... Well, what an amazing mass of extraordinary mental constructions you have built up about the Mother and myself! The Mother is a great Yogi of a rather grave and impersonal type? I am Vedantic and vast and cosmic and impersonal and what not! What not indeed! Nothing is impossible after that!! However, I won't protest—for mental constructions are to the mind like his favourite productions to an... avoidable. You are right again about the imaginary obstacles. Good Lord! What mountains of them you had piled up on the way— a regular Abyssinia. It is why we are always imprecating against mental constructions and vital formations—because they are the defence-works mind and vital throw up against their capture by the Divine. However, the first thing is to become conscious of all that as you have now... me point out however by example how they came unnecessarily in your way and how very unnecessarily you let them do that, so that my insistence—in The Mother or elsewhere in getting rid of mental constructions is not so groundless after all. The Mother told you very simply that if you prayed to her (your prayers to Krishna having, according to you, no effect) you would have received greater help. ...
... from the present and not only things to be but suggestions, intuitions, visions and images of many kinds of possibility that visit it from the future. And always too there is the possibility of mental constructions and mental images interfering with the true truth of things in the presentations of the psychical experience. The coming of the intimations of the subliminal self to the surface and the activity... ignorance can be, more successfully, if not as yet wholly, replaced by the mind of self-contained knowledge. But,—and especially for this kind of knowledge,—what is needed is the cessation of mental constructions built on the foundation of the mind of ignorance. The difference between the ordinary mind and the intuitive is that the former, seeking in the darkness or at most by its own unsteady torchlight... in this artificial fashion, but makes itself a receiver of the light and allows the truth to manifest in it and organise its own constructions. But so long as there is a mixed action and the mental constructions and imaginations are allowed to operate, this passivity of the intuitive mind to the higher light, the truth light, cannot be complete or securely dominate and there cannot therefore be a firm ...
... Well, what an amazing mass of extraordinary mental constructions you have built up about the Mother and myself! The Mother is a great Yogi of a rather grave and impersonal type! I am Vedantic and vast and cosmic and impersonal and what not! What not indeed! Nothing is impossible after that!! However, I won't protest—for mental constructions are to the mind like his favourite productions to an... me point out however by example how they come unnecessarily in your way and how very unnecessarily you let them do that, so that my insistence—in The Mother or elsewhere—on getting rid of mental constructions is not so groundless after all. The Mother told you very simply that if you prayed to her (your prayers to Krishna having according to you no effect) you would have received quicker help. That... simply a suggestion to help you. How did your mind come to the conclusion that it was a command to be followed on pain of displeasure, spiritual hanging or rejection and exile? The habit of mental constructions, that is all. Fear? Page 121 But the fear itself is a mental construction which could have no real foundation if you had remembered the constant indulgence and patience the Mother ...
... Prayers and Aspirations My Mental Constructions The great Goddess shattered my mental constructions Into powder, into powder. The great Goddess shattered my mental constructions Into powder, into powder. Releasing me from all mental constructions, You brought me to Your shelter, (2) Brought me to Your feet. Ma... Ma... Ma... Ma... ...
... only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love." 27 That is how Sri Aurobindo set out on the road. Page 27 Chapter 4 The Silent Mind Mental Constructions The first stage in Sri Aurobindo's yoga, and the major task that opens the door to many realizations, is mental silence. Why mental silence, one may ask? Clearly, if we wish to discover a... when we entered it. This transitory condition might easily lead to a sort of absurd nihilism: nothing outside or inside. Here is where we must be very careful, once we have demolished our outer mental constructions, not to become confined in another construction of false profundity, an absurd, illusionist or skeptical, perhaps even Page 32 rebellious, construction. We must go farther. Once we... opening of consciousness, a feeling of lightness, an inner widening; we remember that the night before we saw a light, an ascent, or a wall or house crumbling (symbolic of our resistance or the mental constructions that were Page 116 confining us). We are also very struck by the realization that these premonitions are usually not associated with events we deem important on our physical plane ...
... exists, is that a way of getting out of the ego? One does not exist? This—I don't know if one can succeed in anything by trying mentally, because this is a kind of mental effort. So one makes mental constructions and does not achieve anything very much. No, what is necessary is something spontaneous, intense, a flame burning in the being, a flame of aspiration, something... I don't know how to put... what can be done to make it spontaneous? I believe there is a vast difference between an effort for transformation which, precisely, comes from the psychic centre of the being and a kind of mental constructions to obtain something. Page 138 I don't know, it is very difficult to make oneself understood, but so long as the thing goes on in the head in this way ( Mother turns a finger near... capable of restoring the balance. If one leaves one's body alone without intervening with all those thoughts, all the vital reactions, all the depressions, and also all the so-called knowledge and mental constructions and fears—if one leaves the body to itself, spontaneously it will do what is necessary to set itself right again. The body in its natural state likes equilibrium, likes harmony; it is the ...
... presence and to link myself with You, I feel the peace and assurance of Your touch. Mother, is it true or is it my mental construction? In this case, it is of no importance, because there are mental constructions which can be true and which lead safely to the experience . You want to make me speak and mentalise the experience until a new "system" is established and you can sit down comfortably... Poor mind! This is indeed a test!! To make progress you must throw aside all the old constructions, demolish all the preconceived ideas. Preconceived ideas are the innumerable habitual mental constructions in which you live, which are fixed and therefore have no plasticity and cannot progress. All this must be thrown aside. Then new ideas are born, active thought which is creative. Energy... construction which is not a seeking for the Truth, but a creation of the Truth; that is to say, the Truth-force realises itself outwardly through the human instrument. Men always make plans, mental constructions and attempt to create on that basis, but not one human creation is a total realisation of their mental construction. They always add something, or else it is always altered by a force they do ...
... inconvenient basis, it is a futile question,—for this is nothing else than a psychological necessity imposed by the very nature of things. It is so because these experiences of the Divine are not mental constructions, not vital movements, but essential things, not things merely thought but realities, not mentally felt but felt in our very underlying substance and essence. No doubt, the mind is always there... impressions created on the heart or the mental imagination by the object. All the same, there is behind, but still not successfully achieved, something real, an attempt to get away from ornate mental constructions about things to the expression of the intimate truth of the things themselves as directly seen by a deeper sight within us. Only it seems to me a mistake to theorise that only by this kind ...
... ought to satisfy it. Nature will not allow it, Nature knows that it should not be. The first reason is that our moral ideals are themselves for the most part ill-evolved, ignorant and arbitrary, mental constructions rather than transcriptions of the eternal truths of the spirit. Authoritative and dogmatic, they assert certain absolute standards in theory, but in practice every existing system of ethics... uniting amalgam. All three were treated on the same ground as equally the expression of everlasting verities, sanātana dharma . But two of these elements are evolutionary and valid for a time, mental constructions, human readings of the will of the Eternal; the third, attached and subdued to certain social and moral formulas, had to share the fortunes of its forms. Either the Shastra grows obsolete and ...
... intuitive mind, but what the intuitive mind gives to us is the intuition of possibilities, some of which realise themselves, some do not or do it partly only, others miss altogether. Behind these mental constructions are Forces that want to realise themselves and try to use men as their instruments for realisation. These Forces need not be hostile, but they play for their own hand, they want to rule, use... As you go on, if you keep straight, you will come to a time when the psychic becomes more predominantly active and the Light from above prevails more purely and strongly so that the chance of mental constructions and vital formations mixing with the true experience diminishes. As I have told you, these are not yet and cannot be the supramental Forces; it is a work of preparation which is only making ...
... the light is seen. That would be something like the Overmind. Mind is a power of ignorance and division. It is seeking for the truth, groping, reaching only mental constructions. When mind tries to ascend, it reaches only mental constructions, and representations and sometimes bright but shadowy photographs of the Reality. And this Mind is subjected to the limitations of body and life, it is not free ...
... among our present workers in India there is a lack of that definite idea as to what they are about and what kind of thing they want. That is the reason why men like Dr. Bhagwandas propose some mental constructions like asking men to go in for politics after 50 years age and so on. That does not seem to me to be the correct method, and I believe whoever pursues it will encounter complete failure. Question... naturally be done. But that is not our direct aim. Ours is a tremendous task. It is an adventure in which one must be prepared to leave behind his desires and passions, intellectual preferences and mental constructions in order to enable the Higher Power to do its work. You have to see whether you can give your consent to the radical transformation that is inevitable. Sadhaka : Yes, I am prepared for ...
... realise, "Why, I know nothing about it", and "I don't know; I can do this, I can do that; I can do that and that and that. But what will choose in me?" Unless you have mental constructions. But then if you have mental constructions ruling your life, you don't even ask yourself these questions, you live like an automaton, in a habitual routine you have made for yourself. But it's not just once, it happens ...
... or are in a bad mood and throw it on her, it is very harmful for them to see her. Each should be content with what the Mother gives them, for she alone feels what they can or cannot receive. Mental constructions of this kind and vital demands are always false. 3 April 1934 If one has the close inner relation, one feels the Mother always near and within and round and there is no insistence on the... more? He has no need of writing or receiving letters from her. Or maybe he understands Mother better on account of his long contact with her. Page 498 I am afraid all these are mental constructions. You are constructing in your mind what X ought to feel. But as a matter of fact neither X 's nor anybody's difficulties are removed by their coming to Mother or by their sitting one hour ...
... And suddenly one goes forward. And when you reach the end you have an experience. And what is remarkable is that people who have followed altogether different paths, with altogether different mental constructions, from the greatest believer to the most unbelieving, even materialists, have arrived at that experience, it is the same for everyone. Because it is true—because it is real, because it is the... Source Doing Yoga with the Head I believe there is a vast difference between an effort for transformation which, precisely, comes from the psychic centre of the being and a kind of mental constructions to obtain something. I don't know, it is very difficult to make oneself understood, but so long as the thing goes on in the head in this way ( Mother turns a finger near her forehead ), it ...
... preconceived ideas. Preconceived ideas are the habitual mental constructions in which one lives, and which Page 395 are fixed, which become rigid fortresses and cannot progress because they are fixed. Nothing that is fixed can progress. So the advice is to break down, that is, destroy all preconceived ideas, all fixed mental constructions. And this is the true way to give birth to new ideas ...
... mind. All these should be duly trained with the full knowledge that they have their limited utility. Philosophy tends to become mere mental gymnastics and preference for one's own ideas and mental constructions. So also Reason becomes the tyrant and denies anything further. But if the training is given to these parts with an understanding of their limitations then they may serve very usefully the object... think that Truth is not practical? Page 122 The Truth is not something abstract. As long; as the mind reasons there is the possibility of error. Disciple : As regards mental constructions, – are they always incorrect ? May not they be inspired by the Truth ? Sri Aurobindo : Mind may build on its intuitions, but there is every likelihood of its committing mistakes or ...
... lives of the mystics, we come across innumerable instances of the knowledge by identity. Compared with this knowledge, our scientific, psycho- logical and philosophical knowledge appears as pale mental constructions, shaky improvisations of the analytical or speculative intellect, a tenuous network of mere hypotheses. When Christ says, "I and my Father in Heaven are one," it is his inmost consciousness... beyond all mental knowings. So long as we cherish our mental knowledge and depend upon our intelligence .and reason and imaginative reflection in our search for Truth, we remain imprisoned in our mental constructions, severed from the Infinite. To transcend the mind is an imperative necessity of our evolution, unless, of course, we elect to describe a downward curve of culture and ¹ Brhadāranyaka ...
... than Europe and this is useful and helpful to the human spirit. An expansion of physical space is more helpful for the inner life. Also the Western world is burdened by an over-emphasis on mental constructions. It seems that Science drags its mental feet with no sense, yet, of exploration of the higher regions of the mind as outlined by Sri Aurobindo. Also the Western world seems to need a stronger ...
... Rameshwaram. So you will go there to reply to Panditji’s questions. That is the time when you must keep your consciousness concentrated on me and not allow yourself to be influenced by other mental constructions, however attractive they may be. The light and knowledge that Sri Aurobindo has given us infinitely surpasses all that has been taught previously. This must never be forgotten; and if you ...
... ago, a friend, Dr. D.E. Mistry, sent me a copy of Eckhart's book, The Power of Now . The power of its words immediately gripped me. I intuitively felt that the words did not express some mental constructions based on theory but spiritual insights arising from Self-realization. Each time, to read the book was to enter a meditative state or what Eckhart would call the state of Presence. After several ...
... cause a great disorder and disturb their life altogether uselessly.” 9 It was typical of the Mother (as it was of Sri Aurobindo) that she never wanted to upset people’s convictions. The “mental constructions” – her term – of a person, built up during this life on the basis of former lives, constitutes an integral part of his personality. Trying to change it without a profound understanding of its ...
... a condition of quietude, making an interval of "pause", he had received "thoughts" from far-off unearthly regions. In other words, these supra-mundane thoughts were received when the usual mental constructions were in abeyance. With this meaning, the line was a straightforward statement. It had no "round-aboutness", no "complexity in structure". Similarly straightforward would have been a line if ...
... impressions created on the heart or the mental imagination by the object. All the same there is behind, but still not successfully achieved, something real, an attempt to get away from ornate mental constructions about things to the expression of the intimate truth of the things themselves as directly seen by a deeper sight within us. Only it seems to me a mistake to theorise that only by this kind of ...
... spirit and is ready to reject life and existence as an unreality, all that it hunted after as an illusion, Maya; the thinking mind, unbuilding all its affirmations, discovers that all are mere mental constructions and there is no reality in them or else that the only reality is something beyond this existence, something that has not been made or constructed, something Absolute and Eternal,—all that is ...
... deeper heart in us can open with its divine love for all creatures and its infinite passion and yearning for the responses of the Infinite. Eliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations; a greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the ...
... understanding and reflective mind, renounces its sattwic limitations and opens to an essential light and peace. An infinite knowledge offers to us its splendid ranges, a knowledge not made up of mental constructions, not bound by opinion and idea or dependent on a stumbling uncertain logic and the petty support of the senses, but self-sure, authentic, all-penetrating, all-comprehending; a boundless bliss ...
... vital nature, desire, emotion turned ego-wards Page 465 or world-wards are the main part of the screen that hides the soul from the nature. It is better therefore to be free from the mental constructions when you take the plunge and have only the sense of aspiration, of devotion, of self-giving to the Divine. Yes, it is a very encouraging progress. If you keep the wideness and calm as ...
... avoidable. You are right again about the imaginary obstacles. Good Lord! what mountains of them you have piled up on the way—a regular Abyssinia. It is why we always express depreciation of mental constructions and vital formations—because they are the defence works mind and vital throw up against their capture by the Divine. However the first thing is to become conscious of all that as you have now ...
... show themselves directly to the sight—others are true pictures, not merely images. No rule of a general character can be given. Each vision or dream has to be taken by itself; some are mental constructions, symbols or indications, some are vital possibilities truly or falsely represented, some are representations of physical facts—but this last is more rare. The seeing of the body (at least ...
... Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge ...
... changed, because we know that there is something above, a divine truth seeking manifestation. There are no fixed laws here; even Science in its undogmatic moments recognises that the laws are mere mental constructions. There are only cases, and if the mind could apply itself to all the circumstances it would find that no two cases are similar. Laws are for the mind's convenience, but the process of Page ...
... freely on the path, is equanimity. Naturally, from that point of view, all disturbances are tests which you have to pass. But they are necessary too in order to break down the limits which your mental constructions have built around you and which prevent your opening to the Light and the Truth. The whole mental world in which you live is limited, even though you may not know or feel its limitations, and ...
... changed, because we know that there is something above, a divine truth seeking manifestation. There arc no fixed laws here; even Science in its undogmatic moments recognises that the laws are mere mental constructions. There are only cases, and if the mind could apply itself to all the circumstances it would find that no two cases are similar. Laws are for the mind's convenience, but the process of the s ...
... have unlearnt the habit of always directing their thoughts towards themselves, there are cases where we can observe events outside ourselves, events which are not the reflection of our personal mental constructions. And if we know how to translate into intellectual language the more or less inadequate images into which the brain has translated these events, we can learn many things that our too limited ...
... capable of restoring the balance. If one leaves one’s body alone without intervening with all those thoughts, all the vital reactions, all the depressions, and also all the so-called knowledge and mental constructions and fears—if one leaves the body to itself, spontaneously it will do what is necessary to set itself right again. The body in its natural state likes equilibrium, likes harmony; it is the ...
... When I tell someone, "Be calm", I mean: Try not to have restless, excited, agitated thoughts; try to quieten your mind and to stop turning around in all your imaginations and observations and mental constructions. One could justifiably add a question: You tell us "Be calm", but what should we do to be calm?... The answer is always more or less the same: you must first of all feel the need for it and ...
... all that; but it is not that, the true point of view. Inwardly, it is well. You see, it happens all the time to the newcomers, strangers, visitors, to those who come with all ordinary human mental constructions. They come here and say, "Bah, bah, bah, there is nothing so remarkable, it's not so extraordinary, all their capacities are of the average kind." But this is because they think like what I ...
... the first question there is a sentence I don't understand: "And for the rest [they] either detain or confuse us." What is this "rest"? Page 143 Sri Aurobindo is speaking of the mental constructions, representations or conclusions of the intellect, of the suggestions and instigations of the Life-force, of the needs of the body. Now, all this, these half-lights or false lights can serve ...
... their own capacity, it is some power of their inner being and not the religion they profess that has made them what they are." Questions and Answers 1929 ( 9 June ) Are all religions mental constructions? All religions were perhaps not that in their beginning, but they have certainly become that with time. What is the "Little Vehicle" and the "Great Vehicle"? These are Buddhist terms ...
... personal independent and conscious being, then what you have to do is to break the form and go farther. For example, if you want to progress mentally, you must break all your mental forms, all your mental constructions to be able to make new ones. So, to begin with, a tremendous labour is required to individualise oneself, and afterwards one must demolish all that has been done in order to progress. But as ...
... see, a falsehood, fraud or falsification. But when one wants to have a pure, correct information, to be in contact with the truth of things, and see in advance—not according to one's petty mental constructions, but how things are decreed, in the place where they are decreed and the time when they are decreed—then that requires a very great mental purity, a very great vital equilibrium, an absence ...
... coherent, logical thought, a long thorough work is necessary. And then, the best of the business is that when you have succeeded in making a beautiful, well-formed, very strong, very powerful mental constructions, the first thing you will be told is, "You must break this so that you can unite with the Divine!" But so long as you haven't made it, you cannot unite with the Divine because you have nothing ...
... Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusions of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is ...
... forward. And when you reach the end you have an experience. And what is remarkable is that people who have followed altogether different Page 26 paths, with altogether different mental constructions, from the greatest believer to the most unbelieving, even materialists, have arrived at that experience, it is the same for everyone. Because it is true—because it is real, because it is the ...
... not all, but many. There are many of them. There are some of these mental formations which are persistent, you see, which are very well made, very well harmonised, persistent, some kind of mental constructions, mental formations which are living beings, but which pass indifferently from a masculine to a feminine body when they incarnate. It is all the same to them, to them it makes no difference. ...
... coherent, logical thought, a long thorough work is necessary. And then, the best of the business is that when you have succeeded in making a beautiful, well-formed, very strong, very powerful mental constructions, the first thing you will be told is, “You must break this so that you can unite with the Divine!” But so long as you haven’t made it, you cannot unite with the Divine because you have nothing ...
... bees or ants—almost mechanical gestures, instinctive gestures Page 142 ─induced in an isolated element by the collective consciousness of the genius of the race. Discarding all mental constructions, sensing them to be poor and strengthless compared to the realising, destructive power at their command, they will be invincible instruments of the transforming Will; and until they have gone ...
... efficient on the physical plane, because she follows her intuitions. She is more able to arrange matter generally, goes straight to the thing to be done, while man wanders forth into ideas and mental constructions. It can be seen in politics; women would succeed better. Man is able to put more mental power, while the woman acts more psychically. Man is more intellectual and woman more intuitive. She is ...
... meets in his own Page 419 being, the tremendous resistance which the world opposes to the work of the Grace. And it is only when one understands that all external things, all mental constructions, all material efforts are vain, futile, if they are not entirely consecrated to this Light and Force from above, to this Truth which is trying to express itself, that one is ready to make decisive ...
... manifesting, there is no longer any need to unmake everything in order to remake it. With the curve also came an adage, "What has a beginning must have an end"—this seems to be one of those human mental constructions that are not necessarily true. But subjectively, what is interesting is that the problem gradually becomes less acute as Page 218 one views it from higher up, or from a more central ...
... number of little phenomena which they call "miraculous," but which to me are childishly simple and elementary: it's just "the way things are." ( silence ) Your vision... obviously it's mental constructions standing in the way of the takeoff—that's obvious. But it isn't an individual experience: it's a collective thing. It was very black, and it was a church... like a church steeple. But the ...
... so, too. Yes, begin with that. Personally, I remember, in my case, that's what completely opened the door. That's what made me... "Ah!" And I entered a new thing (with all the Western mental constructions, you understand). It will be interesting. Which publisher? Arthème Fayard. 2 It will have to appear in several volumes. Yes, it should be possible to publish it in three ...
... I told her, it's not a decision, we don't want categories: this category, that category, and so this person will go here, that person will go there— Page 328 all that I said, is mental constructions, it's worthless!" The true thing is that NATURALLY, according to his receptivity, his capacity, his inner mission, everyone takes up the post which in the hierarchy he truly and spontaneously ...
... be with you," because I felt only the Grace would save her. Something has happened. Yes, Mother. What happened is that before she left for Europe, she had a complete collapse of all mental constructions.... Yes, that I know. Then everything widened and she opened at the vital level (the higher vital), and she says, "The Divine is everywhere," it's "Love immense" and "Everything flows ...
... merely creative in a personal way. Work as part of spiritual creation is, of course, right, but we can't take this up unless the inner difficulties are overcome. Neither can it be according to mental constructions; it must only be according to the Mother's intuition. Even then there are so many difficulties. Not that we have no workers; there are people here with considerable capacity. Then the talk ...
... receptive mind remains quiet or it enlarges itself to receive them. True thoughts always come in this way. You can't think out such thoughts. If you try to do so, you only make what the Mother calls mental constructions. DR. MANILAL: Was the Arya with its thousands of pages written in this way? SRI AUROBINDO: No, it was transmitted directly into the pen. It is a great relief to get out of the responsibility ...
... idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different Intuition - Weltanschauung. Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realities - realities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather ...
... to his words: "The two obstacles that stand in the way of a smooth and harmonious working [of the Conscious Force] in and through the Sadhaks are: (1)the preconceived ideas and mental constructions which block the way to the influence and the working of the Conscious Force; (2)the preferences and impulses of the vital which distort and falsify the expression. Both these things are ...
... his instruments and follow in her hands a divine mandate. No longer doing works, he will accept their execution through him by her unsleeping Force. No longer willing the fulfilment of his own mental constructions and the satisfaction of his own emotional desires, he will obey and participate in an omnipotent Will that is also an omniscient Knowledge and a mysterious, magical and unfathomable Love and ...
... or are in a bad mood and throw it on her, it is very harmful for them to see her. Each should be content with what the Mother gives them, for she alone feels what they can or cannot receive. Mental constructions Page 165 of this kind and vital demands are always false. The Mother does not seem to turn away from people who are not faithful. She often allows them ...
... all our idealism has been so long infructuous and will be so in the future, if we do not shift our foundation and start from a different Intuition— Weltanschauung. Our ideals have been mental constructions, rather than spiritual realities—realities of the deepest and highest being. And the power by which we sought to realise those ideals was mainly the insistence of our emotional urges, rather ...
... difficulty: it may be so to the philosopher, but not to the mystic, the difficulty, that is to say, of positing a real 'objective world when all that we know or seize of it seems to be our own mental constructions that we impose upon it. Science has come to such a pass that it can do no more than take an i.: objective world on trust. Things need not, however, be so dismal looking. The difficulty ...
... disembodied soul. Odysseus fondles the seven heads and Page 402 he is seized by the desire to "mount/the seven stories step by step and fade in flame", but all are but mental constructions, there is no overhead aesthesis here, no new revelation. The number 'three' fascinates Kazantzakis even more than the number 'seven. On his return to Ithaca and after the destruction of the ...
... to make yourself fit for it. Your own ideas of married life and Shastra etc. are dangerous and if you follow these ideas there is every chance of your fall from the yoga. All of them are mental constructions. The first thing in a case where both man and woman are aspirants is to help each other in Sadhana, the spiritual effort. They must exchange their forces and help each other to rise into the ...
... India purposively and continuously, while no doubt the metaphysical thinkers have tried to approach ultimate Reality through the intellect, they have assigned only a subordinate status to such mental constructions. On the other hand, "the first rank has always been given to spiritual intuition and illumination and spiritual experience". 3 Without their corroboration - or, rather, unless they are made ...
... approaches were vitalistic and mental; and although he continued to swear by the resurgence of Asia, and the inevitability of the explosion of the New Life, there was also an emphasis on mere mental constructions, on attempts at a laborious synthesis of science, philosophy and religion, rather than on the outleap of spirituality informing and transforming the entire existential stairway from Matter to ...
... beginning? It wonders, “Why, why have they sought all kinds of things — religions, gods ... all kinds of things” — when it's so simple! So simple, for the body it's so obvious. 64.3010 All the mental constructions men have tried to live and realize on earth come to me from every side: all the great Schools, the great Ideas, the great Realizations, the great... and then the religions — that's still lower ...
... God's side, and encircled by His arms, lay pressed close to His heart." Page 175 It is a beautiful vision, as illuminating as enrapturing; but it is evidently mixed with Suso's mental constructions, and cast and garbed in his mental symbols.¹ It must have produced a considerable effect upon him, but an effect bearing more directly upon his mind and heart than upon the deepest layers of ...
... no doubt: Λ boxed-in peace, 21 She said. For Mirra, the solution was elsewhere. She was seeking the solution. Indeed, this blissful "box" is still a great problem, as solid as man’s mental constructions—maybe even more solid. But it is the same thing, as rigid as the finally-discovered-truth. There is nothing more solid than an entrapped truth. It is an irrefutable and impregnable box. The ...
... but the mind inside kept running. "For years I had tried to catch silence in my head, I never could. I could detach myself from it, but it would keep on running. But at that moment, all the mental constructions, all the mental, speculative structures ... none of it remained—a big hole. "Such a peaceful, such a luminous hole!" But how many of us are capable of bearing a silent, a holey mind ...
... that we prefer that personal things should be kept private. Formerly we used to allow people to show if they wanted to, but we found that even the simplest and clearest things were liable to mental constructions and misconceptions, so we have become more prudent. But of course what you quote from what I said was in itself quite harmless. 9 November 1935 Circulation of Letters It does not at ...
... receptive and plastic, the better are the results. The two obstacles that stand in the way of a smooth and harmonious working in and through the sadhaks are: (1) the preconceived ideas and mental constructions which block the way to the influence and the working of the conscious force; (2) the preferences and impulses of the vital which distort and falsify the expression. Both these things are ...
... freely on the path, is equanimity. Naturally, from that point of view, all disturbances are tests which you have to pass. But they are necessary too in order to break down the limits which your mental constructions have built around you and which prevent your opening to the Light and the Truth." Questions and Answers 1929-1931 ( 19 May 1929 ) When we come to the spiritual life with an aspiration ...
... little, it gives them just a moment for reflection before obeying an impulse—and not always; sometimes the reflection comes afterwards, a little late. It is not absolute. These are still mental constructions, more or less sincere, which cut things into small bits like that, quite neatly cut, and tell you: "Do this or do that. If it is not this, it will be that." Oh! what a nuisance is this kind ...
... continuously the round of [uncertain] 1 possibilities. These things really depend on ourselves much more than on outside factors. If we do not raise difficulties by our thoughts and mental constructions or do not confirm them if they rise, if we have the calm and peace within and there is not that in us which excites the enemy to throw himself on us, then outward possibilities, usually, will ...
... a greater harmonic life. A life of unity, mutuality and harmony born of a deeper and wider truth of our being is the only truth of life that can successfully replace the imperfect mental constructions of the past which were a combination of association and regulated conflict, an accommodation of egos and interests grouped or dovetailed into each other to form a society, a consolidation by ...
... from the resistance he meets in his own being, the tremendous resistance which the world opposes to the work of the Grace. And it is only when one understands that all external things, all mental constructions, all material efforts are vain, futile, if they are not entirely consecrated to this Light and Force from above, to this Truth which is trying to express itself, that one is ready to make decisive ...
... construction which is not a seeking for the Truth, but a creation of the Truth, that is to say, the Truth-force realises itself outwardly through the human instrument. Men always make plans, mental constructions and attempt to create on that basis, but not one human creation is a total realisation of their mental construction. They always add something, or else it is always altered by a force they do ...
... it's not a decision, we don't want any categories: there are these, there are those, and then this one will come in here and that one will come in there all those, I told her, are mental Page 46 constructions, they're worth nothing! But the true thing is that NATURALLY, according to his receptivity, his capacity, and his inner mission, each one takes his place in the hierarchy, the place ...
... capable of expression in the new, most true form, that is, the one most suitable to the experience. So Thou didst break all my forms of thought, and I found myself before Thee stripped of all mental constructions, as ignorant about this as a new-born child; and in the darkness of this void lay once again the sovereign peace of something which is not expressed in words but which IS. And I wait without ...
... spiritual hemisphere, for it not to happen. No, it is not in the mental field that the victories are won. It is impossible. It is open to all influences, all contradictory currents. All the mental constructions one makes carry their own contradiction with them. One can try to overrule it or make it as harmless as possible, but it exists, it is there, and at the slightest weakness or lack of vigilance ...
... know it not, it is still Krishna whom thou reverest and worshippest. Beyond words, beyond thoughts, the Supreme Presence makes itself felt and compels our wonder. Let us beware of all mental constructions that limit and distort. Let us strive to keep the contact pure. 12 April 1970 ...
... mind beyond this darkness and there by the Thought they set the powers of the Delight to work. But even over the heavenly waters they cross, for the power of the Soma helps them to dissolve all mental constructions, and they cast aside even this veil; they go beyond Mind and the last attaining is described as the crossing of the rivers, the passage through the heaven of the pure mind, the journey by the ...
... inconvenient basis, it is a futile question,—for this is nothing else than a psychological necessity imposed by the very nature of things. It is so because these experiences of the Divine are not mental constructions, not vital movements; they are essential things, not things merely thought but realities, not mentally felt but felt in our very underlying substance and essence. No doubt, the mind is always ...
... As you go on, if you keep straight, you will come to a time when the psychic becomes more predominantly active and the Light from above prevails more purely and strongly so that the chance of mental constructions and vital formations mixing with the true experience diminishes. As I have told you, these are not and cannot be the supramental Forces; it is a work of preparation which is only making things ...
... frustration, but the mental idea, the moral response of the mind to these values are a creation of the human being. It does not follow, as might be hastily inferred, that they are unrealities, mental constructions only, and that the only true way to receive the activities of Nature is either a neutral indifference or an equal acceptance or, intellectually, an admission of all that she may do as a divine ...
... the Spirit, seems in the highest degree improbable, if not impossible. For Mind as we know it is a power of the Ignorance seeking for Truth, groping with difficulty to find it, reaching only mental constructions and representations of it in word and idea, in mind formations, sense formations,—as if bright or shadowy photographs or films of a distant Reality were all that it could achieve. Supermind ...
... of whole-life. Page 1091 A life of unity, mutuality and harmony born of a deeper and wider truth of our being is the only truth of life that can successfully replace the imperfect mental constructions of the past which were a combination of association and regulated conflict, an accommodation of egos and interests grouped or dovetailed into each other to form a society, a consolidation by ...
... 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 of the spirit, or it will be openly governed by the Lord who was all the time ...
... body's functioning, while something regarded as incurably serious passes off without importance. And it's demonstrated in practice. There are troublesome moments. Because mental convictions, mental constructions help the body a lot, and now it no longer has any, so it no longer has that facility. For instance, when you have a mental faith—what's called faith—it helps you a lot, because it remains without ...
... only to die unto death, and that will be that!" ( silence ) Recently, for a short part of my nights, I suddenly find a certain task set before me dealing with this one's or that one's mental constructions. And then I feel I am facing a tremendous, destructive falsehood—a TOTAL contradiction, in fact, of this endlessly unfolding creative vibration. Some of the people concerned are here, others ...
... progressive mental development (they are at a loss to explain why or how!), anyhow it was Matter that developed Life, Life that developed Mind, and all of men's so-called spiritual experiences are mental constructions (they use Page 305 other words, but I believe that's their idea). It is, at any rate, a denial of all spiritual existence in itself and of a Being or Force or Something superior ...
... following entries in her diary. 1 April 1914: “I feel we have entered the very heart of Thy sanctuary and grown aware of Thy very will. A great joy, a deep peace reigns in me, and yet all my inner [mental] constructions have vanished like a vain dream and I find myself now, before Thy immensity, without a frame or system, like a being not yet individualised. All the past in its external forms seems ridiculously ...
... beyond the mental concepts, thoughts, ideas, likes and dislikes. We must be free from the clutches of what we have seen, heard and talked about; we must be pure as the sky, without any of the mental constructions, and without being affected by anything. We should not determine beforehand the what and how of Truth. We shall only be cheating ourselves by such preconceived notions. Our heart must become ...
... idols that I place my problem before you: I have had so many idols of mine broken and have suffered so much in consequence that I feel it to be utterly wrong to seek to destroy the temporary mental constructions which our mind formulates for its own security and well-being until life itself creates more permanent forms into which it can pour itself. I am anxious to have a certain clarification in ...
... and by breaking through the immured confines of our mind that we can expect to attain to these truths of the spiritual and normally superconscient reality. For, "these experiences... are not mental constructions, nor vital movements; they are essential things, not things merely thought but realities, not mentally felt but felt in our very underlying substance and essence." 46 And, hence, it ...
... transmitting mind remains quiet or it enlarges to receive them. True thoughts always come in this way. You can’t think out such thoughts. If you try to do so, you only make what the Mother calls mental constructions.’ A disciple asked: ‘Was the Arya with its thousands of pages written in this way?’ Sri Aurobindo answered: ‘No, it was transmitted directly to the pen. It is a great relief to get out of ...
... Yes, it is quite possible if the mind is interested and engrossed in something more useful. 23 May 1934 So it would be better to reject the ideas I have about others and stop making mental constructions about people? Yes, it is preferable. Is it good for me to see X? That depends on what you mean by seeing him; if it is to exchange a few words or to do some work together from ...
... Sri Aurobindo cured me of that rather quickly. That's how it was before I met him. And that's the first thing he did: he gave me a tap on the head, and all activity ceased—total silence, all mental constructions and habits swept away... in the blink of an eye. I was very careful not to let it come back. Then, afterwards, well.... He mentions it when he explains mental equality 3 —that a state ...
... t. They would be quite unable to say why or how!—but in brief, it is Matter that has developed Life, and Life that has developed Mind, and all the so-called spiritual experiences of man are mental constructions—they use other words, but I believe that this is their idea. In any case, it is a negation of all spiritual existence in itself and a negation of a Being or of a Force or of Something higher ...
... trying. Oh, I had tried—for years I had tried to catch silence in my head ... I never succeeded. I could detach myself from it, but it would keep on turning ... But at that moment, all the mental constructions, all the mental, speculative structures ... none of it remained—a big hole. And such a peaceful, such a luminous hole! Afterwards, I kept very still so as not to disturb it. I didn't speak ...
... gives a sense of treading a very sharp ridge between two precipices. ( long silence ) It's impossible to say.... And this field of experience also includes the physical mind—all the mental constructions that have a direct action on life and on the body; there is there an almost unlimited field of experiences. And everything takes the form not of a speculation or a thought, but of an experience ...
... morals, with regard to progress, and then all the social and mental conventions—there's no obstacle worse than that. I know people who wasted dozens of years trying to overcome one of those mental constructions! If one can be like this, open—truly open in a simplicity... you know, the simplicity of ignorance that knows it's ignorant... like this ( gesture, hands open ), ready to receive all that ...
... manifest, there's no longer any need to undo everything in order to redo everything. The curve showed itself along with an adage: "What begins must end...." That seems to be one of those human mental constructions that aren't necessarily true. But the interesting point subjectively is that the problem loses its acuteness as you look at it from a higher and higher standpoint (or a more central point ...
... speculation of a higher being or a being who belongs to other worlds: it's the substance of physical life that wants to know its own inner, deeper law. ( silence ) It's amusing: all the mental constructions men have tried to live and realize on earth come to me, like this, from every side, to be ordered, clarified, put in their own place, arranged, organized, synthesized. So all those supposedly ...
... amidst her erstwhile family without unnecessary delay. What we must guard against is letting our imagination run riot. We must not start hunting for signs and make various self-gratifying mental constructions. Although we must keep our eyes open, we must be passive in our receptivity. If the Mother takes birth, she will declare herself in her own fashion and her own good time. We must not superimpose ...
... understanding and reflective mind, renounces its sattwic limitations and opens to an essential light and peace. An infinite knowledge offers to us its splendid ranges, a knowledge not made up of mental constructions, not bound by opinion and idea or dependent on a stumbling uncertain logic and the petty support of the senses, but self-sure, authentic, all-penetrating, all-comprehending, a boundless bliss ...
... receptive and plastic, the better are the results. The two obstacles that stand in the way of smooth and harmonious working in and through the sadhaks are: (1) The preconceived ideas and mental constructions which block the way to the influence and the working of the Conscious Force, (2) The preference and impulse of the vital which distort and falsify the expression. Both these things are ...
... trying. Oh, I had tried—for years I had tried to catch silence in my head... I never succeeded. I could detach myself from it, but it would keep on turning... But at that moment, all the mental constructions, all the mental, speculative structures... none of it remained—a big hole. And such a peaceful, such a luminous hole! Afterwards, I kept very still so as not to disturb it. I didn't ...
... versa? mutual transmutation? or what? Orange is certainly "supposed" to be different from sweet lime and it is oranges and not sweet limes we are using. R seems to live in a world of his own mental constructions, which has nothing to do with this poor earth and common "humanity". R complains of the delayed supply of food and has written to Mother about it, he says. He seems to think that things ...
... from all sides and from above and the transmitting mind remains quiet, or it enlarges to receive them. True thoughts come in this way. You can't think out such thoughts, what Mother calls "mental-constructions." Disciple : Was "Arya" written in that way? Sri Aurobindo : No, it was directly transmitted into the pen. It is a great relief to get out of that responsibility. ...
... difficulty: it may be so to the philosopher, but not to the mystic, the difficulty, that is to say, of positing a real objective world when all that we know or seize of it seems to be our own mental constructions that we impose upon it. Science has come to such a pass that it can do no more than take an objective world on trust. Things need not, however, be so dismal looking. The difficulty arises ...
... extraordinary power. You know, to arrive at this state, to feel this vibration which comes from the Supreme, one must be absolutely tranquil… a tranquillity, a perfect tranquillity without any mental constructions, but an absolute tranquillity… and all of a sudden one perceives, not by the mind, but one feels a vibration, which is almost not a vibration but a tiny stirring — which is nearly imperceptible ...
... and meditations of the immediately preceding years when she had sought the Divine in her heart's purity and loneliness, beyonding all human reason and prudence and calculation, beyonding all mental constructions and metaphysical speculations, Mira was suddenly halted in a trance of recognition, and she surrendered and lost herself in the Illimitable Permanent, in the all-sufficing spiritual marvel ...
... Mirra was "entirely occupied by outer work", and now the musings unfold themselves again. Mirra feels that the Lord has emancipated her from her slavery to mere habits, thought-forms, and mental constructions. Nearly a week passes, and on 10 December a highly charged prayer rises in her heart, although it is not deliberately articulated. Is it not a folly, this reign of egoism: my idea, my ...
... Disciple : But he describes his experience in detail : for instance, the triangle and the Sun and the light pouring into him etc. Sri Aurobindo : He had always the habit of making mental constructions and living in them. So, his valuation of experience is not right. Disciple : Why does he commit mistake in the valuation of his experience? Sri Aurobindo : He had a very powerful ...
... infinite Force to conform to our puny, mental standards and respect our callow, pretentious principles, we cannot be sincere to the Divine. It is, therefore, essential that we pull down all our mental constructions, make a clean sweep of all preferences and prejudices, break away from all attachments, expel all desires, oppose an unshakable equality to the insidious forces of attraction and repulsion, ...
... possibility of advance. Says he, "all the same, there is behind, but not still successfully achieved, the possibility of a real advance, an attempt Page 67 to get away from ornate mental constructions about things to the expression of the intimate truth of the things themselves as directly seen by a deeper sight within us. Only it seems to me a mistake to theorise that only by this kind of ...
... thing” is bearable ... because of all the rest in there. But if you start separating ... Oh! 5 Remove feelings, thoughts, automatisms, memories, and of course, all possible ideals, tastes and mental constructions from A to Z, from top to bottom … and there remains “the horrible thing.” Mother was to be in the horrible thing, pure, until the end. A new being can only be created with decoded cells. ...
... endless exercises, all kinds of things, even “pranayama”—if it would only shut up! I was able to go out (that wasn't difficult), but inside it kept turning.... But at that moment, all the mental constructions, all the mental, speculative structures, none of it remained—a big hole. And such a peaceful, such a luminous hole! Afterwards, I kept very still so as not to disturb it. I didn't speak, above ...
... superman, just as Theon had dreamed of becoming a vital superman. But Theon did not lack for greatness. It is a strange experience, sometimes, to realize how literally covered over we are by our mental constructions, so elegant and refined, often even wreathed in light, seeking Truth and Beauty for the world, preaching the Truth if necessary, while underneath there simply lies a human ego that has grasped ...
... feet and closed her eyes, only her mind was open to him. A great silence now encompassed her and flooded her soul. There was a breaking of past intellectual moulds, a dissolution of arduous mental constructions, followed by a new crystallisation in the image of total identification with the incarnate Divine. When she took up her pen after the usual meditation next morning, this was the entry she made: ...
... joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope is boundless. "My adoration surpasses all words and my reverence is silent." After her second meeting with Sri Aurobindo, when her mental constructions so carefully built up over the years had crumbled and she had hugged the gift of silence, Mirra wrote on April 1: "It seems to me that we have entered into the heart of Thy sanctuary and ...
... work out a fine practical guide to conduct which will be the true one." Well, a mental construction will never be true, and I refuse to make one. I was obliged to use words which men understand, but I did it in the most incoherent way possible! in order not to be too mental, and I refuse to be coherent in the mental fashion; and that, not only for the questions I have here or those I have received... As I had foreseen, I have received a shower of questions to oblige me to explain mentally my supramental experience of the third of February. 1 You want to make me speak and mentalise the experience until a new system is established and you can sit down comfortably in your new mental construction.... I am sorry to have to disappoint you but this is absolutely impossible. And if you want ...
... despite the grandeur, the beauty, the perfection of a mental formula, always eludes every formula. The world is not what we think it to be. The importance of the idea we have of it lies in its effect on our attitude towards action; and this attitude may come from a much deeper, truer, more unchanging inspiration than that resulting from a mental construction, however powerful it may be. To feel in oneself... December 10, 1914 Listen, O Lord... in the silence of deep meditation my prayer rises ardently to Thee. Is it not a great folly to become identified with one form of thought, one mental construction, however vast and powerful it may be, to the point of making it the living centre of one's being, one's experience and activity? Truth is eternally beyond all that we can think or say of it. ...
... should be done, not before. If one knows it beforehand, one makes a mental construction and risks greatly living in his mental construction, which is an illusion; because when the mind builds certain conditions Page 208 and then they are realised, there are many chances of there being mostly pure mental construction which is not the experience itself but its image. So for all these truly... sincere and truthful; it becomes a mental construction. If you have read and read much that it is like a serpent which is coiled up, well, quite naturally when you concentrate and try to awaken it, you see a serpent which is coiled, because you think about it like that. If you are told about a thousand-petalled lotus, you see a thousand-petalled lotus. But it is a mental superimposition upon the fact of... side. One knows that it is not an imagined experience, that it is a sincere, spontaneous one, and this always has a power of transformation much greater than the experience that was brought about by a mental knowledge. Then, Mother, this means that it is better not to read? On condition that one truly has within himself the ardour of aspiration. If you are born for this, for the yoga, and this ...
... The Sun and the Flower 1934-08-25 Early morning a vision came to me. I have tried to represent in the picture what I saw. Is there any meaning in it? Or is it my own mental construction? The sun is of course the Truth and the building is the material consciousness that has become capable of receiving the light. The flowers indicate our presence in the material consciousness ...
... which you have made your proposals. But there is one thing you have not quite grasped. And this you must get clear and keep in mind. The organisation of the Ashram is certainly not a fixed mental construction. It has been left plastic so that it may be a growing and progressive creation expressing more and more of the Truth. But in this growth and progression every detail is fixed by my will; it ...
... by another artist as instructed by him. 25.8.1934 Early morning a vision came to me. I have tried to represent in the picture what I saw. Is there any meaning in it? Or is it my own mental construction? The sun is of course the Truth and the building is the material consciousness that has become capable of receiving the light. The flowers indicate our presence in the material consciousness ...
... it is refusal or an incapacity to come out of the mental construction. And the action of this Consciousness... (how to say it?) is almost pitiless in order to show to what extent the whole mental construction is false—everything, everything, even those reactions that seem spontaneous, all that is the result of an extremely complex mental construction. Yes, it is pitiless. You are born within it... diseases is just that: the force of habit and of all its constructions and all that appears inescapable and irrevocable in diseases, all that, it is Page 227 as though experiences were multiplied in order to show... in order that one might learn that it is simply a question of attitude, yes, attitude, of going beyond, going beyond this mental prison in which humanity has shut itself and of...... here..." Now the "but here" very soon will no longer be. This is the conquest that is being done, this tremendous change: that physical life must be governed by the higher consciousness and not by the mental world. It is a change over of authority.... It is difficult. It is hard. It is painful. Naturally there is breakage, but... But truly one can see—one can see. And that is the real change , it is that ...
... a refusal or an incapacity to emerge from the mental construction. And the action of this Page 99 Consciousness... (how shall I put it?), it almost pitilessly shows the extent to which the entire mental construction is false—everything, even apparently spontaneous reactions, all of it is the result of an extremely complex mental construction. But this Consciousness is pitiless. We... Aurobindo says here about diseases is just the point: the power of habit, of all constructions, of what appears "inescapable" and "irrevocable" in diseases. With all that, experiences seem to multiply in order to show... in order for one to learn that it's simply a question of attitude—the attitude of going beyond... beyond this mental prison humanity has locked itself in, and of... breathing up above. It's... have the inner vision, but... its done. ( long silence ) That was the work Sri Aurobindo had given me, that was it. Now I understand. But it's as if from every side—every side—those mental forces, mental powers were rising in protest, violent in their protest, so as to impose their old laws: "But things have always been this way!..." But it's over. They won't always be this way, that's all. ...
... the rays of the sun had illuminated the sky on the opposite side of the cornice. Any meaning? SRI AUROBINDO: It is very simple. The vision is symbolic. The building is the mental construction. The cornice is the roof. The mental building is coming between the mind and the sun of Truth. PURANI ( pointing at Nirodbaran from behind Sri Aurobindo and laughing ): It is his own vision probably. SRI ...
... .... And the action of this Consciousness... (how to say?) it is almost merciless in showing to what extent the whole mental construction is false—everything, even the reactions which look spontaneous, all that is the result of an extremely complex mental construction. But it is merciless. One is born into it and it seems so natural to feel according to it, to react according to it... here,—regarding illnesses,—is exactly that: the power of habit and of all the constructions and what seems 'inevitable' and 'irrevocable' in the illnesses; all that, it is as if the experiences multiply to show that... for us to learn that it is simply a question of attitude—of attitude—to transcend... to transcend this mental prison in which humanity locks itself up and to... breathe up there. ... done. (long silence) This was that, the work that Sri Aurobindo had given to me Now, I understand. Page 194 But it is as if from all sides—all sides—, these mental forces, these mental powers, are rising in protest—in violent protest—to impose their old laws: 'But it has always been like that!...' But it is over. It will not always be like that, that's it. (long silence) ...
... whole mental construction to which he must conform in order to be in harmony with the ideal of the environment in which he lives. But someone who does not conform at least to the smallest part of this construction would be considered a savage and would be thrown out of the society immediately. In fact, people who are criminals or half-mad are those who obey their impulses without any mental control... or the customs of the environment in which you are. The value of this mental construction which will govern your impulses depends a great deal on the surroundings in which you live and the character of the parents or people who educate you. But whether it be good or bad, mediocre or excellent, it is always the result of a mental control over the impulses. When your parents tell you, "You should not... cause him serious trouble. This is the nature of the human being: to have a kind of mental activity in him which governs the rest of his being, more or less. And his level of civilisation depends exactly on the point this control has reached, and naturally, as I said, on the value of the controlling mental construction. Sweet Mother, is the physical mind the same as the mechanical mind? Almost ...
... quite simply abominable. Even Schubert's music, even Haydn's trio seemed to me artificial. I can no longer listen to music. Now and then, two or three notes are very good, but the rest is mental construction. I can no longer listen to music. Except for Sunil's music—that's all right. Still, there are "stopgaps," but not too many, not a lot. Yesterday, I received twenty-six letters in one... acting in others THROUGH Matter: it's a direct action ( horizontal gesture, on the same level ) from matter to matter. Page 207 What people generally call "healing power" is a very great mental or vital power that imposes itself through the resistance of Matter—but this isn't that at all! It's the contagion of a vibration. And then it's irrevocable. But it's gone in a flash. It's only ...
... who had made of their mind a kind of fortress, a huge construction (I am speaking of people who had uncommon mental capacities). They had made of their mind quite a big edifice, very powerful and of such a fixity, with such solid walls that they had lost all contact with the outer mental world: they lived completely within their own construction and all the phenomena of their consciousness were of their... their own making—they had no longer any contact with the outside mental world. They retained contact with their own vital and their body, in a way, but all the phenomena of their consciousness were lodged within their mental construction—they could no longer get out of it. Well, this happens very strongly to people who seek for a spiritual life through the classical methods of Page 193 ... astonished. They construct for themselves a conception in which one finds all the gradations of the mind, a construction so solid and so fixed that they become imprisoned within it and when they believe they have reached the supreme Truth, they have only reached the centre of their own mental construction. And they have all the experiences they used to foresee: the experience of liberation, the experience ...
... recognisable, and they cannot be a mental construction. This experience must have changed his life. EVENING Sri Aurobindo saw in the afternoon that Nirodbaran was reading the extract from Huxley. SRI AUROBINDO: Have you read it? Remarkable and significant, isn't it? NIRODBARAN: Yes, very much so—a fine description. SRI AUROBINDO: It is no poor mental imagination at work here. PURANI:... SRI AUROBINDO: I don't remember what exactly I said. It may have been to the effect that Huxley had some mental experience. NIRODBARAN: But mental experience is quite different from spiritual, isn't it? SRI AUROBINDO: No, not quite different. For, it is not something obtained by mental discussion or understanding. It is an experience of the Truth in the mind. PURANI: To go back to your statement... point about Huxley seems as follows: Y told Z that Huxley had undergone a great change, becoming a Yogi and having spiritual experience. Z denied it, saying, "What is there of Yoga here? It is all mental."; Then Y spoke of Huxley's experience of peace as described in Eyeless in Gaza. This again was contradicted by Z. Y asked him, "But have you read the description? Have you gone through Huxley's ...
... are like—the mind is such a magnificent instrument of formation that it can build up a whole experience for you, and unfortunately, it will never be the genuine experience—it will be merely a mental construction. So, normally, when you want to instruct someone about these occult matters, you never tell him what is going to happen, in the beginning. The only thing is that if something happens to him,... him beforehand, "You will go to such and such a place. It will be like that. You will have such and such an experience," etc., for then all these things may happen only because of a well-built mental construction in which you move about with ease. In that case it is really a dream! If one is not aware of the divine presence, can one enjoy the divine protection? There too it depends on the case... That is a formidable question! You have heard and read that we are made up of various states of being: physical, vital, mental, psychic, spiritual, etc. Well, all these inner states of being correspond to invisible worlds. There is a physical world, a vital world, a mental world, a psychic world, and many spiritual worlds, a whole range of more and more subtle worlds approaching nearer and nearer ...
... deliberately too; in other words, during the experience I am very careful not to watch myself having the experience so that no previous knowledge intervenes. Only afterwards do I see. It is not a mental construction, nor does it come from something higher than the mind (it is not even a knowledge by identity that makes me see things); no, the body (when the Page 230 experience is in the body)... was not an 'original' Inconscient. It was a mentalized Inconscient. With all that the mind has brought in in the way of OPPOSITION—of resistance, hardness, rigidity. It would be interesting to mention this. Because the starting point, precisely, was to look into the mental unconsciousness of these people. It was the mental Inconscient. Well, the mental Inconscient REFUSES to change—which is not... truth—something hazy, nebulous, undefined. Something not concretized like a rigid mental expression—this rigidity that the mind has introduced right down into the Inconscient. This vision of the Inconscient... ( Mother remains gazing for a moment ) it was the MENTAL Inconscient. Because the starting point was mental. A special Inconscient—rigid, hard, resistant—with all that the mind has brought ...
... part of Sadhana is all right, but work as a part of spiritual creation we cannot take up unless the inner difficulties are overcome. It is not that we do not want to do it but here it is not mental-construction that we want but spiritual creation. It is here left to the Mother 's intuition. Even then there are difficulties. Disciple : What is the difference between peace and silence? Page... practicable? No objection to spinning or weaving. How would "N" like to go on spinning? Disciple : I am already spinning away. Sri Aurobindo : There are all sorts of mental ideas, or rather mental formations which can be carried out and which are being carried out at the other places but this Ashram is not the fit place for carrying them out. Page 79 Disciple :... take their orders from some one. But here we don't impose such discipline, (from outside) and therefore you can hardly get people to work together. It is because of their ego and their idea of mental independence. Even if you want to do that kind of work there are two things you must guard against. 1. The tendency to degenerate into mere mechanical and commercial activity. 2. You have to ...
... apprehending mind. It is only those that can go beyond beliefs and faiths and myths and traditions who are able to say what it really is; but these are few, very few. You must be free from every mental construction, you must divest yourself of all that is merely local or temporal, before you can know what you have seen. When one sees, one projects the forms of one's mind. To what you see, you give the... the vital, the mental, the psychic or from the planes above the Mind. What comes from the spiritual plane are experiences of the Divine, e.g. the experience of self everywhere, of the Divine in all, etc. There is a whole range or many inexhaustible ranges of sensory phenomena other than the outward physical which one can become conscious of, see, hear, feel, smell, touch, mentally contact either... not come as easily to intellectuals as it does to men with a strong life-power or the emotional and the imaginative. At this early stage of sadhana most of the things seen are formations of the mental plane and it is not always possible to put on them a precise significance, for they depend on the individual mind of the sadhak. At a later stage the power of vision becomes important for the sadhana ...
... thought you would explain it to me! It's quite a muddle there. Is it a snake biting its tail? To be precise, it's really a mental construction. Oh, yes. And the text... There isn't even a little vibration of truth in it. Yes, it's entirely a construction. There isn't a flame, there's nothing in it. And which love is she referring to? It quite looks like sexual love. It ...
... out may mean much more than the full hand on the head with less in the touch. 21 August 1933 Page 547 If the Mother's putting her hand or giving her smile at Pranam is all a mental construction, why do I get so terribly upset? I have to find some way to get out of it when it comes. The obsession about the smile and touch has to be overcome and rejected because it has become an ... activities. A sort of vanity comes in and says, "Oh, Mother is smiling. Don't worry; go on as you like." Or else there is a competition: "Oh, see how long Mother has put her hand on me." But if these constructions are wrong, why have they gained such currency? For on them people judge and criticise others. It is a great mistake. We are persistently correcting it, but a legend has been formed and people ...
... Truth which already exists in the Infinite above our mental comprehension. Equally, then, must that Word be above our power of mental construction. All creation is expression by the Word; but the form which is expressed is only a symbol or representation of the thing which is. We see this in human speech which only presents to the mind a mental form of the object; but the object it seeks to express... speech, as we see, raises up only the presentation of a presentation, the mental figure of an object which is itself only a figure of the sole Reality, Brahman, It has indeed a power of new creation, but even that power only extends to the creation of new mental images, that is to say, of adaptive formations based upon previous mental images. Such a limited power gives no idea of the original creative puissance... vibration on the vital without which it could not have come into play; that, again, presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the mental; the mental presupposes a corresponding originative vibration on the supramental at the very root of things. But a mental vibration implies thought and perception and a supramental vibration implies a supreme vision and discernment. All vibration of sound on ...
... as an attack from outside, than if you think they are part of your own nature. Not that he denied their existence, far from it, but the path depends a lot on the attitude you take and on the mental construction you have, naturally. Sri Aurobindo insisted rather on Oneness: he used to say that even what we consider to be the worst adversaries are still a form of the Supreme, which, deliberately or ...
... of mental knowledge and, little by little, an aspiration will be, awakened in him for a truer source of knowledge. Indeed, as the child progresses in his studies and grows in age, his mind too ripens and is more and more capable of general ideas; and along with this, there always comes the need for certitude, for a knowledge stable enough to be made the basis of a mental construction which... learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, at least as important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to give form and therefore prepare for action. This part of mental activity, although very important, has rarely been the subject of any special study and discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing... basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be placed before the central idea; if it finds a right place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be thrown out, so that it cannot have any inAuence upon the action. This work of mental purification ...
... shall know, what You want me to do, I shall do.” And you want to make me speak and mentalise the experience until a new “system” is established and you can sit down comfortably in your new mental construction. By definition the Ashramite has resolved to consecrate his life to the realisation and service of the Divine. For this four virtues are indispensable, without which progress is uncertain ...
... is that it is possible things sometimes happen like that. Quite probably―at least I hope so―the person who described this may have observed a phenomenon of this kind; I hope it is not a mere mental construction of his occult imagination.... It raises a few practical problems! But still, of course, there is nothing impossible. Only, it is difficult to imagine the soul entering the rain, which enters... Laughter ) But I found it very amusing. And now the question ( laughing ): "Is it necessary to follow this uncertain and hazardous process? Does not the soul directly animate the body with all the mental, vital and subtle physical elements organised around it and necessary for the next life? Does it take up the elements of the subtle physical world? If so, how do they harmonise with the hereditary... prepare for another physical existence later, sometimes much later. And so this is what happens, among many other possibilities: it leaves in each domain—in the subtle physical, in the vital, in the mental domain—the corresponding beings; it leaves them with a sort of link between them, but each one keeps its independent existence, and it itself goes into the zone, the reality, the world of the psychic ...
... obstacle! For me, it's a safeguard. No, I see too clearly, too many people who have a scrap of experience, with that experience ( gesture of winding a huge ball of yarn ) they make a whole mental construction, and then... You know, when the mind meddles... ( silence ) But I have often said to myself that if, all of a sudden, by means of accelerated evolution, a caterpillar were given human... Mother opens eyes in wonder ), and then it disappears. Page 200 It's so new for the material consciousness that each time you feel as if... on the verge of mental derangement. (Derangement of CONSCIOUSNESS—it's not mental derangement, the mind has nothing to do with that, thank God! That's a wonderful help I was given.) But the consciousness, there's a minute of panic in the consciousness... mind, BECAUSE IT TRIES TO UNDERSTAND IN ITS OWN WAY. That's the difficulty.... Some people Page 199 would go much faster if they didn't have that. They feel that if they don't understand mentally, they haven't understood. Yes, I understand that very well! Yes, oh yes! But I think you're going fast, I feel you're going fast. But the substance, that's the question: how to... [change ...
... of mental knowledge and little by little he will be awakened to an aspiration in him for a truer source of knowledge. Indeed, as the child progresses in his studies and grows in age, his mind too ripens and is more and more capable of general ideas; and along with this, there always conies the need for certitude, for a knowledge stable enough to be made the basis of a mental construction which... learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, at least as important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to give form and therefore prepare for action. This part of mental activity, although very important, has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only they who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing... basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be placed before the central idea; if it finds a right. place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be thrown out, so that it cannot have any influence upon the action. This work of mental purification ...
... and the preconceived ideas from the moral point of view, from the point of view of progress, and all the social and mental conventions... no worse obstacle than that. There are people, I know people who have lost decades in surmounting one such Page 5 mental construction!... If one can be like that, open—truly open in a simplicity, well, the simplicity that knows that it is ignorant—like ...
... too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid... On Education Mental Education Of all lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient. Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been... learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the Page 27 constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing ...
... can we get rid of these witnesses? Ah! From the practical point of view, you must be in a state of inner silence, with a mental activity exclusively occupied with forming the thing you want to do, the progress you want to accomplish, that is to say, the mental construction you need for your work. And your capacity for observation—it is infinitely preferable, I could say absolutely indispensable... forces are very conscious on the mental and vital plane, one doesn't even need to pronounce the words. If the thought... for example, if you have worked well to correct something, either a bad habit or a material weakness, anything, you have worked hard to correct this thing, and as you have worked well you have succeeded to a certain extent. Then, if simply mentally you state that you have succeeded ...
... spontaneous knowledge which assumes the nature of Thought but has a different character from the process of thought to which we are accustomed; for there is nothing here of seeking, no trace of mental construction, no labour of speculation or difficult discovery; ir is an automatic and spontaneous knowledge from a Higher Mind that seems to be in possession of Truth and not in search of hidden and withheld... passage just quoted, Sri Aurobindo speaks of the substance of the mental being that continues to exist even when thoughts cease, for thoughts are simply the activities of the mental being, not part of its substance. As he explains to a disciple: Thoughts are not the essence of mind-being, they are only an activity of mental nature; if that activity ceases, what appears then as a thought-free... various superconscient levels of spiritual mind above the ordinary mind and speaks of Higher Thought originating from these superconscient mental levels. It is when the ordinary mind falls silent that Higher Thought and Knowledge manifest from these higher mental levels that are beyond our normal awareness. Regarding the Higher Thought and Knowledge, Sri Aurobindo writes: Page 97 ...
... this; this is my way of thinking." It is very difficult, one must not try it too soon; there are those whose mind gets deranged by it. What is it that makes the mental construction? It is the mental ego which makes the construction and it clings to it desperately. Are the "I" and the ego the same thing? Generally they are. Page 200 How does it happen that there are people... 12 March 1951 In the vital world, forces exist: do mental forms exist in the mental world? Yes, there is a concrete mental world and there are mental forms which do not resemble vital forces but have their own law. There are many, innumerable mental forms. They are almost indestructible; one can only say that they change forms and relations, it is... puppet, begins to say it, very calmly without knowing why! Is it because of a lack of will? No, it is a mental deformation. There is not much will in this. If the will intervened, it would become less absurd, perhaps. No, they are mental movements, the formation of the mind, the mental force which moves all the time, which comes and goes, like a squirrel in a cage which runs round and round and ...
... ninety-nine people out of a hundred, when you speak of a spiritual man, the one proof of spirituality for them is poverty and abstinence from everything that is pleasant or comfortable. This is a mental construction which must be thrown down if you are to be free to see and follow the spiritual truth. This false conception has to be broken down and disappear. Once it is gone, you find something that is much... Sometimes it is the vital will that turns a red eye upon some of its own movements and takes a perverse pleasure in a ruthless 'self-repression. Sometimes—and this is very common among people of poor mental development—the mind or the vital tramples upon the body, crushing even its healthy instincts and natural capacities, and reducing it to a limp bundle of battered nerves, as if the poor "brother ass"... source and character of the frailties and impurities which hamper our spiritual progress, and an impatient haste born of ignorance and weakness. It can be said that ascetic excesses are an outcome of a mental or vital fear in the face of assailing impurities, an exaggerated stress and overmeasure, and a perversity of vindictive violence on oneself. From the standpoint of Yogic knowledge they are a dangerous ...
... manifesting of the Divine; it raises the character of each personality to its full value and brings it to its maximum expression; for this is part of the Divine plan. Morality proceeds by a mental construction and, with a few ideas of what is good and what is not, sets up an ideal type into which all must force themselves. This moral ideal differs in its constituents and its ensemble at different times... it works for diversity in oneness and for perfection in that diversity. Morality lifts up one artificial standard contrary to the variety of life and the freedom of the spirit. Creating something mental, fixed and limited, it asks all to conform to it. All must labour to acquire the same qualities and the same ideal nature. Morality is not divine or of the Divine; it is of man and human. Morality... their nature. In the same way you could take all other types and trace them to some original intention in the Divine Force. Each is a diminution or caricature of the type intended by the Divine, a mental and vital distortion of things that have a greater spiritual value. It is a wrong movement that creates the distortion or the caricature. Once this false impulsion is mastered, the right attitude taken ...
... powers and beings and the human race… It is evident that the beliefs of the past are not a sufficient basis for knowledge, even though they cannot be entirely neglected: for a belief is a mental construction and may be a wrong building; it may often answer to some inner intimation and then it has a value, but, as often as not, it disfigures the intimation, usually by a translation into terms familiar... belong to these planes. Even when we are awake, part of us moves in these planes, but their activity goes on behind the veil; our waking minds are not aware of it. Dreams are often only incoherent constructions of our subconscient, but others are records (often much mixed and distorted) or transcripts of experiences in these supraphysical planes. When we do sadhana, this kind of dream becomes very common;... and vision. There are worlds of a larger subtler life than ours, vital worlds; worlds in which Mind builds its own forms and figures, mental worlds; psychic worlds which are the soul‘s home; others above with which we have little contact. In each of us there is a mental plane of consciousness, a psychic, a vital, a subtle physical as well as the gross physical and material plane. The same planes are ...
... every moment an intervention may come from a higher plane into the material one and alter the course of circumstances. But in this particular case there is a conflict between a very powerful mental construction founded on medical opinion and your faith in the divine Grace. The power of this medical suggestion lies in the fact that it insinuates itself into the subconscious and acts on the body from ...
... picture, that the four years I was there I found a dearth of spirituality as entire as could be. These people have a wonderful morality, live according to quite strict moral rules, they have a mental construction even in the least detail of life: one must eat in a certain way and not another, one must bow in a certain way and not another, one must say certain words but not all; when addressing certain... art of other countries, like those of Europe, for example? The art of Japan is a kind of directly mental expression in physical life. The Japanese use the vital world very little. Their art is extremely mentalised; their life is extremely mentalised. It expresses in detail quite precise mental formations. Only, in the physical, they have spontaneously the sense of beauty. For example, a thing one... cushion for you to sit upon and a cup of tea to drink. And everything is like that. However, not once do you have the feeling that you are in contact with something other than a marvellously organised mental-physical domain. And what energy they have! Their whole vital being is turned into energy. They have an extraordinary endurance but no direct aspiration: one must obey the rule, one is obliged. If ...
... may come in a different order) at first (what is most prominent in an intellectual) a certain idea: "If I do that in this way, it will be all right; it must be like that", that is to say, a mental construction. A second thing which is a kind of impulse: "That will have to be done. That is good, it must be done." Then a third which does not make any noise at all, does not try to impose itself on the... same thing—you must sincerely want it. The first condition is not to begin thinking about the subject and building all sorts of ideas: opposing ideas, possibilities, and entering into a formidable mental activity. First of all, you must put the problem as though you were putting it to someone else, then keep silent, remain like that, immobile. And then, after a little while you will see that at least... be done like that, it must be done, you don't understand, it must , it is indispensable." There! Then you will know. And according to your nature you will choose either the vital impulse or the mental leading, but very seldom do you say quite calmly, "Good, it is this I am going to do, whatever happens", and even if you don't like it very much. But it is always there. I am sure that it is there ...
... cease to be self-vision at all—for in the true self-vision there is no policemanship and no criminaldom at all. All that belongs to the intellectual-ethical virtue-and-sin dodge which is only a mental construction of practical value for the outward life but not a truth of real inner values. In the true self-vision we see only harmonies and disharmonies and set the wrong notes right and replace them by... without the guidance of such a higher Light. It is necessary to curb the mind's impatience a little. Knowledge is progressive—if it tries to leap up to the top at once, it may make a hasty construction which it will have afterwards to undo. The knowledge and experience must come by degrees and step by step. Slowness It is as you say and there is a certain element of inertia in it; the slowness... the vital difficulties can be fought down and conquered, so can the mental. Only one has to see that these are the inevitable obstacles and neither cling to them nor be terrified or overwhelmed because they are there. One has to persevere till one can stand back from the mind as from the vital and feel the deeper and larger mental and vital Purushas within one which are capable of silence, capable ...
... shall be, what You want me to do, I shall do." And you want to make me speak and mentalise the experience until a new "system" is established and you can sit down comfortably in your new mental construction. By definition the Ashramite has resolved to consecrate his life to the realisation and service of the Divine. For this four virtues are indispensable, without which progress is uncertain... rancour? A vast and generous heart is surely the best means, but it is not within everybody's reach. The control of one's thought may be more commonly used. Thought-control is the third stage of our mental discipline. After the enlightened judge of our conscious- ness has discerned between the useful thoughts and the harmful ones, there comes the inner policeman who will let only the accepted thoughts ...
... entirely excised from the mind. Not only must we give up the ordinary attitude to the world and life to which the unawakened mind clings as its natural element; but we must not remain bound in any mental construction of our own or in any intellectual thought-system or arrangement of religious dogmas or logical conclusions; we must not only cut asunder the snare of the mind and the senses, but flee also beyond ...
... apprehending mind. It is only those that can go beyond beliefs and faiths and myths and traditions who are able to say what it really is; but these are few, very few. You must be free from every mental construction, you must divest yourself of all that is merely local or temporal, before you can know what you have seen. Spiritual experience means the contact with the Divine in oneself (or without, which... slavery to the mechanism of the body. The control over the processes of the body-consciousness is more difficult, since they are more rigid, less amenable to change than are the mental or the vital processes. In the night the mental and vital, especially the vital, are very active. During the day they are under check, the physical consciousness automatically represses their free play and expression. In... because they give the meaning or interpretation they wish to give according to their desires, hopes and prepossessions. And then, too, there are many different planes in which you can see. There is a mental seeing, a vital seeing, and there are some visions that are seen in a plane very close to the most material. The visions that belong to the last category appear in forms and symbols that seem to be ...
... one must not and the preconceived ideas from the moral point of view, from the point of view of progress, and all the social and mental conventions... no worse obstacle than that. There are people, I know people who have lost decades in surmounting one such mental construction!... If one can be like that, open—truly open in a simplicity, well, the simplicity that knows that it is ignorant—like that... your dead past and look straight towards the future. Your religion, country, family lie there; it is the DIVINE. Source Mental Formation and Progress I do not believe at all in limits which cannot be crossed. But I see very clearly people's mental formations and also a sort of laziness in face of the necessary effort. And this laziness and these limits are like diseases. But they... absolutely and exclusively to the Divine, you must do it in all completeness; you must not leave bits of yourself tied here and there... When you come to the Yoga, you must be ready to have all your mental buildings and all your vital scaffoldings shattered to pieces. You must be prepared to be suspended in the air with nothing to support you except your faith. You will have to forget your past self ...
... manifesting of the Divine; it raises the character of each personality to its full value and brings it to its maximum expression; for this is part of the Divine plan. Morality proceeds by a mental construction and, with a few ideas of what is good and what is not, sets up an ideal type into which all must force themselves. This moral ideal differs in its constituents and its ensemble at different times... it works for diversity in oneness and for perfection in that diversity. Morality lifts up one artificial standard contrary to the variety of life and the freedom of the spirit. Creating something mental, fixed and limited, it asks all to conform to it. All must labour to acquire the same qualities and the same ideal nature. Morality is not divine or of the Divine; it is of man and human. Morality... what truth is there, what aspiration lies hidden in it, what divine inspiration has undergone transformation and deformation here by the human mind and a human organisation, and with an appropriate mental stand you can get religion even as it is to throw some light on your way and to lend some support to your spiritual endeavour. Source Yoga and Religion Sweet Mother, what is the difference ...
... e people out of a hundred when you speak of a spiritual man; the one proof of spirituality for them is poverty and abstinence from everything that is pleasant or comfortable. This is a mental construction which must be thrown down if you are to he free to see and follow the spiritual truth. For you come to the spiritual life with a sincere aspiration and you want to meet the Divine and realise... until you understand that your ideal is no more than a mental principle and that a seeker of the spiritual truth should not be bound and attached to a mental rule. And when once you are free from it, you will find perhaps that all these scenes which troubled you — and were indeed sent in order to trouble you and shake you out of your mental building —have, singularly enough, ceased altogether to... of the Mother. Page 195 is a great asset in spiritual life. A wide sweep of perception, a penetrating discernment, a calm and 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 ...
... or the customs of the environment in which you are. The value of this mental construction which will govern your impulses depends a great deal on the surroundings in which you live and the character of the parents or people who educate you. But whether it be good or bad, mediocre or excellent, it is always the result of a mental control over the impulses. When your parents tell you, "You should not... it does not itself act foolishly. Stupidities and perversion begin with conscious mind and the human species. It is the wrong use man makes of his mental capacity. Perversion begins with humanity. It is a distortion of the progress of Nature which mental consciousness represents. And, therefore, the first thing which should be taught to every human being as soon as he is able to think, is that he should... be the master of the house. And it is not a question of yoga or higher realisation, it is something which should be taught everywhere, in every school, every family, every home: man was made to be a mental being, and merely to be a man—we are not speaking of anything else, we are speaking only of being a man—life must be dominated by reason and not by vital impulses. This should be taught to all children ...
... to obtain this thing, that other must be done, etc. And you have a whole mental construction in yourself, made of observations, studies, experiments; and the more you advance in age, the greater becomes the number of Page 361 experiments and results of study and observation. You make for yourself a sort of mental structure in which you live. And unless you are powerfully intelligent, with... the summit of man's mental activity; he tells us that in the development of the mind, reason is the surest guide, the master, so to speak, who prevents you from deviating from the path or taking the wrong one, from straying away and losing your common sense. He makes reason the arbiter of man's mental activity, which guides and controls; and so long as you have to deal with mental activities, even the... beyond knowings, then we shall have Knowledge. Reason was the helper; Reason is the bar. " Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, SABCL, Vol. 16, p. 377 This is about the mental being in man, that is, his mental activities; and Sri Aurobindo contrasts knowings with Knowledge. Actually I should be the one to ask you if you know what Sri Aurobindo means by "knowings", and why he contrasts ...
... Yogi begins to feel an irresistible attraction towards the object of this perception, and a corresponding recoil from what is contrary to it in the nature. So long as purification proceeds by mental construction or social conventions, it is an arduous affair, and not unoften rather painful. The whole consciousness of the individual broods over the impurities, wrestles with them, strives to grub them... BACKGROUND OF PURIFICATION In the Integral Yoga, the urge to purification is not ethical or idealistic. It is not a practice of virtue that is sought in it, nor a remoulding of nature to a set mental pattern. The essential urge to purification comes from a perception, growing in clarity and intensity as the Yoga progresses, of the soul or the psychic being. In fact, a real, dynamic start in this... they are much too subtle for it, and much too deep-rooted to be thus dislodged. A constant fight leaves a sense of bitterness and aridity in the nature, and the greatest achievement of this kind of mental purification is a certain lull or a subdued or Page 210 subsoil working of the lower energies; hardly anything more. But if a perception of the soul precedes and initiates the movement ...
... does not know himself, is equally and even more incapable of knowing his fellow-creatures. He forms by inferences, theories, observations and a certain imperfect capacity of sympathy a rough mental construction about them; but this is not knowledge. Knowledge can only come by conscious identity, for that is the only true knowledge,—existence aware of itself. We know Page 226 what we are... individual consciousness and is aware therefore only of a fragmentary movement of its own total activities. The whole crux and difficulty of human life lies here. Man is this mental being, this mental consciousness working as mental force, aware in a way of the universal force and life of which he is part but, because he has not knowledge of its universality or even of the totality of his own being, unable... and satisfaction or repulsion, but at first not at all and then only imperfectly vibrant in light as knowledge of its own self-existence and its environment. The third is mental,—an emerged consciousness reflects fact of life as mental sense and responsive perception and idea while as new idea it tries to become fact of life, modifies the internal and attempts to modify conformably the external existence ...
... conceiving, all sorts of constructions which are at first mental, then become vital habits and finally material modes of being. To put things more clearly, you are born in a certain society or religion, in a particular country, and this society has a collective conception of its own and this nation has a collective conception of its own, this religion has a collective "construction" of its own which is... to do mathematics" or... It is ignorance, it is sheer ignorance. There is nothing you cannot understand if you give your brain the time to widen and perfect itself. And you can pass from one mental construction to another: this corresponds to studies; from one subject to another: and each subject of study means a language; from one language to another, and build up one thing after another within you... gradually builds up a consciousness. You are underneath it as beneath a bell-glass. It is a kind of construction which covers and in a way protects you, but in other ways limits you considerably. All this you absorb without even being aware of it and this forms the subconscious basis of your own construction. This subconscious basis will act on you throughout your life, if you do not take care to free yourself ...
... and the mind. For instance, you can call the reason in order to see whether two ideas can go together or whether they contradict each other, whether two theories can stand side by side in your mental construction or one demolishes the other. It belongs to the domain of reason to judge and organise all these things, and also perhaps still more it is the work of reason to see whether the impulses are reasonable... Page 167 it understands nothing in these domains, but from the rational point of view it is naturally the sovereign judge. For everything that concerns the ordinary life, and as I say, the mental, vital and physical life of man, a perfectly reasonable being, one who lives according to his reason, cannot make a mistake from this point of view. It is only if one says, "Human life restricted to... Page 168 Of the mind properly speaking, of the human mind, yes, certainly. That is, with the reason one doesn't risk making mistakes, as long as one remains in the purely human and purely mental domain. How can reason become an obstacle to the spiritual life? Because it understands nothing about it. Spiritual life goes beyond it, it is not its domain, and it doesn't understand anything ...
... attachment must be entirely excised from the mind. Not only must we give up the ordinary attitude to the world and life to which the unawakened mind clings, but we must not remain bound in any mental construction of our own or in any intellectual thought-system or arrangement of religious dogmas or logical conclusions. We must flee beyond the snare of the thinker, the snare of the the theologian and... transitional forms. An attachment is always an attachment and acts as a great impediment to 'the progress in sadhana, irrespective of whether it affects the physical or the vital or the mental nature. And mental attachments must go the way of all other attachments and yield to the impartiality of an equal vision. The ideal attitude to be adopted by a sadhaka of the Integral Yoga vis-à-vis... resistance. For self-will is deeply attached to its own pride of ideas, its prejudices, its fixed notions and its ignorant reason. This inveterate clinging to old ideas, to preconceived notions, to mental preferences and partial judgments, to opinions and facile rea- Page 218 Soning comes in the way of the higher truth and closes all the avenues to further illumination. ...
... to the world as our mind and sense see it and discovered the principle of its construction and the way of release from all constructions, but he refused to go farther. Shankara took the farther step and regarded the suprarational Truth, which Buddha kept behind the veil as realisable by cancellation of the constructions of consciousness but Page 480 beyond the scope of the reason's discovery... work is itself a creation,—looks itself very much like a mental construction, an unreality: or it might be a temporary inexplicable outbreak of motion which might cease at any time to create phenomena; the Void of the Infinite alone would be enduring and real. The Buddhist theory of the percipient and the perception and the percept as a construction of Karma, the process of some cosmic fact of Action,... very solid ground; for, although it is in itself no more than a mental formulation, the experience it formulates into a philosophy accompanies a most powerful and apparently final spiritual realisation. It comes upon us with a great force of awakening to reality when the thought is stilled, when the mind withdraws from its constructions, when we pass into a pure selfhood void of all sense of individuality ...
... somewhere; the Gopis are to them realities and not symbols. It was for them at the least an occult truth, and occult and symbolic are not the same thing; the symbol may be only a significant mental construction or only a fanciful invention, but the occult is a reality which is actual somewhere, behind the material scene as it were and can have its truth for the terrestrial life and its influence upon... doing things is a mental convention; they see things and do things with the mind and what they want is a mental and human perfection. When they think of a manifestation of Divinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing the ordinary human things—an extraordinary business faculty, political, poetic or artistic faculty, an accurate memory, not making any mental mistakes, not undergoing... Buddha are spiritually true not as mere mental teachings but as the expression of spiritual states or happenings in them which by their life on earth they made possible (or at Page 479 any rate more dynamically potential) in others. Also evidently sectarian walls are a mistake, an accretion, a mental limiting of the Truth which may serve a mental, but not a spiritual purpose. The Avatar ...
... to one or the other, either the Divine, the Self, or the world is only relatively real so long as the mind persists in creating them, the world an effective dream of Self, or God and Self a mental construction or an effective hallucination. The true relation has not been seized, because these two sides of existence must always appear discordant and unreconciled to our intelligence so long as there... individualisation; the ego is only an outward false substitute: for it is this secret soul that supports and holds together our self-experience and world-experience; the mental, vital, physical, external ego is a superficial construction of Nature. It is only when we have seen both our self and our nature as a whole, in the depths as well as on the surface, that we can acquire a true basis of knowledge... usually a defect even in this act of self-observation; for there is indeed a partial detachment of the act from the object, but not of the mental person from the mental act: the mental person and the mental action are involved or rolled up in each other; nor is the mental person sufficiently detached or separated either from the emotional becoming. I am aware of myself in an angry becoming of my conscious ...
... future who is not yet in being; it is by memory that he links himself with the one, by anticipation with the other: a continuous ego-sense runs through the three times, but this is a centralising mental construction, not an essential or an extended Page 606 existence containing what was, is and will be. An intuition of self is behind it, but that is an underlying identity, unaffected by the changes... knowledge and culminate in a positive and effective ignorance. We can get some glimpse of what this means, to what it amounts in action, when we look at the nature of exclusive concentration in mental man, in our own consciousness. First of all, we must note that what we mean ordinarily by the man Page 604 is not his inner self, but only a sum of apparent continuous movement of consciousness... swoon of the Inconscience. Purusha indeed consents to assume the apparent form of itself which Prakriti constructs for it; it seems to become the Inconscient, the physical being, the vital being, the mental being: but in all these it remains still in reality itself; the light of the secret conscious Being supports and informs the action of the inconscient or emergingly conscious energy of Nature. The ...
... the jiva for its action here. Even before coming and meeting Sri Aurobindo, I had realized everything needed to begin his yoga. It was all ready, classified, organized. Magnificent! A superb mental construction... which he demolished within five minutes! How happy I was! Aah!... It was really the reward for all my efforts. Nothing! I knew nothing any more, understood nothing at all—not a single... development of the vital giving interesting occult results. Then, a period of intensive mental development, mental development of the most complete type: a study of all the philosophies, all the conceptual juggling, in minute detail—delving into systems, getting a grasp on them. Ten years of intensive mental studies leading me to... Sri Aurobindo. So I had all this preparation. And I am giving... experience of the hundreds and hundreds of men I have met. There's normally a physical strength built up through games and exercises, and side by side a more or less advanced, but primarily mental development, very mental. The vital is terribly impulsive and barely organized, except in artists, and even there.... I lived among artists for ten years and found this ground to be mostly fallow. I mingled with ...
... somewhere. The Gopis are to them realities and not symbols. It was for them at the least an occult truth, and occult and symbolic are not the same thing; the symbol may be only a significant mental construction or only a fanciful invention, but the occult is a reality which is actual somewhere, behind the material scene as it were and can have its truth for the terrestrial life and its influence upon... which the mind of man seizes on for adoration. Even the monotheist who worships a formless Godhead, yet gives to him some form of quality, some mental form or form of Nature by which he envisages and approaches him. But to be able to see a living form, a mental body, as it were, of the Divine gives to the approach a greater closeness and sweetness. The way of the integral Yoga of Bhakti will be to... cease to think and see for ourselves, but think only what he wills to think for us and see only what he sees for us. And then the teacher is fulfilled in the lover; he lays hands on all our mental being to embrace and possess, to enjoy and use it. He is the Master; but in this way of approach all distance and separation, all awe and fear and mere obedience disappear, because we become too ...
... expertise; it was a sacerdocy, a spiritual vocation! III Week after week the talks continued; not a niche in the Temple of Knowledge was left unexplored, and many an ambiguity in mental construction was cleansed of its contradictions, and many a difficulty in the theory and practice of Integral Yoga was squarely faced and solved. And it was always instruction without tears, instruction that... defeat in the end. But when is action rightly motivated? A purely mental approach can raise a false glittering edifice, Page 527 which suddenly crumbles later on. An emotional approach is apt to land one in self-deception. The proper stance is the silent but spiritual poise that connotes immeasurable strength. While the mental approach is artificially argumentative and the vitalistic is purblindly... warning was against words, words, words, although she too had unavoidably to use language. The trouble with words was that they deceptively sounded too categorical. Coming from the outer physical or mental experience, words carried an element of native falsity. But the Mother did not think with words, as most people did; in fact, she did not 'think' at all. From the home of Truth within there were radiations ...
... more valid before one can accept it. It is evident that the beliefs of the past are not a sufficient basis for knowledge, even though they cannot be entirely neglected: for a belief is a mental construction and may be a wrong building; it may often answer to some inner intimation and then it has a value, but, as often as not, it disfigures the intimation, usually by a translation into terms familiar... method of the discovery of Truth and against the Truth that he discovers. One objection to the method is that it is purely subjective, not true independently of the personal consciousness and its constructions, not verifiable. But this ground of cavil has no great value: for the Page 190 object of the mystic is self-knowledge and God-knowledge, and that can only be arrived at by an inward... discovery and as much of its contents as can at all be expressed in mental terms to those who still live in the mental intelligence.... In the East, especially in India, the metaphysical thinkers have tried, as in the West, to determine the nature of the highest Truth by the intellect. But, in the first place, they have not given mental thinking the supreme rank as an instrument in the discovery ...
... evolutionary model was quite apparent to Darwin himself …” (Denton 43 ) Then what was the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution – of that what Darwin really did say? His system was a mental construction, an elaborated guess assembling and giving shape to various important ideas which were in the air. It was not based on scientific facts, but metaphorically on a geological (Lyell) and a soci... however, convince them of the fact of evolution.” 31 What Darwin Could Not Know In the standard version of history, the dawning of human culture happened about 10,000 years ago. Humans, mental beings, have always been asking the elementary questions about the beginnings of the universe, their own origin, the meaning of life and death. And they have always found or accepted answers to the ...
... shown in several photographs, learned to speak and write the Japanese language, took a Japanese name. ‘These people have a wonderful morality, live according to strict moral rules, and have a mental construction even in the least detail of life: one must eat in a certain way and no other, one must bow in a certain way and no other, one must say certain words and not other ones. When addressing certain... Daiunji temple – and people she met, such as Rabindranath Tagore. ‘The art of Japan is a kind of a direct mental expression in physical life. The Japanese use the vital world very little. Their art is extremely mentalized; their life is extremely mentalized. It expresses in detail quite precise mental formations. Only in the physical do they have spontaneously the sense of beauty.’ 23 ‘It was... is planning. It is no longer sufficient to form a man similar to the greatest men we have heard of or known, or even greater, more accomplished and gifted than they; we must strive to come in touch mentally, by the constant aspiration of our thought and will, with the supreme possibility which, exceeding all human measures and features, will give birth to the superman … ‘It is by holding firm in our ...
... versa? Mutual transmutation? or what? Orange is certainly supposed to be different from sweet lime and it is oranges and not sweet limes we are using. R seems to live in a world of his over-mental construction which has nothing to do with this poor earth and common "humanity". 44 (8)NB: I intend to try a new medicine for Prasanna's eyes, brushing the lids with sodium chlor. powder which is supposed... great expertise would surely be able to find the concealed complexes and hidden disorders that were supposedly playing havoc with her child's mind! In the psychiatrist's parlour the mighty man of mental science wanted to get the spontaneous response of the boy's subconscious. So he fired at him the startling question: "What would happen if I chop off your right ear?" The boy at once replied: "I would ...
... thing more valid before one can accept it. It is evident that the beliefs of the past are not a sufficient basis for knowledge, even though they cannot be entirely neglected: for a belief is a mental construction and may be a wrong building; it may often answer to some inner intimation and then it has a value, but, as often as not, it disfigures the intimation, usually by a translation into terms familiar... spirit becoming partially aware of itself before plunging into its normal trance of luminous superconscience. Even if there proved to be planes of larger life and mind, they would only be subjective constructions of this intermediary consciousness erected on the way to that spiritual culmination. But the difficulty here is that mind and life are too different from Matter to be products of Matter; Matter... with that and mental pursuits and interests, but has learned to look Page 821 within, to discover his inner being, his spiritual self, to aspire to overpass earth and her limitations. As he grows more and more inward, his boundaries mental, vital, spiritual begin to broaden, the bonds that held life, mind, soul to their first limitations loosen or snap, and man the mental being begins to ...
... wanted to put "the university city"; but we didn't ask her advice, we made the invitations and put, "The city of universal culture". That's always the sign of people who have a purely mental power of construction: they want to force words to express what they want to say. I told her, "It won't do, you can talk all you like, for everyone the word will have the meaning it has; invent another word or... No. You didn't understand? I thought you were going to explain it to me! It's all muddled in there. Is it a snake biting its tail? It's really, exactly, a mental construction. Oh, yes! And the text... There isn't the slightest little thing vibrating with truth in it. Yes, it's entirely constructed. There isn't a flame, there's nothing... from the viewpoint of construction, but especially to see how it's going to work: and to make the experiment of life in Auroville.... I had thought of it, and when I spoke to you last time, that was what came: how to go about the experiment? You know, [the director of education] has ideas about education (I'm not interfering); he, [the architect], has ideas about construction (I'm not interfering); ...
... and has not the same rigidity that it has to the intellect. The idea of time may be a mental construction, but the sense of it may not be. Savages have the idea of time but it is in connection with the sun and stars and the lapse of day and night and the seasons, not perhaps a separate construction—but one is not sure for they have metaphysical conceptions of their own. Animals are not, I think... much value? Is not all knowledge and experience subjective at bottom? Objective external physical things are seen very much in the same way by human beings because of the construction of the mind and senses; with another construction of mind and sense quite another account of the physical world would be given—Science itself has made that very clear. But your friend's point is that the Yoga experience... does follow—it is for the metaphysicians, not the scientists to determine. The Vedantic position was that the Mind itself (as well as the senses) is a limited power making its own representations, constructions, formations and imposing them on the Reality. That is a much bigger and more intricate affair shooting down into the very roots of our existence. I think myself there are many positions taken by ...
... Page 198 and the resurgence of its own old response. These things I have repeated hundreds of times. Your idea that my difficulties were different from those of human nature is a mental construction or inference without any real basis. If I am ignorant of human difficulties and therefore intolerant of them, how is it that I am so patient with them as you cannot deny that I am? Why for years... vital mind. An ignorant and untrained mind like X 's cannot be expected to realise the secret machinery of the movements of his own consciousness. The vital mind is part of the mind. If mind (mental mind, vital mind, physical mind, subconscient mind) does not respond to Page 185 outer things, depression is impossible. The self at one end, the stone at the other never get into depression... a desire satisfied, a false movement given its head produces very often a worse recoil than disappointed desire. What is needed for you is to live more deeply within, less in the outer vital and mental which is exposed to these touches. The inmost psychic being is not oppressed by them; it stands in its own closeness to the Divine and sees the small surface movements as surface things foreign to ...
... Disciple : When he finds people do not accept his idea he says : "great ideals can afford to wait – their failure in such matters means nothing." Sri Aurobindo : It seems only a mental construction without any idea of the reality. In this way sometimes people injure the very cause for which they stand. I should be on good terms with my neighbour, but that does not mean that I should... that a strong mind has a strong body and then he says that as one progresses in mental development the body must get weak. He also finds a connection between lust and taste. Disciple : He wants to stick to the mental consciousenss and to the ordinary nature and tries to master the movements of nature from the mental consciousness helped, if possible, by prayer. He has hardly even a cursory ... growing free communal units; (2) the Dharma-idea; (3) harmonising of national life by a central agency. In India we had nothing of the mental ideal in politics. We had a spontaneous and a free growth of communities developing on their own lines. It was not so much a mental idea as an inner impulse or feeling, to express life in a particular form. Each such communal form of life – the village, .the town ...
... into it either by its own habit or by the invasion of the general Nature and the resurgence of its old response. Your idea that my difficulties were different from those of human nature is a mental construction or inference without any real basis. If I were ignorant of human difficulties ad therefore intolerant of them how is it that I am so patient with them as you cannot deny that I am? Why for years... ananda always exists that I seek their base of permanence." Or his rejoinder to my charge about his readiness to answer mental questions while denying the mind even a Lebensraum on God's good earth: "But I do not understand how all that can prevent me from answering mental questions. On my own showing, if it is necessary for the Divine purpose it has to be done, Sri Ramakrishna himself answered... emptiness, on the silence that my whole Yoga was founded and it was through it that there came afterwards all the inexhaustible riches of a greater Knowledge, Will and Joy, all the experiences of greater mental, psychic and vital realms, all the ranges up to Overmind and beyond. The cup has often to be emptied before it can be new-filled; the Yogin, the sadhaka ought not to be afraid of emptiness or ...
... to do mathematics" or.... It is ignorance, it is sheer ignorance. There is nothing you cannot understand if you give your brain the time to widen and perfect itself. And you can pass from one mental construction to another: and each subject of study means a lamnguage; from one language to another, and build up one thing after another within you, and contain all that and many more thins yet, very harmoniously... you cannot concentrate on something that has a form, an objective reality; indeed, everything is carried on exclusively with words in a field of abstraction, it is purely mental gymnastics. And if you can enter into the mental formation of a metaphysician and are able to understand and answer him, it is perfect gymnastics! 26 April 1951 If you want to do something well, whatever it may be... together all your mental energies, bringing them to a point which is fixed on the enunciation of the problem, and you stay there, fixed, as though you were about to drill a hole in the wall, all of a sudden it Will come. And this is the only way. If you try: Is it this, is it that, is it this, is it that?... You will never find anything or else you will need hours. You must get your mental forces to a point ...
... history of this kind of mental construction, from Scholastism to Platonism to the scientific representation. It is a very sticky problem, because the worth or strength of these approaches is not in question, but they do reveal that a certain narrow and limited type of representation has forever pursued us. As much in the ancient religions and their theological constructions as – Yes, but... ... what is the period covered? From 1955 until 1973. Auroville: The Assassination Attempt Towarnicki: Satprem, what is your connection with the project of Auroville, its construction, its life? Satprem: Oh, Mother told me many things about Auroville! But to tell the truth, in the beginning, I wasn't in the least interested in Auroville. What interested me was Mother's... piercing through that mental "layer." That first layer, expressed by the whole racket of our ideas, prejudices, everything we constantly live in, including all the medical suggestions, every... conceivable suggestion – the whole life in which we are confined. That is the FIRST layer to break through in order to get closer to the body. We must first begin by silencing all that mental racket that envelops ...
... to be self-vision at all—for in the true self-vision there is no policemanship and no criminaldom at all. All that belongs to the intellectual-ethical virtue and sin dodge which is only a mental construction of practical value for the outward life but not a truth of real inner values. In the true self-vision we see only harmonies and disharmonies and set the wrong notes right and replace them... guru ? Ah, there is the rub. Let us not exaggerate anything. It is not so much getting rid of mental activity as converting it into the right thing. Krishnaprem has mental activity, but it is a mind that has gone inside and sees things from there, an intuitive mind; I have mental activity (in the midst of silence) whenever necessary, but it is a mind that [has] gone up and sees things... Buddha and Christ are spiritually true not as mere mental teachings but as the expression of spiritual states or happenings in them which by their life on earth they made possible (or at any rate more dynamically potential) in others. Also, evidently, sectarian walls are a mistake, an accretion, a mental limiting of the Truth which may serve a mental, but not a spiritual purpose. The Avatar or Guru ...
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