... perturbs the being with rajasic or egoistic suggestions or excites the lower nature, then it is an adverse Force. The Forces of the Lower Nature and the Hostile Forces There are [ at work in the world ] the higher forces of the Divine Nature—the forces of Light, Truth, divine Power, Peace, Ananda—there are the forces of the lower nature which belong either to a lower truth or to ignorance and error—there... hostile forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature—it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard the siddhi. It has been said as long... whole aim is to maintain the reign of Darkness, Falsehood, Death and Suffering as the law of life. The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are antidivine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess ...
... excuse. The Yogis of other Yogas do at least try to keep the lower nature quiet by tapasya; they do not think it quite the right and normal thing to indulge it. If the rule of this Yoga is to change the lower nature, those who follow it must similarly try to do that, not consider it the right and normal thing to indulge the lower nature. Many sadhaks here do not seem to care for any psychic... prominent. If the prominence of the lower nature is a good reason for not trying to live the Yogic life instead of the ordinary one, then it is also a good reason for not doing Yoga at all. The business of the seeker of Yoga is to overcome the lower nature, and for that he must try to lead the Yogic life and not sit contentedly in the lower nature. Under such conditions how are... keep the mind quiet and let direct, intuitive observation and understanding grow in you. Sadhaks and the Lower Nature People say that the Yogis of other Yogas can lead a better life with less difficulty. For they seldom need to touch their lower nature. They merely keep it quiet by the force of their higher or inner being. Since they consider the world as Maya, these Yogis ...
... we face time and again surging in our lower nature. Almost at all times we identify ourselves in our ignorance with the demands of the lower nature, and consequently pain, misery, grief and all their accompaniments affect us willy-nilly. But for our identification with the demands, we could have safely steered through. The demands of the lower nature are infinite in number and kind; and one... whose destiny and end are still unintelligible to hunch-backed, groping and ancient Man. THE DEMANDS OF THE TRUTH-SOUL AND THE LOWER NATURE The title of this article consists of a contradiction in terms. There are demands of the lower nature and they are observed now and again by the Sadhakas; but to speak of the demands of the Truth-Soul is altogether untrue. For the Truth-Soul... own course, and its movements are dictated only by itself. There is a why for everything of the lower nature — movements and all — because there is a nature above the lower. But there is no such why for the Truth-Soul, and itself and its movements are its own joy, truth and power. The lower nature is incomplete and finite. This very incompleteness and the stamp of finiteness form of themselves ...
... face time and again surging in our lower nature. Almost at all times we identify ourselves in our ignorance with the demands of the lower nature, and consequently pain, misery, grief and all their accompaniments affect us willy-nilly. But for our identification with the demands, we could have safely steered through. The demands of the lower nature are infinite in number and kind; and... end are still unintelligible to hunch-backed, groping and ancient Man. THE DEMANDS OF THE TRUTH-SOUL AND THE LOWER NATURE The title of this article consists of a contradiction in terms. There are demands of the lower nature and they are observed now and again by the Sadhakas; but to speak of the demands of the Truth-Soul is altogether untrue. For the Truth-Soul... course, and its movements are dictated only by itself. There is a why for everything of the lower nature — movements and all — because there is a nature above the lower. But there is no such why for the Truth-Soul, and itself and its movements are its own joy, truth and power. The lower nature is incomplete and finite. This very incompleteness and the stamp of finiteness form of themselves ...
... that we face time and again surging in our lower nature. Almost at all times we identify ourselves in our ignorance with the demands of the lower nature, and consequently pain, misery, grief and all their accompaniments affect us willy-nilly. But for our identification with the demands, we could have safely steered through. The demands of the lower nature are infinite in number and kind; and one... whose destiny and end are still unintelligible to hunch-backed, groping and ancient Man. THE DEMANDS OF THE TRUTH-SOUL AND THE LOWER NATURE The title of this article consists of a contradiction in terms. There are demands of the lower nature and they are observed now and again by the Sadhakas; but to speak of the demands of the Truth-Soul is altogether untrue. For the Truth-Soul... own course, and its movements are dictated only by itself. There is a why for everything of the lower nature — movements and all — because there is a nature above the lower. But there is no such why for the Truth-Soul, and itself and its movements are its own joy, truth and power. The lower nature is incomplete and finite. This very incompleteness and the stamp of finiteness form of themselves ...
... propose is that he should not stay here to play the humbug any longer—he must take one course or the other with his lower nature. From this I come to a big philosophical question: Why are there failures in Sadhana?... A ready answer to the cause of these failures is—revolt of lower nature, refusal to undergo transformation. Apparently it is so, but is it the root cause? When we go to the origin of creation... Ignorance, not its plunge into it. The lower nature is the nature of the Ignorance, what we seek is to grow into the nature of the Truth. How do you make out that when the soul has looked towards the Truth and is moving towards it, a pull-back by the vital and the ego towards the Ignorance is a glorious action of the soul and not a revolt of the lower nature? I suppose you are floundering about in... "desire-soul" and the "true psyche". Well, if you were not, why did you represent the experience of the lower nature as such a rich and glorious thing? It is the desire-soul or the life-being which finds it (sometimes) like that. If failures are due to the revolt of the lower nature, why should that revolt occur in A's case and not in B's? Past Karma? And by what is this Karma decided? ...
... Each thing rises in its time and has to be rejected and thrown out thoroughly. During the movement of transformation, I find the lower nature has a freer play in the emptiness than in the fullness. In all, the lower nature plays easily. It can bring its mixture into the fullness — it is not only in emptiness that it arises. The inertia has begun to... as he was always boasting of doing? No. There was no attaining of higher perfection after he definitely yielded to his lower nature. There was only a repetition of former things whenever he happened to be able to withdraw from his lower nature. I suppose you would admit that he advanced so quickly because his vital and ego were helping his sadhana, as he wanted... the ambition a great hindrance. He wanted to indulge his lower nature in many ways and disliked the Ashram discipline. Before he actually left the Ashram did he have many ups and downs like most of us? During the last year he was having ups and downs but finally his ego and lower nature got the upper hand. You said, "Z was sincere and ...
... ion of the lower nature, is complete? Not necessarily. Or do both kinds of work go on simultaneously? It differs with different people, but the upward conversions cannot go very far or cannot be secure if the lower nature is not psychicised—for there is then always the possibility of a big or even a decisive fall if there is something seriously unpsychic in the lower nature. 29 March... touched by the hostile forces. The normal resistance of the lower Nature in human beings and the action of the Hostiles are two quite different things. The former is natural and occurs in everybody; the latter is an intervention from the non-human world. But this intervention can come in two forms. (1) They use and press on the lower Nature forces making them resist where they would otherwise be quiescent... identifies itself while the Akshara is not identified and stands apart. The Upanishad makes the same distinction of the two Souls and Prakriti. I used to take kṣetra and kṣara puruṣa to mean the lower nature. Nature is Prakriti—Purusha cannot be Prakriti. Neither can Purusha be kṣetra , the field, because Purusha by its very definition is that which is behind Prakriti and its field and observes ...
... following the Vedic and the Upanishadic tradition, speaks of a higher Nature, Parā prakṛti, which is superior to the three guṇas , and by which this entire universe is sustained and upheld. The lower Nature is a derivative of the higher, controlled by the Will and Force of the higher, and yet given sufficient autonomy to work out, in its own way, the tangled possibilities of its evolutionary ignorance... s Integral Yoga is based upon the essential truth of this double Nature—the higher and the lower, Parā and aparā . His contention against the world-shunning ascetic tendency is that, if this lower Nature that binds and darkens the soul is derived from the higher, it can certainly be converted back into that; and, instead of the dualities and discords that it displays, it can be made to manifest... sāttwic nature Page 199 of a relative poise and purity and light and happiness which is the common idea of it. Sattwa , even at its best, is a mental quality, belonging to the lower nature; it can be a wide gate opening on the Infinite, but in itself it is a dealer in finite virtues, and cannot move in the infinitudes of Spirit. By Supernature Sri Aurobindo means the authentic, eternal ...
... unable to see my lower nature. O Mother, what shall I do? It is better not to look at it too much and to turn your attention to more interesting things. One becomes what one thinks: you should think of the strength, the uprightness, the sincerity you wish to become. March 1934 How can there be any hope for me, seeing that there is no vigorous effort to purify the lower nature? Why do I think... is the Divine who has made us ignorant and unconscious? That is nonsense. I would like to know something about silence. Is it more beneficial than concentrating on the lower nature? Concentrating on the lower nature is NEVER good; you should concentrate on what you want to develop, not on what you want to destroy. I think that one should be peaceful and silent outwardly too. Peaceful... to vital contacts in the evening than in the morning. If one can distinguish all the day's movements by standing back from them like an observer, then I think that one can soon rise above the lower nature. But in order to get the true discrimination, one must first have a consciousness that can distinguish falsehood from truth. I observe my movements, but I am still unable to make a clear distinction ...
... hostile Farces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature — it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile Forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard the siddhi.... But it has also always... all the points made: 'The normal resistance of the lower Nature in human beings and the action of the Hostiles are two quite different things. The former is natural and occurs in everybody; the latter is an intervention from the non-human world. "But this intervention can come in two forms. (1) They use and press on the lower Nature forces making them resist where they would otherwise be... the Devil to possess Mansoul and the final victory of King Shaddai. Does it mean then that we, in our spiritual sadhana, have to confront not only the common weaknesses and obstacles of our lower Nature but also the more devious and subtle oppositions of Page 332 invisible hostile forces and evil-intentioned beings who try to frustrate our spiritual advancement? Yes, such is ...
... to do its work. In spite of that process, how is it my vital and physical mind do not yet turn away from the lower nature? What I said was, it could not be done at once - e.g. by a single descent. Whatever the process or movement the lower nature takes time to receive. What is first necessary is to get down the higher consciousness into all the inner being down to the inner... But peace is the first condition without which nothing else can be stable. Since yesterday, so far as I am conscious, I try to live in the Self. This has such an effect on the lower nature that it gives up any attempt to pull me down. However, this is not enough. I must be able to live in the Self all the time and not merely during motionless meditations. Yes, that is... general pressure proceed as it has been doing. What is this general pressure? The pressure of the Force. Page 215 The Dynamic Descent and the Lower Nature You will agree that it is just a dynamic descent of the Force that is wanting; my being is already prepared. Except for the recurrent difficulty of the vital and ...
... lightning, does its job and then goes back to dormancy. It has to act instead like a steady blaze of focussed sunlight which is always in action to expose and scorch out all the frailties of our lower nature. We know that aspiration is one of the principal limbs of the sadhana of the Integral Yoga. But this aspiration, even if constant] will remain as an idle impotent dream if it is not a... . As Sri Aurobindo has said: "There is a period, more or less prolonged, of internal effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the... different' stages of the ascending march of spiritual effort has been brought out by Sri Aurobindo in this way: At the first stage this will will be needed to orient all the movements of our lower nature towards the supernal Light and Truth. At the second stage this will will have for its important role to persuade all the energies of our ego-being to accept without any] cavil the working ...
... necessary for the recoil from the lower nature, for it is really the fear and disgust of our own ego which reflects itself in the world. But to see God in the world is to fear nothing, it is to embrace all in the being of God; to see all as the Divine is to hate and loathe nothing, but love God in the world and the world in God. But at least the things of the lower nature will be shunned and feared, the... without which true happiness is not possible. That happiness and that equality are to be gained entirely by man in the body: he is not to suffer any least remnant of the subjection to the troubled lower nature to remain in the idea that the perfect release will come by a putting off of the body; a perfect spiritual freedom is to be won here upon earth and possessed and enjoyed in the human life, prāk... liberation, of nirvana in the Brahman; for by doing works with a steady practice of the inner renunciation this perfection, this liberation, this conquest of the desire-mind and the ego-self and the lower nature are easily accomplished. But when one has got to the top? Then works are no longer the cause; the calm of self-mastery and self-possession gained by works becomes the cause. Again, the cause ...
... of the ego and the turbid working of the lower nature, and a tranquil poise in the purity and freedom of the Self. But this transcendence, if it is attained by a flight or defensive self-withdrawal, does not lead to a complete mastery and transformation of the lower nature. It is true that the liberated man is not affected by the turmoil of his lower nature, but the turmoil persists, in however diminished... soul. What appears even as self-mortification or an extreme self-denial to others, may be, to a spiritual aspirant, a means of awakening his soul's fire, and a step towards the mastery of his lower nature. He does not count the cost when he embarks upon self-discovery. If he fails to achieve his object in his present life, unwearied and undejected, he looks forward to pursuing his quest in lives... manifold and consolidated servitude that is our common lot in the material world. "The perception of the ignorance of our assumption of freedom while one is all the time in the meshes of this lower nature, is the view-point at which the Gita arrives and it is in contradiction to this ignorant claim that it affirms the complete subjection of the ego-soul on this plane to the gunas. 'While the actions ...
... downwards towards the play of the lower nature. There is also in you behind the mind the being who observes, the witness Purusha, who can stand detached from the play of the nature, observing it and able to choose. It has to put itself always on the side of the psychic being and assent to and support its movements and to reject the downward and outward movement of the lower nature, which has to be subjected... Ignorance, not its plunge into it. The lower nature is the nature of the Ignorance, what we seek is to grow into the nature of the Truth. How do you make out that when the soul has looked towards the Truth and is moving towards it, a pull-back by the vital and the ego towards the Ignorance is a glorious action of the soul and not a revolt of the lower nature? I suppose you are floundering about in... subjected to the psychic and changed by its influence. The Psychic or Soul and the Lower Nature All belongs to Nature—the soul itself acts under the conditions and by the agency of Nature. The moral of the condition you describe is not that Yoga should not be done but that you have to go on steadily healing the rift between the two parts of the being. The division is very usual, almost universal ...
... manifest, and all manifestation proceeds from the Divine Nature. The Divine Nature is described in the Gita as Para Prakriti. This Para Prakriti is distinguished from Apara Prakriti, the lower nature. The lower nature consists of matter, life and mind, and the higher nature transcends the limitations of the mind and it is through the higher nature that Purushottama manifests in the world and as the world... the teacher of the Gita, who is described as the Avatar of the Supreme, describes the idea of lower nature and the higher nature and their interconnection in the following words: "Earth, water, fire, ether, mind, intellect and ego—this is the eight-fold Prakriti, which is My nature. That is My lower nature, O Mighty-armed Arjuna! Other than this, know My higher nature which has manifested as the... points out, the wide, undulating, encircling movement of the exposition of the ideas of the Gita manifests a vast synthetic consciousness and a rich integral experience. It moves upwards from the lower nature, Apara Prakriti, to the higher peaks of supramental nature, which is called Para Prakriti. It recognizes the experiences of the Sankhyan Purusha as also the experience of Vedantic Brahman and Ishwara ...
... Nature from the lower nature. What that higher Nature is you will understand afterwards. You have to become fit for it. You can now see your lower nature; especially the vital play Page 126 of Kama (lust) and Krodha (anger) etc – is essentially the Dharma – the functioning – of the animal man. You have to rise into the Divine Nature by rejecting the lower nature. How can you... up in consciousness and try to organise something above, these forces come and attack me, and I have to come down and meet them. There is some kind of organisation of the higher Power here in the lower nature with which I have to meet them. For instance, it is possible to prevent people from getting ill, and this organisation is workable in practice and sufficient for us to go on with. But it is not... must not allow the intellect to play with them. Your ideas about Spastic injunctions are nothing else but justifications. Really it is the lower play of the vital being. In this rejection of the lower nature you ought to be ever alert – vigilant. The ideal relation between man and woman in this yoga you cannot at present understand. You have, first, to make yourself fit for it. Your own ideas ...
... through the mental idea and vital desire, and to turn all his acts into a pure outflowing of the will of the Supreme, all his life into a dynamic symbol of the Divine Nature. But there is also this lower nature of the three gunas whose character is the character of the ignorance and whose action is the action of the ignorance, mixed, confused, perverted; it is the action of the lower personality, of the... individual to the Purushottama. It is one with him in being, even though necessarily partial and determinative, because individual, in action and temporal manifestation of nature. Freed too from the lower nature we can realise the higher, the divine, the spiritual. Therefore to act from the soul does not mean to act from the desire soul; for that is not the high intrinsic being, but only the lower natural... beginning that the very first precondition of the divine birth, the higher existence is the slaying of rajasic desire and its children, and that means the exclusion of sin. Sin is the working of the lower nature for the crude satisfaction of its own ignorant, dull or violent rajasic and tamasic propensities in revolt against any high self-control and self-mastery of the nature by the spirit. And in order ...
... realms of higher nature and even of recreating the lower nature in the image of higher nature by the method of complete surrender to the Purushottama is indicated through its concept of trigunātītā (a state of transcendence of the three gunas of tamas, rajas and sattwa). But, as Sri Aurobindo points out, the possibility of recreation of the lower nature in the image of the high nature is rather hinted... object is not merely of liberation of the individual from the ignorant mind, life and body with which it has become identified by its descent into Nature or what the Gita terms as Apara Prakriti or lower nature, but the utilization of the attainment of liberation as a step towards the movement by which hierarchies of mind, overmind and supermind are attained, so that one is enabled to manifest the higher... the Gita, eight fold Prakriti (astadha prakrti), 59 since it consists of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and ego. This Prakriti is apara prakrti, and it is described as the lower nature of the Supreme, which is derived from the higher nature of the Supreme, Para Prakriti. It is declared that this Para Prakriti is the origin of the Apara Prakriti and is manifest in the individual ...
... as we are subject to the lower Nature we cannot expect any freedom (of action): the Mother's order is our law. Since she did not give me any definite reply I gave up my desire to see the festival. She meant that it was of no importance one way or the other. It is when you are free from the lower Nature that her will is the Law. The lower Nature is constantly disobeying... bound to the lower Nature what does the Mother actually intend by leaving the responsibility to us by saying, "Comme vous voulez"? Only if one is a little advanced, one can make the best use of such a freedom. When one is advanced one does not ask for freedom, but to obey the Divine Will. In order to reach the higher Nature, have we not to prevent the lower Nature from disobeying... Divine. What is meant by "vital consecration"? Consecration means offering and making sacred to the Mother so that the whole vital nature may belong to her and not to the lower nature. You said yesterday: "It is only after you become conscious that the surrender can be complete." Which consciousness was spoken of here? How am I to receive it from the Divine Shakti ...
... objects and interests of life, and forgets its higher idealism. It becomes a self-deluded tool of the desires and preferences of the lower nature. It loses whatever light it had, its discrimination is eclipsed, and it is so much engulfed in the obscurity of the lower nature that it turns into its very opposite, unreason, supporting its specious judgements and erring decisions by unabashed quibbles and... tentative release of the mental Purusha from the hypnotic spell, the inexorable thralldom of Prakrit ! or Nature. The mental being or Purusha can now say "No", at least to some of tin impulses of the lower nature, though his refusal of consent is more often than not, overridden by the impetuous urges of the prāna or vital nature. Page 204 Reason is a function of this detached part of the... perception and distort its judgement. It takes a regular training in self-culture or spiritual discipline to render reason even tolerably pure and free from the crippling and obscuring influences of the lower nature. Those who swear by reason and extol it as the highest possible faculty of man, capable of guiding him to his ultimate destiny, betray an ignorance of the complexity of human nature and the con ...
... balance of the gunas is only a quantitative and quite derivative play evolved out of this supreme Principle. All this activity of forms, all this mental, sensuous, intelligential striving of the lower nature is only a phenomenon, which could not be at all except for this spiritual force and this power of being; it comes from that and it exists in that and by that solely. If we dwell in the phenomenal... radiant, electric and gaseous, the liquid and the other elemental conditions of matter are the physical medium. The five elemental conditions of matter are the quantitative or material element in the lower nature and are the basis of material forms. The five Tanmatras—taste, touch, scent, and the others—are the qualitative element. These Tanmatras are the subtle energies whose action puts the sensory co... itself as the essential quality in all becomings and constitutes their swabhava. The practical distinction between this original power of essential quality and the phenomenal derivations of the lower nature, between the thing itself in its purity and the thing in its lower appearances, is indicated very clearly at the close of the series. "I am the strength of the strong devoid of desire and liking ...
... its perfection. The movement which will lead us out of the disturbances of the lower nature must be necessarily a movement towards equality in the mind, in the emotional temperament, in the soul. But it is to be noted that, although in the end we must arrive at a superiority to all the three gunas of the lower nature, it is yet in its incipience by a resort to one or other of the three that the movement... himself on the whole by a constant attention or an acquired habit of mind, in reality he is not free from his lower nature, and it does actually assert itself in many ways and may at any moment take a violent revenge for its rejection and suppression. For, always, the play of the lower nature is a triple play, and the rajasic and tamasic qualities are ever lying in wait for the sattwic man. "Even the... ordinary human soul takes a pleasure in the customary disturbances of its nature-life; it is because it has this pleasure and because, having it, it gives a sanction to the troubled play of the lower nature that the play continues perpetually; for the Page 190 Prakriti does nothing except for the pleasure and with the sanction of its lover and enjoyer, the Purusha. We do not recognise this ...
... limitations of the separative consciousness and the mind's attachment to the passion and unrest and ignorance, the lesser light and knowledge, the sin and virtue, the dual law and standard of the lower nature. Therefore, says the Teacher, "devoting all thyself to me, giving up in thy conscious mind all thy actions into Me, resorting to Yoga of the will and intelligence be always one in heart and con... character of this transition of which it is so difficult for the normal mind of man to get a true apprehension, turns altogether upon the capital distinction between the ignorant life of the ego in the lower nature and the large and luminous existence of the liberated Jiva in his own true spiritual nature. The renunciation of the first must be complete, the transition to the second absolute. This is the d... little difference between these experiences and the first impersonal activity inculcated by the Gita. The Gita also demands of us renunciation of desire, attachment and ego, transcendence of the lower nature and the breaking up of our personality and its little formations. The Gita also demands of us to live in the Self and Spirit, to see the Self and Spirit in all and all in the Self and Spirit and ...
... will and hardly any idea even of what true surrender is. When the lower vital assumes this attitude, it takes its stand upon a constant affirmation of the old personality and the past forms of the lower nature. Every time they are discouraged, it supports and brings them back and asserts its right to freedom—the freedom to affirm and follow its own crude and egoistic ideas, desires, fancies, impulses... This constant indiscipline is a radical obstacle to the sadhana and the worst possible example to others. 3) Dissimulation and falsity of speech. This is an exceedingly injurious habit of the lower nature. Those who are not straightforward cannot profit by the Mother's help, for they themselves turn it away. Unless they change, they cannot hope for the descent of the supramental Light and Truth into... ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too Page 154 high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasya needed too constant and intense. It cannot be done if there is a petulant self-assertion of ...
... confusion and desires? It is entirely false to say that these things come from the Mother. They come from the lower Nature and its darkness and ignorance. The Mother's Force is not the lower Nature, it is the Power of the Divine Page 223 Truth and Light working upon the lower Nature to drive out the confusion and falsehood and desire from it and to transform everything into the Truth and... The Mother's Force The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother's Force and the Forces of the Lower Nature There is in me a revolt of the vital against the Light resulting in much vital confusion. I hope that one day all my desires and ambition will go away and I will depend completely on the Mother. In the meantime, as these things too come from... mistakes; it is the Prakriti that makes them do it—if the Purusha does not refuse his consent. The Mother here is not this lower Prakriti, but the Divine Shakti and it is her work to press on this lower Nature to change. You can say that under the pressure, the Prakriti stumbles and is unable to reply perfectly and makes mistakes. But it is not the Mother who makes you do wrong movements or does the wrong ...
... ASPIRATION AND SURRENDER Shouldn't a sadhak offer to the Mother not only his good experiences and knowledge but also the ordinary movements of ignorance? Otherwise how will his lower nature be purified and transformed? The psychic elements of our nature will help, won't they? It is true that with the psychic action these things are more easily overcome. Also the ignorance etc... done. You said, "It is a stage [in which one cannot aspire freely] from which you must come out as soon as possible." What is this stage? Your present condition in which the lower nature is able to stop the aspiration and experience. Instead of trying to find out reasons for not being able to aspire, better I turn all my energy to making the way forward. That... will, different forms of the same thing. To say one is will and the other is not is nonsense. Is it not true that the will becomes or changes into desire when it comes down into the lower nature? It usually does so in the vital or at least it gets a strong mixture of desire. I suppose the vital despair is the cause of my not being able to Page 11 ...
... consciousness to which the Divine alone exists, because all is the Divine and by which one passes beyond the ignorance and the lower nature into unity with the Divine and the Divine Nature. Here in the ignorance we are not aware of the Divine and we obey the lower Nature. Page 1 What are the forces at work in the cosmos? There are the higher forces... forces of the Divine Nature— the forces of Light, Truth, Divine Power, Peace, Ananda — there are the forces of the lower nature which belong either to a lower truth or to ignorance and error— there are also the hostile forces whose whole aim is to maintain the reign of Darkness, Falsehood, Death and Suffering as the law of life. Are there hostile forces in every plane of our being? ... forces? No — but the hostile forces can use the forces sent down from them if they get mixed with the mind or the vital. When one lives in the higher consciousness, will the lower nature still act in us, doing the same things in the same way as now? No, it will be the higher Nature, provided the body also lives in the higher consciousness. What brings about ...
... of the lower nature) indicates the necessity of the method of total self-surrender, since the higher and divine nature which requires to be manifested in every dynamic movement in the state of accomplishment of Karma Yoga can be attained only by the influx of the divine nature into the operations of the lower nature; and this influx becomes possible only if the operations of the lower nature give up... method of self-surrender is, as we can see in the Gita, a plenary invitation to the divine nature by its descent from its heights with all its power of transformation in the alchemy of which the lower nature is transformed and the state of sadharmyam is attained, — the state in which the human being is united with the Supreme not only in His essentiality and in His Lordship of manifestation, but... unceasing — the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands ...
... Sun lying concealed in the dark ness" of our ignorance of which the Rigveda speaks, tat satyaṁ sūryaṁ tamasi kṣiyantam . The immutable Brahman is there in the spirit's skies above this troubled lower nature of the dualities, untouched either by its virtue or by its sin, accepting neither our sense of sin nor our self-righteousness, untouched by its joy and its sorrow, indifferent to our joy in success... not the direct doer of our works, but the witness of Nature and her works, not imposing on us either the illusion of being the doer, for that illusion is the result of the ignorance of this lower Nature. But this freedom, mastery, purity we cannot see; we are bewildered by the natural ignorance which hides from us the eternal self-knowledge of the Brahman secret within our being. But knowledge... the welfare of all existences, kṣīṇa-kalmaṣāḥ sarvabhūta-hite ratāḥ . The Lord in our hearts is in the ignorance also the cause of our actions, but through his Maya, through the egoism of our lower nature which creates the tangled web of our actions and brings back upon our egoism the recoil of their tangled reactions affecting us inwardly as sin and virtue, affecting us outwardly as suffering and ...
... eternal cause of imperfection and yet it is within this sense, mind and intellect, this play of the lower nature that you would limit your search for perfection! The effort is vain. The kinetic side of your nature must first seek to add to itself the quietistic; you must uplift yourself beyond this lower nature to that which is above the three gunas, that which is founded in the highest principle, in the... lower individual personality in the Impersonal, we arrive finally at union with that supreme Personality which is not separate and individual, but yet assumes all individualities. Transcending the lower nature of the three gunas and seating the soul in the immobile Purusha beyond the three gunas, we can ascend finally into the higher nature of the infinite Godhead which is not bound by the three gunas... Page 134 able to do all works and yet be bound by none. The idea of the Purushottama, seen here as the incarnate Narayana, Krishna, is therefore the key. Without it the withdrawal from the lower nature to the Brahmic condition leads necessarily to inaction of the liberated man, his indifference to the works of the world; with it the same withdrawal becomes a step by which the works of the world ...
... long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the sadhaka remains necessary." I didn't understand here "so long as the lower nature is active". How? Generally, the lower nature is always active. It is only when one has surrendered completely that it stops being active. When one is no longer in his lower consciousness, when one has made a total surrender, then the lower nature is no longer... The complete sentence is: "In all that is done in the universe, the Divine through his Shakti is behind all action but he is veiled by his 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." ...
... all the influences of the lower nature which diminish and distort it and it becomes more strongly personal, more itself, more complete. The truth and power of the personality come out with a more resplendent distinctness, its character is more precisely marked than it could possibly be when mixed with all the obscurity and ignorance, all the dirt and alloy of the lower nature. It undergoes a heightening... obscuring movement of the lower nature. Desires are motions of weakness and ignorance and they keep you chained to your weakness and to your ignorance. Men have the impression that their desires are born within; they feel as if they come out of themselves or arise within themselves; but it is a false impression. Desires are waves of the vast sea of the obscure lower nature and they pass from one person... they do not belong to the true character or the true nature; they are no intrinsic or inseparable part of yourself, but come out of the sea of surrounding obscurity in which move the forces of the lower nature. These desires, these passions have no personality, there is nothing in them or their action that is peculiar to you; they manifest in the same way in everyone. The obscure movements of the mind ...
... accompany states of release or of ascension. But the breath here perhaps stands, generally, for the Life Principle. Ascent and Change of the Lower Nature One can remain in the higher consciousness and yet associate oneself with the change of the lower nature. No doubt, it is the Mother's Force that will do what is necessary, but the consent of the sadhak, the association of his will with her action... cal planes, open to the descent of whatever the Mother will pour into it. Nothing needs to be done to bring the ascension—aspiration is sufficient. The object of the ascension is for the lower nature to join the higher consciousness so that (1) the limit or lid between the higher and the lower may be broken and disappear, (2) the consciousness may have free access to higher and higher planes... liberation becomes accomplished ( siddha ). From there the mental being can open freely to higher planes or to the cosmic existence and its forces and can also act with greater liberty and power on the lower nature. What you felt was not imagination at all, but the usual experience one has when the consciousness is lifted out of the body and takes its stand above the head. One is no longer bound then ...
... the Ignorance,—it appears as the lower nature and the lower nature makes you do wrong things. The Divine allows the play of these Forces so long as you do not yourself want anything better. But if you are a sadhak, then you do not accept the play of the lower nature, you turn to the Divine Mother instead, and ask her to work through you instead of the lower Nature. It is only when you have turned entirely... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother and the Lower Prakriti The higher Prakriti is the true nature of the Divine, so it can show Light and Ananda to people who are trying to reach the highest Truth; it is a help to sadhaks. But the lower Prakriti is impure and blind and can only show a limited Truth ...
... being, the realisation of the overmind or the supramental consciousness, the clear perception of the relation of all these things to our present inferior nature and their action on it to change that lower nature. The list, of course, might be infinitely longer. These things also are often called experiences when they only come in flashes, snatches or rare visitations; they are spoken of as full realisations... first an opening which reveals to edge vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them a vast infinite silence, force either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descend , first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening—without... working it is most important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Mother and myself and to refer all that happens to us. For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. If there is the assent of the sadhak to the Divine working alone and the submission or surrender to ...
... and right. In Nature there is the higher and the lower, the true and the false. What the Divine wants of you is that you should grow in the Truth and the higher Nature, reject the false and the lower Nature. As you have indulged the Prakriti for the last ten thousand lives or so, it has been accustomed to impose its own way on the Purusha. To be separate is only the first step. Also I fancy... the Divine. The lower Prakriti is the ordinary consciousness of man with its ignorance, desires and bondage. I suppose you know that one has to transcend this ordinary consciousness of the lower Nature and arrive at a higher divine consciousness, if one wants to be free? By Prakriti [ in a passage in Bases of Yoga] is meant universal Prakriti. Universal Prakriti entering into the vital... rejected and exiled, the being remains but the old individual prakriti of vital desire is no longer there,—a new nature is formed responding Page 43 to the Truth above and not to the lower Nature. Universal Prakriti determined it [ the habit of response to vital movements ] and the soul or Purusha accepted it. In the acceptance lies the responsibility. The Purusha is that which sanctions ...
... aim and open to the Divine—that is why the Influence comes down into the head and as far as the heart. But the vital being and nature and the physical consciousness are under the influence of the lower nature. As long as the vital and physical being are not surrendered or do not on their own account call for the higher life, this struggle is likely to continue. Surrender everything, reject all other... not the Divine, assent to what is the Divine. Passive surrender is when everything is left entirely to the Divine—that few can really do, because in practice it turns out that you surrender to the lower nature under pretext of surrendering to the Divine. I wanted to stress two things, that is why I have written so much about them. (1) There must be no tamasic (inert, passive) surrender to the... offering to the Mother and reception of her Force and support to its workings, at the same time a strong vigilant will to reject all that is not hers. Too many sadhaks cry before the attacks of their lower nature, "I am helpless, I cannot react, it comes and makes me do what it wants." This is a wrong passivity. (2) One must not get into the habit of a state in which one is always in a struggle with ...
... distinction between natural and supernatural, for all things that are are natural. All things are in Nature and all things are in God. But, for practical purposes, there is a real distinction. The lower Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego;... must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and... our entirety, produces Page 45 its own realisation. The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity. In psychological fact this method translates itself into the progressive surrender of the ego ...
... customary reactions continue to take place, another of the higher will and reason which observes and is not troubled or affected by the passion of this lower nature, does not accept it as its own, does not approve, sanction or participate. Then the lower nature begins to lose the force and power of its reactions, to submit to the suggestions of calm and strength from the higher reason and will, and gradually... from the description of the complete and perfect equality that this equality has two sides. It must therefore be arrived at by two successive movements. One will liberate us from the action of the lower nature and admit us to the calm peace of the divine being; the other will liberate us into the full being and power of the higher nature and admit us to the equal poise and universality of a divine and... of this phenomenal Nature that besieges us on every side without being overborne by them and compelled to bear their emotional, sensational, dynamic, intellectual reactions. The outer mind in the lower nature has not this Page 709 strength. Its strength is that of a limited force of consciousness which has to do the best it can with all that comes in upon it or besieges it from the greater ...
... chapters are devoted to the bringing out of this suppressed knowledge in a conspicuous light and strong pre-eminence. It is to the Lord, the Ishwara, it is to the distinction of the higher and the lower nature and to the vision of the all-originating and all-constituting Godhead in Nature, it is to the One in all beings that prominence has been assigned in the next six Adhyayas (7-12) in order to found... his being which we call Nature, himself all energies and forces, all things and all beings. This Nature itself is of two kinds, one derived and inferior, another original and supreme. There is a lower nature of the cosmic mechanism by association with which the soul in Prakriti lives in a certain ignorance born of Maya, traiguṇyamayī māyā , conceives of itself as an ego of embodied mind and life, works... intuitive account of these creations of the Spirit, and to the Brahma Sutras which will give us the rational and philosophic analysis. The Gita contents itself with a brief practical statement of the lower nature of our being in the terms of the Sankhya thinkers. First there is the indiscriminate unmanifest Energy; out of that has come the objective evolution of the five elemental states of matter; as also ...
... the thumb. 52 All action in the human complex being is not merely the action of lower nature, there is also a mixed result of the operations of the individual soul or Jiva and Para Prakriti. In our ordinary understanding of the human complex, what we call 'I' is the ego, which is only the product of the lower nature; the ego is only a cog in the machine of Prakriti, although because of the obscurity... the state of immortality, the state of union with the divine Being, identity with the Self and oneness with the supreme dynamic divine Nature, and the state of transcendence of the three gunas of lower nature, — the state of trigunātīta, and the state of sādharmyam. In the last six chapters (XIII - XVIII), the entire synthesis of yoga of the Gita is reviewed from a special standpoint, — the... This expansion of the idea of Prakriti is stated in the following words: "Earth, water, fire, ether, mind, intellect and ego — this is the eight-fold Prakriti, which is My nature. That is My lower nature, O Mighty-armed Arjuna! Other than this, know my higher Nature which has manifested as the individual souls, and it is that higher nature by which this entire world is sustained ....O Arjuna, there ...
... fuses them all in one greatest and richest Divine freedom and perfection. In that state of perfection, the soul is not only liberated from the workings of Apara Page 113 Prakriti, the lower nature of the three gunas, and the soul not only attains to the status of the Immutable, but attains also the status of dwelling in the Purushottama, and of living in the Para Prakriti. That state of ... liberation in the Gita is to rise above the inferior nature of existence, to discover its identity with Immutable, akśara, which is above the three gunas, but also the method of rising above the lower nature in which the operations of the higher nature are manifested in the form of divine knowledge, divine love, and divine works founded on the spiritual universality. It is this which is emphasized in... chapter when it speaks of those who are not only dear, but also exceedingly dear to the Supreme.¹³³ But what exactly is the difference between the two natures, Apara Prakriti and Para Prakriti, the lower nature and higher nature?. And how are our action and our soul's status affected by the liberation, and what exactly is the secret-most method of attainment of the integral liberation and perfect-ion, ...
... would prefer to station myself in the higher consciousness, from where I have been absent for quite a time, to be up there and associate myself with the Mother in her working out the change of my lower nature. No objection — it is a very good thing to keep working in the higher consciousness. It is more effective than struggling all the time down below with the lower forces. ... the higher consciousness trying to come down. I would like to know if my former experiences and living in the higher consciousness have brought about any fundamental change in my lower nature. At least at present my ego and physical vital are found to be practically the same as ever. The action of the higher consciousness does not usually begin by changing the outer nature... really never thought enough of bringing all that down to change my human nature? Page 262 Your tendency was to go up and to leave the higher consciousness to deal with the lower nature without any personal effort for that. That could have worked all right on two conditions: (1) that the peace and force would come down and occupy all down to the physical (2) that you succeeded ...
... still persist after so many years of sadhana, how can I be certain of success? How can I think that I am fit for the Yoga? The vital difficulties persist so long as one indulges in any way the lower nature—even after one has ceased indulging, they persist so long as there is anything in the lower consciousness which desires or regrets them or is still responsive to their touch when they return either... preparation of the lower parts. Have you still the idea of transforming the hostile forces? If so, how? I do not know what you mean by the transformation of the hostile forces. It is the lower nature that has to be transformed into the higher nature. The object of the Yoga is the transformation of terrestrial beings, not of the Asuras. Page 648 Is it not possible again to begin... think I expressly said that if the sadhaks persisted in opening themselves to it, it would continue. There is a difference between the action of the hostile powers and the ordinary action of the lower nature. The latter of course goes on until it is changed but there is no necessity for it to take the form of hostile attacks and upsettings; it can be treated as a machinery that has to be set right and ...
... that a direct Supermind Force is working, and that the lower nature is trying to accommodate itself to it. Direct Supermind Force is not possible at this stage. It is only when the whole being down to the physical has accepted and assimilated the higher consciousness that it can come. I understand that the transformation of the lower nature is not possible without the Supramental Force coming... and the struggle with the subconscient resistance. Only its form varies with different people. 4 September 1935 How curious it is that something prevents my ascension. For everything in the lower nature can best be dealt with from above. So why does it hinder my ascent? Page 347 It happened in the same way with myself. I had to come down into the physical to deal with it instead of... is a different consciousness and power beyond the mental limit. 18 September 1935 Someone has told me that at present the Mother and you have started to send us down into the depth of the lower nature (for the purpose of transformation). Is it a fact? We are sending nobody nowhere. The sadhana itself has come down into the depth of the physical and subconscient to make them open to what has ...
... Conscious Force which forms and moves the worlds. The higher, divine Nature (Para Prakriti) is free from Ignorance and its consequences; the lower Nature (Apara Prakriti) is a mechanism of active Force put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. The lower nature of an individual — mind, life and body — are part of Prakriti. Nirvana — extinction (not necessarily of all bein g, but of being... ty. psychic principle — psychic essence. psychicisation — the psychic change in which the psychic being comes forward to dominate the mind, vital and physical so as to change the lower nature. Purusha — Conscious Being; Conscious-Soul; essential being supporting the play of Prakriti; the Purusha represents the true being on whatever plane it manifests — physical, vital, mental... higher consciousness or for any other yogic or high purpose. transformation — not just a change of consciousness, but the bringing down of the higher, divine consciousness and nature into the lower nature of mind, life and body, and the replacement of the lower by the higher. true being — see Purusha. true mental — see Purusha. true physical — see Purusha. true ...
... Experience It is a mistake to dwell too much on the lower nature and its obstacles, which is the negative side of the sadhana. They have to be seen and purified, but preoccupation with them as the one important thing is not helpful. The positive side of experience of the descent is the more important thing. If one waits for the lower nature to be purified entirely and for all time before calling... being, the realisation of the overmind or the supramental consciousness, the clear perception of the relation of all these things to our present inferior nature and their action on it to change that lower nature. The list of course might be infinitely longer. These things also are often called experiences when they only come in flashes, snatches or rare visitations; they are spoken of as full realisations... calling down the positive experience, one might have to wait for ever. It is true that the more the lower nature is purified, the easier is the descent of the higher Nature, but it is also and more true that the more the higher Nature descends, the more the lower is purified. Page 39 Neither the complete purification nor the permanent and perfect manifestation can come all at once, it is a matter ...
... Chapter V The Lower Nature or Lower Hemisphere The Higher Nature and the Lower Nature The lower nature is called lower because it is unenlightened—it can't be enlightened and changed by ignoring it, the higher has to be brought there. So one must speak of both, not of the higher alone. But why do you suppose that you alone are made of the lower nature? Every earthly being is ...
... basis of the external personality or of the physical self, if you like so to express it; but that is not the individual Self. The individual Self is the central being (Jivatma) manifesting in the lower nature as the psychic being—it is directly a portion of the Divine. The soul, representative of the central being, is a spark of the Divine supporting all individual existence in Nature; the psychic... finally mind can develop into overmind and overmind into the supramental Truth. The soul supports the nature in its evolution through these grades, but is itself not any of these things. The lower Nature, Apara Prakriti, is this external objective and superficial subjective apparent Nature which manifests all these minds, lives and bodies. The supreme Nature, Para Prakriti, concealed behind it is... but its spiritual demand may be for the rest of the consciousness also to realise it. The aspiration of the psychic being would then translate this demand entirely for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher ...
... ascent. The sadhana is based on the fact that a descent of Forces from the higher planes and an ascent of the lower consciousness to the higher planes is the means of transformation of the lower nature—although naturally it takes time and the complete transformation can only come by the supramental descent. Your experiences here are forms of the widening experiences of this process. The... consciousness; the higher consciousness has also to descend into mind, into life, into matter. In that way the barriers will be removed and the higher consciousness will be able to take up the whole lower nature and transform it by the power of the supermind. The earth is a material field of evolution. Mind and life, supermind, Sachchidananda are in principle involved there in the earth consciousness... of the higher consciousness as they develop into the lower down to the most physical and even the subconscient. To both of these movements there can be a block—a block above due to the mind and lower nature being unhabituated (it is that really and not incapacity) and a block below due to the physical consciousness and its natural slowness to change. Everybody has these blocks but by persistent will ...
... ncts and life-desires, which is attached to or turns towards the things of the lower nature and is subject to the passions, anger, sex etc. If the higher part is dominant, then the lower is kept under control and does not give much trouble. But often the latter is supported by outer forces and powers of the lower Nature in the universe and sometimes these intrude and give the coarse part of the being... Prana seeking to be independent and fulfil ego under the plea of spiritual realisation is a frequent obstacle in the Yoga. The main difficulty in the sadhana consists in the movements of the lower nature, ideas of the mind, desires and attractions of the vital, habits of the body consciousness that stand in the Page 638 way of the growth of the higher consciousness—there are other d... division in the nature, because the true being and all that supports it stand back and separate from these lower elements. At one time the true being occupies the field of the nature, at another the lower nature used by some contrary Force pushes it back and seizes the ground,—and this we now see, while formerly the thing happened but the nature of the happening was not clear to us. If there is the firm ...
... because of the habitual response in the less conscious parts of the nature. These have to become conscious by receiving the Light and Force until finally they refuse response to the calls of the lower nature. This is quite right. If you keep this condition [ of trust and devotion ], not allowing it to be entirely obscured or long clouded, you can move rapidly towards a new birth of your nature... telling you that you are not fit and that you must go back to the ordinary life, are false tamasic promptings from a hostile source. Ideas of this kind must always be rejected as inventions of the lower nature; even if they are founded on appearances which seem convincing to the ignorant mind, they are false, because they exaggerate a passing movement and represent it as the decisive and definite truth... as the outer confusion. You have to accept it, to stress it, to aspire to keep and increase it—to reject the confusion. What "reason" do you need to aspire for peace, purity, freedom from the lower nature, light, strength, Ananda, divine love, divine service? These are things good in themselves and the highest possible aim of human endeavour. If not a will, you have a wish in you or an aspiration; ...
... In this Yoga, therefore, there can be no place for vital relations or interchanges with others; any such relation or interchange immediately ties down the soul to the lower consciousness and its lower nature, prevents the true and full union with the Divine and hampers both the ascent to the supramental Truth consciousness and the descent of the supramental Ishwari Shakti. Still worse would it be if... Mastery of the Sex-Impulse through Detachment As to the sexual impulse. Regard it not as something sinful and horrible and attractive at the same time, but as a mistake and wrong movement of the lower nature. Reject it entirely, not by struggling with it, but by drawing back from it, detaching yourself and refusing your consent; look at it as something not your own, but imposed on you by a force of... sex-tendency. That must be overcome. But it will be more easily overcome if instead of being upset by its presence you detach the inner being from it, rise up above it and view it as a weakness of the lower nature. If you can detach yourself from it with a complete indifference in the inner being, it will seem more and more something alien to yourself, put upon you by the outer forces of Nature. Then it will ...
... guides until they too are taken up, purified, transformed and are eventually replaced by the luminous assents of a divine Ananda which is at one with the divine will and knowledge. In nothing in the lower nature from the reason to the vital will can the seeker of the Yoga put a complete and permanent faith, but only at last in the spiritual Page 772 truth, power, Ananda which become in the spiritual... Yoga. This śraddhā —the English word faith is inadequate to express it—is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding. And that which receives the influence and answers to the call is not so much the intellect, the heart or the life mind... endeavour and the successive stages of our realisation. There is not only much that will be strongly raised in us in order to be cast out and rejected, a battle between the powers of ignorance and the lower nature and the higher powers that have to replace them, but experiences, states of thought Page 775 and feeling, forms of realisation that are helpful and have to be accepted on the way and ...
... and aspiration, the poor and little spirit, and in our moral and dynamic being the inertia, the cowardice, baseness, sloth, lax subjection to small and ignoble motives, the weak yielding to our lower nature. Tamas brings into our emotional nature insensibility, indifference, want of sympathy and openness, the shut soul, the callous heart, the soon spent affection and languor of the feelings, into our... to the Light, but its limited clarity falls away from us when we enter into the luminous body of the divine Nature. This transcendence is usually sought by a withdrawal from the action of the lower nature. That withdrawal brings with it a stressing of the tendency to inaction. Sattwa when it wishes to intensify itself, seeks to get rid of rajas and calls in the aid of the tamasic principle of inaction;... relations of soul to nature in an embodied imperfect mental being, but it is not true of the divine nature of perfection. The strife of the gunas is only a representation in the imperfection of the lower nature; what the three gunas stand for are three essential powers of the Divine which are not merely existent in a perfect equilibrium of quietude, but unified in a perfect consensus of divine action. ...
... well do without this so-called freedom to follow the ego's unruly cravings and subtle promptings. The trouble arose, as I came to realise, because my lower nature did not want to waive its native right to its unlovely enjoyments. But my lower nature, like Goldsmith's famous schoolmaster, "though vanquished argued still", resisting transformation till, at last, matters were brought to a head, and... from the great mystic William Law the purport of which is that none can turn towards God without turning his back upon his ego, because none can be fully alive to God till he completely dies to his lower nature. But I must pause here a little to stress an experience of mine which grew from day to day till I could not deny its vivid, concrete reality. I refer to what Gurudev called the "hostile forces"... wonderful experiences to his credit – seen marvellous vision, heard thrilling voices, savoured exquisite delights — in short, had already "drunk deep at the Pierian spring" of the Spirit. And yet his lower nature, which had survived, would still drag him back to his old pleasure-haunts, as he used to tell me in those days with bitter regrets.* "I do not want to come here and stay permanently", he would tell ...
... consciousness in the higher being and do whatever we are doing from there, not allowing the lower, blind and selfish movements and reactions to spoil our work. To accept the uglinesses of the lower nature under the pretext that they exist―if this is what is meant by realism―does not form part of the sadhana. Our aim is not to accept these things and enjoy them, but to get rid of them and create a... satisfied is at once replaced by another one and they go on clamouring more and more. It is only by conquering the desires that you can get rid of them, by coming out of this consciousness of the lower nature and rising to a higher consciousness. 29 April 1930 Page 253 Refuse to do anything whatsoever which leads you away from the Divine. 18 October 1934 If you want to... possibility of acting on impulse. 1 Do not act under an impulse. Never forget that, as much outside as in the Ashram, if you want to lead a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses; otherwise there is no end to the miseries and the troubles. 20 September 1960 At every moment of life you are put in the presence of a choice ...
... the same view of the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of man's spirituality with his endeavours that come in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral-temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail, but always fantastic with a significance—crumbling and badly outworn in many... September 23,1936 It is the impulse to fly and to shun the necessity of your spiritual change, that you must reject and not life. You are not a burden to me and it is only the death of the lower nature that I can work to give you; the death of the body is no solution for anything. I do hope you will exert your will and get rid of these reactions which cause so much unnecessary suffering... any more than it can be of apoplexy or any other physical illness. If there is no predisposition, one may have all kinds of attacks from vital or other forces or from one's own movements of the lower nature, as violent as possible, but there will be no madness. October 20,1936 (Padmaja, daughter of Sarojini Naidu, bore a tale to Dilipda, which troubled him no end, as it concerned ...
... make of your natural being what it is intended to be, an instrument of works, a channel, a power of the Divine. That it always is in its truth, but now unconsciously and imperfectly, through the lower nature, doomed to a disfigurement of the Godhead by your ego. Make it consciously and perfectly and without any distortion by ego a power of the Divine in his supreme spiritual nature and a vehicle of... also Nature no longer as a mere mechanical force that works out things according to the mechanism of the gunas, but as a power of the Spirit and the force of God in manifestation. He sees that the lower Nature is not the inmost truth of the spirit's action; he becomes aware of a highest spiritual nature of the Divine in which is contained the source and the yet to be realised greater truth of all that... voice within them and are capable of this faith and knowledge. But to climb to this pre-eminent condition the first necessity, the original radical step is to turn away from all that belongs to your lower Nature and fix yourself by concentration of the will and intelligence on that which is higher than either will or intelligence, higher than mind and heart and sense and body. And first of all you must ...
... obscurities of Matter, Life and Mind and acts upon the individual body, life and mind, the three evolutionary products of lower nature (Apara Prakriti) so as to lift them upwards. The aim is to transform the Apara Prakriti into Para Prakriti. The caitya purusa leads the lower nature, but its leading power, light and wisdom is to be constantly received from the supreme Self whose self-awareness and s... raises, when we are ready, the centre of its operations to the mental summit and opens up the supramental levels and proceeds doubly by an action from above downward filling and transforming the lower nature and an action from below upwards raising all the energies to that which is above them till the transcendence is completed and the change of the whole system integrally effected. It takes and develops... self-determining power is the supermind. The entire process of integral yoga is thus a complex web in which the evolutionary urge of the lower nature is uplifted by the psychic being, who, in turn, receives through its instrumentality the guidance of the supreme Self or Purushottama (to use the language of the Gita), who acts through the supramental Para Prakriti. In the ultimate analysis, therefore ...
... its analysis, all action, however high, noble and impersonal it may be in appearance, hides behind it in a subtle and elusive form the inevitable play of ego, desire and the triple modes of the lower nature, aparā Prakriti. And so long as ego and desire are not eradicated, how can a veritable spiritual consciousness be established? For are they not diametrically antithetical in nature? It follows... destiny of human birth. Yes, we admit that some sort of renunciation is necessary on the part of the sadhaka in order to come out of his present blind subservience to the dictates of the lower nature. But we cannot admit that renunciation has to go so far as to cancel out the very world consciousness, life and Nature. If someone suffers from a headache, he has to seek some remedy for its cure;... divine forms. But this is easier said than done. The task is rendered immensely difficult because of the inveterate resistance and the blind downward pull exercised by our unregenerate present lower nature. If we would like to succeed in this spiritual adventurous endeavour, Page 69 we have to be ready to pay the requisite price for that. And in the language of sadhana that price ...
... stabilisation in it was not likely. Page 39 You spoke of a complete 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... part ordinary thoughts, images etc., move about. Thus there is no full concentration of the whole nature. Formerly I used to have long periods of sheer inner or higher concentration in which the lower nature was forced to remain quiescent. Where is my inner being now? Even now you speak of periods when all is still in the whole being below as well as above. If there were no inner being, that... experienced knowledge aided by her Force. I no more feel myself so weak, helpless or a slave to my defects and imperfections. Rather there is a growing surety that I shall be able to get rid of my whole lower nature. It is what we call growing conscious - a perception of which the base is the psychic though it may take place in the mind or vital or physical. No doubt the Force that woke it up came from ...
... make of your natural being what it is intended to be, an instrument of works, a channel, a power of the Divine. That it always is in its truth, but now unconsciously and imperfectly, through the lower nature, doomed to a disfigurement of the Godhead by your ego. Make it consciously and perfectly and without any distortion by ego a power of the Divine in his supreme spiritual nature and a vehicle of... also Nature no longer as a mere mechanical force that works out things according to the mechanism of the gunas, but as a power of the Spirit and the force of God in manifestation. He sees that the lower Nature is not the inmost truth of the spirit's action; he becomes aware of a highest spiritual nature of the Divine in which is contained the source and the yet to be realised greater truth of all that... voice within them and are capable of this faith and knowledge. But to climb to this pre-eminent condition the first necessity, the original radical step is to turn away from all that belongs to your lower Nature Page 581 and fix yourself by concentration of the will and intelligence on that which is higher than either will or intelligence, higher than mind and heart and sense and body. And first ...
... surmounting. The increased rapidity is possible only because the conscious participation of the inner being is there and the power of the Supernature is already at work in the half-transformed lower nature, so that the steps which would otherwise have had to be taken tentatively in the night of Inconscience or Ignorance can now be taken in an increasing light and power of Knowledge. The first obscure... that they are themselves a diminished power of the spirit and can recover by this new way of being their own truth and integral nature. This illumination is constantly opposed by the Forces of the lower nature and still more by the adverse Forces that live and reign by the world's imperfections and have laid down their formidable foundation on the black rock of the Inconscience. An indispensable step... and life and body, the same phenomenon recurs and on a more intense scale; for here it is not ideas that have to be met but emotions, desires, impulses, sensations, vital needs and habits of the lower Nature; these, since they are less conscious than ideas, are blinder in their response and are more obstinately self-assertive: all have the same or a greater power of resistance and recurrence, or take ...
... lower self that one can become the real divine self and live the truth of our spiritual existence. All the apparent truths one can oppose to it are appearances of the lower Nature. The release from the evil and the defect of the lower Nature, aśubham , can only come by accepting a higher knowledge in which all this apparent evil becomes convinced of ultimate unreality, is shown to be a creation of our... opposed ways of working and living, one in the ignorance of the ego, one in the clear self-knowledge of a divine being. He may act with desire, with passion, an ego driven by the qualities of the lower Nature, subject to the balance of virtue and sin, joy and sorrow, preoccupied with the fruits and consequences of his works, success and defeat, good result and evil result, bound on the world machine... become an adoration and aspiration. Works of nature and freedom of soul are unified in this adoration and become one self-uplifting to the one Godhead. The final release, a passing away from the lower nature to the source of the higher spiritual becoming, is not an extinction of the soul,—only its form of ego becomes extinct,—but a departure of our whole self of knowledge, will and love to dwell no ...
... oscillate from one consciousness to another that you seem to lose the higher one or feel as if it were lost. By keeping it within always, one is able to regard both sides and change the recalcitrant lower nature. The wideness comes when one exceeds or begins to exceed the individual consciousness and spread out towards the universal. But the psychic can be active even in the individual consciousness... consciousness, then one can be free, yet one with all things. To have the cosmic consciousness without the liberation etc. is possible, but then there is no freedom anywhere in the being from the lower nature and one may become in one's extended consciousness the playground of all kinds of forces without being able to be either free and detached from the Prakriti or free and master. On the other hand... 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 development of the Self-realisation or of the ...
... men and women are not usually allowed to live together. Where they do, as among the Vaishnavas, these difficulties invariably arise. The difficulty lies in the enormous place given to sex in the lower Nature. But there is no reason if one fixes oneself firmly in the spiritual consciousness why one should not speak and act between men and women without the least reference to sex. 2 December 1933 ... Why do you believe everything that people tell you? What I told X was that he had once progressed greatly, he had afterwards allowed himself to yield to the bad habits that rose from his lower nature and fallen from the psychic contact and that until he got rid of these things which were the cause of all his sufferings he would not progress or recover his contact with the Mother. We never told... turned towards the spiritual change and the other which is still chained to the ordinary movements and pulls them down from their spiritual experience into the persistent and unchanged course of the lower nature. If you have not the entire and undivided call, it is better not to take the plunge, unless you are prepared for very bitter inner struggles, great difficulties and relapses and a hampered and doubtful ...
... of Truth, the expression of the Divine Law. In the Supermind, therefore, chance has no place. But in the lower Nature the supreme Truth is obscured: hence there is an absence of that divine unity of purpose and action which alone can constitute order. Lacking this unity, the domain of lower Nature is governed by what we may call chance—that is to say, it is a field in which various conflicting forces... result of confusion, dissonance and falsehood—a product of chance. Chance is not merely a conception to cover our ignorance of the causes at work; it is a description of the uncertain melée of the lower Nature which lacks the calm one-pointedness of the divine Truth. The world has forgotten its divine origin and become an arena of egoistic energies; but it is still possible for it to open to the Truth... important part of which is the facile notion that, since all things owe their final origin to the Divine, all their immediate activities also proceed directly from it. The fact is that here in the lower Nature the Divine is veiled by a cosmic Ignorance and what takes place does not proceed directly from the divine knowledge. That everything is equally the will Page 163 of God is a very convenient ...
... * It is a mistake to dwell too much on the lower nature and its obstacles, which is the negative side of the Sadhana. They have to be seen and purified, but preoccupation with them as the one important thing is not helpful. The positive side of experience of the descent is the more important thing. If one waits for the lower nature to be purified entirely and for all time before calling... consciousness; the higher consciousness has also to descend into mind, into life, into Matter. In that way the barriers will be removed and the higher consciousness will be able to take up the whole lower nature and transform it by the power of the supermind. The earth is a material field of evolution. Mind and Life, Supermind, Sachchidananda are in principle involved there in the earth-consciousness;... calling down the positive Page 5 experience, one might have to wait for ever. It is true that the more the lower nature is purified, the easier is the descent of the higher Nature, but it is also and more true that the more the higher Nature descends, the more the lower is purified. Neither the complete purification nor the permanent and perfect manifestation can come all at once, it is a ...
... of Truth, the expression of the Divine Law. In the Supcrmind, therefore, chance has no place. But in the lower Nature the supreme Truth is obscured: hence there is an absence of that divine unity of purpose and action which alone can constitute order. Lacking this unity, the domain of lower Nature is governed by what we may call chance—that is to say, it is a field in which various conflicting forces... result of confusion, dissonance and falsehood—a product of chance. Chance is not merely a conception to cover our ignorance of the causes at work; it is a description of uncertain mel é e of the lower Nature which lacks the calm one-pointedness of the Divine Truth. The world has forgotten its divine origin and become an arena of egoistic energies; but it is still possible for it to open to the Truth... important part of which is the facile notion that, since all things owe their final origin to the Divine, all their immediate activities also proceed directly from it. The fact is that here in the lower Nature the Divine is veiled by a cosmic Ignorance and what takes place does not proceed directly from the divine knowledge. That everything is equally the will of God is a very convenient suggestion ...
... you want to lapse into such a stupidity, you may do so elsewhere, not here. It is not this person or that who attracts you... it is the eternal feminine in the lower nature which attracts the eternal masculine in the lower nature and creates an illusion in the mind; it is the great play, obscure and semi-conscious, of the forces of unillumined nature; and as soon as one succeeds in escaping from... "Continue to drink in order to stop being a drunkard" or better: "Continue to kill to stop being a murderer!" One must never be afraid, and if the adverse forces try to lodge themselves in your lower nature, you have only to dislodge them, calling me to your help. Page 185 Mother, last night I had a nightmare and was almost frightened. One must never be afraid. Even in your sleep... from one's own nature, and one takes it along wherever one goes, whatever the conditions one may be in. There is but one way of getting out of it—it is to conquer the difficulty, overcome one's lower nature. And is this not easier here, with a concrete and tangible help, than all alone, without anyone to shed light on the path and guide the uncertain footsteps? My darling Mamma, I want to lead ...
... Ignorance, not its plunge into it. The lower nature is the nature of the Ignorance, what we seek is to grow into the nature of the Truth. How do you make out that when the soul has looked towards the Truth and is moving towards it, a pull-back by the vital and the ego towards the Ignorance is a glorious action of the soul and not a revolt of the lower nature? I suppose you are floundering about... "desire-soul" in the vital is the true psyche of man. If you like - but that is no part of my explanation of things; I make a clear distinction between the two, so I refuse to sanctify the revolt of the lower nature by calling it the sanction of the soul. If it is the soul that wants to fail, why is there any struggle or sorrow over the business? It would be a perfectly smooth affair. The soul would lift its... you come, I am equally glad to see you go. All is Divine and A.I.* — all has the soul's sanction; so go and mud away to your soul's content." 46 NB: If failures are due to the revolt of the lower nature, why should that revolt occur in A's case and not in B's? Sri Aurobindo: Because A is not B and B is not A. Why do you expect all to be alike and fare alike and run abreast all the way and ...
... and body. As in other paths which are integrated in the integral yoga, even so, in the path of karma yoga, the path of divine works, the aim is not merely liberation from the lower nature but also the liberation of the lower nature from its own limitations. For then only the work of the karma yogin is not only the work of the liberated soul but the work of accomplished supramentalised nature. As Sri Aurobindo... to know the Divine Shakti as the one Cosmic Force that moves us and all creatures on the planes of Mind, Life and Matter. For at the level of Mind, Life and Matter, the cosmic force acts as the lower Nature, Apara Prakriti, and, although the Divine Knowledge, Light, Power are concealed there and at work in the ignorance and can break partly its veil and manifest something of the true character or descend... manifest in the world." 40 But this aim cannot be achieved merely by ascent to the Supermind; there has to be, according to Sri Aurobindo, a descent of the supermind; for then only can the lower nature be transformed; then only can the action in the world be the manifestation of the dynamic nature of the Master of the Work, and then only can our law of action be one with the law of action of the ...
... if I was drowning in some bottomless blackness. There is no limit to the terrible pressures the lower nature creates, the kind of obstacles and hindrances it raises on the path of life, of sadhana. However, the Mother Herself is present in our midst. Her touch pushes all that is wrong in the lower nature to come out in the open at unstoppable speed. Like a dormant volcano that wakes up once again. Fire... rises from the human sadhak, is in fact protecting him.1 I stood there speechlessly for some time. Then I whispered to the Mother: “How long shall we remain in this state, Mother? Won’t the lower nature get transformed? We only want to be as you wish us to become.” The Mother answered reassuringly with great tenderness: “It will happen, it will happen. A day will come when, if I ask you,... Brahmashakti, the Mother, the Eternal Shakti began from the beginning of this creation in the subtle world is coming to a close. That is what the Mother’s reassuring words seemed to indicate. Our lower nature will be transformed when Brahmashakti herself has taken a human form in this world of Falsehood, and Brahman himself is present in the form of Sri Aurobindo. When Sri Aurobindo was preparing ...
... the movement of Nature is twofold, higher and lower... divine and undivine. The distinction exists indeed for practical purposes only.... All things are in Nature and all things are in God.... The lower Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego;... the lower to the higher is the aim of Yoga... the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity.... The method we have to pursue, then, is to put our whole conscious being into... process, as in an atomic reactor, by which the innate faculties and potentialities of our life (all the latent material, vital, mental and psychic energies) are integrally transformed from the 'lower' Nature to the 'higher' Nature or Supernature. In the final reckoning, of course. God alone is the sādhaka because he who chooses the Divine has already been chosen by the Divine, God alone is the sādhanā ...
... the immortal consciousness of the Infinite, though he apparently moves and works like others in the world; and he does not live in the lower nature of the fettering qualities, but in the inalienable freedom and purity of the parā prakrti, of which the lower Nature is only a darkened derivative. The Gita stops short only at a sparkling hint of the Divine Life and the transcendence of the gunas, ... Divine Nature, the Mother. The soul of man in its evolution inevitably passes through the lower Nature of the three guṇas, but when it is liberated, it does not shuffle off all Nature and retire into its immutable unembodied essence, but, seated securely in the higher, converts and perfects his lower Nature of mind, life and body, and, manifesting God's glory through this transformed triple instrument ...
... purity and fetter its freedom —it remains a slave of the lower nature, in spite of its potential superiority. There is no dearth of examples of a developed intellect committing gross errors of judgment or glaring acts of injustice or perfidy, not unconsciously, but consciously, even deliberately, driven by the desires and passions of the lower nature. In such cases, the intellect, because it submits to... Page 238 mind, bent upon achieving what is right and just in thought and word and deed. But whatever the competence of the buddhi and its potentiality as the leader of the lower nature, it labours under many defects, some intrinsic and some contingent, which have to be overcome, if it is to be used as a primary ' agent of purification. The first defect is its subservience to the... with the vibration of a potent will. Its guidance is a guarantee of purity and integrity, its steps are the steps of an un- faltering faith. To deliver this buddhi from the confused action of the lower nature is to be on the sure way to self- transcendence. A desireless, detached and high-aspiring buddhi is an ideal condition for the purification of the whole nature, but the ideal condition can be ...
... inmost kernel of the Gita's Yoga, the whole living and breathing centre of its teaching. We can see now quite clearly that the ascent of the limited human soul when it withdraws from the ego and the lower nature into the immutable Self calm, silent and stable, was only a first step, an initial change. And now too we can see why the Gita from the first insisted on the Ishwara, the Godhead in the human form... of soul factors and these go back always to a spiritual cause of their appearance. This finite outward becoming is an expressive phenomenon of the divine Infinite. Nature is, secondarily, the lower Nature, a subordinate variable development of a few selective combinations out of the many possibilities of the Infinite. Evolved out of essential and psychological quality of being and becoming, svabhāva... Master of the Yoga and acts out of a tranquil universality and oneness with all things and creatures. And this close contact with all things implies no involution of soul and mind in the separative lower nature, because his basis of spiritual experience is not the inferior phenomenal form and movement but the inner All and the supreme Transcendence. He becomes of like nature and law of being with the ...
... liberated soul participates more and more profoundly in this light. and bliss and grows the more perfectly into it, the more integrally it unites itself with the Divine. And while among the gunas of the lower Nature there is a necessary disequilibrium, a shifting inconstancy of measures and a perpetual struggle for domination, the greater light and bliss, calm, will of kinesis of the Spirit do not exclude each... can be converted into the divine kinetic will. That again means Page 468 the necessity of the intervention of Sattwa. The sattwic quality is a first mediator between the higher and the lower nature. It must indeed at a certain point transform or escape from itself and break up and dissolve into its source; its conditioned derivative seeking light and carefully constructed action must change... then the trend of Karma and its results necessarily culminate not in the sattwic height which is capable of the movement of liberation, but in the highest exaggeration of the perversities of the lower nature. The man, if he does not stop short and abandon his way of error, has eventually the Asura full-born in him, and once he has taken that enormous turn away from the Light and Truth, he can no more ...
... the human soul away from the world to a distant Absolute. The message of the Gita is the gospel of the Divinity in man who by force of an increasing union unfolds himself out of the veil of the lower Nature, reveals to the human soul his cosmic spirit, reveals his absolute transcendences, reveals himself in man and in all beings. The potential outcome here of this union, this divine Yoga, man growing... transcendence the Jiva finds his own divine nature and his true existence. The liberated eye of knowledge in the spiritual consciousness does not in its outlook on the world see this struggling lower Nature alone. If we perceive only the apparent outward fact of our nature and others' nature, we are looking with the eye of the ignorance and cannot know God equally in all, in the sattwic, the rajasic... encourages all high manifestations of energy and quality, the flaming tongues of the Divinity, the mounting greatnesses of soul and mind and life in their intensities uplifted from the levels of the lower nature towards heights of luminous wisdom and knowledge, mighty power, strength, capacity, courage, heroism, benignant sweetness and ardour and grandeur of love and self-giving, pre-eminent virtue, noble ...
... In the lower nature each being appears as the ego, in the higher he is the individual Purusha. In other words multiplicity is part of the spiritual nature of the One. This individual soul is myself, in the creation it is a partial manifestation of me, mamaiva aṁśaḥ , and it possesses all my powers; it is witness, giver of the sanction, upholder, knower, lord. It descends into the lower nature and thinks... natural soul-development; it seeks by the adoption of a few principles of subjective poise and action to bring about a renovation of the soul and a sort of change, ascension or new birth out of the lower nature into the divine. Accordingly, its idea of Samadhi is quite different from the ordinary notion of the Yogic trance; and while Patanjali gives to works only an initial importance for moral purification ...
... essential in the Gita's Yoga. In our Yoga we begin with the idea, the will, the aspiration of the complete surrender; but at the same time we have to reject the lower nature, deliver our consciousness from it, deliver the self involved in the lower nature by the self rising to freedom in the higher nature. If we do not do this double movement, we are in danger of making a tamasic and therefore unreal surrender... is no real contradiction; the two passages 1 indicate in the Gita's system two different movements of its Yoga, the complete surrender being the crowning movement. One has first to conquer the lower nature, deliver the self involved in the lower movement by means of the higher Self which rises into the divine nature; at the same time one offers all one's actions including the inner action of the Yoga ...
... consciousness to which the Divine alone exists, because all is the Divine and by which one passes beyond the Ignorance and the lower nature into unity with the Divine and the Divine Nature. Here in the Ignorance we are not aware of the Divine and we obey the lower nature. Page 5 All that is true Truth is the direct expression in one way or another of the Divine Consciousness. Life... ss which conceals the Divine from us. To get into the higher and deeper consciousness which knows and lives consciously in the Divine, we have to get rid of the forces of the Page 7 lower nature and open to the action of the Divine Shakti which will transform our consciousness into that of the Divine Nature. This is the conception of the Divine from which we have to start—the realisation ...
... only to persuade people to follow the established bent of their lower nature, while the Divine calls always for a change of nature. It is not to be wondered at that the Asura has an easier task and more momentary success in his combinations. But that temporary success does not bind the future. It is the movements of the lower nature that get purified. The Asuras themselves are not so easily transformed... character in the sense of a turning towards a higher consciousness, then it is the right force. If it is dark or obscure or perturbs the being with rajasic or egoistic suggestions or excites the lower nature, then it is an adverse Force. The hostiles have themselves bodies though not of a gross physical kind—they see, but with a subtle seeing that includes not only bodies, but movements of forces ...
... Letters on Yoga - III Chapter V The Psychic and Spiritual Transformations Psychisation and Spiritualisation Psychisation means the change of the lower nature, bringing right vision into the mind, right impulse and feeling into the vital, right movement and habit into the physical—all turned towards the Divine, all based on love, adoration, bhakti—finally... will make the being ready to respond to all that comes from the Divine or Higher Nature and unwilling to respond to the Asura, Rakshasa, Pishacha or Animal in the being or to any insistence of the lower nature which stands in the way of the divine change. It is not the psychic but the mind that gets raised and transformed and its action intensified by the intuitivising of the consciousness. The... overmind. The entire change however is made only when there is the supramental influence. But for the present the psychic is the force that may be relied on for the preliminary purification of the lower nature. Page 388 ...
... distinguishable from illness. Whatever force is sent is for cure. Increase of illness or physical suffering is not the result of the force. The Lower Nature, the Hostile Forces and Illness Attacks of illness are attacks of the lower nature or of adverse forces taking advantage of some weakness, opening or response in the nature,—like all other things that come and have got to be thrown away... Illness is always an attack of contrary forces in Nature—but not always of what are specially called the Hostile Forces or intended to frustrate aspiration. A desire is an ordinary force of the lower Nature, though it may be used by the Hostile Forces. Hostile [ source of illness ] here means hostile to the Yoga. An illness which comes in the ordinary course as the result of physical causes—even ...
... things in your own nature and you were shown how it would be effectively done. First a vivid realisation was given of what the lower nature is, its terrible darkness and ugliness in which men contentedly live. But having realised its true nature a cry came from your lower nature itself for the change. You were then shown the light of the higher nature by whose descent the change could come—the white... shown a symbol of the rūpāntar , the change in the universal Nature. This change was only in seed and in symbol. Afterwards this part of the vision disappeared and you saw again the darkness of the lower Nature. But in you the light was there still and the assurance that it brings. For it is in the individual that the change must first come and it is with the light and the faith in the individual as a ...
... soul within. These things come in the course Page 271 of the sadhana because the sadhak is liberating himself from the lower nature and trying to turn towards the Mother and live in her divine consciousness and the higher nature. The forces of the lower nature do not want that and so they make these rushes in order to recover their rule. It is necessary when that comes to remain quiet within... one can go on with more likelihood of success to throw it out from the thought and feeling also. And so with all other wrong movements. All these movements come from outside, from the universal lower nature, or are suggested or thrown upon you by adverse forces—adverse to your spiritual progress. Your method of taking them as your own is again a wrong method; for by doing that you increase their power ...
... 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; it 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 effort of the Sadhaka... constant, unceasing—the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; rejection of the movements of the lower nature—rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind,—rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings ...
... seats of impurity; it is they that must be set right if the working of the spirit is to be a perfect working and not marked by its present greater or less concession to the devious pleasure of the lower nature. What is ordinarily called purity of the being, is either a negative whiteness, a freedom from sin gained by a constant inhibition of whatever action, feeling, idea or will we think to be wrong... human perfection, but it can be made the basis and open out in its effort of self-attainment into the greater, the divine perfection. Mind, life and body are the three powers of our lower Page 646 nature. But they cannot be taken quite separately because the life acts as a link and gives its character to body and to a great extent to our mentality. Our body is a living body; the life-force... higher siddhi or divine perfection. At present we have to consider the purification of the normal being of man, preparatory to any such conversion, which leads to the liberation from the bonds of our lower nature. Page 653 ...
... or possibility of conversion up to now. It is not surprising that they should be powerful in a world of Ignorance, for they have only to persuade people to follow the established bent of their lower nature, while the Divine calls always for a change of Nature. It is not to be wondered at that the Asura has an easier task and more momentary success in his combinations. But that temporary success does... they were succumbing. The Mother had even foreseen from the beginning that this might happen and put them on their guard in due time. If they fell, it was because they preferred to follow their lower nature and side with the lower forces. The Divine can lead, he does not drive. There is an internal freedom permitted to every mental being called man to assent or not to assent to the Divine leading:... Why do you believe everything that people tell you? What I told Puranmull was that he had once progressed greatly, he had afterwards allowed himself to yield to the bad habits that rose from his lower nature and fallen from the psychic contact and that until he got rid of these things which were Page 378 the cause of all his sufferings he would not progress or recover his contact with ...
... love and power and happiness and enjoyments. A strong mood of disenchantment grips him so far as the normal human life of lower nature is concerned. Second Step: The sadhaka ardently seeks to come out of this hollow human living, to escape from the prison-house of lower nature. He does not as yet know what he really wants or wherein lies the solution to his malaise and discontent. But this he... 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 effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary." (The Mother, Cent. Ed., P-6) And in the very next sentence Sri Aurobindo has included the 'labour of aspiration' as the ...
... Homer allows us to enter into a spirit and atmosphere which passed away centuries ago, but still has the power to uplift us because it expresses the universal human possibility of rising above the lower nature. According to Greek mythology, Achilles, the greatest warrior of Agamemnon's army at Troy, was the son of the mortal king Peleus and the immortal sea-nymph Thetis. In one tale of his childhood... inflamed forever. Quickly drive our long-haired Achaeans to battle now!" Page 67 This god-like man stands as an example to all Greeks —indeed to humanity — as one who subdues his lower nature and puts himself in the hands of the gods to work out a divine purpose. In a way he may be compared to Arjuna who is asked to make a similar surrender. Both offer their capacities as skillful and... battle Page 69 on the side of a right trying to establish itself in the midst of a darkness that has overtaken the entire Kshatriya race. Achilles also must face the limitations of his lower nature. He is struck by pride and anger and deserts his king when his help is most needed. He has to be prodded by the gods and by circumstances to re-direct that anger so that he can re-enter the fray ...
... physical beings here. It stands behind them. The psychic being is what the Europeans call the "Soul" – it is the "true person" in man. It is the innermost being in the lower nature, it is the direct representative of the Divine in the lower nature. It is generally supposed to be behind the heart. It is behind the emotional activity which is its surface manifestation. Page 189 Ordinary... way ? Disciple : When suffering comes it forces one to separate himself from the instruments and recognise his true self and so he feels pure and light and this helps him to rise above the lower nature. . Sri Aurobindo : It need not make you separate yourself from suffering unless you have got the power to stand back from it; but this power is not inherent in suffering. Take the case ...
... they are the working of the lower Page 602 nature of the Ignorance. The action of the hostile forces is a special intervention creating violent inner conflicts, abnormal depressions, thoughts and impulses of a kind which can be easily recognised as suggestion e.g. leaving the Ashram, abandoning the yoga, revolt against the Divine.... The lower nature is ignorant and undivine... undivine, not in itself hostile but shut to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or at least entirely control him. 75 But even the so-called 'hostile' forces have a function in the larger scheme of things: "It ...
... towards action, and that you would be writing to me more frequently than recently. But I am afraid you have sunk again into same kind of stillness and inaction. Withdrawal from the blind drive of the lower nature is indispensable for the liberation of the Purusha. It is, indeed, the very first decisive step in our Yoga ; but an exaggeration of this tendency to passivity may lead towards the traditional Nirvanic... Indeed, my friend, we have embarked upon a very difficult adventure—the supramentalisation of the whole of our being down to the cells of our body. Liberation from the ego and transcendence of the lower nature, which is the summit of almost every other Yoga, is only our first, decisive step towards our goal. We must get beyond the mind as soon as we can, forget and reject our mental ideas and ideals,... his subconscient and inconscient parts; the rapture of the Divine embrace flooding the active life of the Yogi and all Page 54 his movements; the transfiguration of the lower nature into the Higher, the Para-Prakriti and its selfdeployment here—where, in which yoga, in which seer, in which mystic shall we find these glorious truths held up before mankind ? That is why Sri Aurobindo ...
... y penetrated and suffused with the soul-substance, in the concentrated light of which it finally vanishes for ever. THE TRIPLE STRAND OF THE EGO The three qualitative modes of the lower nature, Sattwa, Rajjas and Tamas, interfuse in the ego in varying combinations, and give it its distinctive stamp. The ego can be predominantly tamasic, rajasic or sattwic. The tamasic Page 133... it is not identified with anything, it has no separative ego in it. When we live in the true consciousness, we live in unity and harmony, and can clearly observe the divisions and discords of our lower nature, the myriad masks and ruses of the ego and its multiplying desires. The ego then appears incredibly ridiculous, and egoistic pride and satisfaction an insult to the infinite glory of our true Self... alternations of ascent and fall, and the continuing working of the Mother's Force in the nature, a certain security is gained in the higher poise and a considerable clarity and transparency in the lower nature, which preclude the frequency of the relapse and the fake identification. The individual consciousness rises higher and higher, and each ascent to a new plane of consciousness is followed by a descent ...
... The Mother used to get even the gods down in our midst. Now the Mother and Sri Aurobindo are working with the lower nature. Now everyone has to go through the various problems of the lower nature. If one can open to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, They will solve our problems with the lower nature for us. This path of sadhana is most interesting, even though it is hard. The Mother has stretched out Her ...
... to the action of the divine Force. There is a period, more or less prolonged, of internal effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right... truth of the superior action must first be inhibited or rendered impotent, and it must be done by our own free choice. A continual and always repeated refusal of the impulsions and falsehoods of the lower nature is asked from us and an insistent support to the Truth as it grows in our parts; for the progressive settling into our nature and final perfection of the incoming informing Light, Purity and Power... × "Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature.".—Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo, Letters on yoga.. SABCL. Vol. 23, p. 541. × ...
... Force which forms and moves the worlds. The higher, divine Nature (Para Prakriti) is free from Ignorance and its consequences; the lower Nature (Apara Prakriti) is a mechanism of active Force put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. The lower nature of an individual — mind, life and body — are part of Prakriti. Nescience — Inconscience. Nihilism —Nagarjuna's (Buddhist)... essence grows and takes form as the psychic being. Psychicisation — the psychic change in which the psychic being comes forward to dominate the mind, vital and physical and change the lower nature. Purusha — Conscious Being; Conscious-Soul; essential being supporting the play of Prakriti (Nature); a Consciousness behind that is the lord, witness, enjoyer, upholder and source of ...
... agreeing that this is the supreme object of knowledge, of works and of devotion, all agreeing that if it is to be attained, the Jiva must release himself from the ego-sense which belongs to the lower Nature or Maya. But here they part company and each goes his own way. The Monist fixes his feet on the path of an exclusive Knowledge and sets for us as sole ideal an entire return, loss, immersion or... and temporary; the Jiva seems to descend again into the egoistic life and the higher consciousness to be withdrawn from him. In reality, what happens is that a cloud or veil intervenes between the lower nature and the higher consciousness and the Prakriti resumes for a time its old habit of working under the pressure but not always with a knowledge or present memory of that high experience. What works... confusion and restless compulsion to action, the Divine acts freely out of a fathomless calm. Into that abyss of tranquillity we must plunge and become that, if we are to annul the hold of this lower nature upon the soul. Therefore the universalised Jiva first ascends into the Silence; it becomes vast, tranquil, actionless. What action takes place, whether of body and these organs or any working whatever ...
... all and live in that knowledge is the secret. He knows him as the Self, immutable, continent of all as well as immanent in all things. He draws back from the confused and perturbed whirl of the lower nature to dwell in the still and inalienable calm and light of the self-existent spirit. There he realises a constant unity with this self of the Divine that is present in all existences and supports all... and for the satisfaction of the earthly hunger of the intellect, body, senses. Those who have given themselves up too entirely to this outward drive of the mentality, fall into the hands of the lower nature, cling to it and make it their foundation. They become a prey to the nature of the Rakshasa in man who sacrifices everything to a violent and inordinate satisfaction of his separate vital ego and... Once this secret and inner Godhead is known and is embraced, the whole being and the whole life will undergo a sovereign uplifting and a marvellous transmutation. In place of the ignorance of the lower Nature absorbed in its outward works and appearances the eye will open to the vision of God everywhere, to the unity and universality of the spirit. The world's sorrow and pain will disappear in the bliss ...
... all is self and soul and nature of the Godhead, all is Vasudeva. The world for the Gita is real, a creation of the Lord, a power of the Eternal, a manifestation from the Parabrahman, and even this lower nature of the triple Maya is a derivation from the supreme divine Nature. Nor can we take refuge altogether in this distinction that there is a double, an inferior active and temporal and a superior calm... manifests himself in all birth and even himself descends as the constant Avatar, it is by knowing him in his entirety, samagraṁ mām , that the soul is easily released from the appearances of the lower Nature and returns by a vast sudden growth and broad immeasurable ascension into the divine being and supreme Nature. For the truth of the Kshara too is a truth of the Purushottama. The Purushottama is... instructive to see how it is immediately approached and developed. To ascend into the divine nature, we have been told, one must first fix oneself in a perfect spiritual equality and rise above the lower nature of the three gunas. Thus transcending the lower Prakriti we fix ourselves in the impersonality, the imperturbable superiority to all action, the purity from all definition and limitation by quality ...
... and formidable in the dealings of the Page 452 universal Spirit with the world, are things born of the subjection of our consciousness to a natural ignorance, the way of working of a lower nature in which the soul is involved and sees itself as a separate ego returning to the action of things upon it dual reactions of pain and pleasure, virtue and vice, right and wrong, good happening and... divine Page 458 Will in and above her that demands action of us; the choice and turn our ego gives to it is a contribution of our tamasic, rajasic, sattwic quality, a deformation in the lower Nature. The deformation comes by the ego thinking of itself as the doer; the character of the act takes the form of the limited personal nature and the soul is bound up with that and its narrow figures... ence; it may happen by transition to an absolute and infinite power and status of the Spirit. But while we are here in the body, here in life, here in action, what in this change becomes of the lower nature? For at present all our activities are determined in their trend and shape by the nature, and this Nature here is the nature of the three gunas, and in all natural being and in all natural activities ...
... meant for the Path; for it is a sure sign of the dawns that are to come hereafter. Periods of Difficulty and Arrest These periods of difficulty inevitably come—none is without them, for the lower nature is there in all. What you have to do is to keep the firmness of which you speak and persevere till the Divine Power and your will together have dealt with what rises from below. Why do you regard... This struggle is inevitable in human nature and no sadhak escapes it; everyone has to deal with that obscurity and resistance and its obstinacy and constant Page 663 recurrence; for the lower nature is not only persistent in its repetitions and returns, but even when it is on the point of changing, the general Powers of that plane in universal Nature try to keep up the resistance by bringing... physical to cling to old mistakes and old habits or to shrink from the trouble of transformation—but in these respects you have made a great progress. What is there, is the mechanical habit of the lower nature in general—mechanical, not voluntary—to repeat the old movements to which it has been or was quite recently accustomed when any strong wave of them comes in from the surrounding universal Nature ...
... Chapter VIII Descent and the Lower Nature The Resistance of the Lower Nature If the habit of the ordinary nature is not any obstacle to the descent, then what is the need of sadhana? What prevents the whole higher consciousness from coming down and changing you into a superman in one second? It is because the things of the lower nature offer an obstinate resistance that long sadhana ...
... fault with you for taking long over it, I myself took full twelve years to learn it thoroughly, and even after I knew the principle well enough, it took me quite four years and more to master my lower nature in this respect. But you have the advantage of my experience and my help; you will be able to do it more rapidly, if you consciously and fully assist me, by not associating yourself with the enemy... conquest is accomplished. The rest becomes a comparatively easy building on an assured basis,—it may take longer or shorter, but it can be done tranquilly and steadily. To prevent the shuddhi the lower nature in you and around you will exhaust all its efforts, and even when it cannot prevent, it will try to retard. And its strongest weapon then is, when you think you have got it, suddenly to break in... the old chords. The one thing necessary when the renewed trouble comes, is to stand back in your mind and will from it, refuse it the sanction of your higher being, even when it is raging in the lower nature. As that habit of refusal fixes itself,—at first you may not be able to do it, the buddhi may be lost in the storm,—you will find that the asuddhi, even though it still returns, becomes less violent ...
... 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 effort of the Sadhaka... will, Page 31 the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands ...
... are merely sitting on them—they remain repressed in the subconscient until they explode there and cause an upheaval in the whole being. It is from within that you must become master of your lower nature by establishing your consciousness firmly in a domain that is free of all desire and attachment because it is under the influence of the divine Light and Force. It is a long and exacting labour... leave here and they say cautiously: "Who knows whether it won't be my turn some day!" I feel there is a force behind all this. What is it? This uncertainty and these departures are due to the lower nature, which resists the influence of the yogic power and tries to slow down the divine action, not out of ill-will but in order to be sure that nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to reach... surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature.... What is created by spiritual progress is an inner closeness and intimacy in the inner being, the sense of the Mother's love and presence etc." 24 February 1965 Sweet Mother, What ...
... this because I feel the gloom more in the form of suggestions from outside than as feelings from within, and the sadhana goes on in spite of it. The depression must be due to a push of the genera! lower nature and the vital's inability to reject it. Yes. The depression comes from without, not from within. But some part of the vital is too habituated to respond or at least passively accept or reflect... that even the descents cannot change or purify the ego and desire. It is not descents that can do [it]. It is either psychic rejection or the settling of the higher consciousness in the lower nature or both together that can do it. The ego comes out in most of my thoughts, feelings and actions, even in trifling and stupid movements where there is nothing to be proud of. Please... penetrating into my physical Page 110 and material consciousness - so inertia, dullness etc. are natural. Is this not true? It may be - as a reaction of the lower nature resisting change. Just after the general evening meditation there is a great uprush of inertia. Its power prevents me from doing any sadhana. What is the cause of this? There ...
... things in your own nature and you were shown how it would be effectively done. First a vivid realisation was given of what the lower nature is, its terrible darkness and ugliness in which men contentedly live. But having realised its true nature a cry came from your lower nature itself for the change. You were then shown the light of the higher nature by whose descent the change could come—the white light... shown a symbol of the rupāntar, the change in the universal Nature. This change was only in seed and in symbol. Afterwards this part of the vision disappeared and you saw again the darkness of the lower Nature. But in you the light was there still and the assurance that it brings. For it is in the individual that the change first must come and it is with the light and faith in the individual as a support ...
... consider to be true, good and beautiful, all that we consider to be perfect and divine. In the second stage, three is a wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of all that we are in our ordinary lower nature to receive and to become the higher nature. It is only in the third and the last stage, which can be wholly rapid and blissful, that there can come about the eventual transformation and perfection... ion of which the psychic is the representative here.¹ According to Sri Aurobindo, the psychic being (also known as Chaitya Purusha) has a spontaneous aspiration for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher... of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for die divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the ascent, there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of ...
... sadhana of aspiration; we propose to speak now of the sadhana of rejection. Sri Aurobindo has insisted that a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga has to renounce all the habitual movements of the lower nature. These include 'the Mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions'; 'the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed... unreserved surrender to the Divine, represents for him a serious obstacle. In particular, these obstacles include in their sweeping ambit all sorts of evil tendencies, all the weaknesses of the lower nature, and all actions and reactions which, however trivial or good-looking in their appearance, contradict the spiritual ideal. Such being the situation it is no exaggeration to say that an ordinary... We have already alluded to this enumeration in the very beginning of this chapter. It will be good if we do it once again. In Sri Aurobindo' s words: "...rejection of the movements of the lower nature — rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, — rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands ...
... consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the Adhara... that makes the Sadhana possible." (Cent. Ed.,p.6) But this truth is at present veiled from the ego-consciousness of the sadhaka, and his lower nature is quite active with the sense Page 135 of a separately functioning personal will. And so long as this state of affairs continues, the sadhaka cannot shirk his responsibility... periods of this Yoga... In the first 'the individual pre-pares himself for the reception of the Divine into his members. For all this first period he has to work by means of the instruments of the lower Nature, but aided more and more from above. But in the later transitional stage of this movement our personal and necessarily ignorant effort more and more dwindles and a higher Nature acts;... In the... .. But the entire substitution of the divine for the human personal action is not at once entirely possible.... A continual and always repeated refusal of the impulsions and falsehoods of the lower nature is asked from us... In the last period there is no effort at all, no set method, no fixed Sadhana; the place of endeavour and Tapasya will be taken by a natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing ...
... can be effected. But there is still a culmination of this deeper secret; there is still the deepest secret, guhyatamam rahasyam. This secret is that of the possibility of the transmutation of lower nature by higher nature, of the attainment of sadharmyam, where human law of action is substituted by the divine law of action. And the secret method is to move Page 276 at a stage where... and capable of organising a natural selection and combination of their varied energies and different utilities. Describing this process of synthesis and its aim, Sri Aurobindo states: The lower Nature, that which we know and are and must remain so long as the faith in us is not changed, acts through limitation and division, is of the nature of Ignorance and culminates in the life of the ego;... must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and ...
... the veil between the higher nature and the lower nature becomes thin and the higher nature sometimes discloses itself and we feel elevated for a short moment into extraordinary sublimity of knowledge, power and delight. The higher nature is also the stuff of our true individuality (Jiva) of which our ego (ahamkara) is a distorted image in the lower nature. Our true individuality, - that which is figured... these chapters, Gita describes the fullness of the Divine Being and His Divine Nature. The Gita also gives us some broad hints as to whether we can discover the divine nature even in our ordinary lower nature. The Divine Nature operates immanently in the universe at large but it is discernible only partially in each of us at various levels of consciousness. It operates as the veiled source of sattvic ...
... even this transformation is unable to do fully what is needed for the total transformation of the lower nature, Apara Prakriti. This is the reason why a still higher power, the supramental power, is needed, and this is the reason of bringing down the supermind in the lowest layers of the lower Nature. As Sri Aurobindo points out, only the Page 63 supermind can descend with its full power... ascended to the overmind and supermind. The descent of the powers of the consciousness descending from a higher level aims at meeting and transforming each minutest portion and movement of the lower Nature; each element, each fibre and each vibration must either be destroyed and replaced if it is unfit, or, if it is capable, transmuted into the truth of the higher being. A descent of consciousness ...
... these are conscious forces or are supported by a consciousness or consciousnesses behind.' Elsewhere he says: 'The lower nature is ignorant and undivine, not in itself hostile to the Light and Truth. The hostile forces are anti-divine, not merely undivine; they make use of the lower nature, pervert it, fill it with distorted movements and by that means influence man and even try to enter and possess or... the lower movements of nature in man — the instincts, sensations, desires and passions of various kinds, the likings and dislikings, vanity, anger and a host of other things which bind man to his lower nature. Only then can the individual soul in man awaken, the inmost psychic being come into the forefront, governing and purifying his external mind, life and body, and lead him to a union with the Divine ...
... hostile forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature—it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. It is known that the hostile Forces take advantage of the movements of the lower nature and try to spoil through them, smash or retard the siddhi. It has been said as long... hanged. Why should I stop the business—that is to say postpone the possibility for another millennium because A or U gets shaky or many others look homeward? Will that postponement change the lower nature or get rid of the Asuras? What's the idea? What's the occult secret? You promised to give me some lessons in Occultism—here is an occasion. Please expatiate, and pacify my nervous shocks. Otherwise ...
... otherwise how can my physical be reposing in peace and silence in spite of the inertia? It is evidently in that case the subconscient inertia. Page 288 The lower nature tried its best, but in vain, to throw its waves of jealousy on my vital, for the Mother has so reinforced my environmental consciousness with her Peace that nothing foreign to her can penetrate... in the higher consciousness, the Agni of the self; this will support the psychic fire and keep it alive all the time. For, the psychic fire, being already in the evolution, may get veiled by the lower nature, but the Agni of the self is always above the Creation and so is ever detached and dynamic. It can bring down whatever help and protection is necessary from the Mother. Yes, the two... Mother sends down something from her own self in the form of experiences and realisations. Remaining in the Mother the sadhak need not remain all passive, doing nothing, when the lower nature becomes active; but remaining in her he must repel everything undivine. Correct. If one is vigilant and constantly keeps a watch over all the movements, the feeling ...
... to be true, good and beautiful, all that we consider to be perfect and divine. In the second stage, there is a wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of all that we are in our ordinary lower nature to receive and to become the higher nature. It is only in the third and the last stage, which can be wholly rapid and blissful, that there can come about the eventual transformation and perfection... on of which the psychic is the representative here.10 According to Sri Aurobindo, the psychic being (also known as Chaitya Purusha) has a spontaneous aspiration for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher... of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for the divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the ascent, there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of this ...
... done, there the hostile forces gather together to stop it by any means. It is known that there is a lower nature and a higher spiritual nature - it is known that they pull different ways and the lower is strongest at first and the higher afterwards. 58 The hostile forces exploit the lower nature and try to retard or destroy the Yoga. Didn't the Upanishad describe the Yogic path as sharp as... reliance on the Divine, one could always fight one's way through all difficulties and obstructions. Sri Aurobindo had referred to this recurrent problem in Yoga: To have weaknesses of the lower nature is one thing - to call in the hostile forces is quite another. Whoever does the latter .. .is going towards the opposite camp - for the marks of the hostile Force are contempt of the Divine, revolt ...
... be passed through with the utmost care and vigilance. There is almost invariably an upsurge of the muck of the subconscient sewers, and a desperate repetition of the mechanical movements of the lower nature. Calm detachment, awareness of the Mother's Force working in oneself, patient vigilance, a persistent will, and a perfect surrender and plasticity are the most helpful during this period. At a further... says: "In this Yoga...there can be no place for vital relations or interchanges with others, any such relation or inter- change immediately ties down the soul to the lower consciousness and its lower nature, prevents the true and full union with the Divine and hampers both the ascent to the supramental Truth-consciousness and the descent of the supramental Iśwarī Śakti. Still worse would it be if... initial aim in the Integral Yoga being an absolute surrender and dedication of the whole being to the Divine, any human relation of love between the sexes, however romantic it may appear to our lower nature, is a fatal counter-attraction, and cannot but end in spiritual disaster. It does not, however, mean that there will be no love amongst friends and relatives, but there must be no exclusive attachment ...
... considerably modify or even transform them. A constant consciousness of our soul or self is a constant guarantee against a blindness to or a false identification with the obscure movements of our lower nature. Poised in the psychic consciousness, or even basking in its light, we feel each impure or ignorant movement of our nature, not as the puritan feels it, as something sinful and execrable which has... ON The initial basis of purification is a poise of quiet detachment from the flux of nature. Identifying oneself with the soul, one must be able to say in regard to the forces of the lower nature: "They are not mine, I have nothing to do with them. They belong to the universal nature of ignorance." This detachment should be accompanied by a withdrawal of sanction from the obscure movements... rest. This is the poise of the witness or sākṣī puruṣa who is also the approver and giver of the sanction, anumantā . The calm will of the central being, rejecting the ignorant working of the lower nature, is the most important factor in the process of purification as followed in the Integral Yoga. No wrestling with the impurities, no panicky obsession with them, no concession or quarter to them ...
... The Supreme Secret Essays on the Gita XX Swabhava and Swadharma It is then by a liberating development of the soul out of this lower nature of the triple gunas into the supreme divine nature beyond the three gunas that we can best arrive at spiritual perfection and freedom. And this again can best be brought about by an anterior development of... in proportion to our progress in self-knowledge. And first we have to see that the Swabhava means one thing in the highest spiritual nature and takes quite another form and significance in the lower nature of the three gunas. There too it Page 520 acts, but is not in full possession of itself, is seeking as it were for its own true law in a half light or a darkness and goes on its way ...
... live in this unchangeably conscious eternal being of the Purushottama. 1 But to arrive here at this greater spiritual immortality the embodied soul must cease to live according to the law of the lower nature; it must Page 422 put on the law of the Divine's supreme way of existence which is in fact the real law of its own eternal essence. In the spiritual evolution of its becoming, no less... instrument of his will. To see that the modes of Nature are the whole agency and cause of our works and to know and turn to that which is supreme above the gunas, is the way to rise above the lower nature. Only so can we attain to the movement and status of the Divine, mad-bhāva , by which free from subjection to birth and death and their concomitants, decay, old age and suffering, the liberated ...
... in its appearance, but also its high and reassuring significance. And thou also shouldst so envisage it without fear, without confusion of mind, without any sinking of the members; but since the lower nature in thee is not yet prepared to look upon it with that high strength and tranquillity, I will reassume again for thee my Narayana figure in which the human mind sees isolated and toned to its humanity... my works, accept me as the supreme being and object, become my bhakta, be free from attachment and without enmity to all existences; for such a man comes to me." In other words superiority to the lower nature, unity with all creatures, oneness with the cosmic Godhead and the Transcendence, oneness of will with the Divine in works, absolute love for the One and for God in all,—this is the way to that ...
... world; where we are ourselves by a new and divine birth changed into being of that Being, consciousness of that Consciousness, power of that Power, bliss of that Bliss, and, living no longer in our lower nature, have no works to do of our own, no personal aim to pursue of our own, but if we do works at all,—and that is the one real problem and difficulty left,—do only the divine works, those of which our... being. But how can we actually be sure that this is the truth? We cannot so long as we remain satisfied with our ordinary mental experience; for our normal mental experience is wholly that of this lower nature full of the ignorance. We can only know this greater truth by living it, that is to say, by passing beyond the mental into the spiritual experience, by Yoga. For the living out of spiritual experience ...
... ignorance. The Jivatman is already one with the Divine in reality, but it may want the rest of the consciousness to realise it. The aspiration of the psychic being is for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher... first, but it can become so by increased frequency and endurance of the calm and peace and finally by the full descent of the eternal peace and calm and silence of the higher consciousness into the lower nature. 5 May 1935 I read a [copy of the preceding] letter on Jivatman, spark-soul and psychic being. I would like to ask some questions. Is Jivatman of (or in) one person different from that of ...
... follow. Till then work and life can be only a means of sadhana, not a "self-fulfilment" or a brilliant and interesting vital life on the old basis. 15 April 1936 Everybody has to deal with the lower nature. No Yoga can be done without overcoming it, neither this Yoga nor any other. A Yogic life means a life in which one tries to follow the law of Yoga, the aim of Yoga in all details of life. Here... too can only come here by sadhana. 24 May 1937 What you have written is quite correct. To say that the Divine is defeated when a sadhak goes away is an absurdity. If the sadhak allows his lower nature to get the better of him, it is his defeat, not the Divine's. The sadhak comes here not because the Divine has need of him, but because he has need of the Divine. If he carries out the conditions ...
... above, the psychic is the change that comes from within by the psychic dominating the mind, vital and physical. 120 * Page 101 Psychicisation means the change of the lower nature bringing right vision into the mind, right impulse and feeling into the vital, right movement and habit into the physical — all turned towards the Divine, all based on love, adoration, bhakti..... overmind. The entire change however is made only when there is the supramental influence. But for the present the psychic is the force that may be relied on for the preliminary purification of the lower nature. 125 * As the crust of the outer nature cracks, as the walls of inner separation break down, the inner light gets through, the inner fire burns in the heart, the substance of the nature ...
... splendour of authenticity; not before you open your lower nature to it can it begin to manifest in terms of the Truth. You must, therefore, refrain from applying the merely Nietzschean standard of temporary success in order to differentiate the Divine from the undivine. For, life is a battlefield in which the Divine succeeds in detail only when the lower nature is receptive to its impulsions instead of siding ...
... Truth, the expression of the Divine Law. In the Supermind, therefore, chance has no place. But in the lower Nature, the supreme Truth is obscured: hence there is an absence of that divine unity of purpose and action which alone can constitute order. Lacking this unity, the domain of the lower Nature is governed by what we may call chance—that is to say, it is a field in which various conflicting forces ...
... The Mother Mastering one's lower nature To be a man, discipline is indispensable. Page 13 Without discipline one is only an animal. One begins to be a man only when one aspires to a higher and truer life and when one accepts a discipline of transformation. For this one must start by mastering one's lower nature and its desires. The Mother ...
... subservient to our lower nature, that even if in it there lies concealed some seed of the entire divinity, it can hardly itself be the seed and at any rate gives us no such secure and divine poise as we are seeking. Therefore we say, not the intellect and will, but that supreme thing in us yet higher than the Reason, the spirit, here concealed behind the coatings of our lower nature, is the secret seed ...
... throwing their crude and mechanical compulsion on him, because he and they are the slaves of their own ego, of their own lower nature. We must feel and obey the compulsion of the Spirit if we would establish our inner right to escape other compulsion: we must make our lower nature the willing slave, the conscious and illumined instrument or the ennobled but still self-subjected portion, consort or partner ...
... higher nature. Kamananda tested, momentarily depressed, survives the test and continues its previous action. 28 February 1917 Continued purification from the independent action of the lower nature. Preparation of a new movement in which it will fall into its place as part of the ideal nature. Meanwhile, suspension of the illumined higher action, in order that the lower, deprived of the... fact. Samata severely tested has this time held good in spite of one or two adverse touches; the second chatusthaya (faith, devibhava) sometimes gives way, but reasserts itself swiftly.. The lower nature still resists the new devibhava and attempts to go back to the old sense of limitation and essential incapacity. The devibhava is taking into itself Surya, Soma, Agni, Indra and seeking to ...
... would a cut that has to be cleaned or anything else belonging to you but external. The large inner mind and the true vital having shown themselves are bound to get the mastery; but the old lower nature, especially the vital part of it, is bound to struggle for reaffirming its hold on the consciousness. To remain very firm and repel its attacks till they lose their strength, is necessary. ... reason why they don't come in freely or stay is the activity of the mind and vital always rushing about, thinking this, wanting that, trying to perform mountaineering feats on all the hillocks of the lower nature instead of nourishing a strong and simple aspiration and opening to the higher consciousness that it may come in and do its own work. Rasa of poetry, painting or physical work is not the thing to ...
... been very self-centred and the mind active—in such a nature it is easier for the higher mind to act than for the psychic. The Mind and the Lower Nature It is necessary first to found the higher consciousness in the mind and heart. To deal with the lower nature before that means to fall into the struggle and confusion and disorder of the vital, for it all comes up. With the mind and heart prepared ...
... by suicide is an act of excessive egoism, not of freedom. The true freedom is found in unity with God and in the abiding sense of immortality, when the soul has risen above the bondage of his lower nature, and from the spirit heights of his being can survey his actions seated in a calm, untouched, unmoved by happenings in Time. Page 752 Suicide is never the right thing to do, but... × A statement of Sri Aurobindo which the correspondent wrongly quoted as follows: "It is a mistake to dwell on the lower nature and its obstacles, which is the negative side of the Sadhana.... The positive side of experience of the descent is the more important thing." In transcribing this statement, the correspondent left ...
... and physical) is a big work and takes a long time and much action of the higher forces to accomplish. Nobody has ever done it in a short time. That is nonsense—no one can get free from the lower nature in such a short time [ eight or nine months ]. It takes years for even the greatest Yogis—it is the work of a life-time. As I have constantly told you, you cannot expect all to be enlightened... sufficiently for a beginning of experience is usually a very long labour. But afterwards if the peace begins or any other right condition, it comes and stays for a time—then what is left of the lower nature surges up on some excuse or with no excuse and veils the condition. Peace and opening may come so strongly that it seems all difficulties are gone and can never return—but that is only an indication ...
... that will bring not wideness but confusion. 6) Here in the lower nature there are many things, but they are in a state of disharmony, so to follow them all together means disharmony, confusion, want of organisation, fight. In the higher (supramental) nature there is a greater wideness and much more is there than in the lower nature; but all is harmony, organisation, peace. Follow therefore the ...
... the seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the Page 166 power of obscuration and perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it... stress of eager meditation and seeking for knowledge, a longing of the Page 179 heart, a passionate will ignorant yet but sincere may break the lid that shuts off that Higher from this Lower Nature and open the floodgates. A little of the Divine Person may reveal itself or some Light, Power, Bliss, Love out of the Infinite. This may be a momentary revelation, a flash or a brief-lived gleam ...
... and returning to its own proper principle. Another explanation that tallies with a certain part of our experience is that there is a dual being in us, the animal and material, or more widely the lower nature-bound, and the soul or spiritual being entangled by mind in the material existence or in world-nature, and freedom comes by escape from the entanglement, the soul returning to its native planes... pass into some ineffable tranquillity of the spirit and vast cessation of the activities of Nature. But it is also possible to make this silence of the mind and ability to suspend the habits of the lower nature a first step towards the discovery of a superior formulation, a higher grade of the status and energy of our being and pass by an ascent and transformation into the supramental power of the spirit ...
... the Infinite. Its action is not irregular; it is a perfect control in an infinite freedom. In the lower planes the soul is naturally subject to Nature and the regulating principle is found in the lower nature; all regulation there depends on the acceptance of a strict subjection to the law of the finite. If the soul on these planes withdraws from that law into the liberty of the infinite, it loses its... the petty conventions and proprieties of the Page 503 normal human life or the narrow rules through which it makes some shift to accommodate itself with the perplexing dualities of the lower nature and tries to guide its steps among the seeming contradictions of the world, to avoid its numberless stumbling-blocks and to foot with gingerly care around its dangers and pitfalls. The gnostic ...
... nobler feelings, more exact sensations and better actions. 18 November 1951 My lower nature continues to do the same stupid things. You alone can change it. What are Your conditions? 1) to be convinced that you can change . 2) to will to change without accepting the excuses of the lower nature. Page 158 3) to persist in the will in spite of every fall. 4) to have an ...
... going in meditation? Through meditation you are going to realise your self. Whenever your desire, ambition, all lower nature silent, naturally the divine nature manifests! Mother give work not only for economical condition. Through work our purifying our lower nature. Ego, desire, ambition this will go naturally, you can find your inner being, psychic. There is no doubt about your ...
... and conscious man who is master of himself—that is, in control of his lower nature and capable of becoming a true Yogi if that be his aspiration. And the more this man realises his true being, the more he will become my very dear child. That is why, now, when the will that is expressing itself is the will of the lower nature, I cannot satisfy all its whims, for that would be the worst thing I could ...
... process by which we transcend the ego and put on the Divine Consciousness, and by which we transform the the lower nature into the Divine Nature." This too is a bit of a mouthful, but it has more particularity. The ego seems to have been a troublesome thing and the lower nature a rather demanding proposition. Transcendence and transformation are prominently felt as needs. A sort of t ...
... open it more and more to the true supramental activities. The action into which you have been cast was probably necessary because it is the dynamic part of your being in which the defects of the lower nature have the greatest hold and are most prominant. Aurobindo P.S. After this letter was finished I got your last of the 12th. What you say about Kumar Krishna there is what I could already... is already there in your physical being. The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive and at the same time, reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining and which are ruled by desires and habits inconsistent with the true being, the true power and the true knowledge, of course the superior power will itself reveal ...
... truth of the superior action must first be inhibited or rendered impotent, and it must be done by our own free choice. A continual and always repeated refusal of the impulsions and falsehoods of the lower nature is asked from us and an insistent support to the Truth as it: grows in our parts; for the progressive settling into our nature and final perfection of the incoming informing Light, Purity and Power... can be the control of the Master, the Ishwara." Freedom—the first step—consists in transcending the modes of Nature. Mastery—the decisive step—lies in transforming the three modes of the lower Nature (Apsara Prakriti)—Tamas, Rajas, Sattwa—-into their equivalents of the divine Nature (Para Prakriti)—Shaman, Tapas, Jyoti. Describing this transformation of the modes of Nature, Sri Aurobindo states: ...
... , VII. 19. Page 454 lower nature to dwell in the still and inalienable calm and light of the self-existent spirit." 63 We can also say that the man of poetic taste ( rasika ), one who can be of one mind with the poet ( sahṛdaya ) can also experience the joy of calmness ( śānta rasa) and the withdrawal from the whirl of lower nature. 64 This bare strength of expression can ...
... returning to its own proper principle. Another explanation that tallies with a certain part of our experience is that there is a dual being in us, the animal and material, or more widely the lower nature-bound, and the soul or spiritual being entangled by mind in the material existence or in world-nature, and freedom comes by escape from the entanglement, the soul returning to its native planes... spiritual evolution he becomes aware of the higher Nature and seeks to come into contact with it. He can ascend into it and it can descend into him — such an ascent and descent can transform the lower nature of mind, life and Matter. Letters on Yoga, p. 287 In the experience of yoga the self or being is in essence one with the Divine or at least it is a portion of the Divine and has all ...
... perhaps the safest order. Letters on Yoga, pp. 1070-71 To have the cosmic consciousness without liberation is possible, but then there is no freedom anywhere in the being from the lower nature and one may become in one's extended consciousness the playground of all kinds of forces without being able to be either free or master. On the other hand, if there has been Self-realisation... 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 it. Letters on Yoga, pp. 1073-74 Now ...
... remove the desire that binds the doer of the works with work. The purpose of asceticism and renunciation is only to get rid of the bondage of the lower nature, so that the enlightened will can have its free play in him. By overcoming the sway of the lower nature and subduing the ego-sense does he prepare himself to make progress on the spiritual path. By action does the Yogin climb the difficult Hill of ...
... appearance, then the only way available would be to get out of it. The spirit working in these short-lived insubstantialities cannot offer any redemption to man bound to the inferior play of the lower Nature. But there is also the immutable Being, itself without activity though supporting activity. This Akshara Purusha leads us away from creation, this phenomenal becoming, to the condition of self-existence... becomes self-oblivious under her sway. Therefore whatever is here is all ignorance, avidya . In the Pure Existent is now carried on the play of this strange inexplicable Maya. We witness her as lower Nature or Apara Prakriti, cut off from the supreme Source. It even gives us a strong sense of abiding illusion. Non-cognisance of that supreme Origin in this wide functioning of hers is at the root of ...
... can be effected. But there is still a culmination of this deeper secret; there is still the deepest secret, guhyatamam rahasyam. This secret is that of the possibility of the transmutation of lower nature by higher nature, of the attainment of sadharmyam, where human law of action is substituted by the divine law of action. And the secret method is to move at a stage where all that one is or one... create and sustain machineries which can keep it arrested by the downward gravitational pull of animal desires and satisfactions. What is needed is the transition of humanity from the pulls of lower nature towards the liberating powers of higher nature, the transition from apara prakriti to para prakriti to use the suggestive words of the Bhagavadgita. The solution that has been suggested ...
... and by means of a more comprehensive analysis of some of the major elements which arise from higher nature but which are distinguishably embedded in the workings of sattwa, rajas and tamas of the lower nature and therefore more easily capable of being disentangled from the lower workings of the gunas or brought back or transformed into the movements of higher nature, the divine's own nature, madbhāva... hold to be the most united with Me in yoga." 98 Vision of the Vibhutis While the synthesis of knowledge, action and devotion grows and develops, there arises in the movement of the lower nature of the seeker increasing operation of the Para Prakriti; there comes about the birth of higher nature and of divine qualities. In a sense, all yoga is a yoga of Apara Prakriti, since it is in Apara ...
... state of equilibrium is disturbed. The disturbance arises from a source that is higher than Prakriti, that higher source is called Para Prakriti, higher Nature. Para Prakriti is not limited like the lower Nature to three modes. Its nature is vast, it is fully conscious, its will is creative of truths and harmonies of truths, it is full of delight. "This higher Nature manifests cosmic powers, and each... weakening of desire and ego; iv) experience of the help received from cosmic powers; v) experience of the immobile Absolute; iv) experience of the Jiva or Soul; vii) ascent of our lower nature into the Higher Nature; viii) help and interventions of the Higher Nature; ix) help and interventions of the Supreme Being. "When this process and these experiences continue to be ...
... purification of the mind and heart and the vital of the sadhaka; (v) opening of all the parts of the lower nature towards the spiritual consciousness reigning above; (vi) mixing of sweetness to the dry rigours of spiritual discipline; (vii) being able to recognise the undesirable impulses of the lower nature not as one 's own but alien influence s invading from outside. As a result it becomes psychologically ...
... above him whether he knows it or not. His only effort should be to keep himself open to the Mother's Force and to keep the whole being always on its side in its dealings with the forces of the lower nature. The present essay deals with the preliminary stage of sadhana and with the problems of a sadhaka who has taken the central resolution to be the Divine Mother's child in the completest... his awareness that the only object set before him is the complete abolition, although progressive, of all ego-sense, a relentless discouragement of all promptings from his as yet unregenerate lower nature, and a radical scorching out of every single root of all his desires and attachments. He must clairvoyantly see to it that his calls and prayers at all times cooperate with the aspiring and ...
... Yes, in this case it is not a tamas of the vital but a tamas of the mental physical which remains inert and passive. The adverse forces have pushed up the whole of my lower nature in its naked form. It is through inertia, sex, ego etc. that their attack is directed so furiously. If I were to imagine a picture of hell I think I wouldn't be able to paint it worse than my present... into the physical and the struggle with the subconscient resistance. Only its form varies with different people. Something prevents my ascension in spite of the fact that the lower nature can best be dealt with from above. Page 19 It happened in the same way with myself. I had to come down into the physical to deal with it instead of keeping the station ...
... to wait and chat and eat and read and sleep and whatever was necessary would descend of itself some day or other. There must be the concentration, the aspiration, the call, the rejection of the lower nature. That is why the Ashram is what it is. Only those who are taking the Yoga seriously are making any progress. I am told some sadhaks have misused the descent of the... use us and not vice versa. They allow something else to use it and them. In Y's case, was there any descent of the higher Force which got mixed up or degraded by his lower nature and brought about the madness? There was no descent of Force at all - such results do not come from a descent of the higher Force - they are attacks from the Asuric vital forces. ...
... mental, vital, physical levels (not only above) a consciousness that is neither mind, life nor body. Up to the last year the Mother's Force had to continue its pressure on my lower nature to change. But now a mutual understanding seems strangely to emerge between the higher and the lower. Through my mental Purusha the higher consciousness points out to my lower being its obscurity... between us that I should stay above and not pay too much attention to the ordinary movements of my outer being and that I need not report to you about the negative side of my sadhana. But now that the lower nature has become active shall I resume writing about it? Yes, you can write. The other arrangement was for going on with the positive side of the sadhana and not paying an undue attention ...
... conception of life. Undoubtedly, man in his beginnings was like a primitive beast. But a way had to be found to evolve out of this primitive state a superior kind of humanity. The attacks of the lower nature, the primitive impulses were to be squarely met and caught by the hands and held under like the horns of a bull. He was to learn to endure calmly the elements that create difficulties, dangers and... he was to see how far the greed for things could be transformed into pure enjoyment. This has been a necessary step in the evolution of humanity. It is this purifying or transformation of the lower nature that has been called Katharsis by the Greeks. Spiritual seekers in India knew this as the purification of the inner man, citta-suddhi. Indeed, one main aim of Greek tragedy was to effect this ...
... pretension. In the ideal case one is ready to admit one's own defects and be on guard to watch with spiritual humility. But all these things make the Higher Power's working very difficult in the lower nature. Therefore we insist so much on sincerity in this yoga. It is the psychic being which has no such pretensions because it knows and can surrender to the Divine. It is therefore that in our yoga the... of the Adwaitawadins – the monists – who believe the world to; be Maya, illusion. Once you get the realisation of the Brahman the rest does not matter – they don't mind what happens to the lower nature. If there are movements in the mental or the vital being, they are simply due to the past .impulse, and you have nothing to do with them, they are outside you, they do not belong to you. When ...
... Veda ? Sri Aurobindo : Yes, it is very clear, though the emphasis of the Vedic Rishis is more on going above – ascending – than on the return movement of conquering and transforming the lower nature. Disciple : Can one say that the idea of conquest of the physical is also there? Sri Aurobindo : Yes, the idea is definite. : Disciple : Do you know of any man who has... and transformation. We should leave no field for the indulgence of ignorance. For us there can be no such theories, no such compromise between falsehood and Truth ; between the Supreme and the Lower Nature. It is remembering these things that we have to take stock of our work. To see how much is to be done, not in any spirit of pessimism because the way is long and hard and cannot be done by a ...
... flower, but unity of consciousness is the root. People become egocentric because, when they receive something of the higher power, they gather it into their vital being and turn it over to their lower nature. They think the power is their own. When we were only a few people and the Ashram had not grown much, A and B tried to convert all sorts of people to spirituality. They were great propagandists... in front. But it can also take any spiritual turn and not necessarily that towards transformation. NIRODBARAN: What sort of transformation? Transformation of the psychic being itself or of the lower nature in general? SATYENDRA: Of the psychic being itself. SRI AUROBINDO: Many Yogis have had that. All saints had the psychic transformation: they have the pure Bhakta nature. But many spiritual ...
... this world and the beyond. Such was Sri Aurobindo's first discovery. Nirvana cannot be at once the ending of the Path with nothing beyond to explore... it is the end of the lower Path through the lower Nature and the beginning of the Higher Evolution. 121 From another perspective, we might also ask ourselves if the goal of evolution is really to get out of it, as is believed by the followers of... be normal is to be divine. There are only two spontaneous harmonic movements, that of the life, inconscient or largely subconscient, the harmony that we find in the animal creation and in the lower Nature, and that of the spirit. The human condition is a stage of transition, effort and imperfection between the one and the other, between the natural and the ideal or spiritual life. 333 Page ...
... Realisation". "Chance", says the Mother, "can only be the opposite of order and harmony"; and when the Supramental Truth-Consciousness alone comes to prevail, chance will have no place at all. In our lower nature, the supreme Truth is obscured, and conflicting forces act at cross-purposes and precipitate what we call chances. But this flawed old world-order must change, and is changing, and we are witnessing... unyielding Asura and the uncompromising Divine. As the Mother said in her talk on "Knowledge by Unity with the Divine": Life is a battlefield in which the Divine succeeds in detail only when the lower nature is receptive to its impulsions instead of siding with the hostile forces .... What you have to do is to give yourself up to the Grace of the Divine; for, it is under the form of Grace, of Love ...
... terrestrial transformation), the sadhak wants to know "What does the Divine want of me?" The Mother's answer is threefold: (i) find your true self or psychic being; (ii) master and govern your lower nature; and (iii) with this preparation, take your proper place in the Divine Work. 19 The regimen is not easy to follow, but the awareness of the Divine presence everywhere can be a help. But the... sharply: The Ashram is not a place for being in love with anyone. If you want to lapse into such a stupidity, you may do so elsewhere, not here. 30 He should beware of the lure of the lower nature and avoid succumbing to "the great play, obscure and semi-conscious, of the forces of unillumined nature". The sadhak should also desist from thinking of himself too highly; let the Divine "determine ...
... and uncompromising rejection of all conscious desires must proceed on the basis of the true psychic consciousness,. Page 251 which alone can enable us to detach ourselves from the lower nature and its desires, but a mere detachment from conscious desires is not enough, there must also be a probing and penetration of the depths, and a vigilant observation of the subtle action of the essential... of killing or crippling the life-energies, whether they manifest them- selves as cravings and passions or as ambitions and aspirations. As the ancient Rishis knew well, all blind energies of the lower nature are but perversions of their spiritual counterparts, and can, therefore, be converted into them. Anger, for instance, is a perversion of the teja of the rudraśakti, which destroys what has to ...
... potentiality For physical transformation and divine manifestation; Page 87 for, the transcendent and universal Mother, as envisaged by Tantra, can release the soul from the bonds of the lower nature and bestow upon it either the status of a , masterful universality or of a featureless infinity in the Transcendent; but a divine fulfilment in the terrestrial existence by the transfiguration of... truth of our seeking, and a concrete truth of our ultimate becoming, and all have to be seized and harmonised in an ascending and descending experience, which culminates in the transmutation of the lower nature (Apara Prakriti) into the higher (Para. Prakriti). This transmutation is the crux of the whole process of the Integral Yoga and the very pivot of its final Page 93 aim; and the ...
... call God",² exists in its perfection above our lower nature of mind, life and body and is also involved, latent, within it. Sri Aurobindo's task was, by bringing about the descent of this Truth-Consciousness of the supreme divine Nature into one individual, himself, to prepare for its general manifestation in this apparently undivine lower nature. The ultimate result of this manifestation would ...
... real divisions in the cultural temperament of the human race, the result much less of original race than of historical formations & past influences. The Mongolian is predominantly intellectual, his lower nature is largely tamed & rationalised, the intuitive parts of his mind are slow and their beats tepid in their impulse; there is much less in his temperament to resist the intellectualising process of... intuitional & experiential; it was an incident in the inevitable recurrence of one of those periods in which pure intellectuality dominates & which have for their function to refine & chasten the lower nature in the general mass of humanity. We can see what we have gained,—the power of ratiocination, the openness to the processes of reason, the ability to express intellectually—so far as that is pos ...
... nature cannot hold the immortal spirit exalted by the passion, the power and the light of the eternal love, will and knowledge. No doubt, on this way too there are difficulties; for there is the lower nature with its fierce or dull downward gravitation which resists and battles against the motion of ascent and clogs the wings of the exaltation and the upward rapture. The divine consciousness even when... love and devotion which gives up the whole mind and reason to the Lord, to !12.15! the Master of his consciousness and knowledge. Or, simply, he will be one who is freed from the troubled agitated lower nature and from its waves of joy and fear and anxiety and resentment and desire, a spirit of calm by whom the world is not afflicted or troubled, nor is he afflicted or troubled by the world, a soul of ...
... towards some kind of sweet security in a background region midway between the heart and the mind, until one shall be quite out of the problem of the lower nature — all this seems to be the sadhana at present. I said: "Out of the problem of the lower nature." This does not mean that the problem ceases. No, it remains there — but oneself is no longer in it. One deals with it as if from outside it like ...
... Aurobindo had come 'physically' to prepare me. I am told about it now. Page 9 28:05:1994 I was told that the work is over. My consciousness is free, free from the lower nature. This was done by the Supreme Mother. When I went to the Samadhi, I saw the consciousness going up from the crown of my head, rising up; yes, going up. It went high, very high,—I do... not see it, but I felt great calm and happiness. 27:11:1994 Sri Aurobindo told me: "I am descending in your psychic being." On another occasion, later on, something from my lower nature was taken up. Yes, I could see it, taken up and lifted very high. I could follow it, up to a certain point. It went very high, very high, to the Overmind, I believe. Sri Aurobindo himself ...
... of all being but of being as we know it — the being of ego and desire; he found it to be not the end of the Path with nothing beyond to explore; but the end merely of the Path through the lower Nature, and a beginning of a Higher Evolution. He came to see the illusoriness of the world as not a feature of the world itself but as consisting in a false interpretation of the world by the mind and... to its state of consciousness. But the Jivatman is one of the centres of the One, not the One itself. If one does not make this distinction, and if there is the least vestige of egoism in the lower nature of one's being, then upon discovering the Jivatman one may think of oneself as an Avatar, an embodiment of the One. Whereas the Jivatman presides over individual manifestation from above ...
... Aurobindo and the Mother Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II Master your Lower Nature My blessings are always with you, but never forget that, as much outside as in the Ashram, if you want to live a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses. Otherwise there is no end to the troubles and the miseries. ...
... with its Karma, then it does not get liberation. If it wants only farther experience, it can just stay there in the ordinary nature. The aim of Yoga is to transcend Karma. Karma means subjection to lower Nature; through Yoga the soul goes towards freedom. The bondage to the effects of Karma remains so long as one has not passed out of the ordinary human consciousness which is its field to the higher... × The correspondent asked whether the influence of heredity, race, caste and family leaves a stamp on one's lower nature.—Ed. × The correspondent asked whether the hereditary influence created by his father had come ...
... physical consciousness,—transforming them, that is to say, into moulds of the supramental nature. This is much more easily done if there has been that Yogic preparation of the instruments of the lower nature of which I have already spoken; otherwise there is much difficulty in getting rid of the discord or disparateness between the ideal supramentality and the mental transmitting instruments, the mind... ordinary nature. The lower or more limited may have a difficulty in understanding and feeling the higher, but the higher and less limited can always, if it will, understand and identify itself with the lower nature. The supreme Ishwara too is not aloof from us; he knows, lives in, identifies himself with all and yet is not subjugated by the reactions or limited in his knowledge, power and Ananda by the limitations ...
... crown and consequence. In the first the individual prepares himself for the reception of the Divine into his members. For all this first period he has to work by means of the instruments of the lower Nature, but aided more and more from above. But in the later transitional stage of this movement our personal and necessarily ignorant effort more and more dwindles and a higher Nature acts; the eternal... action must first be inhibited or rendered impotent, Page 86 and it must be done by our own free choice. A continual and always repeated refusal of the impulsions and falsehoods of the lower nature is asked from us and an insistent support to the Truth as it grows in our parts; for the progressive settling into our nature and final perfection of the incoming informing Light, Purity and Power ...
... or constant vision of it and a longing and aspiration, but without anything further, because, although something in the mind, heart or other part of the being has opened to this experience, the lower nature as a whole is too heavy and obscure as yet for more. But there may be, instead of this first wide awareness from below or subsequently to it, an ascension of the mind to heights above: the nature... tly effective: for the full spiritual transformation more is needed, a permanent ascension from the lower into the higher consciousness and an effectual permanent descent of the higher into the lower nature. This is the third motion, the descent which is essential for bringing the permanent ascension, an increasing inflow from above, an experience of reception and retention of the descending spirit ...
... being of Sachchidananda. The integral Yoga of knowledge has to recognise the double nature of this manifestation,—for there is the higher nature of Sachchidananda in which He is found and the lower nature of mind, life and body in which He is veiled,—and to reconcile and unite the two in the oneness of the illumined realisation. We have not to leave them separate so that we live a sort of double... though there may be communication and influence or the catching up of the lower into the higher in a sort of luminous or ecstatic trance, there cannot be a full and perfect transfiguration of the lower nature. We may feel imperfectly by the emotional mind, we may have a sense by the sense-mind or a conception and perception by the intelligent mind of the Spirit present in Matter and all its forms, the ...
... and uplift it towards his own divine levels, and give it that joy of mastery of the finite nature by the Infinite and of service to the Highest by which there comes freedom from the ego and the lower nature. Love is the key of this relation, and this service, dāsyam , is in Indian Yoga the happy service of the divine Friend or the passionate service to the divine Beloved. The Master of the worlds... always a barrier and a distance; even awe and reverence for the divine Power are a sign of distance and division and they disappear in the intimacy of the union of love. Moreover, fear belongs to the lower nature, to the lower self, and in approaching the higher Self must be put aside before we can enter into its presence. This relation of the divine fatherhood and the closer relation with the Divine ...
... Bhakti and shows whether we are really in the central way or are only upon one of the bypaths leading to it. We have to throw away the props of our weakness, the motives of the ego, the lures of our lower nature before we can deserve the divine union. Faced with the sense of a Power or perhaps a number of Powers greater and higher than himself by whom his life in Nature is overshadowed, influenced, governed... correspond to any truth of the divine Being and its relations with the human soul; for we seek by Bhakti union with the Divine and true relation with it, with its truth and not with any mirage of our lower nature and of its egoistic impulses and ignorant conceptions. The ground on which sceptical unbelief assails Religion, namely, that there is in fact no conscient Power or Being in the universe greater ...
... Chapter XXI The Spiritual Aim and Life A society founded upon spirituality will differ in two essential points from the normal human society which begins from and ends with the lower nature. The normal human society starts from the gregarious instinct modified by a diversity and possible antagonism of interests, from an association and clash of egos, from a meeting, combination, conflict... its own svadharma , essential law, and it will rise to the widest spirituality by following out its own natural lines with no other yoke than the intimate law of its own being. Even with the lower nature of man, though here we are naturally led to suppose that compulsion is the only remedy, the spiritual aim will seek for a free self-rule and development from within rather than a repression of his ...
... him with their whole being, manmayā mām upāśritāḥ , purified by the realising force of their knowledge and delivered from the lower nature, attain to the divine being and divine nature, madbhāvam . The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine ...
... to his real self and the Self or true being of the universe. If he is tamasic, obscure, clouded, if he has an ignorant faith, an inept will, he will reach nothing true and will fall away to his lower nature. If he is lured by false rajasic lights, he can be carried away by self-will into bypaths that may lead to morass or precipice. In either case his only chance of salvation lies in a return of sattwa... meaning of these hints and open them to a freer significance. And it will be convenient to take them in the reverse order, from tamas to sattwa, since we are considering how we go upward out of our lower nature through a certain sattwic culmination and self-exceeding to a divine nature and action beyond the three gunas. The tamasic sacrifice is work which is done without faith, without, that is to say ...
... sness does not want to change, so it rejects what comes down to it from above—it has always done so. It is only if those who have taken this Yoga open themselves and are willing to change their lower nature that this unwillingness can disappear. What stands in the way of course is always the vital ego with its ignorance and the pride of its ignorance and the physical consciousness with its inertia... to have the right inner attitude—you have that; the rest is the will to transform oneself and the vigilance to perceive and reject all that belongs to the ego and the tamasic persistence of the lower nature. Finally, to keep oneself always open to the Mother in every part of the being so that the process of transformation may find no hindrance. Yes, even in ordinary life there must be a control ...
... level. Until the vital has been purified, illumined and wholly offered to the Divine, there is always a vital mixture in these relations Page 283 —a mixture of the movements of the lower nature. These movements [ of egoism ] are part of man's ignorant vital nature. The love which human beings feel for one another is also usually an egoistic vital love and these other movements,... equality is not established. Personal relations must be founded on the relation with the Divine in himself and the Divine in all and they must not be "ties" to pull one down and keep bound to the lower nature but part of the higher unity. The natural feeling of one sadhak to another should be kindliness and good feeling to all and the friendliness which is natural or ought to be so between all ...
... some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening—without any sense... important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Guru and to refer all that happens to his judgment and arbitration and decision. For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. It often happens too that some Power or Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Supreme ...
... nt, that perfection is possible. Till then imperfection will remain as our common heritage. So long as there is not the Supramental change down to the subconscient complete and final the lower nature has always a hold on some part of the being. The Yoga cannot be done in a minute. Some essential changes are made rapidly, but even these have to be worked out and confirmed in the detail... ground to stand upon and proceed. But for that you must make your choice firmly and refuse to be upset at every moment and diverted from it. But in reality these things [ old movements of the lower nature ] are not sufficient reasons for getting sad and depressed. It is quite normal for difficulties to come back like that and it is not a proof that no progress has been made. The recurrence (after ...
... only create distrust of oneself, loss of motive to action, cynicism and weakness. One must have the faith and aspiration towards a higher consciousness which one has to build up in place of this lower nature, then the introspection and the knowledge of the defects of the nature it gives become useful, as it helps one to see what has to be changed while the higher ideal gives what has to take the place... has to work at present, that uprising comes in as a reaction to the working. What is needed is the establishment of the calm and wide consciousness at the base of the whole Nature so that when the lower nature appears, it will not be as an attack or struggle but as if a Master of forces were there seeing the defects of the present machinery and doing step by step what is necessary to remedy and change ...
... the Path Letters on Yoga - II Chapter VI Rejection Rejection of the Lower Impulses It is no part of the sadhana to accept the uglinesses of the lower nature on the ground that they exist—if that is what is meant by realism. Our object is not to accept or enjoy these things but to get rid of them and create a life of spiritual beauty and perfection.... done. To observe that these things are there and reject them, refusing to allow them to touch you, is one thing; to accept and acquiesce in them is quite another. Who is able to reject the lower nature fully? All one can do is to aspire and reject the lower impulses and call in the Divine to do the rest. There are no right positive vibrations of devious impulses—these are wrong vibrations ...
... work or bhakti is their only resource. 24 May 1933 Page 250 People say, "As long as the lower nature is not fully purified, it is dangerous to do a lot of meditation. If one meditates too much before one has become purified by means of work, things might rise up from the lower nature and upset the sadhak. When the higher forces come down into a nature not sufficiently purified through ...
... here, outside the Asram, so that I can, by constant surrender to the Mother, rise above the difficulties of this environment and control the adverse forces that now touch and move and affect my lower nature? You think too much of adverse forces. That kind of preoccupation causes much unnecessary struggle. Fix your mind on the positive side—open to the Mother's power, concentrate on her protection... of tests and difficulties which belong to the inferior consciousness. To be always conscious of that help will be your best safeguard against all attacks whether of adverse powers or of your own lower nature. 23 February 1931 Page 322 ...
... description of it in these extracts,—then it is not at all identical, but rather very far from what I mean by transformation. For the transformation I aim at is not from sin to sainthood but from the lower nature of the Ignorance to the Divine Nature of Light, Peace, Truth, Divine Power and Bliss beyond the Ignorance. It journeys towards a supreme self-existent good and leaves behind it the limited struggling... without its essence being destroyed." 2 What is meant by free activity? With us the freedom consists in freedom from the darkness, limitation, error, suffering, transience of the ignorant lower Nature, but also in a total surrender to the Divine. Free action is the action of the Divine in us and through us; no other action can be free. That seems to be accepted in II and III; but this perception ...
... physical parts of the nature; next, an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for the divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the ascent there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of this... think that different views of different Buddhist minds or schools must have been jumbled together without reconciliation. The reconciliation would be that it is the end of the lower Path through the lower Nature and the beginning of the Higher Evolution. In that case it would accord exactly with the teaching of our Yoga. It would seem that such a reconciliation would be impossible unless someone ...
... authenticity; not before you open your lower nature to it can it begin to manifest in terms of the Truth. You must, therefore, refrain from applying the merely Nietzschean standard of temporary success in order to differentiate the Divine from the undivine. For, Page 38 life is a battlefield in which the Divine succeeds in detail only when the lower nature is receptive to its impulsions instead ...
... If the lower nature is completely ignorant, how can it "choose"? It is not absolutely ignorant. Things are not so absolute; it can feel there is something lacking. All depends upon that. Naturally, those who are quite satisfied with themselves as they are—it is not worth the trouble trying to change them, because they don't want it. But in fact, even in the lower nature, it is possible ...
... some there is first an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening - without any... important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Guru and to refer all that happens to his judgment and arbitration and decision. For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. It often happens too that some Power or Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Supreme ...
... spiritual evolution he becomes aware of the higher Nature and seeks to come into contact with it. He can ascend into it and it can descend into him - such an ascent and descent can transform the lower nature of mind, life and Matter. * The Overmind has to be reached and brought down before the supermind descent is at all possible - for the Overmind is the passage through which one passes... anda in relation to the mind, life and body also - but then it is something stable, supporting by its presence the lower Prakriti, but not transforming it. The Supermind alone can transform the lower nature. * Sachchidananda is the One with a triple aspect. In the Supreme the three are not three but one - existence is consciousness, consciousness is bliss, and they are thus inseparable, ...
... of Brahman-Maya stands revealed to him as the first great dynamic aspect of the Self of all selves...." The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 113 When this is realised, does it mean that our lower nature has consented to change? At that time, is the duality seen as biune? Page 99 Of course. I don't understand your question. So far there is this duality of which he has spoken. ... understand your question. If you make a progress, you make a progress; if you perceive a truth behind an illusion, usually this is considered a progress. But here, he further explains that even the lower nature... Yes, but as you have realised that it is one and the same thing.... That's what I was saying a while ago: when you have an explanation, does it suffice to change your outer nature? Has it ...
... their little human ego and its demands in order to find themselves in the Divine. It cannot be done in a spirit of levity or laxity; the work is too high and difficult, the adverse powers in the lower Nature too ready to take advantage of the least sanction or the smallest opening, the aspiration and tapasya needed too constant and intense. It cannot be done if there is a petulant self-assertion of... these things, saying, "Oh! It can't be helped, it is human nature." One wants to continue to do what one is doing, without changing, one is full of a wilful indulgence of one's demands. For the lower nature of man always demands things; it says, "These are necessities, these are needs, I can't do without them." Then, the instincts—a sort of instinct for one's own satisfaction—and pretensions: the lower ...
... Conscious Force which forms and moves the worlds. The higher, divine Nature (Para Prakriti) is free from Ignorance and its consequences; the lower Nature (Apara Prakriti) is a mechanism of active Force put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. The lower nature of an individual—mind, life and body—are part of Prakriti. Nirvana —extinction (not necessarily of all being, but of being as we ...
... finally mind can develop into overmind and overmind into the supramental Truth. The soul supports the nature in its evolution through these grades, but is itself not any of these things. The lower Nature, aparā prakṛti , is this external objective and superficial subjective apparent Nature which manifests all these minds, lives and bodies. The supreme Nature, parā prakṛti , concealed behind it... Jivatman is already one with the Divine in reality, but what is needed is that the rest of the consciousness should realise it. The aspiration of the psychic being is for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher ...
... women. A colossal fortune. Were he to turn it to the right side, it would be good. ( Mother nods ) But he's a man who is enslaved to his lower nature, I think. He has both an intelligence that would enable him to reach very high and a lower nature ... Very assertive. And nothing in between. Because, I had counted a little on his coming here and telling the people at the Mission ...
... explained in NK's poem Jackal, how the lower nature rushes towards the subconscient, and as soon as I read it I could not resist drawing the conclusion that this is X's present picture, word for word. Do you agree? Yes, it is that. A certain part of him which belongs to the lower vital was always rushing and has dragged away the rest. ... Why has this lower nature become so vehement this time? ...
... there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong. equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple, — until these under Page 31 the inner pressure fade and sink away and... and ill is not good fortune for the one and bad fortune for the other, but this; that good leads us towards a higher nature which is eventually lifted above suffering, and it pulls us towards the lower nature which remains always in the circle of suffering and evil. Page 48 As one drawn by the grandeur of the Void The soul attracted leaned to the Abyss: It longed for the adventure ...
... concentration, and moral discipline Page 135 .vary slightly in the different systems which teach it. The yogi, or disciple, who has by these means overcome the obscurations of his lower nature sufficiently, enters into the condition termed samādhi, "and comes face to face with facts which no instinct or reason can ever know." He learns — "That the mind itself has a higher state... the danger that he may confuse his own disguised or sublimated ego or an inferior power with the Lord and substitute its demands for the supreme dictates. He may fall into a common ambush of this lower nature and distort his supposed surrender to a higher Power into an excuse for a magnified and uncontrolled indulgence of his own self-will and even of his desires and passions. A great sincerity is asked ...
... Prakriti from its own limitations; it proposes integral liberation and integral perfection. 68 Liberation of the soul is usually sought by withdrawal from the action of lower nature or by attainment of mastery over the lower nature. The liberation of nature from its own limitations is effected when it is found that the three gunas of Prakriti are basically derived from the essential powers of the Divine ...
... there is still a Page 40 culmination of this deeper secret; there is still the deepest secret, guhyatamam rahasyam. This secret is that of the possibility of the transmutation of lower nature by higher nature, of the attainment of sadharmyam, where human law of action is substituted by the divine law of action. And the secret method is to move at a stage where all that one is or one... create and sustain machineries which can keep it arrested by the downward gravitational pull of animal desires and satisfactions. What is needed is the transition of humanity from the pulls of lower nature towards the liberating powers of higher nature, the transition from apara prakriti to Para prakriti to use the suggestive words of the Bhagavadgita. The solution that has been suggested by the ...
... complete surrender of the ego. Am I right in thinking "the whole present trouble lies in the ego and is due to the ego alone"? It is due to the persistence of the lower nature of which the ego is the chief motive force. I heard that the Mother put her Force on some sadhak because he wanted to change his vital. Well, I too wish intensely to change my... The ego they perceive there is not the inhabitant of the spiritual heights. But the thing is, man being a mental being, when he ascends he carries with him subtly or unconsciously the ego of the lower nature. And as his consciousness is naturally heightened and cosmicised in the spiritual planes, the ego too feels extended and enlarged! But there is no such thing as "spiritual ego". All ...
... was Page 71 it due to the Force entering the lower vital to change it and the latter bringing out its resistance? It may have been — but very often the lower Nature pushes these things across an experience in opposition to the working of the Force. It is the obstruction of the lower consciousness that rises up as is its nature, to obstruct what... tamas was no less than now. And yet the Pranam was an occasion from which I derived so much joy and felicity that always strengthened and encouraged me whenever I was tired of fighting with the lower nature. And now what a change! At that time the vital demand was kept in abeyance at the pranam and the other part of the vital which wanted the inner contact and not anything else was able ...
... has come to many. At times, for days together I lived in a complete peace Page 170 and silence. Do you think that has made any fundamental change in my lower nature? At present at least I see my ego, vital and physical practically in the same condition as ever before. Peace is a necessary basis but peace is not sufficient. Peace if it is strong... silence have projected a force which can stand any resistance from below. From 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. an unusually powerful pressure from above seized my head. Is all this a sign of any conquest over my lower nature? If it becomes a dynamic descent, then yes. If the sadhana continues like that, it would just be a fit board to jump into the higher planes of consciousness. As ...
... three stages of which only the last can be wholly blissful or rapid, the attempt of the ego to enter into contact with the Divine, the wide, full and therefore laborious preparation of the whole lower Nature by the divine working to receive and become the higher Nature, and the eventual transformation. In fact, however, the divine Strength, often unobserved and behind the veil, substitutes itself... in comparison with the magnitude of its effort and object, the most easy and sure of all. There are three outstanding features of this action of the higher when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful ...
... been asked to pray in this fashion: “O Indra, do Thou manifest thyself before me to the extent of my receptivity and, I pray, exceed not the limit.” The aspirant has to purify first his lower nature before invoking the truth and power in a large measure. Otherwise a reaction may at once take place. The subsequent riks deal with this matter. The second group of the three riks indicates the process... the Infinite has descended and with the help of its inspiration the aspirant goes on safely and securely from one level to another, from one shore to another and. climbs up from the unregenerated lower nature to the divine status. In the present hymn we can notice one speciality of Vedic Page 106 discipline. Vedic discipline was not something personal and individual. It was essentially ...
... in his acts, infest his thought and life". They can even take possession of the human being and act violently in it and they can "break through the soul's stillness with a noise and cry". "Man's lower nature hides these awful guests." Page 311 Sometimes these lower forces break out into the open in the collective life of man. Then they let loose blood-lust and "the will to slay", "and... an instrument, what is the contribution of man to the cosmic work? The Master says that "Only his soul's acceptance is his own," soul has the freedom to accept or reject the movement of higher or lower Nature that is presented before it. Man has either to be "freed man—or God's slave". In truth "Our consciousness is- cosmic" and our "mind is only a means and body a tool." Man can be free and even ...
... balanced judgment and a constant uplook are the best mental safeguard against the insidious attacks of the lower nature. But the mind does not always act for the harmonious development of the individual and his progress towards freedom and mastery. A creation and tool of the lower nature, it panders to the gratification of the ego and becomes a bar to the individual's spiritual advancement. ...
... the Mother's Light Asceticism IN its simple and moderate form, asceticism is a self- imposed mortification or privation for the discipline and control of the lower nature. When the animal in man refuses to be tamed or quieted, but opposes his inner quest and living by an obstinate insistence on the satisfaction of its base appetites, a curb or brake is put upon it... preceding a direct, higher control is, therefore, a prerequisite of spiritual life. A resolute and persevering will, fired by a high-soaring aspiration, rejects the turbulence and waywardness of the lower nature, its disquieting desires and impulses that seek only egoistic gratification, and imposes a rhythm, a balance and a poise on it, so that a certain amount of self-mastery may be achieved by the individual ...
... distinguish between the work that the Shakti impels and that which is prompted by our lower self? Sri Aurobindo : In order to distinguish the work intended by the Shakti and that dictated by the lower nature you have to be very careful. You must develop the power of looking within. When you look within you must first realise yourself as the Purusha – that is to say, the being quite separate from the... It can stop any movement of nature though its will may not be all at once effective; after a time it must prevail. In order to find this Purusha consciousness you have to reject everything in the lower nature, i.e., desires, feelings and mental ideas. Sadhaka : Should not we have the desire to practise the yoga ? Sri Aurobindo : No. Sadhaka : Then how can we practise the yoga ? ...
... But in the process of descent, while the lower nature may be raised a little, the higher descending consciousness may suffer "a modification, dilution, diminution", and the resulting change too may have to share these limitations and obscurations. When Life descended into Matter and Mind into Life, they had to suit themselves to the resistance of the lower nature, and hence they were "not able to make ...
... Spirit and its supreme nature is the integral liberation."¹ In these words Sri Aurobindo indicates the essence of the liberation we aim at in the Integral Yoga. It is not only liberation from the lower nature of the three gunas into the peace and silence of the immutable Self that we seek, but liberation in the Divine, the supreme Spirit, and it cannot be rally achieved so long as our nature is... towards the eternal immobility of moksa or the soul's liberation through the renunciation of Nature herself. But "the strife of the gunas is only a representation in the imperfection of the lower nature; what the three gunas stand for are three essential powers of the Divine which are not merely existent in a perfect equilibrium of quietude, but unified in a perfect consensus of divine action ...
... surrender will be put to test."² This does not happen in the case of an ethical self-culturist or a humanitarian worker, for their minds exert some sort of curb or control over the movements of their lower nature, and there is no higher spiritual force doing in them the work of purification in its inscrutable but impeccable way. Even in the other yogas, ¹Sri Aurobindo. ²Conversations with... offered to the transforming light of the Mother. If one renounces action, one renounces the very field of unloosening the knots of the ego and desires and converting the blind energies of the lower nature into spiritual tapas. The rule of the performance of all action without :any desire for fruit, niskāma karma, is a very effective means of purification, particularly of the prāna. Every ...
... relegating them to a subsequent stage, gives the primary Page 21 importance to Yama and Niyama, which are mental disciplines calculated to conquer the desires and passions of the lower nature of man and, by an increase of moral purity and calm, help the concentration of his conscious- ness on the Supreme. It aims "at the liberation and the perfection not of the bodily, but of the mental... enlightened part of the human mind; but it seems to be rather a poor and precarious beginning for the realisation of such a stupendously dynamic aim; for the buddhi is, after all, a tool of the lower nature, and cannot be a safe guide in such an adventure. There is a mightier, a more comprehensive beginning in the Tântric Yoga, which has much in common with-Karmayoga; and the Integral Yoga of Sri ...
... learn their own truth; they must proceed by reflecting it in themselves instead of limiting themselves to their own lower movement. For she has the knowledge and consciousness of the One, while the lower nature of mind, life and body can only envisage the many. Although therefore Indra, Vayu and Agni are the greatest of the gods, the first coming to know the existence of the Brahman, the others approaching ...
... akṛtsnavidaḥ , which is an ignorance. What we vaunt of as our freedom is to him bondage. The perception of the ignorance of our assumption of freedom while one is all the time in the meshes of this lower nature, is the view-point at which the Gita arrives and it is in contradiction to this ignorant claim that it affirms the complete subjection of the ego-soul on this plane to the gunas. "While the actions ...
... and by the conscious will within it. To know, to respond to, to live in the divine being and nature of this Soul is the object of withdrawing from the ego and its action. One rises then above the lower nature of the gunas to the higher divine nature. The movement by which this ascension is determined results from the complex poise of the Soul in its relations with Nature; it depends on the Gita's ...
... gly in that field, like the generality of men. He justifies his name only in being so far pure and sattwic as to be governed by high and clear principles and impulses and habitually control his lower nature by the noblest Law which he knows. He is not of a violent Asuric disposition, not the slave of his passions, but has been trained to a high calm and self-control, to an unswerving performance of ...
... egoism and lack of faith and obscurity and self-will and vital desires,—it is that that shuts them to the Mother and calls in the action of the hostile forces. Those who cannot reject their lower nature fully are made to suffer at the hands of the hostile forces and get wounded by them. What is the best means for them to go forward? Faith in the Mother and complete surrender. "This illusion ...
... sincerity in laying yourself open to the Mother will help you avoid such aberrations in future. There is no reason why you should not succeed in your sadhana if, having seen the defects of your lower nature, you take a firm resolve in future and keep it to be more strict with yourself, more trustful in the Divine Grace, more sincerely open to the Mother. 10 September 1933 Page 673 Some ...
... Mother, there are mistakes... one knows they are mistakes, but still it is as though one were pushed into making them. Then? Pushed by what? Ah, this is exactly what happens! It is the lower nature, the instincts of the subconscient which govern you and make you do things you should not do. And so it is a choice between your will and accepting submission. There is always a moment when one ...
... open it more and more to the true supramental activities. The action into which you have been cast was probably necessary because it is the dynamic part of your being in which the defects of the lower nature have the greatest hold and are most prominent. Aurobindo P.S. After this letter was finished I got your last of the 12th. What you say about Kumar Krishna there is what I could already ...
... important not to rely entirely on oneself, but to rely on the guidance of the Guru and to refer all that happens to his judgment and arbitration and decision. For it often happens that the forces of the lower nature are stimulated and excited by the descent and want to mix with it and turn it to their profit. It often happens too that some Power or Powers undivine in their nature present themselves as the Supreme ...
... Feeling the Mother's Presence and Seeing Visions Is it true that when the Presence (image) is seen in the heart all the habits and movements of the lower nature will disappear Page 182 and there will be no more disturbances from it? The image and the Presence are not the same. One can feel the Presence without seeing the image. But to produce ...
... her. That is the suggestion of the lower forces. They want to create an excuse for your remaining aloof like that. The whole being feels a disturbance, a disgust, as if the sleeping lower nature has been woken up. My mind is full of bad thoughts and I feel burdened. I have become like a thing on the waves. But why does this always happen after the Mother calls you? You must get rid ...
... knowledge and maybe a Force that she gave. I no more feel so weak or helpless or a slave to my defects and imperfections. Rather there is a growing surety that I shall be able to get rid of my whole lower nature. It is what we call growing conscious—a perception of which the base is the psychic though it may take place in the mind or vital or physical. No doubt the Force that woke it up came from the ...
... you will have to face much internal trouble and suffering in the Page 407 first stages of the sadhana. The Sangha of our Yoga must be of men who give up the lower consciousness and the lower nature in order to assume the higher and divine. The formation of a commune for the sake of a particular "work" is not at all the true ideal. It is only as we all grow into the Divine that the true sangha ...
... without a separate interest or desire. Is it easily possible for my nature to terminate the remaining journey only with love, joy and happiness? I mean to say, can the transformation of my lower nature go on at the same time that the sadhana proceeds with full love? It is possible if you (1) can get free of vital demand, (2) regard the difficulties of the nature calmly and dispassionately ...
... perfect instrument instead of one that is unconscious and therefore imperfect. You can be a conscious and perfect instrument only when you are no longer acting in obedience to the ignorant push of the lower nature, but in surrender to the Mother and aware of her higher Force acting within you. So here too your intuition was perfectly true. But all this cannot be done in a day. So you are once more right ...
... wish to conceal or justify things is another general trait of human nature which is common in the Asram. It is perfectly true that to do that is to stand in the way of one's own progress, but the lower nature is Page 463 strong and overcomes the buddhi . People also think that Mother will not know if they do not tell or at least she won't know the physical facts even if she can read the ...
... Weak Mother, there are mistakes... one knows they are mistakes, but still it is as though one were pushed into making them. Then? Pushed by what? Ah, this is exactly what happens! It is the lower nature, the instincts of the subconscient which govern you and make you do things you should not do. And so it is a choice between your will and accepting submission. There is always a moment when one ...
... is out of tune with its own truth from the external and makes it a true instrument for its expression, a means of expression of its inner will, not a thing of responses to the suggestions of the lower Nature. The strong distinction between the two practically disappears. * Page 56 "The taking away of the Force of destruction implies a creation that will not be destroyed but ...
... strong in the body, one can move in the midst of plague and cholera and never get contaminated. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - IV: Illness and Health Attacks of illness are attacks of the lower nature or of adverse forces taking advantage of some weakness, opening or response in the nature,—like all other things that come and have got to be thrown away, they come from outside. If one can feel ...
... also a joy in the process of realisation. All the difficulties implied in that process it accepts with gusto, it never feels happier than when the Truth is shown it and the play of falsehood in its lower nature laid bare. It does not do the Yoga as if carrying a burden on its back but as if it were a very pleasurable occupation. It is willing to endure the utmost with a smile if it is a condition of the ...
... in the animals that are nearest to his level, the necessity of death has taken a special form Page 36 and significance to their consciousness; but the subconscious knowledge in this lower Nature which supports it is a feeling of the necessity of renewal and change and transformation. It was the conditions of matter upon earth that made death indispensable. The whole sense of the evolution ...
... April Questions and Answers (1950-1951) 28 April 1951 "But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka remains necessary." Sri Aurobindo, The Mother , p. 6 Outwardly, one believes in one's own personality and one's own effort. So long as you believe in personal effort, you must make a personal effort ...
... impression that their desires are born within; they feel as if they come out of themselves or arise in themselves; but it is a false impression. Desires are waves of the vast sea of the obscure lower nature and they pass from one person to another. Men do not generate desire in themselves, but are invaded by these waves; whoever is open and without defence is caught in them and tossed about." ...
... seeker has opened to the Divine Love transcendental, universal or immanent, yet if he tries to pour it into life, he meets the power of obscuration and Page 258 perversion of these lower Nature-forces. Always they draw away towards pitfalls, pour into that higher intensity their diminishing elements, seek to capture the descending Power for themselves and their interests and degrade it ...
... question that has a little life in Page-235 it. That would be interesting. (Silence) You will see, the more you strive to realise, you will discover in the nature the lower nature, that is, the lower mind, the lower Vital, the physical how much pretension, sham and ambition there is.... One can use any... The desire to put on airs: all that must be eliminated, absolutely ...
... anyone imagines that he can go over to the other side without passing through this stage, he would risk making a great mistake, and of taking for perfect freedom a perfect weakness with regard to his lower nature. It is almost impossible to pass from the mental being—even the most perfect and most remarkable—to the true spiritual life without having realised this ideal of moral perfection for a certain ...
... of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for the divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the ascent, there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of this ...
... shall have to send you away. One begins to be a man only when one aspires to a higher and truer life and accepts a discipline of transformation. For this one must begin by mastering one's lower nature and one's desires. 8 March 1972 To the students To be noisy in class is an act of selfish stupidity. If you don't intend to attend the class silently and attentively, it is better ...
... cautiously: "Who knows whether it will not be my Page 162 turn one day!" I feel there is a force behind all that. What is it? This uncertainty and these departures are caused by the lower nature which resists the influence of the yogic power and tries to slow down the divine action, not through ill-will, but in order to be sure that nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to reach ...
... true experience. Passivity of the mind is good, but take care to be passive only to the Truth and to the touch of the Divine Shakti. If you are passive to the suggestions and influences of the lower nature, you will not be able to progress or else you will expose yourself to adverse forces which may take you far away from the true path of Yoga. Aspire to the Mother for this settled quietness and ...
... and not to have an affinity with other movements. Purity means freedom from soil or mixture. The divine Purity is that in which there is no mixture of the turbid ignorant movements of the lower nature. Ordinarily purity is used to mean (in the common language) freedom from vital passion and impulse. The Divine Purity is a more wide and all-embracing experience than the psychic. ...
... of the Truth; it is in objectivising the Truth, that is, in making the outer consciousness down to the material an expression of the inner Truth. So long as that is not done, the attacks of the lower Nature can always continue. Experience and the Change of One's Nature Merely to have experiences of the higher consciousness will not change the nature. Either the higher consciousness has to make ...
... without ego-sense or attachment and offering them to Him as a sacrifice. He may also try or aspire to feel the presence of the Divine Shakti behind the world and its forces, distinguish between the lower nature of the Ignorance and the higher divine nature whose character is absolute calm, peace, power, Light and Bliss and aspire to be raised and led gradually from the lower to the higher. If he can ...
... higher the forces that descend, the greater become the possibilities of deviation and error. For the very intensity and the very height of the force excites and aggrandises the movements of the lower nature and raises up in it all the opposing elements in their full force, but often in the disguise of truth, wearing a mask of plausible justification. There is needed a great patience, calm, sobriety ...
... realities of the spiritual life. Sadhana, Tapasya, Aradhana, Dhyana Sadhana is the practice of Yoga. Tapasya is the concentration of the will to get the results of sadhana and to conquer the lower nature. Aradhana is worship of the Divine, love, self-surrender, aspiration to the Divine, calling the name, prayer. Dhyana is inner concentration of the consciousness, meditation, going inside in Samadhi ...
... persistently will prevent the serious disturbance; to keep quiet and steadily open yourself will prevent any long obscuration. These oscillations [ of consciousness ] always come. The universal lower Nature tries to come back and resume its hold—the lower vital or the physical consciousness responds, not always because Page 60 it wants or likes to do so but because the old habit of response ...
... value. The vision of the higher planes or the idea of what they are can be had long before the transformation. If that were not possible, how could the transformation take place—the lower Page 88 nature cannot change of itself, it changes by the growing vision, perception, descent of the higher consciousness belonging to the higher planes? It is through aspiration, through an increasing ...
... raises, when we are ready, the centre of its operations to the mental summit and opens up the supramental levels and proceeds doubly by an action from above downward filling and transforming the lower nature and an action from below upwards raising all the energies to that which is above them till the transcendence is completed and the change of the whole system integrally effected. It takes and develops ...
... the opposition of a number of such master ideas and such conflicting principles. It finds each to be a truth to which something essential in our being responds,—in our higher nature a law, in our lower nature an instinct. It seeks to fulfil each in turn, builds a system of action round it and goes from one to the other and back again to what it has left. Or it tries to combine them but is contented with ...
... humanity at large this movement cannot last; the mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. Therefore we see that the reason in its growth either does away with the distinct spiritual tendency for a time, as in ancient Greece, or accepts it but spins ...
... ANDA Sachchidananda is the manifestation of the higher Purusha; its nature of infinite being, consciousness, power and bliss is the higher Nature, parā prakṛti . Mind, life and body are the lower nature, aparā prakṛti . The state of Sachchidananda is the higher half of universal existence, parārdha , the nature of which is Immortality, Amritam. The state of mental existence in Matter is the ...
... consciousness. What you describe is the material consciousness; it is mostly subconscient, but the part of it that is conscious, is mechanical, inertly moved by habits or by the forces of the lower nature. Always repeating the same unintelligent and unenlightened movements, it is attached to the routine and established rule of what already exists, unwilling to change, unwilling to Page 209 ...
... or covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and luminous or else bring down the influence, reflection, finally even the presence and power of the higher consciousness into the lower nature. Now that is what consciousness is—it is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest—developing them from above downward by a progressive ...
... of the nature. Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turning down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward conversion, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for the divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at each stage of the ascent there is a conversion into a new consciousness and an infusion of this ...
... and ill is not good fortune for the one and bad fortune for the other, but this that good leads us towards a higher nature which is eventually lifted above suffering and ill pulls us towards the lower nature which remains always in the circle of suffering and evil. Assimilation in the Psychic World The soul after it leaves the body travels through several states or planes until the psychic being ...
... and beauty not difficult to recognise. The current from above and the current from below are familiar features of Yogic experience. It is the energy of the higher Nature and the energy of the lower Nature that become active and turned towards each other and move to meet, one descending, the other ascending. What happens when they meet, depends on the sadhaka. If his constant will is for the purification ...
... with its karma, then it does not get liberation. If it wants only farther experience, it can just stay there in the ordinary nature. The aim of Yoga is to transcend karma. Karma means subjection to lower Nature; through Yoga the soul goes towards freedom. You are describing the action of the ordinary existence, not the Yoga. Yoga is a seeking (not a mental searching), it is not experimenting in contraries ...
... There are also deficiencies or errors in one's own nature which can open the door to these beings. But the best is if one can have nothing to do with them; for the conquest of the forces of the lower nature is a sufficiently heavy task without that complication. If the work one has to do necessitates the contact and conflict with them, that is another matter. In your case I think this has been something ...
... experience you had of the wideness with many roads opening was an image of the higher consciousness in which all the movements of the being are open, true and happy—the ignorance and incapacity of the lower nature disappear. It is that that the light from above is bringing. Wideness is necessary for the working of the higher consciousness—if the being is shut up in itself, there can be intense experiences ...
... is still floating? It is always their [ the lower forces' ] endeavour to rise up and get the sanction of the mind and higher vital—or if they cannot do that, to cover them up so that the lower nature may act in its ordinary way without being pressed by the higher consciousness to change. The first thing necessary for the sadhak is not to give any consent of his mind or higher vital and to keep ...
... there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without, still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple,—until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains ...
... is, I believe, one of the four mind-born sons of Brahma; he cannot therefore be identical with Skanda who is a son of Shiva. Buddha Buddha stands for the conquest over the Ignorance of the lower Nature. Apsaras Apsaras generally indicate sexual desire. Page 159 × In a dream the correspondent saw ...
... of the psychic being and the higher spiritual self or of the Divine. Not only the vital and the body but the mind also has to learn the Divine Truth and obey the divine rule. But because of the lower nature and its continued hold on them, they are unable at first and for a long time to prevent their nature from following the old ways—even when they know or are told from within what to do or what not ...
... madness any more than it can be of apoplexy or any other physical illness. If there is no predisposition one may have all kinds of attacks from vital or other forces or from one's own movements of the lower nature, as violent as possible, but there will be no madness. As to X 's collapse, I did not intend to say anything about it just now,—for mental discussion of causes and consequences is not of ...
... indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is indeed one of the three forces—power, wealth, sex—that have the strongest attraction for ...
... candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven. Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the divine manifestation. Desire nothing but the purity ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Consciousness and Force of the Divine Please explain to me what is meant by the Divine Mother. The Divine Mother is the Consciousness and Force of the Divine—which is the Mother of all things. 24 June 1933 You have written in The Mother that the Mother is ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The One and the Supreme Mother The Shankara knowledge is, as your Guru pointed out, only one side of the Truth; it is the knowledge of the Supreme as realised by the spiritual Mind through the static silence of the pure Existence. It was because he went by this side only ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Self, the Divine and the Mother My heart is aspiring for the Self, the Atman. I feel this Atman as the Lord of my being. I have to do all that I do for its sake, in order to make it the absolute master of myself. It is the Divine who is the Master—the Self is inactive ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother and Self-Realisation What is remarkable today is that the consciousness is turning more and more towards oneness with the Mother's Self in the silent peace. I write "Self" simply out of my perception, so I would like to be a little clear about it. You are ...
... called and chosen to purify itself and be fit for its work and service—and because of that you have no right to throw it or yourself away, but have to persevere quietly till you are rid of the lower nature and the Asuric Maya. And, last but not least, you have to develop the power and the habit of taking refuge in the protection of the Mother and myself. It is for this reason that the habit of criticising ...
... received from her and the number of spiritual experiences. Remember that and remember that that is your true way and your true being and nothing else matters. Get back your poise and throw off the lower nature and its darkness and ignorance. 29 March 1933 The Mother and myself deal with all according to the law of the Divine. We receive alike rich and poor, those who are high-born or low-born according ...
... they were succumbing. The Mother had even foreseen from the beginning that this might happen and put them on their guard in due time. If they fell, it was because they preferred to follow their lower nature and side with the lower forces. The Divine can lead, he does not drive. There is an internal freedom permitted to every mental being called man to assent or not to assent to the Page 144 ...
... robe is its flag, the sign of a refusal of all compromise,—as indeed the struggle of emergence cannot end by a compromise, but only by an entire spiritual victory and the complete surrender of the lower nature. If that is impossible here, then indeed it must be achieved elsewhere; if Nature refuses submission to the emerging spirit, then the soul must Page 891 withdraw from her. There is thus ...
... individual soul and worked out consciously through the nature,—no longer through a half-perception and a diminished or distorted effectuation by the stumbling, ignorant and all-deforming energy of lower nature in us but by the all-wise transcendent and universal Mother. The Lord has veiled himself and his absolute wisdom and eternal consciousness in ignorant Nature-Force and suffers her to drive the ...
... the danger that he may confuse his own disguised or sublimated ego or an inferior power with the Lord and substitute its demands for the supreme dictates. He may fall into a common ambush of this lower nature and distort his supposed surrender to a higher Power into an excuse for a magnified and uncontrolled indulgence of his own self-will and even of his desires and passions. A great sincerity is asked ...
... nature. Man's urge of self-perfection is to be, in the ancient language, svarāṭ and samrāṭ , self-ruler and king. But to be self-ruler is not possible for him if he is subject to the attack of the lower nature, to the turbulence of grief and joy, to the violent touches of pleasure and pain, to the tumult of his emotions and passions, to the bondage of his personal likings and dislikings, to the strong ...
... new existence. But it is not likely that Nature would operate in this fashion, and it would be difficult for the individual to arrive at a complete change while still enclosed in the life of the lower nature. At a certain stage it might be necessary to follow the age-long device of the separate community, but with a double purpose, first to provide a secure atmosphere, a place and life apart, in which ...
... intelligence,—if we can reduce in it the element of material thought enslaved to the external appearances of things, the element of vital thought enslaved to the wishes, desires, impulses of the lower nature, the element of intellectual thought enslaved to our preferred, already settled or congenial ideas, conceptions, opinions, fixed operations of intelligence, if, having reduced to a minimum those ...
... stress on individuality. To abandon identification with the physical, vital and mental ego, is not enough; he must arrive in soul also at a true, universalised, not separative individuality. In the lower nature man is an ego making a clean cut in conception between himself and all other existence; the ego is to him self, but all the rest not self, external to his being. His whole action starts from and ...
... surrender of our instrumental ego to the Divine Shakti. It is not enough to know her as the one Cosmic Force that moves us and all creatures on the planes of mind, life and matter; for this is the lower Nature and, although the Divine Knowledge, Light, Power are there concealed and at work in this Ignorance and can break partly its veil and manifest something of their true character or descend from above ...
... , disgusted with itself and the world, but unable to participate in that higher thing which it has seen. There is this immeasurable and unstained bliss; but our own being remains the sport of a lower Nature of pleasure and pain and dull neutral sensation incapable of its divine delight. There is this perfect Knowledge and Will; but our own remains always the mental deformed knowledge and limping will ...
... y and imposition, for in the end there are only two spontaneous harmonic movements, that of the life, inconscient or largely subconscient, the harmony that we find in the animal creation and in lower Nature, and that of Page 828 the spirit. The human condition is a stage of transition, effort and imperfection between the one and the other, between the natural and the ideal or spiritual ...
... things are going as fast as they can, that if they were any faster, everything would break. ( long silence ) And you? I feel I am witnessing a whole display of the subconscient and the lower nature.... ( Mother nods her head ) Terrible. Yes, it's resisting as much as it can. Oh, but it's terrible, Mother! One gets the impression of a self-sufficient power that listens to nothing ...
... wondered about. You say that for me, for instance, the insistence is on personal transformation—well, I saw something ("I saw"—well, anyway I felt something), I felt that the transformation (of the lower nature, for example) is not really possible unless a sort of radical change of position in the consciousness takes place, or a change of vision.... Page 337 Yes. ... unless things and ...
... all-formative all-moving expansion of Becoming. It is the Self that is posited in the Gita as Purushottama with His Prakriti deployed in a higher Nature that is a divine phenomenon and in a lower Nature that is a phenomenon of mixed light-and-darkness progressively releasing the luminous from the obscure. Compared to this Self, this essence, Shankara's selfhood and essentiality gives ...
... greater certitude, efficiency and synthesising prescience. No easy task is this for man, says Sri Aurobindo, "but in the end the difficulty resolves itself into two adverse tendencies, one of his lower nature, a downward attraction to what he has been and still partially is, one of his higher nature, too much attachment to what he has become and satisfaction with partial achievements. It is the joys ...
... differentiates Hinduism in its early virility from the cosmic sorrow of Buddhism and the cosmic disillusionment of Mayavada. But it is possible to fall from this Bliss, not to realise it with the lower nature, in the Apara Prakriti, not to be able to grasp and possess it. Two things are necessary for the fullness of man's bliss,—the fullness of his being and the fullness of his knowledge creating by ...
... ego. Works are a bondage when they are done out of desire or for the sake of the ego, by a mind turned outwards, involved in the act and not detached and free, bound to the ignorance of this lower nature. 139 To create the union of his soul with the Divine Presence and Power through a perfect surrender of the will in all his activities, is the high aspiration of the seeker on the Way ...
... animal, before he is corrupted, has not yet eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the god has abandoned it for the tree of eternal life; man stands between the upper heaven and the lower nature. Page 429 60) One of the greatest comforts of religion is that you can get hold of God sometimes and give him a satisfactory beating. People mock at the folly of savages who beat their ...
... nature of this spiritual and supra-terrestrial entity, this soul, its struggle for liberation, and the infinitely varying degrees in which in different bodies it has succeeded in dominating the lower nature. A past terrestrial soul evolution sufficiently accounting for these variations and degrees of our mixed being and a future soul evolution that helps us progressively to liberate the godhead of ...
... rise to the higher levels of consciousness; it is necessary also to have a yoga which enables us to bring down the power of these higher supramental levels of consciousness to transform the lower nature so that there can be a divine fulfilment of life. The objective here is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the ...
... dear child, from the point of view of your spiritual progress the past year has been a very good one and I expect the beginning year to be still better. Indeed the Light has to come down in the lower nature, in the subconscient and bring there the knowledge and the right attitude—and it is bound to come. Always with you, my dear child 17 June 1936 ...
... same view of the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal. Religion is indeed always imperfect because it is a mixture of man's spirituality with his endeavours that come in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral-temple half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance —crumbling or badly outworn in places, but ...
... Aurobindo: "The increased rapidity is possible ... because the conscious participation of the inner being is there and the power of the Super-nature is already at work in the half-transformed lower nature, so that the steps which would otherwise have had to be taken tentatively in the night of Inconscience or Ignorance can now be taken in an ncreasing light and power of Knowledge. The first obscure ...
... physical consciousness lose much of their transforming potency and become instead mutilated, circumscribed and 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 ...
... Correspondence with The Mother 25 December 1934 My dear Mother, May You rest, and the best way of giving You rest is for me to rise above the lower nature and progress in the Divine Light so that I may live only as a spark and ray of the Light. If each inmate determines to do this and progresses, surely, my dear Mother, You will have more rest ...
... be relieved from the kitchen work cannot be accepted. I wish that the clouds may pass away. Of course H cannot leave the kitchen. What you say is quite right; it is only by rising above the lower nature that all these petty things can be mended. My beloved Mother, Peace in Aroumé, Peace in the hearts of all in the Ashram. For a beginning, I promise You that on no day will You find me not in ...
... , for in each meditation something new happens. Even if you are not apparently successful in your meditation, it is better to persist and to be more obstinate than the opposition of your lower nature. Mother, I would like to know from you if it is good for me to devote more time to meditation than I am doing at present. I spend about two hours, morning and evening together. I am as ...
... Divine and uniting with Him. When one has understood this, then one is ready to gain the strength to surmount all difficulties. 22 November 1971 Page 423 A victory won over the lower nature gives a deeper and more lasting joy than any external success. 24 November 1971 Sri Aurobindo has revealed to us a few of the marvels that the future will bring to the earth and has encouraged ...
... pleasures of the palate to the union with the Divine, it is your own look-out and I have nothing to say, except that I do not approve, but each one must be free to choose whether he will rise above his lower nature or sink down in the material pit. My help is always for those who choose the higher path. It is an inner attitude of freedom from attachment and from greed for food and desire of the palate that ...
... animal, before he is corrupted, has not yet eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the god has abandoned it for the tree of eternal life; man stands between the upper heaven and the lower nature. Do you have a question? Was there actually an earthly paradise? Why was man banished from it? From an historical viewpoint (not psychological, but historical), based on my memories ...
... humanity at large this movement cannot last; the mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. Therefore we see that the reason in its growth either does away with the distinct spiritual tendency for a time, as in ancient Greece, or accepts it but ...
... is a second text here too for your consideration. WORDS OF THE MOTHER Never forget that, as much outside as in the Ashram, if you want to lead a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses; otherwise there is no end to the miseries and the troubles. (20 September 1960) That knee of yours is still troubling you? But you must keep in ...
... and little spirit, and in our moral and dynamic being the inertia, the cowardice, baseness, sloth, lax subjection to small and ignoble motives, the weak yielding Page 111 to our lower nature. Tamas brings into our emotional nature insensibility, indifference, want of sympathy and openness, the shut soul, the callous heart, the soon spent affection and languor of the feelings, into ...
... individual its concentration within limits of Space and Time." 30 It is the ego that creates a wall and sense of separation between the individual being and the universal being. In the lower nature man is an ego making a clean cut in conception between himself and all other existence; the ego is to him self, but all the rest not-self, external to his being. His whole action starts from ...
... Mind Trance, yogic, see Samadhi Transcendent (Transcendence), the, 382, 386 Transformation, 394-95 different statuses of, 171 and liberation, 167-69, 394 of the lower nature, 173-74 meaning, 168, 169-70, 172 Truth-Consciousness, 224, 358, 159-60 See also Gnosis; Supermind Turiya, 206, 213 Universal Life, see Cosmic Life Universal ...
... pleasures of the palate to the union with the Divine, it your own lookout and I have nothing to say, except that I do not approve, but each one must be free to choose whether he will rise above his lower nature or sink down in the material pit. My help is always for those who choose the higher path. The Mother ...
... "The Supersensuous Life" by Whiner. Did you read that book? , Yes, not everything but some parts. How do you find it? Good book. But his idea about the relation of the higher to the lower Nature is not clear except that the higher only makes some impression on the lower; there is no idea of the transformation. / thought he has some knowledge through the psychic. That also is superficial ...
... During the Pranam During concentration I am unable to do anything except to offer pranams to the Mother. Am I proceeding correctly? In spite of my efforts to reject the movements of lower nature there has been a lapse. I am ashamed and I beg for pardon. Write to him that what he is doing is quite right. While making the Pranam he should aspire to be open to the Mother's influence and ...
... forces (the last, most material one). The servant: Who showed us the way through the "labyrinth", gave us some food and even a smoky light (torch, very poor) to find our way in the dark, the lower nature, she asked to be paid for her services, saying that the "other gentleman" (titan) was always paying her. The place: some vital layer in the physical consciousness. 20 February 1932 (2 a ...
... satisfied is at once replaced. by another one and they go on clamouring more and more. It is only by conquering the desires that you can get rid of them, by coming out of this consciousness of the lower nature and rising to a higher consciousness. 29 April 1930 Sri Aurobindo A desire which knows that it will never be satisfied at once vanishes. The Mother René, Come quick. I have a letter ...
... the supreme harmony in matter from the union of the above and the below.—Purushottama The process by which we transcend the ego and put on the Divine Consciousness and by which we transform the lower nature into the divine nature.—Satyen Faith in the Divine and aspiration for the Highest.—Tajdar ...
... And yet there has to be a way to get out of this Mayic play of ignorance and attain oneness with the One who alone is. The first step is to be free from the bewilderment of this all-powerful lower Nature who is the moulder of the mortal’s lot, who has made this world full of falsehood, distortion, egoistic assertions, infatuation, attachment, lust, jealousy, the dark hankering for possession, the ...
... Works, Arjuna must become a true karmayogin. He must surrender himself to the Lord of his soul because, very truly, it is at his bidding that for him whatever has to happen is going to happen. The lower Nature under whose sway Arjuna presently is should not be allowed to determine the attitude and disposition, the manner of his work. Instead, he must go far beyond it; indeed, he must take this opportunity ...
... role of Leadership of evolution and in the task of building the supramental temple of the divine in supramentalized Matter. The present stage of universal matter, life and mind is conceived as the lower Nature, and what is attempted by means of the synthesis of yoga is to build the higher Nature of the Supermind, which is of the nature of Knowledge and which culminates in the life divine. The passage ...
... sāyujya mukti, the liberation by which the individual soul is united with the Supreme Lord or Infinite Existence, but also the ideal of sādharmya mukti, the liberation and perfection of the lower nature of life and mind by infusion into it of the divine nature, the Para Prakriti, — the divine Aditi of the Veda. The Tantrik yoga has also developed methods of far richer spiritual conquest that would ...
... 14 life divine. Not merely the liberation of the Spirit, but also the liberation of Nature, the transmutation, radical and complete, of the Aparā Prakriti into the Parā Prakriti, of the lower Nature into the Supreme and supramental Nature, this has been the aim and also the achievement of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga. This achievement implies what Sri Aurobindo has called the triple transformation ...
... Nature, parā Prakriti. In effect, this would be the method by which the concept of sdlokyamukti and sdyujyamukti is further extended into sādharmyamukti, the liberation and perfection of the lower nature of life, body and mind by infusion into it of the divine nature, the parā Prakriti, which is evidently the divine Aditi of the Veda. The Tantric Yoga has developed methods for a richer spiritual ...
... which is the process of the Mind. 8 The supermind is the consciousness of what can be called Divine Nature, parā prakrti, to use the terminology of the Gita 9 , as distinguished from the lower nature, aparā prakrti, of which our mental nature is the present highest evolute. The mental nature is primarily concerned with particulars rather than with the universals; although universals can be ...
... Nature, Para Prakriti. In effect, this would be the method by which the concept of salokyamukti and sayujyamukti is further extended into sadharmyamukti, the liberation and perfection of the lower nature of life, body and mind by infusion into it of the divine nature, the Para Prakriti - which is evidently the divine Aditi of the Veda. The Tantric Yoga has developed methods for a richer ...
... Prakriti. This is the reason why there is in man the distinctive feature of self-exceeding. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: "To climb to higher altitudes, to get a greater scope, to transform his lower nature, this is always a natural impulse of man as soon as he has made place for himself in the physical and vital world of earth and has a little leisure to consider his farther possibilities.... It is ...
... Purusha in the heart, hrday a guhyam , or the being which is described in the Upanishads as "no bigger than the size of one's thumb") has a spontaneous aspiration for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher ...
... Listening to music: selected ragas (Indian) and harmonies (Western). Examples of poetic excellence: regional poetry, Sanskrit poetry, English poetry. Need to control and master the lower nature (topic for study and reflection). Diet and health. Exercises to be recommended: To make in daily life the choice for control and mastery, for regularity and punctuality; the choice ...
... candid and perfect. An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven." (SABCL,Vol. 25, The Mother, p. 9) A question may at times puzzle the heart and mind of the sadhakas; it is as regards ...
... Listening to music: selected ragas (Indian) and harmonies (Western). 6. Examples of poetic excellence: regional poetry, Sanskrit poetry, English poetry 7. Need to control and master the lower nature (topic for study and reflection) 8. Diet and health. III. Exercises to be recommended: 1. To make in daily life the choice for control and mastery, for regularity and punctuality; ...
... Aurobindo: "The increased rapidity is possible ... because the conscious participation of the inner being is there and the power of the Super-nature is already at work in the half-transformed lower nature, so that the steps which would otherwise have had to be taken tentatively in the night of Inconscience or Ignorance can now be taken in an increasing light and power of Knowledge. The first obscure ...
... disgusted with itself and the world, but unable to participate in that higher thing which it has seen. There is this immeasurable and unstained bliss; but our own being remains the sport of a lower Nature of pleasure and pain and dull neutral sensation incapable of its divine delight. There is this perfect Knowledge and Will; but our own remains always the mental deformed knowledge and limping ...
... ego-sense is not indispensable to the world-play. (Sri Aurobindo, op. cit., p. 418) Desire and ego and personal will and the thought of the mind are the motives of action only in the lower nature; when the ego is lost and the Yogin becomes Brahman, when he lives in and is, even, a transcendent and universal consciousness, action comes spontaneously out of that... (Sri Aurobindo ...
... plastic, free from ego that the difficulties are spared to them. Page 31 An Ashramite says that at present the Mother and you have started to send us down into the lower nature (for the purpose of transformation). Is it true? We are sending nobody nowhere. The sadhana itself has come down into the depth of the physical and subconscient to make them open to ...
... this stage. It is only when the whole being down to the physical has accepted and assimilated the higher consciousness that it can come. I understand that the transformation of the lower nature is not possible without the Supramental Force coming down and preparing the vessel for the com-plete perfection. Am I right? Complete perfection is another matter. What must first ...
... to heaven". It is this spirit that has to permeate the whole national life of India. This war has to be fought by every citizen of India, and this war is the war between the higher nature and the lower nature of man. • The officer of the Indian Armed Forces has the ability to lead from the front. This has been demonstrated in the two World wars and later in the Indo-Pak wars and the war against ...
... vast field of war where men are tested to reveal the depth of their courage, strength and heroism. In this process, human nature is honed by gigantic forces both human and divine that purify the lower nature and bring out the latent noble and godlike possibilities. The struggles between the Greeks and the Trojans revolve around issues of power and honor. The Iliad shows us the conflict between mighty ...
... of the vital or surface rising of the inertia. This attitude is suggested to me from within: " It is not I who have fallen down. I 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 ...
... peace, joy and love. Does such a path truly exist somewhere or is it only a visionary idea? There is such a sunlit or golden path, but it is difficult for man with the pull of his lower nature to follow it. Difficult no doubt it is, but is it really impossible for the human being to tread the sunlit path? It is not impossible. But only one or two have ...
... first step. The next is to live in the psychic. The third is to make the psychic the ruler of the being. The fourth is to rise beyond the mind. The fifth is to bring what is beyond mind into the lower nature. I don't say it is always done in that order. But all that has to be done. Then why do you say that these are my clear-cut mental assertions? [19.1.35] Perhaps if you give full weight to ...
... reason why they don't come in freely or stay is the activity of the mind and vital always rushing about, thinking this, wanting that, trying to perform mountaineering feats on all the hillocks of the lower nature instead of nourishing a stronger and simple aspiration and opening to the higher consciousness that it may come in and do its own work. Rasa of poetry, painting or physical work is not the thing ...
... renunciation. or, Is the Vaishnava's song only for Vaikuntha¹? Again, Where is the light, O where? Kindle it with the fire of separation. I do not say the indulgence of the lower nature, the physical propensities and the sense-objects is less prevalent in our country. The teeming wealth of sensuality that is found ¹ The highest heaven. Page 160 in Kalidasa ...
... earthly concerns. This theory is an absurdity on the face of it. The higher world can be contacted even while remaining in the body, life and mind, and it can also be infused into these three. The lower nature can be moulded by the infusion and the law of the higher. While residing in the world all earthly activities can be directed by the drive of that higher world. It is a difficult task, but not ...
... altar of the Fire here is provided by man's inner and outer frame; the bricks of this altar are his body, life and mind with all their activities; the multiform garland spoken of by Yama is this lower nature with its multiple forms. Fire is the symbol of the conscious power and energy lying concealed within the innermost depths of the mortal frame, it is the inner being's power of askesis. . By following ...
... consciousness in which this sense of "I am doing" or even "I am" has disappeared, got dissolved. Truly, the work is done not by me, by the sense of "I-ness", but by Prakriti, Nature, apparently by Lower Nature, secretly by Higher Nature. When the "I" disappears, the force that has been working continues to work, only the sense of "I" attached to it (in ignorance and by ignorance) is no longer there ...
... status of Nature, even then we are not immune to the attacks that come from the inferior Nature. Those whom we usually call pious or virtuous or honest have still a good part of them imbedded in the Lower Nature, in various degrees they are yet its vassals; they owe allegiance to the three gunas, be it even to sattwa—sattwa is also a movement in Inferior Nature; they are not free. Has not Sri Krishna said: ...
... altar of the Fire here is provided by man's inner and outer frame; the bricks of this altar are his body, life and mind with all their activities; the multiform garland spoken of by Yama is this lower nature with its multiple forms. Fire is the symbol of the conscious power and energy lying concealed within the innermost depths of the mortal frame, it is the inner being's power of askesis. By ...
... stainless by the Gods. It is for the mighty fulfilment of earth that they have taken their seat near unto the vast-ranging Divine-Sun. NOTE It is the story of Redemption of Maya, the Lower Nature (Apara Prakriti), its purification or uplifting into the higher Divine Nature (Para Prakriti). The question is always asked how did Maya enter into and possess Brahman, how did darkness envelope ...
... love with his ignorance, but a divine afflatus is possessing him. The new world has to be based on new foundations. The old world was built from outside with superficial cheap elements that lower Nature offers easily and profusely. It is body's needs, vital hungers assembled and arranged according to a plan supplied by mind's ideas and notions under the directive and compulsion of the ego, the ...
... illusion. The highest good consists in escape from life and withdrawal from action. The play of the natural instincts and propensities which comprise the ordinary social life of man is considered the lower nature. If man wants to attain to his highest nature, his true Self, then he will have to control his outgoing tendencies, stop them totally and finally turn them inward. The summum bonum of life is ...
... has to be surmounted. An aggregate always tends to live and move on a lower level of consciousness than the individual's. It is easy to organise a society on forces and passions that belong to the lower nature of man—although it can be questioned whether such a society will last very long or conduce to the good or happiness of man. On the other hand, although difficult, it may not prove impossible ...
... soul, one who lives in and with the Brahman or the Supreme Divine is he who has discarded the inferior human nature and has taken up the superior divine nature. He has conquered the evil of the lower nature, certainly; but also he has gone beyond the good of that nature. The liberated man is seated above the play of the three Gunas that constitute the apara prakrti. Human intelligence, human feeling ...
... domain of the Spirit. They embody the mighty universal laws of that vaster Truth-Consciousness (Rtam ). To go beyond all the dharmas of this three-fold Lower Nature, attain to the Truth- Consciousness of the Fourth Status, incarnate in all that we are, know, will, feel and do the Law or Dharma of the Spirit and of the Spirit alone, is what we mean by Spirituality ...
... for indeed the only form of silence ordinary man knows for the mind is sleep. But this must be overcome—it is a known obstacle which all must overcome. Reject sleep as you reject other ills of the lower nature. You have the strength to do it, being the Purusha. Then one of the following two things will happen: either you will remain fully conscious but with the mind empty, or you will have this c ...
... dealt at once Page 189 without having to wait for letters. The atmosphere here also might have helped him. But I can't say. It is only a probability, because the defect in his lower nature was there, Disciple : There are cures of madness effected by Ojhas – certain people with occult knowledge. Are such cures final ? Sri Aurobindo : If the man has nothing in him which ...
... fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all the unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine." 2 ; "The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in men above their lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as a divine personality ...
... Fourth-turiya-they are native to the domain of the Spirit. They embody the mighty universal laws of that vaster Truth-Consciousness (Rtam). To go beyond all the dharmas of this threefold Lower Nature, attain to the Truth-Consciousness of the Fourth Status, incarnate in all that we are, know, will, feel and do the Law or Dharma of the Spirit and of the Spirit alone, is what we mean by Spirituality ...
... has to be surmounted. An aggregate always tends to live and move on a lower level of consciousness than the individual's. It is easy to organise a society on forces and passions that belong to the lower nature of man - although it can be questioned whether such a society will last very long or conduce to the good or happiness of man. On the other hand, although difficult, it may not prove impossible ...
... psychic realisation one can't get rid of ego? I couldn't understand it. SRI AUROBINDO: One can get rid of egoism but not of ego, For the psychic depends on the individual nature for its action. The lower nature has its hold on the individual and the psychic works through the individual. The psychic realisation is the realisation of the individual soul which feels itself as one in the many; your individuality ...
... one who lives in and with the Brahman or the Supreme Divine, is he who has discarded the inferior human nature and has taken up the superior divine nature. He has conquered the evil of the lower nature, certainly; but also he has gone beyond the good of that nature. The liberated man is seated above the play of the three Gunas that constitute the inferior hemisphere of manifestation, ...
... s radiate their influence. PURANI: On that we are not very clear. Satyendra was saying that something goes out from their aura that makes all get the influence and lose their enmity or their lower nature. SATYENDRA: What comes from their aura is not the same as what Sri Aurobindo has said about something imparted directly by the Guru. PURANI: They say that wherever a Tirthankara stands, everybody ...
... have hatred or horror for a thing it means you are on the same plane with it, your consciousness is level with the consciousness of the opposite feelings. You have to rise above the status of the lower nature and this can be done only by a calm detachment, a quiet withdrawal. One need not entertain repulsion or hatred for animal life in order to rise superior to it, one automatically rises superior ...
... said, the soul-power, the psychic. That creates the rift in the dense covering through which can pour down the rains and streams of the universal consciousness with its purificatory ablution of the lower nature and conciousness. But this again becomes not only possible but inevitable when this new consciousness contacts openly and directly its master and overlord, the supreme Supramental Consciousness ...
... By The Way - Part II The Mother and Sri Aurobindo want us to transform all the impurities of our lower nature and raise them to conscious Truth. To transform human life into God-life, into divine life. We cannot give it up and become indifferent. We have to get down into this life and purify it. Like descending into hell and converting it into heaven. The Mother ...
... for the moment to do only a little concentration before you sleep, with an aspiration to meet me there in the night. We will see what happens. Blessings. 9.12.1969 The lower nature aided by my vital prevents me from enlarging myself. And the ego smiles. Let it smile. The day of its defeat will surely come and, may be, sooner than you think. 11.12.1969 ...
... automatism of the body is being replaced by the consciousness of the Divine Presence governing the entire functioning of the body. 29 When she was asked how the unending stupidities of the 'lower nature' were to be effectively countered, she wrote that one needed the will to change in sheer defiance of the excuses and intimations of what was low or false within, a persistence in the will in spite ...
... seems to have been a time of rich realisations and even richer possibilities; but also of delusions and wrong movements, resulting in the unleashing of adverse forces in the yet unvanquished lower nature. Like men a little intoxicated, and unable to stand it! Sri Aurobindo and the Mother accordingly decided that the Overmind-power was too upsetting in the immediate context, and would prove ...
... us to get into the spirit of these extraordinary outpourings and recordations: The Prayers are mostly written in an identification with the earth-conscious ness. It is the Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the Sadhana of the earth consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of tra ...
... experience the negation and obstruction of the Inconscience."5 The problem is to open, if possible, consciously, to these higher planes, establish a contact, and receive without mixture of the lower nature the Overhead creation. Though it is usual to regard these planes as mystical, it is known that their powers have been acting intermittently in man through history : man has been familiar with them ...
... benignly transforming force. The supramental Light-Force descends into the subconscient and ¹ "So long as there is not the supramental change down to the subconscient, complete and full, the lower nature has always a hold on some part of the being". The Life Divine. Page 435 inconscient ranges of our being and fills them with its electric energies and irradiates their immemorial ...
... suffering, but for the transformation of our whole nature into the divine Nature. All other spiritual knowledge, if practised with a sustained sincerity, can lead to the liberation of the soul from the lower nature, but cannot transform that nature. It is only the supramental knowledge, the knowledge of the creative Truth-Consciousness, that can radically transform and divinise it. It liberates the soul, and ...
... refuse to give any chance to the undivine against the divine. ”¹ This consciousness of oneself being a child of the Light or a ray of the divine Sun will considerably help our detachment from the lower nature of desires and cravings and give us the power to reject them. But there are two points which we must bear in mind in regard to this detachment: (1) it must be quiet and masterful, (2) it must ...
... ce, and mind into the Supermind, they shed for ever their obscuring deficiencies and become perfect instruments of the Divine. This is conversion and transformation—a radical sublimation of the lower nature of man into the higher nature, parā prakṛti. But this sublimation does not imply suppression or annihilation, the triple formation of mind, life and body persists and acts, but with a new co ...
... disturbs our sleep and saps our rest is the subconscient. It is the chaotic, squalid and un- shapely subconscious dreams that disturb and depress and fatigue us. An intensive purification of the lower nature in the light of our experiences in sleep as well as in the waking hours of the day will culminate in a thorough catharsis of the subconscient—sustained personal effort led and progressively replaced ...
... peculiar sounds. I remember one practicing Pranayama rigorously and making horrible sound. I did not hear of his getting any good results. Sometimes the Force raises up what lies below – in the lower nature – in order to be able to deal with it. Page 29(conti.) ...
... means, if one has that living faith he can do without Tapasya. C also says that he does not believe in Tapasya. He believes in Grace. Disciple : I do not mean that one should indulge in lower nature while depending or believing in Grace. But otherwise I don't believe in Tapasya. Disciple : Yes, but if we want something then we have to make some effort or straining for that thing. Some ...
... lower being, is what is known as ascent in the Integral Yoga. Sri Aurobindo says that as man has risen from the life-mind of the animal, wrapped up in the chaotic cravings and appetites of the lower nature, into the comparative clarity and control of the mind of reason and reflection, so one day, by the force of the evolutionary élan of his soul, he will rise to the Truth-conscious Supermind ...
... Force. Peace is the last of he three principles of jyoti, Tejas and Shama or Shanti, which .are the supernal spiritual equivalents of Sattwa,¹Rajas,² and Tamas,³the three primal qualities of the lower Nature. In Matter Shanti or the luminous Peace of the Divine becomes the dark and dense Tamas, the congealed inertia of Inconscience. This peace is the recurring refrain of many of the hymns and ...
... and passion, and liberated from all the unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine." 2 ; "The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in men above their lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as a divine personality, which ...
... of consciousness is the root. The difficulty is that those who are here receive something of the Higher power and they become go-centric, then gather it in the vital and turn it to their lower nature. They think, it is their own power. When A came here from Chandranagore he said, “There at Page 148 Chandranagore – everybody is a sheep following the shepherd but here everybody ...
... from the receiving mind of the poets to any of the overhead planes. The problem is to open, if possible, consciously, to these higher planes, establish a contact, and receive without mixture of the lower nature the Overhead creation. As he wrote in one of his letters it is a question of establishing the right kind of silence in the mind that can receive the Word coming from above the Mind. In fact, the ...
... to the light and now she should not be asked to go; she will try. Page 197 Mother wrote a message which, she says, should be used largely: To follow all the impulses of the lower nature is surely not the supramental way and has no place here. What we want is to hasten the advent of the supramental, not at all to fall in the ugly condition of a humanity full of desires and ...
... something. I didn’t have visions before. Is there any truth in it? SRI AUROBINDO: It is so seen when the inner vision is opened. It is an influence from an adverse force or from the universal lower nature (an influence more often than a possession) that brings about this violent depression and disturbance and it is seen like a grey or black cloud or form throwing itself on the adhar. MYSELF: Mother ...
... hidden itself so cleverly that I could not detect it at all. Dear Mother, I want not detachment alone, but wideness as well. Do cleanse my entire being. I can’t bear to see these ugly figures of the lower nature any longer. SRI AUROBINDO: In a certain sense it is good that it has risen and you have seen clearly and got disgusted with it. Only give no justification, support it in no way, be resolute to ...
... to the three principles - Spirit, Soul, Divine Nature - of the Higher Nature, then four chapters to Supermind, followed by four chapters each to the three principles - Mind, Life, Matter - of the Lower Nature. Pearson further sees this internal organisation "symbolised in the ancient occult sign of the pentacle (or double triangle) enclosing a central square," which was also Sri Aurobindo's symbol. ...
... and vivid; when two of the windows are closed, it is chhayamaya and the scenes and forms vague and chhayamaya though vaster, more full of unseen details. At first samadhi was [?received] by the lower nature but the Will as Shakti (now manifest as the Ishwari in the Samadhi) insisted and prolonged samadhi with important results followed (1) Ideal thought is now at ease in all realms of the mental ...
... its life as the mere mental being who dwells in the world subjected helplessly to this law of death and birth or seems at least by his ignorance to be subjected to this and to other laws of the lower Nature. To know and possess its true nature, free, absolute, master of itself and its embodiments is the soul's means of transcendence, and to know and possess this is to know and possess the Brahman. ...
... the multiple Virat Purusha to complete the revelation on one more of its many sides. The metaphysical synthesis is complete. Sankhya has been admitted for the separation of the soul from the lower nature,—a separation that must be effected by self-knowledge through the discriminating reason and by transcendence of our subjection to the three gunas constituent of that nature. It has been completed ...
... ce and will, live in the identity of the one self in all, break out of all ego-moulds into the Page 569 impersonal spirit. The mind moves under the limiting compulsion of the triple lower nature, it erects its standards in obedience to the tamasic, rajasic or at highest the sattwic qualities; but the destiny of the soul is a divine perfection and liberation and that can only be based in ...
... Light. An inner Deluge, therefore, which will completely change the countryside where our psyche moves. Our ideals and the means of realizing them will be upset in the same way as that which the lower Nature has bequeathed to us, as well as that which is executed through our agency. Our Good and our Evil must be wrested from us, although they have always allowed us to advance, and even though we ...
... has faith already. The vision of the higher planes or the idea of what they are can be had long before the transformation. If that were not possible, how could the transformation take place—the lower nature cannot change by itself, it changes by the growing vision, perception, descent of the higher consciousness belonging to the higher planes. Yoga experience often begins with some opening of the ...
... sensuous Life” B.G: Did you read that book? A.G: Yes, not everything but some parts. B.G: How do you find it? A.G: Good book. But his idea about the relation of the higher to the lower Nature is not clear except that the higher only makes some impression on the lower, there is no idea of the—transformation. B.G: I thought he has some knowledge through the psychic. A.G: That also ...
... is already there in your physical being. The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive and at the same time, reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining and which are ruled by desires and habits inconsistent with the true being, the true power and the true knowledge, of course the superior power will itself reveal ...
... suddenly Soul and Oversoul rush into each other. They become one. The transcendental Mother's Power, the divine Mahakundalini, floods her entire being. Lotus after dynamic lotus opens and the lower Nature becomes an instrument of the higher Nature. There is a greatening of spiritual happiness everywhere. Across death and birth the first stage of perfection is reached in life. VII: ...
... division in the nature, because the true being and all that supports it stand back and separate from these lower elements. At one time the true being occupies the field of the nature, at another the lower nature used by some contrary Force pushes it back and seizes the ground, — and this we now see, while formerly the thing happened but the nature of the happening was not clear us. If there is the firm ...
... This ś raddhā — the English word faith is inadequate to express it — is in reality an influence from the supreme Spirit and its light a message from our supramental being which is calling the lower nature to rise out of its petty present to a great self-becoming and self-exceeding. And that which receives the influence and answers to the call is not so much the intellect, the heart or the life ...
... open it more and more to the true supramental activities. The action into which you have been cast was probably necessary because it is the dynamic part of your being in which the defects of the lower nature have the greatest hold and are most prominent. Pondicherry, 16 April 1923 AUROBINDO P.S. After this letter was finished I got your last of the 12th. What you say about Kumar Krishna ...
... covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and luminous or else bring down the influence, reflection, finally even the presence and power of the higher consciousness into the lower nature. Now that is what consciousness is — it is not composed of parts, it is fundamental to being and itself formulates any parts it chooses to manifest — developing them from above downward ...
... practical side of this transformation under Gurudev's concrete help and guidance. I knew, of course, that every aspirant was expected to inhibit, or shall I say reject, the movements of his lower nature. One knows how to check impulses; but as to how I was to change them I had only the haziest notions. Once, in the 'thirties', I had a long talk with the late Upendranath Banerji, a quondam disciple ...
... of the sophists, Sri Aurobindo writes: “The mind and the intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent mental being. Therefore we see that the reason in its growth either does away with the distinct spiritual tendency for a time, as in ancient Greece …” 10 The sophists ...
... Dreesen, I had heard the expression applied to the Führer – in whispers, of course.” 982 “To be a successful instrument of the Asuric forces is easy, because they take all the movements of your lower nature and make use of them, so that you have no spiritual effort to make.” (Sri Aurobindo 983) “There is always somebody to receive the influence [of the demonic forces] and who then immediately thinks ...
... Correspondence with The Mother 27 November 1934 My dear Mother, This evening I wished and wished for a being to come, a being who has risen above all lower nature and is completely merged in the Divine. My dear Mother, there are such beings somewhere above; may they come down and serve You and manifest Your Love and Consciousness. If they took a body ...
... Correspondence with The Mother 6 May 1935 O my dear Mother, My heart is filled with gratitude that You brought me here. You fished me out of the lower nature and kept me in the bosom of Your eternal love. O my dear Mother, teach me to love Thee, to surrender to Thee; teach me to be Thine, more truly Thine. Yes, I am keeping you in my arms ...
... nce with Dyuman) Dyuman's Correspondence with The Mother 16 July 1936 My dear Mother, 1 have this hope for the descent of the Light into the lower nature and into the subconscient on the 15th of August. Yes, my dear child, the Light will descend sooner or later and it is bound to enlighten the subconscient. My force, love and blessings are ...
... with physical eyes – and many saw nothing more – was only an outer shell. Once, when a question was put to Sri Aurobindo concerning the Prayers and Meditations, he wrote: ‘It is the Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the Sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation ...
... The Spirit of Auroville The following message was written by the Mother on 10.7.72 10.7.72 To follow all the impulses of the lower nature is surely not the supramental way and has no place here. What we want is to hasten the advent of the supra-mental, not at all to fall in the ugly condition of a humanity subject to desires and lower impulses ...
... descending into the heart (the Sun of Knowledge) turns upon the physical and purifies it. Serpents indicate adverse energies, goats usually indicate sex-tendencies. 3) It is the forces of the lower nature compelled to appear by the rays of the sun of knowledge and seem moved to depart but something in the ego-nature still clings to them and delays the true purification. That always happens in everybody ...
... intention of the deeper conscious Soul-Nature, the Purusha-Prakriti, to be satisfied with his present lowness and limitations. To climb to higher altitudes, to get a greater scope, to transform his lower nature, this is al ways a natural impulse of man as soon as he has made his place for himself in the physical and vital world of earth and has a little leisure to consider his farther possibilities. It ...
... absolutely persevering in the Way that he can succeed. Give him some idea of the central process of the Yoga, especially opening to the working of the Divine Power and rejection of all that is of the lower nature. Humanitarianism The idea of usefulness to humanity is the old confusion due Page 441 to secondhand ideas imported from the West. Obviously, to be "useful" to humanity there is ...
... remain; the Truth alone matters. Religion in India Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of man's spirituality with the errors that come in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral temple half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail, but always fantastic with a significance—crumbled and overgrown in many places, but ...
... Ananda, those lower things may come across with the result that either the higher consciousness retires or its descent is covered up and the stimulation it gives is misused for the purposes of the lower nature. This is the reason why many sadhaks after having big experiences fall into the clutch of a magnified ego, upheavals, ambition, exaggerated sex or other vital passions or distortions. It is always ...
... is out of tune with its own truth from the external and makes it a true instrument for its expression, a means of expression of its inner will, not a thing of responses to the suggestions of the lower Nature. The strong distinction between the two practically disappears. The higher and lower [ vital ] are divisions of the ordinary vital and equally ignorant. It is the true vital that is in contact ...
... can become conscious of it and deal with what passes through it. A man without it would be without contact with the rest of the world. The Environmental Consciousness and the Movements of the Lower Nature These things [ self-esteem, depression, etc. ] usually hide in recesses of the vital or the physical in which there is not yet the full force of the Peace and Light. When they are quite driven ...
... Sachchidananda in relation to the mind, life, body also—but then it is something stable, supporting by its presence the lower Prakriti, but not transforming it. The supermind alone can transform the lower nature. In the supramental consciousness, there are no problems—the problem is created by the division set up by the Mind. The Supramental sees the Truth as a single whole and every thing falls ...
... as an instrumental faculty. Yes, all these phrases are loose. At most one could say that the soul must bring out or develop the inner knowledge—that which is already there within or that the lower nature must receive the higher knowledge,—but not that the soul must get knowledge. I believe Plato himself held that all knowledge already was there within,—so even from that point of view this expression ...
... surrender and samata ] have to be put into every part and atom of the being so that there may be no possibility of a contrary vibration anywhere. You must keep the faith always that however the lower nature may rise or hostile forces attack, victory will be yours and the transformation is sure. Keep firm faith in the victory of the Light and face with calm equanimity the resistances of Matter ...
... preliminary partial knowledge and order upon the life of the creature, but the real, final and integral order can only be founded by the spiritual supermind in its emergence. The supermind in the lower nature is present most strongly as intuition and it is therefore by a development of an intuitive mind that we can make the first step towards the self-existent spontaneous and direct supramental knowledge ...
... s and powers of the divine Page 205 existence, and yet it transcends them and is not bound by the egoism of any creature or collectivity or limited by the ignorant controls of their lower nature. This is the high realisation in front of all our seeking and striving, and it gives the sure promise of a perfect reconciliation and transmutation of all the elements of our nature. A pure, total ...
... distort and ruin the whole course of the Yoga. There is a period, more or less prolonged, of internal effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right ...
... true but still incomplete light easily exposed to mixture, a light which is spiritual in its source though it does not always remain spiritual in its active character when it comes down into the lower nature. But none of these things is the supramental light, the supramental power; that can only be seen and grasped when we have reached the summits of mental being, entered into overmind and stand on ...
... servility, an unreflective obedience and mechanical discharge of duty varied by indolence, evasion, spasmodic revolt, an instinctive and uninformed life. The ancients held that all men are born in their lower nature as Shudras and only regenerated by ethical and spiritual culture, but in their highest inner self are Brahmanas capable of the full spirit and godhead, a theory which is not far perhaps from the ...
... discovers an inner power of the Spirit which is the source of an intuitive and luminous action and an original harmonious creation. The movement of perfection is away from all domination by the lower nature and towards a pure and powerful reflection of the being, power, knowledge and delight of the Spirit and Self in the buddhi. The Yoga of self-perfection is to make this double movement as absolute ...
... purified, only to find that it is still subject to attack and over-clouding because the emotions of the heart and the will and sensational mind are still affected by the many impurities of the lower nature and they get back into the enlightened buddhi and prevent it from reflecting the pure truth for which we are seeking. But we have on the other hand this advantage that one important instrument ...
... Maya is the conscious knowledge, in its law and truth, of that which works in the subconscient by the lower Maya under the conditions of the Denial which seeks to become the Affirmation. For this lower Nature works out what is willed and known in that higher Nature. The Illusion-Power of the divine knowledge in the world which creates appearances is governed by the Truth-Power of the same knowledge which ...
... of desire in the senses and the heart, of self-will in the thought and action and of egoism in the centre of the consciousness. For these things are the three knots by which we are bound to our lower nature and if we can renounce these utterly, there is nothing else that can bind us. Therefore attachment and desire must be utterly cast out; there is nothing in the world to which we must be attached ...
... new-shape and use to divine issues. For the mental being at present reflects only the confusions created by the mental and physical view of the world, is a channel only for the disorders of the ignorant lower nature and full of obstructions and impurities which prevent the higher from acting; therefore the whole shape of our being is deformed and imperfect, indocile to the highest influences and turned in its ...
... adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine, 1 a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature. Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into ...
... Writings, c. 1920 - X Yes. I am here——————————— Tagore There is not much to say. It is evident that there is in him a double being, one for the higher part of him, another for the lower nature. The higher is a very large psychic devata living in the celestial beauty of his own soul; the other is a sort of Gandharva. The Gandharva is limited, ego-bound, psycho-nervous, but his nervous ...
... knowledge, Wisdom that is from of old; afterwards taken in its second and derivative sense, cunning, magic, Illusion. In this second significance it can really be appropriate only to the workings of the lower Nature, aparā prakṛti , which has put behind it the Divine Wisdom and is absorbed in the experiences of the separative Ego. It is in the more ancient sense that the word Maya is used in the Upanishads ...
... to a dominant calm and superior existence. The natural movement of the former attitude is towards the renunciation of the world, sannyāsa ; of the latter towards superiority to the claims of the lower nature and its whirl of actions and reactions, and its principle is equality and the inner renunciation of passion and desire. The former is the first impulse of Arjuna recoiling from the calamitous c ...
... look is the essence of the Yoga of knowledge. The purified understanding has to control the whole being, ātmānaṁ niyamya ; it must draw us away from attachment to the outward-going desires of the lower nature by a firm and a steady will, dhṛtyā , which in its concentration faces entirely towards the impersonality of the pure spirit. The senses must abandon their objects, the mind must cast away the ...
... other is a vain heresy. But real unity cannot come to the race, until man surmounting his egoistic nature is one in heart and spirit with man and real freedom cannot be till he is free from his own lower nature and finds the force of the truth which has been so vainly taught by the saints and sages that the fullness of his perfected individuality is one thing with a universality by which he can embrace ...
... indispensable self-control. It is pressed on all that the greed of the palate has to be conquered, but it has to be done in the last resort from within, as also the other passions and desires of the lower nature. Betel is anaesthetic, depressive and yet with a certain toxic effect—that is why it is prohibited. Whatever is done without purpose is a useless and wrong movement. Eating things from ...
... nature is bound to change and therefore there will be no chance of any feelings of this character. You should not allow yourself to be discouraged by any persistence of the movements of the lower nature. There are some that tend always to persist and return until the whole physical nature is changed by the transformation of the most material consciousness; till then their pressure recurs—sometimes ...
... Light. In any case it is the light of a Force from above. All lights are indications of a Force or Power. It is the work of the Lights and the Forces they represent to act in their descent on the lower nature and change it. The Descent of Knowledge The knowledge comes from above like the light and peace and everything else. As the consciousness progresses, it comes from a higher and higher level ...
... descends through an open mind, vital and physical that the transformation of the nature begins to take place. The opposite experience of dryness, despair etc. comes from the resistance of the ordinary lower nature (lower vital, physical consciousness, especially). This resistance is to be got rid of—and one condition of that is never to indulge the desires of the lower vital and the body. You must turn them ...
... the peace of the higher consciousness descends, it brings always with it this tendency towards equality, samata, because without samata peace is always liable to be attacked by the waves of the lower nature. Page 128 ...
... rise by it above his failings and desires and passions, just as the other can rise beyond his virtues, to the Divine Purity and Light and Love. Necessarily this can only happen if he conquers his lower nature and throws it from him; for if he relapses into it, he is likely to fall from the path or at least to be, so long as the relapse lasts, held back by it from inner progress. But for all that the ...
... Will may be there and all egoistic desires and impulses disappear. Consecration means offering and making sacred to the Mother so that the whole vital nature may belong to her and not to the lower nature. 2 As for the offering of the actions to the Divine and the vital difficulty it raises, it is not possible to avoid the difficulty,—you have to go through and conquer it. For the moment ...
... also a "divine Mère"! Or is it that all these are addressed to something impersonal? The Prayers are mostly written in an identification with the earth-consciousness. It is the Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation ...
... the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of Page 702 man's spirituality with the errors that come in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral temple half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail, but always fantastic with a significance—crumbled and overgrown in many places, but ...
... ss and its working which will change the nature and fill it with a higher light and Ananda. One's own part is to so aspire and open oneself and to reject all that belongs to ego, desire and the lower nature. 21 December 1932 Group Movements The Mother does not think that a group movement of that kind could be effective for the purpose or produce any serious impression on the welter of strong ...
... aspiration and a Divine call they can lead him away from the Mother and the Asram? Every man is free at every moment to consent to the Divine call Page 367 or not consent—to follow the lower nature or to follow his soul. When a person leaves the path, does it not prove that he was unable to judge whether his call for the Divine was true or not? All this about judging is nonsense—you ...
... can come. There must be no vital excitement in your seeking or your aspiration towards the Mother. 20 October 1933 Though I know the Mother is giving me divine things from deep within, my lower nature wants her love and affection to be expressed outwardly. Help me to get rid of this vital demand for some outer expression by the Mother. That is what you must get rid of—the demand of the vital ...
... is already there in your physical being. The calm and strength will descend from above, what you have to do is to open yourself and receive it and at the same time reject all the movements of the lower nature which prevent it from remaining and which are ruled by desires and habits inconsistent with the true being, the true power and the true knowledge. Of course the superior power will itself reveal ...
... a matter of remaining faithful to It, calling for it always, allowing it to do its work when it comes and rejecting every other and inferior Force that belongs to the lower consciousness and the lower nature. I have written so much in order to explain my position and the nature of my Yogic power. I do not usually ask anyone to practise this Yoga, because it is possible only for those who have from ...
... particular thing—but the whole spiritual possibility due to the Mother's presence here. Very few realise what that means and even those who have some idea of it take little advantage and allow their lower nature to block the progress. 9 March 1936 ...
... an opening which reveals to them a vast infinite Silence, Force, Light or Bliss above them Page 205 and afterwards either they ascend to that or these things begin to descend into the lower nature. With others there is either the descent, first into the head, then down to the heart level, then to the navel and below and through the whole body, or else an inexplicable opening—without any sense ...
... consciousness—the presence or manifestation comes afterwards. But this descent of the higher consciousness is really the touch or influx of the Divine itself, though not at first recognised by the lower nature. "I will try again" is not sufficient; what is needed is to try always—steadily, with a heart free from despondency, as the Gita says, anirviṇṇacetasā . You speak of five and a half years ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother in the Gita The Gita does not speak expressly of the Divine Mother; it speaks always of surrender to the Purushottama—it mentions her only as the Para Prakriti who becomes the Jiva, i.e., who manifests the Divine in the multiplicity and through whom all these worlds ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother in the Tantra The experience of the Mother being the Supreme is the Tantrik experience—it is one side of the Truth. The Tantrics used to invoke Shakti in their sadhana. Was it the same Force and Consciousness that is in the Mother here? It depends on ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother, the Jivatman and the Soul In the Chandi it is said that the Devi is in everyone in the form of consciousness. This is the Bhagavat Chetana in all beings. In the true state, in the psychic and the Jivatman, it is united, a divine portion. In the fallen state, ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother's Interest in the World Is it possible for the Mother or anyone living above the Overmind or even in the silence to take any interest in the world, since the world would be felt from there as a mere speck? It all depends upon what basis one lives in the silence ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Cosmic Divine and the Mother What is the difference between the cosmic Divine and the Mother? It is a matter of realisation. In the yoga of the Gita the cosmic Divine is realised as Vasudeva (Krishna). The Vaishnavas realise it as Vishnu, the Shaivas as Shiva. The ...
... January 1956 Sweet Mother, here Sri Aurobindo writes, "For all this first period he [the individual] has to work by means of the instruments of the lower Nature." Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, SABCL, Vol. 20, p. 79 What is this work, and how is it accomplished? There is a positive side and a negative side to this work. The ...
... before doing it, otherwise one may be tossed about by all sorts of desires and impulses which would be very far from the inspiration spoken about in Wu Wei ; it would simply be movements of the lower nature driving you to act. Therefore, unless one has reached the state of wisdom and detachment of the Chinese sage mentioned in this story, it is better not to be spontaneous in one's daily actions, for ...
... indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine it is delegated here and in the ignorance of the lower Nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose." How does money manifest on other planes? What other planes? He speaks of the vital and ...
... before doing it, otherwise one may be tossed about by all sorts of desires and impulses which would be very far from the inspiration spoken about in Wu Wei ; it would simply be movements of the lower nature driving you to act. Therefore, unless one has reached the state of wisdom and detachment of the Chinese sage mentioned in this story, it is better not to be spontaneous in one’s daily actions, for ...
... mixture in the outward expression that gives to the Asura the right to defeat them. To be a successful instrument for the Asuric forces is easy, because they take all the movements of your lower nature and make use of them, so that you have no spiritual effort to make. On the contrary, if you are to be a fit instrument of the Divine Force you must make yourself perfectly pure, since it is only ...
... there is a division in the being as if there were two beings, one within, calm, strong, equal, unperturbed, a channel of the Divine Consciousness and Force, one without still encroached on by the lower Nature; but then the disturbances of the latter become something superficial which are no more than an outer ripple,—until these under the inner pressure fade and sink away and the outer being too remains ...
... animalises the consciousness. Above all, do not associate it with love in your thought, for they really have nothing to do with each other. 23.11.1971 To follow all the impulses of the lower nature is surely not the supramental way and has no place here. What we want is to hasten the advent of the supramental, not at all to fall into the ugly condition of a humanity full of desires ...
... and they say cautiously: "Who knows whether it won't be my turn some day!" I feel there is a force behind all this. What is it? This uncertainty and these departures are due to the lower nature, which resists the influence of the yogic power and tries to slow down the divine action, not out of ill-will but in order to be sure that nothing is forgotten or neglected in the haste to reach ...
... animal, before he is corrupted, has not yet eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the god has abandoned it for the tree of eternal life; man stands between the upper heaven and the lower nature. Is it true that there was an earthly paradise? Why was man driven out of it? 1 From the historical point of view—I am not speaking from the psychological but from the historical ...
... an academic question, no—a question that has a little life in it. That would be interesting. ( Silence ) You will see, the more you strive to realise, you will discover in the nature—the lower nature, that is, the lower mind, the lower vital, the physical—how much pretension, sham and ambition there is.... One can use any... The desire to put on airs: all that must be eliminated, absolutely ...
... the mixture in the outward expression that gives to the Asura the right to defeat them. To be a successful instrument for the Asuric forces is easy, because they take all the movements of your lower nature and make use of them, so that you have no spiritual effort to make. On the contrary, if you are to be a fit instrument of the divine force you must make yourself perfectly pure since it is only ...
... Spontaneous work can be done only by a man of genius. Is there anyone claiming to be a genius?... Blessings. 3 July 1972 Page 215 To follow all the impulses of the lower nature is surely not the supramental way and has no place here. What we want is to hasten the advent of the supramental, not at all to fall into the ugly condition of a humanity full of desires and ...
... one is only an animal. One begins to be a man only when one aspires to a higher and truer life and when one accepts a discipline of transformation. For this one must start by mastering one's lower nature and its desires. 9 March 1972 It can be said that all discipline whatsoever, if it is followed strictly, sincerely, deliberately, is of considerable help, for it makes the earthly life ...
... had also a "divine Mère"! Or is it that all these are addressed to something impersonal? The Prayers are mostly written in an identification with the earth-consciousness. It is Mother in the lower nature addressing the Mother in the higher nature, the Mother herself carrying on the Sadhana of the earth-consciousness for the transformation, praying to herself above from whom the forces of transformation ...
... and ill is not good fortune for the one and bad fortune for the other, but this that good leads us towards a higher nature which is eventually lifted above suffering, and ill pulls us towards the lower nature which remains always in the circle of suffering and evil. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: Rebirth For the destiny which follows after death, the last state of consciousness is usually ...
... view of the Hindu religion as Jawaharlal [Nehru]. Religion is always imperfect because it is a mixture of man's spirituality with his end eavours that come in in trying to sublimate ignorantly his lower nature. Hindu religion appears to me as a cathedral-temple, half in ruins, noble in the mass, often fantastic in detail but always fantastic with a significance—crumbling or badly outworn in places, but ...
... from within and without, from above and from the profoundest depths, nothing would ever change. Even with that, how much time is required for things to change! What obstinate resistance in this lower nature, what blind and stupid attachment to the animal ways of the being, what a refusal to liberate oneself! ( Silence ) In the whole manifestation there is an infinite Grace constantly at work ...
... can go over to the other side without passing through this stage, he Page 408 would risk making a great mistake, and of taking for perfect freedom a perfect weakness with regard to his lower nature. It is almost impossible to pass from the mental being—even the most perfect and most remarkable—to the true spiritual life without having realised this ideal of moral perfection for a certain ...
... and blessings. 26 July 1940 Page 204 Even if you are not apparently successful in your meditation, it is better to persist and to be more obstinate than the opposition of your lower nature. I am quite satisfied with your way of doing the work and it is sure to help you to come nearer to me. My love and blessings. 13 September 1940 This approximate date has been provided ...
... neutralize or absorb radioactivity or over-exposure to cosmic rays?" A learned man in the Ashram said that immunisation to radiation is "impossible" because physical matter is controlled by lower nature. I expect you to tell me that, for us, nothing is "impossible". Both statements are true. (1) So long as matter remains what it is, it cannot be made immune. But (2) the supramental force ...
... forces (the last, most material one). The servant : who showed us the way through the "labyrinth", gave us some food and even a smoky light (torch, very poor) to find our way in the dark, the lower nature; she asked Page 134 to be paid for her services, saying that the "other gentleman" (titan) was always paying her. The place : some vital layer in the physical consciousness. ...
... "An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted by ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven." ...
... surrender and union with the Divine and the transcendence of ego. So long as that basis is not established, a sadhak is only an ignorant and imperfect human being struggling with the evils of the lower nature." I want to offer it to an American admiral who is here and who needs to know this. Did you meet him? No. But ALL Westerners! The highest they can conceive of is always social work ...
... that chooses them all—not with intelligence, but with a sort of feeling that "that's how things must be," that they are "naturally" like that. An adherence—an idiotic adherence—to the mode of the lower nature. Then there was laughter, tears, a whole revolution, and afterwards all was fine. But nobody on earth will be able to convince me it isn't because this material nature chooses to be that way ...
... "for humanity at large," says Sri Aurobindo, "the mind and intellect must develop to their fullness so that the spirituality of the race may rise securely upward upon a broad basis of the developed lower nature in man, the intelligent human being." And when the intellect comes into play, it may try to put everything else into the background, lest its own free total flowering should be impeded. "Therefore ...
... then people say, "See! See your beneficient action, it is only causing catastrophes." Unbelievable, they are unbelievably stupid. I see it in myself; never have I felt the resistance of the lower nature in such a.... Yes, oh yes! It has increased tremendously. Yes, tremendously. One wonders how it will end, and at times one gets really worried. No, you shouldn't. You simply... keep ...
... it isn't so obvious at all! But they do it just the same. I can say: Needless to say that those who aspire to Truth must abstain from telling lies. 3 It's the lies of the lower nature that are difficult to... dispel. ( Mother nods her head ) Yes, but that has nothing to do with "telling lies." Lying is always the sign of a lack of courage. A refusal to face the situation ...
... So, how are you? So-so. So-so!... I have some notes that can be used for February—things I said. ( Mother hands a piece of paper to Satprem ) "A victory won over the lower nature will give a deeper and more lasting joy than any outer success." And then this ( Mother hands another paper ). This is an experience I had yesterday... ( Mother smiles with her eyes closed ...
... inner adoration is to ceremonial worship, this growing into the divine likeness is to the outward ethical life. It culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine, a liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature. Consecration becomes in its fullness a devoting of all our being to the Divine; therefore also of all our thoughts and our works. Here the Yoga takes into ...
... then, the subconscient impressions and sanskaras of previous lives are carried forward. In that case, how far will it be right if I say that my desires, my impulses, formations and tendencies of lower nature are mostly due to old debts of past life, some due to impressions of this life? What about heredity then? Do we not say that usually sensual parents have sensual issues, etc., etc.,? Another ...
... part in politics, they shouldn't join any revolutionary activities, as that would bring trouble to the Ashram. EVENING DR. BECHARLAL: Can one get liberation with desire still present in the lower nature? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, why not? One can realise the Self and attain Moksha or liberation in spite of desires. DR. BECHARLAL: Won't one have to take birth again because of the desires? SRI ...
... relation breaks off and each goes his or her own way, is it because the purpose of love has been served that the separation occurs? SRI AUROBINDO: Not necessarily. There are cases where their old lower nature has dropped away and they are going side by side. In other cases it may be that one has not entered the path. There are also examples where one has come for the Divine and the other hasn't or has ...
... doing things driven blindly by some unseen Force. SRI AUROBINDO (after some time) : It is not easy to get rid of these things. Even when the higher consciousness comes, they can go on in the lower nature. And if Vivekananda found himself driven blindly by some unseen Force, as you say, then it is quite possible for them to remain in the nature and get mixed up in the working out of that driving ...
... of meditation in a mad state. Why? SRI AUROBINDO: They open themselves, while meditating, to vital forces, forces of the occult life plane. In Yoga, madness results from some mistake. In the lower nature there may be an erotic impulse or else ambition which rises up and then one gets possessed by these forces. NIRODBARAN: Isn't fear also responsible? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, especially when people ...
... fellow has given up effort. what is the use of resisting any more?" (Laughter) NIRODBARAN: Champaklal also doesn't believe in Tapasya. CHAMPAKLAL: By that I don't mean one must indulge in the lower nature. But otherwise I don't believe in Tapasya—it's true. SRI AUROBINDO: But when one wants something, one has to concentrate one's energies on a particular point. NIRODBARAN: That, of course; ...
... Deliverance. He has had a glimpse of the divine portals from a distance; but he did not know how to proceed in the straight and narrow path; he is diverted into an Asuric handling of the forces of lower nature and is himself broken in the process. A poignant vision or experience of evil in God's world which otherwise appears so work living in, the perception of the canker in the rose, has been the ...
... normal mental and emotional nature in which the customary reactions continue to take place; another of the higher will and reason which observes and is not troubled or affected by the passion of this lower nature,... This brings the third power and result, ...to get rid of the normal reactions [altogether]..." (The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 683) (ii) Samat ā through Impartial Indifference: This sadhana ...
... to be deserving members of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram: "We must feel and obey the compulsion of the Spirit if we would establish our inner right to escape other compulsion; we must make our lower nature the willing slave, the conscious and illumined instrument or the ennobled but still self-subjected portion, consort or partner of the divine Being within us, for it is that subjection which is the ...
... nothing but an animal.... One begins to be a man only when one aspires to a higher and truer life and accepts a discipline of transformation. For this one must begin by mastering one's lower nature and one's desires. (Ibid., p. 156) (6)"When a child wants to impress you by telling you stories of the wealth of his family, you must not keep quiet. You must explain to him that worldly ...
... the infinite human kindliness spiced with a rich flavour of delectable humour, which brings an enlivening smile to our lips even when we groan under the heavy load of the twists and turns of our lower nature. All these have been shown in the course of our present work. But while putting a Finis to our book we are mildly troubled by two misgivings which we deem it necessary to dispel here and ...
... music: selected ragas (Indian) and harmonies (Western). 6. Examples of poetic excellence: regional poetry, Sanskrit poetry, English poetry. 7. Need to control and master the lower nature (topic for study and reflection). 8. Diet and health. II . Exercises to be recommended: 1. To makes in daily life the choice for control and mastery, for regularity ...
... purification will be much more than moralist's seeking for the right and blameless action; it is a constant effort to grow into likeness to Divine, it is a constant effort of liberation from our lower nature so to change into Divine nature. * * * Prayer is often supposed to be a thing irrational and necessarily superfluous and ineffective. But prayer in Yoga is essentially an ardent aspiration ...
... with its vast and incalculable but always inevitable workings. Sri Aurobindo points out that there are three outstanding features of the action of the highest when it works integrally on the lower nature. In the first place, it does not act according to a fixed system and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive and purposeful ...
... the state of immortality, the state of union with the divine Being, identity with the Self and oneness with the supreme dynamic divine Nature, and the state of transcendence of the three gunas of lower nature, — the state of trigunātita, and the state of sādharmyam. In the last six chapters (XIII—XVIII), the entire synthesis of yoga of the Gita is reviewed from a special standpoint," the standpoint ...
... descriptions of yogic experiences relating to the path of Divine love. In India, there has been a long line of saints who have described their yearnings for the Divine, their struggle with the lower nature so as to surmount it and to devote themselves exclusively to union with the Divine. Thousands of poems and songs describe their sādhanā, their prayers, their glimpses of the Divine Presence and ...
... mere imitation of the Divine, and one begins to grow into the likeness of the Divine in our nature. Bhakti yoga culminates in a sort of liberation by likeness to the Divine, liberation from our lower nature and a change into the divine nature. It is in the context of this profundity of Bhakti yoga that the place and significance of prayer needs to be underlined. There may be in the ordinary religious ...
... disgusted with itself and the. world, but unable to participate in that higher thing which it has seen. There is this immeasurable and unstained bliss; but our own being remains the sport of a lower Nature of pleasure and pain and dull neutral sensation incapable of its divine delight. There is this perfect Knowledge and Will; but our own remains always the mental deformed knowledge and limping will ...
... turns his gaze downward and around him, but also upward towards what is about him and inward towards what is occult within him. To climb to higher altitudes, to get a greater scope, to transform his lower nature, this is always a natural impulse of man as soon as he has made his place for himself in the physical and vital world of the earth and has a little leisure to consider his further possibilities ...
... effect for the seeker in the battlefield of life is that one has to ascend into the divine nature; one must, as already indicated, first fix oneself in a perfect spiritual equality and rise above the lower nature of the three Gunas. Next, there is also an ineffable eternal multiplicity of the Purushottama, a highest truest truth behind the primal mystery of soul manifestation. The Infinite has an eternal ...
... Averno . 62 But after all downstairs and Erebus are not the same thing. There are some Yogis, I hear, who are in bliss during meditation, but when they come down they are swallowed up by the lower nature, and to escape from this they at once leap up to their static sublimity. Unfortunately I can't rush up again till August [15th—the next Darshan]. Will you kindly come down and help the poor amateur ...
... struggles, dualities and depressions? All these things you mention become incidents in the external being, on the surface, but the inner being remains untouched by them. Are all troubles of the lower nature conquered finally—especially sex? No, sir. But the inner being is not touched. Or is it that sex-desire rises up in the Yogis, but leaves them untouched, unscathed? No attraction for them ...
... equality is not established. Personal relations must be founded on the relation with the Divine in himself and the Divine in all and they must not be "ties" to pull one down and keep bound to the lower nature but part of the higher unity. What is your idea of special relationship? Won't predict? There is nothing to predict. I have been saying the same thing all along (what I say above) and if ...
... liberation from the bondage of the lower narure into the ineffable silence and peace of the Supreme. But the aim of integral yoga is not liberation alone. It is the complete transformation of the lower nature, even of the body. It is not an escape into God's ocean of Sat-chit-ananda, but the very divinization of matter itself. 131Master of simplicity; another name for Lord Shiva. 132As ...
... rose up today. Becoming detached I invoked the Mother's help. Then I watched her Force fighting it out. This experience proves the deeper urge of my Prakriti: "Whatever the confrontation with the lower nature, it will be met by the Mother. And I shall remain as a dynamic and luminous channel." Quite right. One who is sincere and open exclusively to the Divine Mother would ...
... offering to the Mother and reception of her Force and support to its workings, at the same time a strong vigilant will to reject all that is not hers. Too many sadhaks cry before the attacks of their lower nature "I am helpless, I cannot react, it comes and makes me do what it wants." Page 148 This is a wrong passivity. (2) One must not get into the habit of a state in ...
... There must come a greater descent of Force into the system. At present Peace and Knowledge are descending more than Force. Page 242 I find that the lower nature is not as yet much influenced by the knowledge. I can only detach myself from it by the help of knowledge, but not master it. If one has the knowledge, then it is much easier to draw ...
... against me?" It is the Adwaita attitude corresponding to the attitude of being with the Mother above in the self. I don't know whether it will bring about the transformation of the lower nature. It may help you to detach yourself from it. Each religion or sect says something different about the creation of the earth. The Buddhists declare it as from nothingness; some ...
... Not at all. If you don't know how they come you take them for your own and they have much greater force. Is it true that no one has his own thoughts? Either they come from the lower nature — from people — or from the higher mind? All comes from Nature of which people are a part — but they are called ours because they receive a particular form, arrangement or combination ...
... system. What is meant by "vital consecration"? Consecration means offering and making sacred to the Mother so that the whole vital nature may belong to her and not to the lower nature. In the vital itself everything is not necessarily untrue. Page 42 What would be the nature of a transformed vital? Calm, strong, wide, obedient ...
... of the Purusha on the spiritual plane then there is more chance of its getting into direct touch with the Divine. P believes that the Purusha can remain withdrawn and allow the lower nature (the Prakriti) to satisfy its desires. For he is not bothered whether the nature is satisfied or not so long as he is not identified with it. That is the old Vedantic idea — to be free ...
... Was the experience of the Mother's Force inter-fered with by the lower vital's depression because that Force entered this part of the being? It may have been —but very often the lower Nature pushes these things across an experience in opposition to the working of the force. Is it the Mother who stops a certain line of experiences in order to make the consciousness attend ...
... inner and outer life. There is surely some misunderstanding of what I can have said and on the contrary I wish that you should continue all that in spite of all the resistance you can feel in your lower nature, as it is the best way of conquering this resistance. For instance I expect that you will attend this evening meditation at the playground and I hope you will benefit by it. If life is all a ...
... these forces by our habit, for the sake of drama, etc. It is true but isn't it quite natural too since we are hardly transformed in our nature and aspiration, as yet? To have weaknesses of the lower nature is one thing—to call in the hostile forces is quite another. Whoever does the latter, takes his risk. He is going towards the opposite camp—for the marks of the hostile Force are contempt of the ...
... have hatred or horror for a thing it means you are on the same plane with it, your consciousness is level with the consciousness of the opposite feelings. You have to rise above the status of the lower nature and this can be done only by a calm detachment, a quiet withdrawal. One need not entertain repulsion or hatred for animal life in order to rise superior to it, one automatically rises superior to ...
... soul, one who lives in and with the Brahman or the Supreme Divine is he who 'has discarded the inferior human nature and has taken up the superior divine nature. He has conquered the evil of the lower nature, certainly; but also he has gone beyond the good of that nature. The liberated man is seated above the play of the three Gunas that constitute the apara prakrti. Human intelligence, human feeling ...
... heart there is the awakening of aspiration,. the divine touch, but with all its outward impulses, the physical consciousness remains subject to the control of old fixed habits under the sway of the lower nature. Ordinarily, man is an unconscious sinner, that is to say, he has no sense of the sins. he commits. But he becomes a conscious sinner when he: reaches the level of which we are speaking. The conflicts ...
... his ignorance, but a divine afflatus is possessing him. The new world has to be based on new foundations. The old world was built from outside with superficial cheap elements that lower Nature offers easily and profusely. It is body's needs, vital hungers assembled and arranged according to a plan supplied by mind's ideas and notions under the directive and compulsion of the ego, the ...
... 2 the awakening of aspiration, the divine touch, but with all its outward impulses, the physical consciousness remains subject to the control of old fixed habits under the sway of the lower nature. Ordinarily, man is an unconscious sinner, that is to say, he has no sense of what sins he commits. But he becomes a conscious sinner when he reaches the level of which we are speaking. The conflicts ...
... consciousness in which this sense of "I am doing" or even "I am" has disappeared, got dissolved. Truly, the work is done not by me, by the sense of "I-ness", but by Prakriti, Nature, apparently by Lower Nature, secretly by Higher Nature. When the "I" disappears, the force that has been working continues to work, only the sense of "I" attached to it (in ignorance and by ignorance) is no longer there. Or ...
... in love with his ignorance, but a divine afflatus is possessing him. The new world has to be based on new foundations. The old world was built from outside with superficial cheap elements that lower Nature offers easily and profusely. It is body's needs, vital hungers assembled and arranged according to a plan supplied by mind's ideas and notions under the directive and compulsion of the ego, the ...
... status of Nature, even then we are not immune to the attacks that come from the inferior Nature. Those whom we usually call pious or virtuous or honest have still a good part of them imbedded in the Lower Nature, in various degrees they are yet its vassals; they owe allegiance to the three gunas, be it even to sattwa – sattwa is also a movement in Inferior Nature; Page 111 they are not ...
... produces its own realization. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: "The divine and all-knowing and all-effecting descends upon the limited and obscure, progressively illumines and energises the whole lower nature and substitutes its own action for all the terms of the inferior human light and mortal activity." 69 page - 120 Sri Aurobindo has assimilated in his new synthesis four systems of the ...
... of evolution and in the task of building the supramental temple of the divine in supramentalized Matter. The present stage of universal matter, life and mind is conceived as the page - 90 lower Nature, and what is attempted by means of the synthesis of yoga is to build the higher Nature of the Supermind, which is of the nature of Knowledge and which culminates in the life divine. The passage ...
... some book that explained the "higher nature" of which Sri Krishna speaks in the seventh chapter of the Gita. She felt that the mystery of the universe could be unveiled if the higher nature and lower nature (para prakriti and apara prakriti) could be linked and if the path could be traced for making a transition from the latter to the former. I had read that seventh chapter with her several times, ...
... your sense of extreme goodwill. But I am absolutely convinced that in the present set-up of the Ashram, nobody can do anything except a Superman. All the malpractices and movements of the lower nature prevalent in the Ashram, that you mention in your letter, are nothing but the play of the ordinary human consciousness, in which man dwells at present. It has plagued humanity with multifarious ...
... might have contributed to a substantial enrichment and perfection of our being. The human mind cannot evidently be a wise and efficient agent of purification. Itself a creation and sport of the lower nature of the three gunas, and incurably conditioned in all its ideas and principles and judgements by those gunas working in shifting combinations, it cannot, by itself, achieve the dynamic freedom necessary ...
... covering and ascend there and become the Self free and wide and luminous or else bring down the influence, reflection, finally even the presence and power of the higher consciousness into the lower nature."11 "Now that is what consciousness is - it is not composed. ___________________ 11 On Yoga II, Tome One, P. 257-258 Page 143 of parts, it is fundamental to being and ...
... nether energies, and the dynamic parts of the being lie helpless at the mercy of the moment's impulsion. This is a movement of the unregenerate personality of man which is a creation and tool of the lower nature and trails evil and falsehood as the dark heritage of Matter, But from the Yogic standpoint, even this retrograde Page 295 movement has a utility : it affords the Yogin a glimpse ...
... symbols, at once pointing to and expressing the Formless. But the forms of religion are often darkened and disfigured by the very material with which they have to deal—the abounding impurities of the lower nature of man. A constant renovation and quickening of the central truth and the informing spirit, a constant adaptation and change of forms, and a progressive approximation to the Spirit are the condition ...
... Page 252 of the outer life. In its origin and its true action it belongs to the Divine. But like other powers of the Divine, it is delegated here., and in the ignorance of the lower nature can be usurped for the uses of the ego or held by Asuric influences and perverted to their purpose. This is, indeed, one of the three forces—power, wealth, sex —that have the strongest attraction ...
... and the imparting of true cultural education are some of the ethical goals they endeavour to pursue They renounce most of their personal desires and try to rise superior to the formations of their lower nature, so that their life may get out of the rut of vital-physical preoccupations and emerge into some kind of transparent purity, freedom and noble beneficence. Some go even beyond these shining ideals ...
... pell-mell from time to time, either in dreams or in the waking state, to cloud or confuse our consciousness and disturb our poise and balance. The animal propensities, the passions and cravings of the lower nature, when renounced or repressed by the waking self, sink into the Subconscient and bide their time for a vindictive eruption. Page 180 That is why, in spite of our best efforts, the old ...
... human fear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all the unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the Divine."2 "The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in men above their lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine loves. He comes as a divine personality, ...
... aspiration, rejection and surrender—an aspiration vigilant, constant, unceasing—the mind's will, the heart's seeking, the assent of the vital being...rejection of the movements of the lower nature, rejection of the mind's Page 24 ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind, rejection ...
... and beauty and the Mother assumes an unusual form on these days. On Mahaashtami the Mother battles fiercely with the Asuras. The animal sacrifice on this day is symbolic of the offering of one’s lower nature at the Mother’s Feet: laying one’s egoism, pettiness, baseness at the Mother’s Feet is the inner meaning of Durga-puja. Sri Aurobindo prays on behalf of all of us: Mother Durga! We are thy ...
... reading. Sri Aurobindo said that if he wanted to read a book he certainly could do so, but not because he could not control his mind. "That is real freedom in action. Yoga means mastery over the lower nature and establishing the action of the Higher Nature in its place. One has to offer his free self to the Divine; afterwards the Divine will chose the action in you." 7 March. Talk on Hindu-Muslim ...
... bearing the burden of earth-nature and treading its dolorous way? The answer was provided by the passage Amrita lighted upon: The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic. disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality ...
... mixture in the outward expression that gives to the Asura the right to defeat them. To be a successful instrument for the Asuric forces is easy, because they take all the movements of your lower nature and make use of them, so that you have no spiritual effort to make. On the contrary, if you are to be a fit instrument of the Divine Force you must make yourself perfectly pure since it is ...
... this creation. He could then understand the wisdom that permits this long game of evolution and even feel the Love that sanctions these workings. From his height he saw that the energies of the lower nature had many occult and spiritual powers hidden under their ignorant workings which, if awakened, would Page 155 be a very precious acquisition for man. He felt a divine presence and ...
... means of multiplying diversity in unity. It is the one luminous point in man that proclaims the advent of the Eternal Sun. "The aspiration of the psychic being is for the opening of the whole lower nature, mind, vital, body to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for Its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life and body by the descent of the higher ...
... perceptions beyond belief. Still, the inherent difficulties of our nature, their hold over us and their power of creating hurdles on our way (for example, attachments, desires, tendencies of the lower nature, etc. whose roots are very deep indeed) remain, but to make myself free from such obstacles, to conquer, eradicate them is the urge and aspiration I am feeling now. Should I devote myself to achieving ...
... thing necessary is to be obedient. And so that you can become that, my help is always with you." Between all these movements of divine aid and human retarding depression which was a recoil to the lower nature, my creative effort continued. The Mother graciously listened to my music once a fortnight or three weeks. She saw my crude paintings, commented and corrected them. On one occasion she saw a ...
... contributed to a substantial enrichment and perfection of our being. The human mind cannot evidently be a wise and efficient agent of purification. Itself a creation and sport of the lower nature of the three gunas, and incurably conditioned in all its ideas and principles and judgements by those gunas working in staffing combinations, it cannot, by itself, achieve the dynamic freedom ...
... discovering the Divine and uniting with Him. When one has understood this, one is ready to acquire the strength to overcome all difficulties. 22 November 1971 * * * A victory won over the lower nature gives a more deep and lasting joy than any external success. Blessings. Sri Aurobindo has revealed to us a few of the marvels that the future will bring to the earth and has encouraged us ...
... ...all is her manifestation of the mysteries of the Eternal, the miracles of the Infinite; The aspiration of the psychic being... translates the demand... for the opening of the whole lower nature... to the Divine, for the love and union with the Divine, for its presence and power within the heart, for the transformation of the mind, life, body by the descent of the higher consciousness into ...
... greater purity to manifest and to live. When I go deep down and analyse myself, I find the lower vital impulses, the animal impulses of ordinary human life and its instincts. These things have no strength to make me act physically but I understand now that they creep in and govern the lower vital nature in a very subtle polished form. Yes, these things were to be seen. It is good that you have... have seen them; but now there is only to be quiet, happy and peaceful in a steady will that all the nature should be enlightened. 6 April 1935 ...
... must I feel ashamed if my ordinary nature shows itself to you, when I know you are making me see my ordinary nature in this way for me to become conscious of these things? So then why do I feel sorry? [Here in the margin Sri Aurobindo wrote — “Exactly so, — why?”] On the contrary I should be glad and relieved to see that one by one the defects of my lower external nature are exposing themselves to you ...
... philosophy and art, thinks he, she can be of no service to the future of the human race. And the politics and politicians of India heighten further Page 585 his convictions about the lowering nature and effect of slavery, and the impossibility of India ever lifting herself to the level of civilised humanity. Her politics are the slave's politics whose method is prayer and petition and whose... they are not fit to receive them. Why should John Morley whose writings and sayings are so instinct with an ardent love of liberty, so lightly flout their prayer for some concessions of a democratic nature? He not only denies the Indians the least measure of liberty, but shuts the door of any possible hope abruptly in their face by telling them that as long as his imagination can travel into futurity... have only ourselves to thank for this cosmopolitan contempt into which we have brought our country. The European remains today essentially as he was in the time of Aristotle, "a political animal". His nature has retained throughout history its ingrained and inalienable Page 584 political bent; polity has played the greatest part in the moulding of his life and destiny; the ideas that have ...
... -neta", "Mind should be the leader of the vital and the physical", and not the other way round. When the case is different, one is apt to confuse licence and waywardness with freedom, and the lower nature's weaknesses and urges with the soul's will. Indeed, our psychological constitution is highly complex; it contains not only the psychic prompting at its profoundest centre, but here, there, everywhere... absolutely indispensable if we truly want to help them to develop fully. Of course this freedom of choice can be given to all the children, and after all it is a good way to find their true nature; but most of them will prove to be lazy and not very interested in studies. But, on the other hand, they may be skilful with their hands and be willing to learn to make things. This too should be ...
... November 1934 Today is really a great day for me. What greater day can there Page 336 be than the one when the Mother is accepted even by the obscure, ignorant, revolting parts of my lower vital nature? Yes, when that has been done, it is one of the biggest steps in the sadhana. 28 March 1935 The Mother puts energy into all who can receive it; it depends on them whether they use it ...
... transcendental status to enter into the human consciousness and partake of the earthly life: it has taken up a mortal frame, to Jive and dwell here below. Only thus she can transform the lower animal nature into the divine nature, raise man to godhead, make of earth heaven itself. A prodigal of her rich divinity, Her self and all she was she had lent to men, Hoping her greater being to implant... it to persuade earth-nature's change; Mortality bears ill the eternal's touch: It fears the pure divine intolerance Of its assault of ether and of fire; It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness. Almost with hate repels the light it brings... As, however, "mortality bears ill the eternal's touch", the eternal too is intolerant of the mortal nature—only it is intolerant ...
... can do nothing. So long as I feel any power as mine, how puny it looks! SRI AUROBINDO: It is the right fundamental consciousness that you have now got. The tamas and other movements of the lower universal Nature are bound to try to come in, but if one has the calm of the inner being which makes them felt as something external to the being and the light of the psychic which instantly exposes and rejects ...
... human strength and weakness but is not bound by them. They are above morality and ordinarily without a conscience, acting according to their own nature. For they are not men developing upwards from the animal to the divine and struggling against their lower natures, but beings already fulfilled and satisfied with themselves. Even the holiest of them have a contempt for the ordinary law and custom and break... panegyrists and critics that Bonaparte was not a man at all, he was a force. Only the nature of the force has to be considered. There are some men who are self-evidently superhuman, great spirits who are only using the human body. Europe calls them supermen, we call them vibhutis . They are manifestations of Nature, of divine power presided over by a spirit commissioned for the purpose, and that spirit... order to glut his supernatural hunger. Whatever came in his way he took as his own, ideas, men, women, fame, honours, armies, kingdoms; and he was not scrupulous as to his right of possession. His nature was his right; its need his justification. The attitude may be expressed in some such words as these, "Others may not have the right to do these things, but I am Napoleon". The Rakshasa is not ...
... physical life without an order and rhythm. When this order is changed it must be in obedience to an inner growth and not for the sake of external novelty. It is only a certain part of the surface lower vital nature which seeks always external change and novelty for its own sake. It is by a constant inner growth that one can find a constant newness and unfailing interest in life. There is no other satisfying ...
... results upon the consciousness changing its substance and movement, bringing especially deep peace and abiding joy, a great light of vision and knowledge, a possibility of the overcoming of the lower animal nature, vistas of a spiritual self-development which without them do not exist. A new outlook on things arises which brings with it, if fully pursued into its consequences, a great liberation, inner ...
... an indispensable aid in that process. All went on well enough so long as the work was on the mental, psychic and higher vital levels. But as soon as it began in the lower vital, it appeared at once that the lower vital and physical nature of human beings (at least of those here) was too small, obscure and full of rebellious impurities to admit of so great a working. One after another failed in the test... test and you were among the first to fall. The creation had to be postponed, the process changed, and, instead of doing all from above, it became necessary to come down into the lower vital and material nature for a long, slow, patient and difficult work of opening and change. 4 This is the sadhana that has been going on here. Are you prepared for this opening and change which needs an absolute... Afterwards, you will have to see whether you can light a fire of aspiration strong enough to burn up all that is unclean and obscure in you. Then only can you speak of the transformation of your lower vital nature. 29 September 1929 Page 276 × Sri Aurobindo and the Mother moved into 28 rue Franҫois Martin, the ...
... between two human beings and not as between a man and a woman. (vii)One should not seek to establish relationships in order to satisfy the sentimental, sensational and physical wants of the lower vital nature. (viii)No relationship should be formed with a craving for the gratification of unchastened emotional desires or physical passions. Here are Sri Aurobindo's guidelines for safe human... the case. Friendship is a good thing but when tainted with the sex feeling it becomes baneful to the development of sadhana. Sex-governed friendship between two members of the community cannot but lower the spiritual atmosphere of the Ashram. For the benefit of these novices we quote below some of the words of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo concerning this vital issue: (1) "For one who has known... and produce perturbations. But there is no impossibility of friendship between man and woman pure of this element; such friendships can exist and have always existed. All that is needed is that the lower vital should not look in at the back door or be permitted to enter." (Ibid., p. 817) (7)"In a general way the only method for succeeding in having between a man and a woman the free and natural ...
... of the forces by the government of the Divine. One can live in contact with the Divine even amidst the universal forces—but to live in the Divine one must be able to rise beyond the lower universal nature or to call down the Divine consciousness here. The beginnings are difficult for most—and at no time is it really easy. The Universal Energies and the Divine Force There is only one Force... if you let your mind take the lead and discuss and decide what is to be done, you will lose touch with the Divine Force and the lower energies will begin to act for themselves and all go into confusion and a wrong movement. It is still worse to try to draw these lower universal energies from those around you and keep up with them a vital interchange; what gain can there be in that? On the contrary... Egoism is part of the machinery—a chief part—of universal Nature, first to develop individuality out of indiscriminate force and substance of Nature and, secondly, to make the individual (through the machinery of egoistic thought, feeling, will and desire) a tool of the universal forces. It is only when one gets into touch with a higher Nature that it is possible to get free of this rule of ego and ...
... transcendental status to enter into the human consciousness and partake of the earthly life: it has taken up a mortal frame, to live and dwell here below. Only thus she can transform the lower animal nature into the divine nature, raise man to godhead, make of earth heaven itself: A prodigal of her rich divinity, Her self and all she was she had lent to men, Hoping her greater being to... god has to be cruel to himself, for his divinity demands that he must surpass himself, he cannot 1. Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, SABCL, Vol. 28. p. 10. Page 22 abdicate, let Nature go her own way, the inferior path of ease and escape. The godhead must exercise its full authority, exert all its pressure upon itself - tapas taptv ā - and by this heat of incubation release the... any one of us, taken upon herself all limitations and indignities, the entire burden of an earthly life, graced with her presence this mortal atmosphere. But Hard is it to persuade earth-nature's change; Mortality bears ill the eternal's touch: It fears the pure divine intolerance Of that assault of ether and of fire; It murmurs at its sorrowless happiness, Almost ...
... transcendental status to enter into the human consciousness and partake of the earthly life: it has taken up a mortal frame, to live and dwell here below. Only thus she can transform the lower animal nature into the divine nature, raise man to godhead, make of earth heaven itself: A prodigal of her rich divinity, Her self and all she was she had lent to men, Hoping her greater being to implant ... a divinity lone and benumbed in a trance. This divinity has to awake and labour. The god has to be cruel to himself, for his divinity demands that he must surpass himself, he cannot abdicate, let Nature go her own way, the inferior path of ease and escape. The godhead must exercise its full authority, exert all its pressure upon itself – tapas taptva – and by this heat of incubation release the... like anyone of us, taken upon herself all limitations and indignities, the entire burden of an earthly life, graced with her presence this mortal atmosphere. But Hard is it to persuade earth-nature's change; Mortality bears ill the eternal's touch: It fears the pure divine intolerance ¹Op. cit. Book 1, Canto 1 Page 165 Of that assault of ether and of fire; It ...
... sometimes the cosmic Divine, sometimes the Mother." Is the Self, which is an aspect of the Divine, so much open to anything that even Nature (lower Prakriti) can act on it? It is 'in the Self not on it. Everything acts in the self — the whole play of Nature takes place in the Self, in the Divine. The Self contains the universe. In that case are not the Self and the Divine... Page 270 the part of my being which is stationed in the higher self has to come down to work for the change of the human nature. It says, "Oh, now I am a part of the Divine and yet I have to descend and dwell with the lower physical nature." I suppose, you would agree that in my previous birth I must have been a sannyasin, seeking for Nirvana. Maybe — but it is a natural... self active as an action in and through the self. What acts on the self depends on the realisation; it is sometimes Nature, sometimes the cosmic Divine, sometimes the Mother. You said, "sometimes Nature". What is meant by Nature with a capital N? Nature = Prakriti. Yesterday you wrote to me, "Usually however one does not so much feel the self active ...
... n. But even after inner union and communion, the work of manifestation is found to be extremely difficult and has to be carried on, stage by stage, in the teeth of the lower nature's basic inertia and dominant animality. The nature that has sprung and developed out of the dark inconscience of Matter lends itself with an ill grace to the work of transmutation. It perpetuates its dull obsession with... history of spirituality is the history of the progressive purification and preparation of Page 132 this nature from its centre to its dense peripheries. But though much has been achieved, an immense more has still to be achieved. The ideal of the Yogi being, in his outer nature, like an inert stone or a mad man or a demon or a child, is an out- worn creed reflecting the failure of the Spirit... Light. But the purification, preparation, and perfection of nature is a long and laborious process, ranging from the physical being to its subtler and subtest parts and planes; and it is only when this process is complete, that is to say, when one can "manifest Thee on all the planes, in all the states of the being," that the human nature can be said to be transformed and ripe for the fulfilment of ...
... each sadhak, with the Mother's presence always there. Along with this experience there must have been an attempt at surrender or an initial answer in the lower vital, but as a reaction the nervous disturbance came back—the old lower vital nature not being ready to give up possession reasserted its disturbances which were about to abate. 6 November 1934 Sometimes when I sit in meditation, I find... of infinite and eternal Peace. The Mother is the Queen of this plane. From there I feel a ceaseless Page 287 flow coming down towards me. It first touches the higher being and then the lower parts. When they are prepared, the Peace or silence descends like a current of water which passes through the Brahmic hole. That is quite correct. In many however it descends in a mass through the... perceptions that came to you were perfectly true. The reaction you speak of does often come after an experience. But if the depression can be avoided, emptiness does not matter. Up to a certain stage the nature needs after an experience a quiescent period to assimilate experience. One has then not to be depressed but to remain quiet waiting and aspiring for more experience, more opening, a more continuous ...
... finally cessation and departure. A love of this kind is in its very nature ephemeral and unreliable and it cannot be made a foundation for divine love. There has been too much of this kind in the relations of the sadhaks with the Mother—approaching her, I suppose, as a human mother with all the reactions of the lower vital nature. For a long time it was perforce tolerated—and this was the concession... asiddhi , sometimes complete disaster. It is for this reason that we discourage this lower vital way of human love and would like people to reject and eliminate these elements as soon as may be from their nature. Love should be a flowering of joy and union and confidence and self-giving and Ananda,—but this lower vital way is only a source of suffering, trouble, disappointment, disillusion and disunion... is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression. Certainly, it is without the confusions and disorders of the present lower vital nature which it will change into something entirely warm, deep and intense; but that is no reason for supposing that it will lose anything that is true ...
... its source, the central being. On some other occasions I found the psychic below, but surely it does not become the lower Prakriti (Nature)? It is not the lower Prakriti in the usual sense. It is the inmost being supporting the lower Prakriti and urging it towards the Higher. I feel Mothers presence on the head and in the heart simultaneously. At times... of lives. So now although they are unveiled, it needs still some tapasya to keep them always so. Some part of my being appears to be acting as a mediator between my higher nature and the lower, but it is always fluttering. A mediator is supposed to remain detached from both the parties. Has the psychic taken up this role? I don't know what is this mediator. The only... that the inner being is constructed by the soul according to its need for a new manifestation on earth; but the outer is moulded by Nature as it belongs to Nature. All belongs to Nature — the soul itself acts under the conditions and by the agency of Nature. What is exactly the difference between an aspect of the Divine known as the self and a portion of the Divine called ...
... But first the evolution of the nature must have reached a Page 173 point at which it can meet the Spirit direct, feel the aspiration towards the spiritual change and open itself to the workings of the Power which shall transform it. A supreme perfection, a total perfection is possible only by a transformation of our lower or human nature, a transformation of the mind into a... implies always two things, a rejection and an assumption, a negative and a positive side; the negative movement of freedom is a liberation from the principal bonds, the master-knots of the lower soul-nature, the positive side an opening or growth into the higher spiritual existence. But what are these master-knots — other and deeper twistings than the instrumental knots of the mind, heart, psychic... come in by the supramental change. Letters on Yoga, pp. 18-19 Transformation means that the higher consciousness or nature is brought down into the mind, vital and body and takes the place of the lower. There is a higher consciousness of the true self, which is spiritual, but it is above; if one rises above into it, then one is free as long as one remains there, but if one comes down ...
... between two human beings and not as between a man and a woman. (vi)One should not seek to establish relationships in order tot satisfy the sentimental, sensational and physical wants of the lower vital nature. (vii)A relationship should not be formed with a craving for the gratification of unchastened emotional desires or physical passions. (viii)"For one who has known love for the Divine... "for the sake of the Self." The first meaning of 'Atman' is, of course, the Self, the Di-vine and that is the higher sense. But the same term means also the ego, the lower self. And man in his ignorance takes this lower sense to be the purport of Rishi Yajnavalkya's teaching and claims on its basis that all objects of human love should be just the means for satisfying the obscure hungers... Him alone?" — What a disconcerting demand is this if How disturbing for the ego-bound attached heart of man! The sadhaka may at this point raise some questions of perplexity as j regards the real nature and goal of the Integral Yoga. He may ask: "Have I to renounce all other loves, all without exception, far I the sake of the love for the Divine? How can I stay then in the world? Is it really ...
... to yourself, etc., etc. However, I will not insist; I will wait for these disturbances to pass away from you in the due course of the Yoga, as the inner being develops and takes charge of the lower vital nature.... Finally, I will call your attention to what I have said very plainly that you have in no degree contributed to bring about the Mother's illness; why then persist in thinking that you... despondency and what seemed to me unnecessary suffering. You can surely understand that I do not like to see you suffer and, knowing from long experience that it is the cravings and imaginations of the lower vital consciousness that cause men needlessly to torture themselves, wanted you to get free from the Page 44 cause. It was not the joy of seeing and talking with the Mother that I wanted... just the introduction of this attitude into Yoga by the sadhaks and its persistence which has at last made it necessary for the Mother to draw back as she has done. What you have to do is to get these lower parts to understand Page 46 that they exist not for themselves but for the Divine and to give their adhesion, without claim or arrière-pensée or subterfuge. It is the whole issue at the ...
... working of the lower vital nature. The only way to get rid of it is to meet it with a fixed resolution of the higher vital and the mind and psychic being to combat, reject and master it. As you were determined to master the sex impulse and the desire of the palate, so you Page 208 must determine to master this "irrational knot" of despondency in the lower vital nature. If you indulge it... the persistency of these movements [ of despondency ] shows, but it is not in the heart—your heart is all right—but in the lower vital nature. All your weaknesses are there; the rest of your being is quite strong enough for the spiritual life. But this inadequacy of the lower vital is not peculiar to you, it is present in almost every human being. This tendency to irrational sadness and despondency... mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one's nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence is no ...
... and harmony can triumph and science and technology can be used to abolish poverty and deprivation, precisely at that time, the forces of violence and gravitational pulls of impulses of the lower human nature are pressing forward on a global scale. Rationality, in which humanity has placed great trust for arriving at the fulfillment of its ideals of true knowledge and comprehensive knowledge, appears ...
... then implies always two things, a rejection and an assumption, a negative and a positive side; the negative movement of freedom is a liberation from the principal bonds, the master-knots of the lower soul-nature, the positive side an opening or growth into the higher spiritual existence. But what are these master-knots—other and deeper twistings than the instrumental knots of Page 674 the... psychic desire of which the craving of the prana is the evolutionary or, as we may put it, the practical basis. But this is in the mental and psychic nature; spiritual desirelessness has a wider and more essential meaning: for desire has a double knot, a lower knot in the prana, which is a craving in the instruments, and a very subtle knot in the soul itself with the buddhi as its first support or pratiṣṭhā... but dwell too in him and he in us, so that the whole nature is full of his presence and changed into the divine nature; we become one spirit and consciousness and life and substance with the Divine and at the same time we live and move in and have a various joy of that oneness. This integral liberation from the ego into the divine spirit and nature can only be relatively complete on our present level ...
... unity and harmony can triumph and science and technology can be used to abolish poverty and deprivation, precisely at that time, the forces of violence and gravitational pulls of impulses of the lower human nature are pressing forward on a global scale. Rationality, in which humanity has placed great trust for arriving at the fulfilment of its ideals of true knowledge and comprehensive knowledge, appears ...
... urge to be itself once again. The second set of passages brings up the theme of the Avatar, of the Divine Grace taking human form so that the lower animal nature in man can be persuaded to change into the divine nature. But it is hard to persuade human nature to change; mortality does not take kindly to the eternal's touch and fights against it, until finally it is vanquished and transformed by the... Aswapathi. This piece is followed by an explication of the symbolic meaning of the griffin which is mentioned as the guardian God of the borderland between the lower and upper hemispheres. Then we have a brief note on the nature of the overmind vision as it is described in a few lines in Book X, Canto 4, pp. 660-61 of Savitri. Finally, there is a brief comment on a passage in Book III, Canto ...
... unity and harmony can triumph and science and technology can be used to abolish poverty and deprivation, precisely at that time, the forces of violence and gravitational pulls of impulses of the lower human nature are pressing forward on a global scale. Rationality, in which humanity has placed great trust for arriving at fulfilment of its ideals of true knowledge and comprehensive knowledge, appears ...
... Modes of Nature To transcend the natural action of the lower Prakriti is indispensable to the soul, if it is to be free in its self and free in its works. Harmonious subjection to this actual universal Nature, a condition of good and perfect work for the natural instruments, is not an ideal for the soul, which should rather be subject to God and his Shakti, but master of its own nature. As agent... beyond the instruments and the working of Nature, to the Master of works alone and his supreme Shakti, the supreme Prakriti. There alone all the being is pure and free and the rule of a divine Truth possible. In this progression the first step is a certain detached superiority to the three modes of Nature. The soul is inwardly separated and free from the lower Prakriti, not involved in its coils, i... us with a purified and exalted nature for her instrument; the individual centre of personality will be only the upholder of her works here, their recipient and channel, the reflector of her power and luminous participator in her light, joy and force. Acting it will not act and no reaction of the lower Prakriti will touch it. The transcendence of the three modes of Nature is the first condition, their ...
... physical life without an order and rhythm. When this order is changed it must be in obedience to an inner growth and not for the sake of external novelty. It is only a certain part of the surface lower vital nature which seeks always external change and novelty for its own sake. It is by a constant inner growth that one can find a constant newness and unfailing interest in life. There is no other satisfying... been very glad to get your letters with the details which prove how great and rapid a progress you have made in sadhana. All that you write shows a clear consciousness and a new orientation in the lower vital. To have seen clearly the instinct of domination and the pride of the instrument there means that that part of the being is on the right way to change—these defects must now be replaced by their... them to the surface. The only way is not to indulge them or act under their influence, but to face them and overcome. The difficulty rises from a certain excess of sensitiveness in the vital nature which feels strongly any want of harmony or Page 278 opposition in the work or any untoward happening and, when that comes, one is apt to feel it as if a personal opposition and on the ...
... before, and the meaning of liberation will come to include not only freedom from bondage, ignorance and backwardness but also freedom from gravitational pulls of the lower human nature. The role of education as an aid to the evolution of Nature, will also come to be acknowledged more and more widely. It will be realised that education should aim at evolving faculties and integrating them by the superior... learning to do, learning to become, and as we Page 105 progress further, it will become clearer that without the discovery of the essential being, which lies in the profound depths of our nature and personality, we cannot attain this ideal. We speak today of education as a dialogue between the past, present and the future; but this dialogue will begin to become upgraded into a recovery of ...
... patient will not tired out even by the utmost resistance of the physical nature. It is because your consciousness in the course of the sadhana has come into contact with the lower physical nature and sees it as it is in itself when it is not kept down or controlled either by the mind, the psychic or the spiritual force. This nature is in itself full of low and obscure desires, it is the most animal... taken place, the physical will be more capable. Coming Down into the Physical I have said that it [ the sadhana ] has come down into direct contact with the external physical nature which is always full of the lower movements and when that happens you see them as they are when they are not under the control of the mind and psychic. Everybody has to come into this direct contact—otherwise there... It is the nature of the physical mind to be obstinate. Physical nature exists by constant repetition of the same thing—only a constant presentation of different forms of itself. This obstinate recurrence is therefore part of its nature when it is in activity; otherwise it remains in a dull inertia. When therefore we want to get rid of the old movements of physical nature, they resist by this ...
... experienced, actual or potential happenings, real or suggested movements or changes in the inner or outer nature. The timidity of which the apprehension in the dream was an indication, was probably not anything in the conscious mind or higher vital, but something subconscient in the lower vital nature. This part always feels itself small and insignificant and has very easily a fear of being submerged... They have no other value for the Sadhana than to show you vividly what is there in your lower vital nature, whether awake on the surface or lying in wait in the subconscient parts. The only thing to do with them is to turn the Light upon those parts and call on the Divine Power to expunge them from the nature. It is perfectly easy for this Desire-Force or for the subliminal part of the mind to create... released from the old nature, so grey—the dull movement is due to the obscuration by the old nature. But still they fly towards the right which is the dynamic side in women, the side of action and effectuation and this movement releases into flight the psychic in all its luminousness and purity. That seems to be the significance. Page 478 The dreams of the lower regions of the consc ...
... for inner sadhana. It is something very external that takes pleasure in light talk, and it is only when the quietude and with it a certain spontaneous self-control is established in the lower vital nature that this tendency can be entirely conquered in those who have it—i.e. in most people. All these things will be worked out in time. What is most important is to get down the quietude into... in human nature. The impulse to speak what is untrue or at least to exaggerate or understate or twist the truth so as to flatter one's own vanity, preferences, wishes or to get some advantage or secure something desired is very general. But one must learn to speak the truth alone if one is to succeed truly in changing the nature. To become conscious of what is to be changed in the nature is the first... depends more on the physical and its condition. Therefore in most cases it is more difficult to get it out of the clutch of the external mind. In talking one has the tendency to come down 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 ...
... not jealous if one has the true love. Jealousy is the common movement of the human egoistic lower vital with its grasping possessive instinct and it cannot be anything else. I thought it better to make this clear so that there might be no misleading impression that such movements of the lower vital nature have any sanction or support in the truth of the soul; they belong to the vital Ignorance, they... if you increase them will bring the change in the nature. 12 November 1935 If you have difficulties, you should recognise that they come from your own vital and deal straightforwardly with your vital; it is only so that real fitness in the nature (apart from the original psychic urge which can only realise itself through a change of the nature) can come. To have feelings against the Mother because... to think she is unjust or partial or unseeing or wilfully blind to the defects of her favourites. But the Mother is not blind; she knows very well the nature of all the sadhaks, their faults as well as their merits; she knows too what human nature is and how these things come and that the human way of dealing with them is not the true way and changes nothing. It is why she has patience and love and ...
... instruments of mind, life and body continue acting according to their ignorant nature. But the inevitable evolutionary destiny of the human being, says Sri Aurobindo, is to go beyond liberation and achieve a transformation of the mental, vital and physical nature by bringing down the divine consciousness into the lower ignorant nature so as "to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of Knowledge... removed; all is purified, set right, the whole nature harmonised, modulated in the psy -chic key, put in spiritual order." (pp. 104-105) Thus it is by its emergence that the psychic being "begins to prepare the upbuilding of divinity in the earthly nature." (p. 19) Transformation "The upbuilding of divinity in the earthly nature" as a result of the action of the psychic and... Consciousness that descends into the evolution "to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light". 1 It is "the nucleus pregnant with divine possibilities that supports this lower triple manifestation of mind, life and body." 2 In the course of evolution, the psychic principle 1.Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, SABCL Vol. 22, p. 295. 2.AM., p. 288. xv ...
... a machine—is a characteristic of the lower vital nature. The only way to get rid of it is to meet it with a fixed resolution of the higher vital and the mind and psychic being to combat, reject and master it. As you were determined to master the desire of the palate, so you must determine to master this "irrational knot" of despondency in the lower vital nature. If you indulge it and regard it as a... you speak is there, as the persistency of these movements show but it is not in the heart —your heart is all right—but in the lower vital nature. All your weaknesses are there; the rest of your being is quite strong enough for the spiritual life. But this inadequacy of the lower vital is not peculiar to you, it is in almost every human being. This tendency to irrational sadness and despondency and these... finally cessation and departure. A love of this kind is in its very nature ephemeral and unreliable and it cannot be made a foundation for divine love. There has been too much of this kind in the relations of the sadhaks with the Mother in approaching her, I suppose, as a human mother with all the reactions of the lower vital nature. For a long time it was per force tolerated—and this was the concession ...
... only through this mixed and turbid current. Much impurity, ignorance, superstition, many doubtful elements must form as the result of this contact and union of our highest tendencies with our lower ignorant nature. Here it would seem that reason has its legitimate part; here surely it can intervene to enlighten, purify, rationalise the play of the instincts and impulses. It would seem that a religious... provide all the conditions of our perfection. That was the idea of a spiritualised typal society. It proceeded upon the supposition that each man has his own peculiar nature which is born from and reflects one element of the divine nature. The character of each individual, his ethical type, his training, his social occupation, his spiritual possibility must be formed or developed within the conditions... of the reasoning intelligence; or it allows it a role, leaves it perhaps for the edification of the ignorant, admits its value as a moralising influence or its utility to the State for keeping the lower classes in order, even perhaps tries to invent that strange chimera, a rational religion. The former attitude has on its positive side played a powerful part in the history of human thought, has ...
... has been made for us by an interaction between our being and the pressure of a lower cosmic Nature. In proportion as we are purified, the true being within declares itself more clearly; our will is less entangled in suggestions from outside or shut up in our own superficial mental constructions. Egoism renounced, the nature purified, action will come from the soul's dictates, from the depths or the heights... pursuit of liberation, of the soul's freedom, of the realisation of our true and highest self, of union with the Divine, is justified only because it is the highest law of our nature, because it is the attraction of that which is lower in us to that which is highest, because it is the Divine Will in us. That is its sufficient justification and its one truest reason; all other motives are excrescences, minor... of our being and nature. Page 273 It is this deeper sense in which we must accept the dictum of the Gita that action determined and governed by the nature must be our law of works. It is not, certainly, the superficial temperament or the character or habitual impulses that are meant, but in the literal sense of the Sanskrit word our "own being", our essential nature, the divine stuff ...
... results upon the consciousness changing its substance and movement, bringing especially deep peace and abiding joy, a great light of vision and knowledge, a possibility of the overcoming of the lower animal nature, vistas of a spiritual self-development which without them do not exist. A new outlook on things arises which brings with it, if fully pursued into its consequences, a great liberation, inner... mind breaks down, something is seen, a profound change operated in some inner part, there enters into the ground of the nature something calm, equal, ineffable. One stands upon a mountain ridge and glimpses or mentally feels a wideness, a pervasiveness, a nameless Vast in Nature; then suddenly there comes the touch, a revelation, a flooding, the mental loses itself Page 333 in the spiritual... distant flickers, shadowy reflections, not rays from the centre of Light. It is not less true that, looked at from the peaks, there is not much difference between the high mental eminences and the lower climbings of this external existence. All the energies of the Lila are equal in the sight from above, all are disguises of the Divine. But one has to add that all can be turned into a first means towards ...
... throw off the attack without too much difficulty. It is those who are of a highly sattwic nature, especially if strongly surrendered to the Mother, who escape the invasion or attacks of the hostile Forces on the mind and vital. That does not mean that they escape the difficulties of the lower human nature or of the sadhana, but these are not complicated by the effective support given to them by the... happiness, to suffer and to descend into a lower consciousness and lose your progress. Get back into the true spirit of love and closeness, surrender and confidence and Ananda and remain there—then in due time all problems and difficulties will solve themselves as the light and power of the Truth descend into the still weak and obscure parts of the nature. If the attacks of the hostile forces... reactions wear out or fall away. But the prolongation of the difficulty and its acuteness come from the fact that there are Forces in Nature, not personal or individual but universal, which live upon these movements and through them have long controlled the individual nature. These do not want to lose their rule and so when these movements are thrown out, they throw them back on the sadhak in strong waves ...
... control of Nature with physical and intellectual means only and without the intervention of any higher consciousness and knowledge—or that it may help by resistance to draw the spiritual consciousness that is growing behind all vicissitudes to attempt the control of Matter and turn it towards the Divine, as the Tantriks and Vaishnavas tried to do with the emotional and lower vital nature, not contenting... because the dark Powers have made Life a claimant instead of an instrument. The reality of the Hostiles and the nature of their role and trend of their endeavour cannot be doubted by anyone who has had his inner vision unsealed and made their unpleasant acquaintance. The Supermind and the Lower Creation It [ the Supermind ] can act directly on everything if it is brought down into the material co... getting disturbed or bewildered, with a perfect equality, taking it as an inevitable part of Nature, inevitable at least so long as one does not withdraw to the Self out of Nature. That is not the transformation I envisage. It is quite another power of knowledge, another kind of will, another luminous nature of emotion and aesthesis, another constitution of the physical consciousness that must come ...
... pull. Mother felt him doing it even last time he came to Pranam. I am afraid all of us have these things, to some degree. I am a little shaken because of your hint at the resistance or the lower nature's unwillingness to change, for who hasn't that? That was a euphemism, as I wanted him to look at and acknowledge to himself (acknowledging to us would not be enough, as he might do it "with the... idea-script which represents an imperfect human observation of a line of processes that Nature follows or can follow; another theory is a different idea-script of other processes that also she follows or can follow. Allopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathy, kaviraji, hakimi have all caught hold of Nature and subjected her to certain processes; each has its successes and failures. Let each do... intend to do sadhana, to stop feeling, living, acting according to the ordinary nature." I don't know if your "pressure" includes in its action my precious self. If it does, I would be glad; if it doesn't, I would pray to be included. Even if I don't feel the pressure, it matters little; let it act surreptitiously and my nature break, what? The pressure is general, but necessarily it is felt or received ...
... that it no longer knows how to live by itself; everything is covered over by a mental crust which lets nothing filter through. We are the pioneers hewing our way through the jungle of the lower Prakriti [Nature]. 27 The body must slowly be taught to live its own life again, and this cannot be done from the heights of the mind; it is done by lifting buckets of water (Sri Aurobindo's preferred exercise... disciples: Our Yoga can succeed only if the EXTERNAL man too changes, but that is the most difficult of all things. It is only by a change of the physical nature that it can be done, by a descent of the highest light into this lowest part of Nature. It is here that the struggle is going on... but the external [being] still clings to its old ways, manners, habits. Many do not seem even to have awakened... why the process takes such a long time. You must establish the higher Consciousness IN EVERY ATOM OF THE BODY, otherwise what happens is that something escapes your view in the hidden depth of the lower physical being which is known to the hostile forces and then they can attack through that weak point. They can create a combination of circumstances which would give rise to the thing not worked out ...
... entering into that in which we are one with them, the universal, and the fullness of the universal exists consciously only in that which is superconscient to us, in the Supermind.... The lower conscious nature is bound down to ego in all its activities, chained triply to the stake of differentiated individuality. The Supermind alone commands unity in diversity." Therefore the emergence of the ... of the equal godhead in the race; for the Spirit, the inmost Self, the universal Godhead in every being is that whose very nature of diverse oneness it is to realise the perfection of its individual life and nature in the existence of all, in the universal life and nature." 30 But does this not seem to be a solution that appears too remote, too chimerical and thus puts, off the consummation... views is altogether valid and cannot be satisfying to the human being. Of course, this alternation of stress is itself a part of the process of Nature leading to a final solution of the problem. For, as Sri Aurobindo has said: "It is a constant method of Nature, when she has two elements of a harmony to reconcile, to proceed at first by a long continued balancing in which she sometimes seems to lean ...
... possibility of a higher idealistic—intellectual—harmony instead of the prevalence of a lower movement in man's nature—the movement that he inherits from the animal and from the inconscience from which he has evolved. The aim of ethics is, really speaking, not to destroy the parts of nature that are wedded to the lower harmony, but to convert them— by first controlling them—" to lessen, to tame, purify... contact with the elemental powers of the subconscient and the lower vital nature. Secondly, practice of ethics or morality tends to purify the ordinary nature and may serve as the beginning of dissolution of the ego which is a great obstacle in man's inner progress towards Truth. Ethics establishes active impersonal values in man's nature which require the subjugation of his ego. In the process... unknowable. Page 4 What is urgently needed is not only mastery of material Nature but also self-mastery. The application of scientific advance to collective life has put into man's hand such a tremendous reservoir of material power that without a corresponding inner transformation of his nature man would not be able to make a real advance in his culture. It means the material advance ...
... things come sometime or other — sometimes again and again to most, in fact I suppose to all sadhakas. The form may vary but the cause is the same: the opposition of the powers which rule our 'lower natures' to the upward surging movement of the spirit. Naturally, it is only when that upward movement becomes real or promises to become real that those powers feel their dominions threatened or respond... Use your intellect for all it is worth in its own field. At any rate I use mine. From the point of view of the lower personality, faith means the subordination of the lower to the higher. In actual fact faith is the light which the higher sends down to the lower (as far as the lower will let it!) In any case it doesn't mean 'believe all that you are told.' I refer you to my previous letter to see... interpretations which cause the apparent differences. Secondly, it is so because there is in reality only one path (above a certain level again) though the terminology, which really belongs to a lower level, may easily vary. There are two eternal paths: the path of Light and the path of Darkness, as the Gita says. One and only one is the path of Light' but the descriptions may vary infinitely. ...
... by which not only the conscious parts of the nature, but also the subconscient and the inconscient can be thoroughly cleansed of even the last, lingering vestiges of the ego and transferred to the sole charge of the Divine ? Can the lower human nature of the three shackling qualitative modes, guṇas, be raised and converted into the divine Nature, parā prakṛti ? Can man become wholly divine... force its consciousness and nature into a preconceived mould and pattern. This stress and domination of the mental ego spells an arrest of the spiritual evolution, though it may rig out an ethical Joseph and make him masquerade as a spiritual Paul. What is most needed in spiritual life is an infinite plasticity and an ungrudging capacity for renouncing the lower for the sake of the higher... impersonal unaffected by the mutations of Nature, which it observes but with which it does not identify itself, admits of no possible doubt; but what about his outer personality, that part of his surface nature which is rivetted to the sense-bound separative "I" ? There is nothing definite and conclusive in the Upanishads to prove that Janaka's outer nature too was as much liberated as his soul, and ...
... there is a very distinct gulf between those of our qualities which are native to our humanity and those others which belong to the animal nature we are working out of our composition; for example between lust and love, of which one belongs to the lower animal nature and the other to the higher spiritual. You are ignoring the distinction and by ignoring it, you ignore the patent fact of evolution. ... qualities native to the human type include the qualities native to the animal type. Wilson —I quite agree with you now. What was my second error? Keshav —You talked of the lower animal nature and the higher spiritual nature and in so talking assumed that the qualities peculiar to the human being are higher than the qualities he shares with some or all of the animals. Is dissimulation higher than... in which the theory advanced by philosophers of every age has become true, that life ought to be lived in accordance with nature and not in Page 40 accordance with convention. The error we impute to them was that they failed to keep nature distinct from human nature and forgot that the latter was complicated by the presence of that fallible reason, of which conventions are the natural children ...
... action; for Nature takes us as we are and to some extent suits her movements to our need or our demands on her. If we accept the action of invisible Forces upon us, there may be also invisible Forces in Life-Nature that belong to the same plane of Consciousness Force as this part of our being, Forces that move according to the same plan or the same power-motive as our lower vital nature. It can be often... sometimes human, sometimes animal, sometimes even vegetable. The nature of this new incarnation and its fortunes are determined automatically by the soul's past actions, Karma; if the sum of past action was good, the birth is in the higher form, the life happy or successful or unaccountably fortunate; if bad, a lower form of Nature may house us or the life, if human, will be unhappy, unsuccessful... far as they have any supraphysical habitat, as annexes of the vital or of the lower mental planes of existence. But there are also the true vital worlds,—original constructions, organised developments, native habitats of the universal life-principle, the cosmic vital Anima, acting in its own field and in its own nature. On his internatal journey he may be held there for a period by force of the ...
... Bulletin 466-8 prophetic vision of the post-war world 487-8 Page 918 growing taciturnity 489-90 sees K.M. Munshi 490 sees the French cultural commission 571 last Darshan and the lower earth-nature 490 takes up Savitri in earnest 491 pulling down the supramental light 491-4, 503 passing 492ff interment 493ff, 501ff, 823 birth centenary celebrations 788ff, 803, 810, 829 2. Sri... opens the Delhi Branch and the Mother's School 624-5 Page 907 suffers hemorrhage in left eye 633 symbolic dream of the Ashram as a big hotel 636-8 identification with Nature 655 promise of Nature's collaboration 655-6 in the supramental on 3 February 1958 657ff using her 'new' force to cure 661 the only thing still 'intolerable' to her 661 illness in December 1958 674 vigilance... 12-3 sin and punishment 13 and Nature's upheavals 13 and Kali's working 724 Purusha-Prakriti 15-6, 592, 603 (cf155) Page 910 travelling in the occult 18-9, 25, 402 Mme Théon 23-4 occult warnings 25-6, 30 gambling 26-7 need of sound adhara 30, 246 sincerity and gratitude 35-6 Thought 36-7, 57-8, 312-3, 712 transforming one's nature 37, 43, 51, 59-60, 69, 181, 330-1, ...
... difficulties of the ignorant and obstructing physical consciousness with its obscure and mistaken ideas, habitual reactions, irresponsive obstructions, doubts and objections and the small lower vital nature with its ego-centric reactions and revolts and disturbances. This condition is not fundamental either in your case or that of the others and it is not a proof of radical unfitness for the ... mind reasserts itself and blows the clouds away. Another device of theirs is to awake some hurt or rankling sense of grievance in the lower vital parts and keep them hurt or rankling as long as possible. In that case one has to discover these openings in one’s nature and learn to close them permanently to such attacks or else to throw out the intruders at once or as soon as possible. The recurrence... even when the facts may be partially correct it misinterprets them, attributes the wrong causes and motives, draws the wrong inferences and makes of them an unreal picture. The ego-centric’s small lower vital makes use of that to justify its revolts or its despondencies and despairs and its assertions of a failure final and irrevocable. It is not true, for instance, that I have become more and more ...
... there be no cutting of anybody — that would be again a vital movement and would take away the spiritual value of your movement which should be only for concentration and the conquest of this lower vital nature. No, the Mother is not angry with you. It is naturally a matter of regret that this disturbance which was on the point of falling quiet should have been prolonged by each one doing just... explain to you about the sadhana and the nature of the surrender in connection with what you want us to do. It would be too long for me to write tonight. But remember that you have to get back fully your psychic basis — the success of any method really depends on that and not on the method itself which is only a means for the inner being to act on the outer nature. 26.7.32 ... Mother told... for the physical consciousness to settle down into quietude and in the quietude for the inner being to recover its hold of the nature. It is the necessity to change the outer physical consciousness so that it may obey the inner and not be subject to the bondage of past nature that has become evident, but [this] can only be done when the inner poiseis back. Rest and an entire quietude are necessary for ...
... unity and harmony can triumph and science and technology can be used to abolish poverty and deprivation, precisely at that time, the forces of violence and gravitational pulls of impulses of the lower human nature are pressing forward on a global scale. Rationality, in which humanity has placed great trust for arriving at the fulfilment of its ideals of true knowledge and comprehensive knowledge, appears... emphasize the following important ones : *It shall concern itself primarily with the affairs of living and not what happens after death; *It should teach a person about the real nature of the individual and Nature; *It should demonstrate that all life is a play of consciousness with itself. *It should relate the evolution of living species to the movement of conscious life towards in... it is as necessary as a pro-attitude towards a (positive) value. Its importance in personal or social life is as great as that of a negative number is in arithmetic. Its inculcation by an individual lowers the quality of his life, just as the addition of a negative number to a positive number reduces the value of the latter. Any educational process essentially leads to the inculcation of some values ...
... is again not something ethereal, cold and far, but a love absolutely intense, intimate and full of unity, closeness and rapture using all the nature for its expression. Certainly, it is without the confusions and disorders of the present lower vital nature which it will change into something entirely warm, deep and intense; but that is no reason for supposing that it will lose anything that is true... when it turned to the Yoga or brought you here? It was simply answering to the demand of your own inner being and the higher parts of your nature. If you have so much difficulty and become restless, it is because you are still divided and something in your lower vital still regrets what it has lost or, as a price for its adhesion or a compensation—a price to be immediately paid down to it—asks for... these men are not mere charlatans, and if there is anything wrong with them (on which I do not pronounce), it can only be because they are unable to resist the magnetic pull of this lower pole of the egoistic vital desire-nature. And if they are unable to resist, it is because they have not found the true force which will not only neutralise that pull and prevent deterioration and downward lapse, but transform ...
... Mataram, like those we have already quoted before, spotlights the essential nature of the politics of which Sri Aurobindo was the pioneer in Ben- gal, "...lovers of freedom withdrawing themselves from the effort to work through the lower self." He called upon the national workers to lay a spiritual foundation in their nature and make of their work for Mother India a consecrated service of the Divine... the animal to the divine and struggling against their lower natures, but beings already fulfilled and satisfied with themselves. Even the holiest of them have a contempt for the ordinary law and custom and break them easily and without remorse, as Christ did on more than one occasion, drinking wine, breaking the sabbath, consorting with publicans and harlots; as Buddha did when he abandoned his... in his effort to pass the boycott and Swadeshi resolutions in the Calcutta Congress of 1906. Though a realist and constitutionalist by nature, patient and prudent enough to accept half a loaf rather than no bread at all, he never pitched his ideal one inch lower than complete Swaraj, and never ceased fighting for the full loaf. He had come under the spell of Sri Aurobindo's magnetic personality ...
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