (but the mind has been silent since long) But now this material mind is busy organising itself...." Significantly, unlike the physical... naughty, not because he is afraid of punishment"; and, after, all, what was fear but "a degradation of consciousness". Page 728 After learning to be ashamed of being naughty, the child could be expected to "make further progress and learn the joy of being good". 2 There was an inner law, an inmost truth of things, which prescribed the norms of behaviour; and the problem of education... discrimination leading to self-discipline, which was but another word for self-mastery. Pupils and teachers were alike heirs to infinite liberty, but to follow that path of liberty one must have the consciousness of the Divine Presence in oneself and know that the Divine was present in all others as well. Once this was realised, there would be no danger that liberty might be mistaken for licence or freedom ...
... workings of universal Nature is yet obliged by the character of those workings, avaśaṁ prakṛter vaśāt , to identify itself in its external consciousness with her limiting conditions, to identify itself with a life, mind and body that are oblivious of their inner spiritual reality and of the innate Godhead. To get back to self-knowledge and to the knowledge of the real as distinct from the apparent relations... relations of the soul with Nature, to know God and ourselves and the world with a spiritual and no longer with a physical or externalised experience, through the deepest truth of the inner soul-consciousness and not through the misleading phenomenal significances of the sense-mind and the outward understanding, is an indispensable means of this perfection. Perfection cannot come without self-knowledge... of birth and death, and even in its apparent consciousness here it can become aware of that innate and constant transcendence. What is it then that makes the difference, what is it that gets the soul into the appearance of birth and death and bondage,—for this is patent that it is only an appearance? It is a subordinate act or state of consciousness, it is a self-oblivious identification with the ...
... we have "the lower (inférieur) vital", but in English it is "the inner vital"! Inner? The inner vital? Yes. But here the mistake has been carefully reproduced! This edition is ours. ( Mother shows the book printed at the Ashram Press. ) Exactly! Yes, it is "inner". It is the inner vital. Yes, it should be "inner" here, as "the inner physical". ( Pavitra asks whether the error has been reproduced... achieved once and for all. Sweet Mother, here it is written: "It is not enough that the psychic should respond and the higher mental accept or even the lower 2 vital submit and the inner physical consciousness feel the influence." Does this mean that there is also a higher vital? Yes, the higher vital is usually much less difficult to surrender, for it is under the influence of the mind and... that has no consciousness; and inert, absolutely without any consciousness and any receptivity. It is yet... don't think even a watch, for example, could be called an inert automaton. A watch has something like a soul: a machine, when it is very well made, has something like a soul, it responds, it has a certain receptivity. But the other is something which has no receptivity, no consciousness, and is ...
... quality is what characterises rhythm or style. It' is said that the style is the man. It is really something that belongs to the inner man; in a game, it is a quality of the inner body-consciousness. It needs a harmony between the consciousness of the body and the inner vital being, it implies a natural sense of measure and rhythm. - In our days, we did not know anything of all this. We did have... through sheer genius, that is, by virtue of an innate skill. Without any systematic training or practice on scientific lines, they developed a skill Page 456 in the game through an inner urge or influence. Perhaps all men of genius are creatures of this type. They say this about Napoleon too. He went on winning his victories without end and no one could stop his onward march. The ...
... rise from the chitta, those that rise in the Jivanmukta come straight from the sattva —from the essential consciousness of the being—in other words they are not mental but spiritual formations. As one might say, instead of cittavṛtti they are sattvapreraṇā , direct indications from the inner being of what is to be thought, felt or done. When the chitta is no longer active and the mind silent—which... act only Page 181 on what the Will wants to deal with, not run about in a random manner. When it becomes quiet, it can then go inside and come into contact and unity with the inner physical consciousness. The wideness and peace as it grows can do much to quiet the physical mind and give it an inward source of deeper action. In the human physical mind there is always a tendency not... substance of the lower consciousness, it has no particular place. All things of this life are there in this stuff of consciousness, but the memory of past lives is wrapped up and involved elsewhere. The heart is the main centre of this consciousness for most men, so of course you may feel its activities centred on that level. Chitta really means the ordinary consciousness including the mind, vital ...
... quality is what characterises rhythm or style. It is said that the style is the man. It is really something that belongs to the inner man; in a game, it is a quality of the inner body-consciousness. It needs a harmony between the consciousness of the body and the inner vital being, it implies a natural sense of measure and rhythm. In our days, we did not know anything of all this. We did have the... days, men became champions through sheer genius, that is, by virtue of an innate skill. Without any systematic training or practice on scientific lines, they developed a skill in the game through an inner urge or influence. Perhaps all men of genius are creatures of this type. They say this about Napoleon too. He went on winning his victories without end and no one could stop his onward march. The ...
... in an Avatar. Sri Aurobindo : Aishwarya – power of the divine being – is all right. But it is essentially a consciousness. What external sign can there be of an inner spiritual consciousness ? Disciple : But I suppose these two things : the inner spiritual consciousness of the Divine and the Aishwarya – the powers of God are not incompatible. Sri Aurobindo : Not at all. But... : ours is a plane of evolution On the vital plane there is no evolution. It is a plane of typal beings ; there the consciousness does not evolve from one plane to another. The animal has its consciousness held and imprisoned by the vital ; and when it is ready the consciousness changes to the mental and the animal reincarnates as the human being. Some of our cats are ready for the human birth... 17-8-1926 Disciple : What is the aksara consciousness of which the Gita speaks ? Sri Aurobindo : It is the Immutable, impersonal Brahmic consciousness – it is the basis of calm and equality and universal passivity. It is an aspect of the transcendent,, the Purusottama. Disciple : What is the gain in attaining this consciousness in Sadhana ? Sri Aurobindo : An impersonal ...
... of Consciousness and Transformation of Nature Essays Divine and Human The Way of Yoga Change of Consciousness: The Meaning of Yoga 113 Yoga is a means by which one arrives at union with the Truth behind things through an inner discipline which leads us from the consciousness of the outward and apparent to the consciousness of the inner and... of a greater and inner knowledge, consciousness, experience. Any psychic discipline by which we can pass partly or wholly into a spiritual state of the consciousness, any spontaneous or systematised approach to the inner Reality or the supreme Reality, any state of union or closeness to the Divine, any entry into a consciousness larger, deeper or higher than the normal consciousness common to humankind... and real. Yoga consciousness does not exclude the knowledge of the outer apparent world but it sees it with the eyes of an inner, not an outer seeing and experience, alters and sets right all its values in the light of an inner deeper greater truer consciousness and applies to it the Law of the reality, exchanging the law of the creature's Ignorance for the rule of a divine Will and Knowledge. A change ...
... stated: "One must first acquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary view of things, natural movements, motives of life; one must revolutionize the whole present build of our being. Next, we have to go still deeper, discover Page 33 our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature... of their energies are freely organized and their actuality always possible." 27 Beyond the Overmind is the plenary supramental consciousness. If Overmental consciousness is global in character, the supramental consciousness is integral. The Overmental consciousness is compared by Sri Aurobindo to a Sun and its system shining out in an original darkness of Space and illumining everything as far... supramental consciousness, there is, on the other hand, a plenitude of light, and if it so wills, it can illumine everything integrally. The supramental consciousness is Truth-Consciousness, since it is at once the self-awareness of the Infinite and Eternal and a power of self-determination inherent in that self-awareness. As Sri Aurobindo states: "In Supermind being, consciousness of knowledge ...
... She said this: There has been a whole work of PREPARATION for the transformation. What could I call it?... A transfer of power. The cells, the whole material consciousness, used to obey the inner individual consciousness—the psychic consciousness most of the time, or the mental (but the mind had been silent for a long time). But now this material Mind is organizing itself like the other one, or the other... really “entered,” it is all the opaque layers of consciousness to be traversed: it is only “at the end,” “over there,” on the other side of the sleep of our physical Mind. Once the curtain crossed, it is there , with one’s eyes wide-open, as “objective” as the table or the chair, and even more objective because it has more content of consciousness than a table or a chair: it is denser. I think that... true light, the true consciousness, the true content imposes itself. And it is certain that the more the true vibration becomes evident, visible, the more it will, as if automatically, rectify the false, lying vibration—and the more we will be obliged to be truthful. There will be no possibility of rigging anymore. An enormous step will have been taken in the consciousness , with incalculable c ...
... by the inner plunge of trance." 29 Page 40 Sri Aurobindo has called the subliminal self the inner being as distinguished from the outer or surface being. Thus he states: "There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical consciousness constituting... t; it is Page 39 a meeting-place of the consciousness that emerges from below by evolution and the consciousness that has descended from above for involution. There is in it an inner mind, an inner vital being of ourselves, an inner or subtle-physical being larger than our outer being and nature. ... There is here a consciousness which has a power of direct contact with the universal... the mostly indirect contacts which our surface being maintains with the universe through the sense-mind and the senses. There are here inner senses, a subliminal sight, touch, hearing; but these subtle senses are rather channels of the inner being's direct consciousness of things than its informants: the subliminal is not dependent on its senses for its knowledge, they only give a form to its direct ...
... superficial activity of the physical mind and senses that brings to the surface the submerged or subliminal inner vital consciousness and also an inner or subliminal mental consciousness and sense capable of perceiving and experiencing directly, not only the life forces and their play and results and phenomena, but the mental and psychical worlds and all they contain and the mental activities, vibrations... also and of establishing a direct communication between mind and mind without the aid of the physical organs and the limitations they impose on our consciousness. There are however two different kinds of action of these inner ranges of the consciousness. The first is a more outer and confused activity of the awakening subliminal mind and life which is clogged with and subject to the grosser desires... largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a psychical hearing, touch, smell, taste: indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a projection of Page 875 the inner sense into a limited and externalised operation in and ...
... the inner being, and supporting both of these, the inmost being or the psychic (Fig.l). The outer being and the inner being have three corresponding parts — mental, vital, physical. Thus "There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical consciousness constituting... being and the inner being described previously belong to Prakriti. Behind the outer mind and the inner mind, the outer vital and the inner vital, the outer physical and the inner physical, lies the true being, the Purusha, in the form of "an inmost Page 345 mental, vital, physical, more specifically called the true mind, the true vital, the true physical consciousness". 23 The psychic... place on any plane of the being. Usually it is in the inner mental that this separation first happens and it is the inner mental Purusha who remains silent, observing the Prakriti as separate from himself. But it may also be the inner vital Purusha or inner physical or else without location simply the whole Purusha consciousness separate from the whole Prakriti. Sometimes it is felt above ...
... made in it. You can breathe.... It was a totally, totally material and cellular action.¹ ... A transfer of power. The cells, the whole material consciousness, used to obey the inner individual consciousness—the psychic consciousness most of the time, or the mental (but the mind had been silent for a long time). But now this material mind is organizing itself like the other one, or the other... the content of those words. Whereas when it is a direct action (Mother makes a gesture of inner communication), it is very precise.' The advent of this New Consciousness may be regarded as a crucial development of the Mother's yoga of the Body. Indeed, this consciousness was the supramental consciousness working through an intermediate body—a body, human in origin but thoroughly purified and refined... substance was the result of an inner law or an inner movement which, at that time, was not in question. At least it is quite clear that the values are different. When I came back, along with the memory of the experience, I knew that the supramental world was permanent, that my presence there is permanent, and that only a missing link is needed to allow the consciousness and the substance to connect—and ...
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