... vital forces. There is a mental energy of his being that overtops, pervades and utilises the terrestrial action and his own terrestrial nature. This character of man's being prevents us from resting satisfied with the vitalistic law of Karma: the lines of the vital energy are interfered with and uplifted and altered for man by the intervention of the awakened mental energy of the spirit that emerges... new experience, the condition of difficult effort and mastery of the mental and spiritual being. What then will be the lines of this mental energy and how will they affect and be affected by the lines of the vital and physical Karma? Three movements of the mental energy of man projecting itself along the lines of life, successive movements that yet overlap and enter into each other, have created a... sion of the universal Being here and therefore not the whole of Nature. Man comes into it to express and realise a higher law of Nature and therefore a higher system of the lines of Karma. The mental energy divides itself and runs in many directions, has an ascending scale of the levels of its action, a great variety and combination of its dynamic aims and purposes. There are many strands of its weaving ...
... do not freely determine our thinking according to the truth of things, it is determined for us by our nature. We can indeed stand back with a certain detachment and observe the workings of the mental Energy in us; but it is still only its process that we see and not any original source of our mental determinations: we can build theories and hypotheses of the process of Mind, but a veil is still there... quieting the mind itself that a profounder result of our self-observation becomes possible. For first we discover that mind is a subtle substance, a general determinate—or generic indeterminate—which mental energy when it operates throws into forms or particular determinations of itself, thoughts, concepts, percepts, mental sentiments, activities of will and reactions of feeling, but which, when the energy... can live either in an inert torpor or in an immobile silence and peace of self-existence. Next we see that the determinations of our mind do not all proceed from itself; for waves and currents of mental energy enter into it from outside: these take form in it or appear already formed from some universal Mind or from other minds and are accepted by us as our own thinking. We can perceive also an occult ...
... the mind itself that a profounder result of our self- observation becomes possible. For first we discover that mind is a subtle substance, a general determinate — or generic indeterminate — which mental energy when it operates throws into forms or particular determinations of itself, thoughts, concepts, percepts, mental sentiments, activities of will and reactions of feeling, but which, when the energy... can live either in an inert torpor or in an immobile silence and peace of self-existence. Next we see that the determinations of our mind do not all proceed from itself; for waves and currents of mental energy enter into it from outside: these take form in it or appear already formed from some universal Mind or from other minds and are accepted by us as our own thinking. We can perceive also an occult... reject, even rule and regulate, become the giver of the command, the knower. A knowledge also arises that this mind-substance manifests the mental being, is its own expressive substance and the mental energy is its own consciousness-force, so that it is reasonable to conclude that all mind determinations arise from the being of the Purusha. But this conclusion is complicated by the fact that from another ...
... or a large perfection of the spiritualised mental energy of its being. It is possible again for the Purusha to stand back entirely and by a refusal of sanction allow the whole normal action of the mind to exhaust itself, run down, spend its remaining impetus of habitual action and fall into silence. Or else this silence may be imposed on the mental energy by rejection of its action and a constant command... ordinary power by which we govern the pranic energy is that of the embodied mind. But when we get clear above the physical mind, we can get too above the pranic force to the consciousness of a pure mental energy which is a higher formulation of the Shakti. There we are aware of a universal mind consciousness closely associated with this energy in, around and above us,—above, that is to say, the level of... dge and an enlightened and a purer will-power. Nevertheless the control is not complete, spontaneous, sovereign so long as we work with the mind as our chief guiding and controlling force. The mental energy we find to be itself derivative, a lower and limiting power of the conscious spirit which acts only by isolated and combined seeings, imperfect and incomplete half-lights which we take for full ...
... not freely determine our thinking according to the truth of things, it is determined for us by our nature. We can indeed stand back with a certain detachment and observe the workings of the mental Energy in us; but it is still only its process that we see and not any original source of our mental determinations: we can build theories and hypotheses of the process of Mind, but a veil is still there... mind itself that a profounder result of our self-observation becomes possible. For first we discover that mind is a subtle substance, a general determinate — or generic indeterminate — which mental energy when it operates throws into forms or particular determinations of itself, thoughts, concepts, percepts, mental sentiments, activities of will and reactions of feeling, but which, when the energy... live either in an inert torpor or in an immobile silence and peace of self-existence. Next we see that the determinations of our mind do not all proceed from itself; for waves and currents of mental energy enter into it from outside: these take form in it or appear already formed from some universal Mind or from other minds and are accepted by us as our own thinking. We can perceive also an ...
... mind? I have for some days now kept at my bedside Ili on; Dick Batstone sent me the whole poem. It is of course a tour-deforce, reveals (even though I imagine an early work) a tremendous mental energy and of course a command of the English language and the Greek hexameter. But why should any twentieth-century poet want to write in the metre of Homer? If I remember aright Valmiki's 'inspiration'... but of its skilful elaboration into poetic diction of such high quality." Now take your estimate: "It is of course a tour-de-force, reveals (even though I imagine an early work) a tremendous mental energy and of course a command of the English language and the Greek hexameter." Read alludes to an extensive stretch of genuine English poetry here: he does not make the least reservation in his praise ...
... that creates worlds. The mind is a modified consciousness that puts forth a mental energy. But the Divine can stand back from its Energy and observe it at its work, it can be the Witness Purusha watching the works of Prakriti. Even the mind can do that - a man can stand back in his mind consciousness and watch the mental energy doing things, thinking, planning, etc.; all introspection is based upon the ...
... Nature and the conscious force of Being that holds the same force of Nature. For example, there is a mental person and there is a mental force. If you carefully observe, the force that is working as mental energy is not the same as the conscious being who holds himself as the mental being or mental person. Between the mental being, the subjective self, and mental power or mental nature, there is always a... There is no correspondence between conscious force of nature, and conscious being that holds that nature as its form, or as its mould. It holds mind as its mould for expression, but mental force or mental energy that is working is not under the control of the mental Puru-sha, it does not run parallel to the will of the mental Purusha. The nature force operating in mind has another way of operating, very ...
... in matter. But another force not physical has seized on this physical force, is acting in it and on it and so far as the physical medium will allow, fulfilling itself through it. This force is mental energy, & its presence suffices to change the pure or molecular pranic energy we find in the cricket ball into the mixed or nervous pranic energy we find in the bird. But if we could so develop our mental... sounds formed by the human tongue working on the air vibrations; the energy using it is nervous, the molecular pranic activities of the brain using the vocal agents and itself used & modified by a mental energy, the nervous impulse to express, to bring out of the crude material of sensation the clearness & preciseness of the idea; the agent using it is a mental will, free so far as we can see, but free ...
... that creates worlds. The mind is a modified consciousness that puts forth a mental energy. But the Divine can stand back from his energy and observe it at its work, it can be the Witness Purusha watching the works of Prakriti. Even the mind can do that—a man can stand back in his mind-consciousness and watch the mental energy doing things, thinking, planning, etc.; all introspection is based upon that ...
... world. The mind is a modified consciousness that puts forth a mental energy. Page 71 But the Divine can stand back from his energy and observe it at its work, it can be the Witness Purusha watching the works of Prakriti. Even the mind can do that—a man can stand back in his mind-consciousness and watch the mental energy doing things, thinking, planning, etc.; all introspection is ...
... consummation. Then indeed when the ecstatic activity of the mind is most luminous we can open the inner eye to those most intimate and felicitous perceptions of true & profound thinking of which the mental energy in us is capable. “But” says the Rishi “let not thy revelation of thought be beyond our capacities already developed”; for then there will no longer be the clearness of thought images and the entire ...
... mind"—that is the witness in the mind. To requote Sri Aurobindo from the previous chapter (p. 72): Even the mind can do that-—a man can stand back in his mind-consciousness and watch the mental energy 45 doing things, thinking, planning, etc.; all int rospection is based upon the fact that one can so divide oneself into a consciousness that observes and an energy that acts. These are quite ...
... research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden laws of being and Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. It attempts the discovery of the secret laws of mind and mental energy, the secret laws of life and life-energy, the secret laws of the subtle-physical and its energies, — all that Nature has not put into visible operation on the surface; it pursues also Page ...
... Again habit in the same significant mode only can be laid at the door of the last line of a sonnet belonging to the late mystical Page 456 phase and bringing in a deliberate mental energy rather than the sheer lyric cry. This piece strikes me as an extremely moving bit of inner autobiography, which shows what supreme sacrifice goes hand in hand with the spiritual liberation when ...
... research into supraphysical realities and an unveiling of the hidden laws of being and Nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface. It attempts the discovery of the secret laws of mind and mental energy, the secret laws of life and life-energy, the secret laws of the subtle-physical and its energies,—all that Nature has not put into visible operation on the surface; it pursues also the application ...
... conscious being, the physical Purusha within it, the capacity of the vital force less than the capacity of the impulsive soul, the vital conscious being or Purusha within it, the capacity of the mental energy less than the capacity of the intellectual and emotional soul, the mental Purusha within it. For the soul is the inner consciousness which aspires to its own complete self-realisation and therefore ...
... universal truth or the universal truth of being, it must be equally true of the inly-born mental and moral worlds of our action as in our outward relations with the physical universe. It is the mental energy that we put forth which determines the mental effect,—but subject to all the impact of past, present and future surrounding circumstance, because we are not isolated powers in the world, but rather ...
... themselves, or Nature is doing it for you, only under a certain compulsion; you have to beat her often in order to make her do it, and the beating is not always successful. But the mind or nature or mental energy—whatever you like to call it—does this in a certain way and carries on with a certain order of thoughts, haphazard intelligentialities (excuse the barbarism) or asininities, rigidly ordered or ...
... crash of one stone against another. And in this manner that furious combat between those warriors raged on without weapons, sustained mainly by the power of their arms and their physical and mental energy, to the infinite delight of the con course of spectators. And all people... took deep interest in that encounter of those powerful wrestlers who fought like Indra and the Asura Vritra. ...
... series of channels (nadis gathered up in six centres called lotuses or chakras (circles) which rise in an ascending line to a summit, the "thousand petalled lotus " from where all vital and mental energy flows. This pattern is reproduced in the physical body: these centres are situated along a main channel (the sushumna nadi), in the centre of the spinal cord, that rises from the bottom of the ...
... themselves, or Nature is doing it for you, only under a certain compulsion; you have to beat her often in order to make her do it, and the beating is not always successful. But the mind or nature or mental energy—whatever you like to call it, does this in a certain way and carries on with a certain order of thoughts, haphazard intelligentialities (excuse the barbarism) or asininities, rigidly ordered or ...
... themselves, or Nature is doing it for you, only under a certain compulsion; you have to beat her often in order to make her do it, and the beating is not always successful. But the mind or nature or mental energy — whatever you like to call it, does this in a certain way and carries on with a certain order of thoughts, haphazard intelligentialities (excuse the barbarism) or asininities, rigidly ordered or ...
... individual soul is found in the complex formation of body, life and mind. The body, life and mind are formations of material energy of Prakriti, vital energy of Prakriti and Page 115 mental energy of Prakriti; corresponding to these three levels of Prakriti, there are three poises of the Purusha consciousness of the individual. The nature of the Purusha consciousness is that of the originator ...
... your character and Page 65 long-standing habits, help to mould them into a different, nobler and more beautiful pattern. The mind too is capable of performing miracles, a strong mental energy can dictate its terms to life and even to the body. Only the miracles here are not of a dazzling kind that astound or confound you. They have a subder composition, yet they belong to the same ...
... system: the best of dispositions and organisation can harness just a modicum of the total stock, the rest is frittered away or locked up, whether it is vital energy or Page 391 mental energy or even physical energy. That is because the central power that drives, the consciousness that controls the whole mechanism is of an inferior quality, of a lower potential. The Yogi views all energy ...
... relations in the light of Vedantic knowledge. The Kena is similarly occupied with the problem of the relations between God and the soul and its motive is to harmonise our personal activities of mental energy and human will with the movement of the infinite divine Energy and the supremacy of the universal Will. The Isha, therefore, has its eye more upon the outward Brahman and our action in and with ...
... self-realisation. We start from this foundation that the present inner life of man, almost entirely dependent as it is upon his vital and physical nature, only lifted beyond it by a limited play of mental energy, is not the whole of his possible existence, not even the whole of his present real existence. There is within him a hidden Self, of which his present nature is either only an outer appearance or ...
... earth-nature. The secret psychical entity already there in the animal might have itself called down the mental being, the Mind-Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle ...
... infinite and a power of the absolute. His base here plunges into the obscure infinite of life and matter; but his head rises towards the luminous infinite of the spirit. The third movement of the mental energy carries it therefore into its own native field and kingdom above the pressing subjection to the lowering and limiting claim of a vital and physical Karma. It is true that his lower being remains ...
... mind's action can be achieved partially when the thought does not engross, entirely when the thinker acquires the faculty of stepping back into the mental self and standing apart there from the mental energy. Instead of being absorbed in the thought with at most a vague feeling of the process of thinking, we can see the process by a mental vision, watch our thoughts in their origination and movement ...
... earth-nature. The secret psychical entity already there in the animal might have itself called down the mental being, the mind Purusha, into the realm of living Matter in order to take up the vital-mental energy already at work and lift it into a higher mentality. But this would still be a process of evolution, the higher plane only intervening to assist the appearance and enlargement of its own principle ...
... There are indeed states and activities in which the mind takes up the pranic shakti into itself and this dependence is not felt at all; but even then the force is there, though involved in the pure mental energy. The supermind, when it gets into full strength, can do pretty well what it likes with the pranic shakti, and we find that in the end this life power is transformed into the type of a supramentalised ...
... that increase of effective knowledge. An immensely greater power over existence and over Nature must come when a still greater consciousness emerges and replaces the hampered operations of the mental Energy in our too individualised and restricted force of existence. A certain fundamental subjection of mind to life and matter and an acceptance of this subjection, an inability to make the law of ...
... terms of mind and matter, supporting and effecting the formulations of substance of matter and working as a material energy, supporting the formulations of consciousness of mind and the workings of mental energy, supporting the interaction of mind and body and working as a sensory and nervous energy. What we call vitality is for the purposes of our normal human existence power of conscious being emerging ...
... the Victory Day, for it gave him the prospect of the culminating descent of the Highest Reality, the Supermind which holds the perfect model of all that evolves here — physical form, vital drive, mental energy, with the hidden spark of the Supreme, the inmost soul, acting upon and through different aspects of them in birth after birth. Page 92 What the Ilion-line suggests is the Mother ...
... sadhana can't go on side" by side with solid work - intellectual or physical. Sri Aurobindo's Yoga is a dynamic one, not one whose object is omphaloskepsis, "navel-gazing". Channelling your mental energy into useful learning, with a consecrated temper which keeps Yoga running alongside one's studies: that seems to me the career marked out for you. Then even the hostile attacks will diminish. They ...
... that is outside the range of imagery: language with its various devices grows a natural mode of expressing the one yet manifold cosmic Divine as well as the archetypal Transcendent. The mental energy and the life-force can both poetically catch fire when the Spirit presses upon them, a fine outburst of revealing figures is possible on these planes of consciousness if somehow a channel has been ...
... And then you become ... when there is no effort anymore that moves into the future ... then surrender happens. And all the effort that was [a] movement into the future—that enormous depleting mental energy stream— becomes intense Presence in the now. It's important to realize that surrender is also a very dynamic state. It is passive and active in one. It's not one or the other. And this paradox—the ...
... continence of energy, just as the practices of Pratyahara, Dhama and Dhyana and Samadhi show that the yogic passivity of mind is the solid base for the greatest increase, possession and continence of mental energy. It is seen that the body of the perfected Hathayogin is capable of feats of endurance, force, unfatigued expenditure of energy when the practices of asana are combined with those of Pranayama; ...
... ideas. Sri Aurobindo : Yes, because without it nothing can be accomplished. Disciple : But then, is it the mental which draws out the vital force or the vital which calls forth the mental energy? Sri Aurobindo : It depends upon what is first in the fid" It may be the mental or the vital according to individuals. Page 230 So that if it supports the mind then ...
... energy, the subtlest and highest form of which is electric energy. Should Matter be confined to that alone or can it express or create, by and out of itself, non-material energy also? What about mental energy and thought movements-can they too be made a function of Matter? For example, the computing machine. It has been developed to a marvellous extent. Not only big but complicated calculations ...
... power can change radically your character and long-standing habits, help to mould them into a different, nobler and more beautiful pattern. The mind too is capable of performing miracles, a strong mental energy can dictate its terms to life and even to the body. Only the miracles here are not of a dazzling kind that astound or confound you. They have a subtler composition, yet they belong to the same category ...
... Through the sacrifice did the Gods perform the sacrifice; such were the primal laws. ¹ Horses = vital energy; cows=light-energy; either kind = mixture of the two, e.g., mental energy; goat = aja = (lit.) unborn; the primal or pristine energy, that of Mother. ² The Supreme Consciousness sacrificed Himself, descended into Matter and became the Inconscient. ...
... consciousness: "O Son of Energy," says the Rig Veda. (VIII.84.4) It is Force-Consciousness, a warmth, a flame, at whatever level we feel it. When we concentrate in our mind, we feel the subtle heat of mental energy or mental Agni ; when we concentrate in our heart or in our emotions, we feel the subtle heat of Life-Energy or vital Agni ; when we plunge into our soul, we experience the soul's subtle heat ...
... as She said, to test whether this Power can grow there and be borne by this earthly substance, and from there spread to all Matter. A new Power is always difficult to bear; had the current of mental energy been abruptly poured into an ape's brain, its very opaqueness would have created such resistance and friction that the ape would have been knocked senseless or left utterly stunned. The experiences ...
... mind, particularly. This energy has a will. This will in man becomes will for infinite life, will for absolute or unlimited knowledge. This very energy now finds expression in man's mind, in his mental energy. In the life of man this energy wants to attain infinite life, infinite delight. This infinite energy, when it manifests itself in mind wants to attain perfect knowledge. It wants to attain a ...
... external being; and this was a sort of bondage within too narrow a frame; there was a contradiction between the powers of mental realisation and the instrument through which they were striving to make their way out; the most immediate result was the wastage and limitation of mental energies, which not finding any satisfaction in activity, quite naturally returned to merge into Thy eternity. Suddenly Thou... means of expression. The vital being had already realised this liberation long ago and knew how to enjoy the plenitude of sensations and emotions in all forms capable of manifesting life. But the mental being had not yet learnt how to animate, organise and illuminate consciously all lives without distinction. Thou didst break down all barriers, Thou didst open to it the doors of Thy infinite manifestation ...
... Indra his mind refuses to work towards perfection, towards siddhi in the Yoga; in his strenuous struggling upward, samarane, it no longer helps but resists him; there is a divorce between his mental energies presided over by the Maruts & their great presiding and fulfilling devata; confusion, failure of thought, error, backsliding is the result. “Why wouldst thou slay me,” he cries, “I am but moving... not on the altar of the Lord of Mind, but on the altar of the unknown God.Vidma hi te yatha mano asmabhyam na ditsasi. Not so, says Indra, shalt thou attain. Through me, through the mind, through thy mental consciousness, thou shalt aspire to That which is wonderful; for all its actions & movements are not in its pure self-being but in the field of another’s consciousness, there it must be sought; approached ...
... constantly and persistently till the lower is changed. The Three Planes of the Lower Hemisphere and Their Energies There is a vital plane (self-existent) above the material universe which we see; there is a mental plane (self-existent) above the vital and material. These three together,—mental, vital, physical,—are called the triple universe of the lower hemisphere. They have been established in the... get covered when their forces come down into the ordinary mind—covered by the lower consciousness. It is not possible to give a name to all the energies that act in the being. They are put into several classes. First are the mental thought energies (intelligence, dynamic mind, physical perceptive mind); the vital—1st emotional vital with all the emotional movements in it; 2nd the central vital... passions, ambitions, forces of work, possession, conquest); 3rd the lower vital (all the small egoistic movements of desire, enjoyment, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, vanity etc. etc.); 4th the physical energies concerned with the material life and its functioning, needs, outer action, instrumental fulfilment of the other powers. It cannot be explained accurately in a few words; but roughly thoughts ...
... source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness... 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 ...
... by itself make a man an intellectual. X 's main grievance with respect to the intellectuals is that he is cut off from all discussion of mental things and mental stimulus and so his mental energies are becoming atrophied. But a man who has a mental life ought surely not to be dependent on others for it, since that life is found within—there ought to be springs Page 17 within that... knowledge and mental knowledge. The intellectual man will be able to give a wider and more orderly expression to what higher knowledge he gets than the homo psychicus ; but it does not follow he will have more of it. He will have that only if he rises to an equal width and plasticity and comprehensiveness of the higher knowledge planes. In that case he will replace his mental by his above-mental capacity... mistaking of mental ideas and impressions or intellectual conclusions for realisation; secondly, the restless activity of the mere mind, cañcalaṁ manaḥ , which disturbs the spontaneous accuracy of psychic and spiritual experience and gives no room for the descent of the true illuminating knowledge or else deforms it as soon as it touches or even before it fully touches the human mental plane. There ...
... has to strain to put oneself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. As one has voluntarily resolved to undertake the process of yoga and transformation, one has to ensure that mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being accept the discipline of vigilance so that there is constant right attitude and there is constant training to admit an answer to... n of the various energies and different utilities or varieties of specialized and Page 75 synthetic systems of yoga. In this synthesis, the forms and outsides of the Yogic disciplines are neglected, and the central principle of concentration is enlarged so as to become a vehicle of the total concentrated utilization and offering or sacrifice of all the human energies to the all-integrating... methods of integral yoga, but the integral yoga is a conscious application of the methods of the evolution that are found to be operating in Nature. The mental man, according to Sri Aurobindo, has not been Nature's last effort or highest reach; mental man is a transitional being; and the evolutionary Nature points man to a yet higher and more difficult level; Nature inspired him with an ideal of a spiritual ...
... attention mean?" And the Master says, "Attention means attention." Attention, as ordinarily understood, is something done by the mind, using mental effort. But what Eckhart speaks about is not a "head" attention. It is attention with the "whole energy-field of Presence"; it is "alert stillness"; it is "thoughtless awareness." One cannot understand attention with the mind, says Eckhart, because... effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only... the turning, the force which directs the soul inward. The power of aspiration of the heart, the force of the will, the concentration of the mind, the perseverance and determination of the applied energy are the measure of that intensity. The ideal sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, "My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up." It is this zeal for the Lord, utsāha, the zeal of the whole ...
... 73 of the ṛtam rising upon the mind; Swar is that plane of mental consciousness which directly receives the illumination. Vayu on the other hand is always associated with the Prana or Life-Energy which contributes to the system all the ensemble of those nervous activities that in man are the support of the mental energies governed by Indra. Their combination constitutes the normal mentality... working together in human mentality are to awaken to the inflowings of this Ananda, this Amrita, this delight and immortality from above. They receive them into the full plenitude of the mental and nervous energies, cetathaḥ sutānāṁ vājinīvasū . 1 The Ananda thus received constitutes a new action preparing immortal consciousness in the mortal and Indra and Vayu are bidden to come and swiftly perfect... ideas; for when man wished to have words for mental conceptions, his readiest method was to apply the figures of physical action to the mental movement. The idea of physical division or separation was thus used and converted into that of distinction. It seems to have been first applied to distinguishing by the ocular sense and then to the act of mental separation,—discernment, judgment. Thus the root ...
... the Supermind or Divine Gnosis"². It is possible to mistake these gradations for heightened operations of mental faculties. Sri Aurobindo warns against it: "They are not merely methods, way of knowing or faculty or power of cognition; they are domains of being, grades of substance and energy of the spiritual being, fields of existence which are each a level of the universal consciousness—Force co... OVERMIND "At the source of this Intuition we discover a super-conscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, and original intensity determinant of all mental energies,—not Mind as we know but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of not some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of" knowledge-ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness... Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision APPENDIX I AESTHESIS- HIGHER THAN MENTAL Aesthetic enjoyment and perception of beauty are generally limited by man's present consciousness, that is to say, by the mental, the vital and the physical fields of consciousness. Man has believed in the sovereignty of Reason, but he has found that even ...
... 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... a thing. Ah! if you are tamasic, that is yet something else. If you have a tamasic nature, you must use another procedure. You must exert your consciousness, your will, your force, gather your energy, shake yourself a little and whip yourself and say: "Hup! Hup! Page 119 forward, march." If it is laziness that keeps you back from, say, doing the vaulting, you must immediately do something... know what all the teachers do. But in any case, if you have much to do, you must learn how to concentrate much, all the more, and when you are doing a thing, to think of that only, and focus all your energy upon what you do. You gain at least half the time. So if you tell me: "I have too much work", I answer: "You do not concentrate enough." (Another child) For a mathematical problem, sometimes the ...
... generally into vital energies, mental energies, spiritual energies. Modern science tells us that Matter is ultimately nothing but energy condensed. Our yoga being integral, all these various forms or kinds of energy are indispensable to our realisation. 12 September 1959 Sweet Mother, What is meant by "a subtle physical prolongation of the superficial form of the mental envelope"? It... one draw energy into oneself from outside? That depends on the kind of energy one wants to absorb, for each region of the being has a corresponding kind of energy. If it is physical energy, we absorb it principally through respiration, and all that facilitates and improves respiration increases at the same time the absorption of physical energy. But there are many other kinds of energies, or rather... of Energy, which is one and universal. And it is through the various yogic exercises of breathing, meditation, japa and concentration that one puts oneself in contact with these various forms of Energy. 10 September 1959 Sweet Mother, What are these other forms of Energy and how do they help us in our sadhana? Each region of the being and each activity has its energies. We ...
... strands, many degrees, many forms of energy of Nature. There is in the world of birth an energy of physical being and nature, arising out of the physical an energy of vital being and nature, arising out of the vital an energy of mental being and nature, arising out of the mental an energy of spiritual or supramental being and nature. And each of these forms of energy has a law of its own, lines of its... cannot have a mental, moral and spiritual significance, if the action of universal Nature is something quite different from the soul's action in character, in meaning, in the law of her being that constitutes it, if it is not itself the energy, the work of a Mind, a Soul, a Spirit. If the individual energy is that of a soul putting out action and receiving a return in kind, physical, mental, moral and... own lines regardless of the rest, each in the combination imposes as much of its domination as it can on the others. The mental being is itself a most complex thing and has several forms of energy, an intellectual, a moral, an emotional, a hedonistic energy of mental nature, and the will in each is in itself absolute for its own rule and is yet forced to be modified in action by the running into ...
... effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences. It is only then, only when... personal will of the sadhaka has first to seize on the egoistic energies and turn them towards the light and the right; Page 60 once turned, he has still to train them to recognise that always, always to accept, always to follow that. Progressing, he learns, still using the personal will, personal effort, personal energies, to employ them as representatives of the higher Power and in conscious... of the turning, the force which directs the soul inward. The power of aspiration of the heart, the force of the will, the concentration of the mind, the perseverance and determination of the applied energy are the measure of that intensity. The ideal sadhaka should be able to say in the Biblical phrase, "My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up." It is this zeal for the Lord,— utsāha , the zeal of the whole ...
... effort and struggle in which the individual will has to reject the darkness and distortions of the lower nature and to put itself resolutely or vehemently on the side of the divine Light. The mental energies, the heart's emotions, the vital desires, the very physical being have to be compelled into the right attitude or trained to admit and answer to the right influences." (The Synthesis of Yoga... nature and to put him always in the service of the higher. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: "... every part of our energies that is given to the lower existence in the spirit of that existence is a contrdiction of our aim and our self-dedication. On the other hand, every energy or activity that we can convert from its allegiance to the lower and dedicate to the service of the higher is so much... impulsions, his mental being is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not 'free' because it is not strong enough to be 'free', it is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. Page 240 "[In the strong-willed person] the will is so far free that it stands above the play of these forces and he determines by his mental idea and resolve ...
... draw energy into oneself from outside? That depends on the kind of energy one wants to absorb, for each region of the being has a corresponding kind of energy. If it is physical energy, we absorb it principally through respiration, and all that facilitates and improves respiration, increases at the same time the absorption of physical energy. But there are many other kinds of energies, or rather... of Energy, which is one and universal. And it is through the various yogic exercises of breathing, meditation and concentration that one puts oneself in contact with these various forms of Energy. What are these other forms of Energy and how do they help us in our sadhana? Each region of the being and each activity has its energies. We may classify them generally into vital energies, mental... mental energies, spiritual energies. Modern science tells us that Matter is ultimately nothing but energy condensed. Our yoga being integral, all these various forms or kinds of energy are indispensable to our realisation. 10 September 1959 * * * Sweet Mother, How can one make one’s psychic personality grow? It is through all the experiences of life that the psychic personality ...
... and each of these fundamental movements has many forms and processes. The forms and processes of the mind consciousness are marked by a disturbing and perplexing division and separateness of the mental energies and movements in which the original unity of the conscious mind does not at all or only distractedly appears. Constantly we find in our mentality a conflict or else a confusion and want of combination... but at the same time the spiritual vision can take on mental forms of itself that can help towards this identification each in its own way. A mental intuitive vision or a spiritualised mental sight, a psychic vision, an emotional vision of the heart, a vision in the sense mind are parts of the Yogic experience. If these seeings are purely mental, then they may but need not be true, for the mind is capable... There is such an infinite power of representation of the supermind and that is the divine power of which the mental action is a sort of fallen representative. This representative supermind has a lower action in what I have called the supramental reason, nearest to the mental and into which the mental can most easily be taken up, and a higher action in the integral supermind that sees all things in the unity ...
... ideal and practice of Brahmacharya, which meant not only physical continence, but a constant burning aspiration for the knowledge of the Brahman. This one ideal uplifted the physical, vital and mental energies in unified concentration to achieve self-knowledge and self-mastery. For this reason, the pupil came to be called the Brahmacharin, one who has resolved to follow the discipline of Brahmacharya... limitations of consciousness cannot be transcended, we shall find that the authors of these ancient records were themselves true scientists and experimenters. Those thinkers and seers devoted all their energies to the study of human psychology so as to discover the methods by which we can attain freedom from our ordinary limitations. This discovery was the most significant achievement of ancient India. As... best, shreshtha, the most varied qualities. In the heart benevolence, beneficence, love, compassion, altruism, long- suffering, liberality, kindliness, patience; in the character courage, heroism, energy, loyalty, continence, truth, honour, justice, faith, obedience and reverence where these were due, but power too to govern and direct, a fine modesty and yet a strong independence and noble pride; ...
... that she can for instance produce a higher mental type than Newton, Shakespeare, Caesar or Napoleon, a higher moral type than Buddha, Christ or St Francis, a higher physical type than the Greek athlete or to give modern examples, a Sandow or a Ramamurti. She may seek to bring about a better combination of mental & moral, or of moral, mental & physical energies; but is she likely to produce anything much... protoplasm, jellyfish or vegetable animals, & so to the end of the series, then what need is there of anything but the training, preferably the most intelligent & scientific training of our mental, moral and physical energies till they reach a point when they are transmuted by the psychical chemistry of Nature into the coming superior type? But the problem is not so simple, in reality. There are three errors... make any difference to the level of natural attainment. All the accumulated discoveries & varied information of the modern scientist will not make him mentally the superior of Aristotle or Socrates; he is neither an acuter mind nor a greater mental force. All the varied activities of modern philanthropy will not produce a greater moral type than Buddha or St Francis. The invention of the motor car ...
... OVERMIND "At the source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Over- mind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of knowledge-ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Con... intent, the meaning, while in that of the ancient seers, the Rishis, meaning runs after their speech." This is an admission of overhead inspiration as a superior power of creation than ordinary mental intelligence. It also means that the creator is not a mere thinker but a 'Seer' or 'hearer' of the truth. Rules of ordinary criticism in Sanskrit do not apply to these 'Arsha'—overhead-creations ...
... in the infinite variety of conscious Existence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are to the Overmind intelligence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the... source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness... by the medium, material, vital, mental in which they work and not easily recognisable. Supermind cannot manifest itself as the Creator Power in the universe from the beginning, for if it did, the Ignorance and Inconscience would be impossible or else the slow evolution necessary would change into a rapid transformation scene. Yet at every step of the material energy we can see the stamp of inevitability ...
... present were not limited by our dependence on the physical mind and sense, this result would not be altogether inevitable. If we could be aware of all the present, all the action of physical, vital, mental energies at work in the moment, it is conceivable that we would be able to see their past too involved in them and their latent future or at least to proceed from present to past and future knowledge. And... intuitive, inspired and revelatory mind is only a preparatory stage, and that comes by a constant instreaming and descent of more and more of the Page 903 supramental light and energy into the whole mental being and a constant raising of the intuition and its powers towards their source in the open glories of the supramental nature. There is then a double action of the intuitive mind aware... or continued initiation of past energy, prārabdha , or else an action chaotic, unregulated, uncoordinated, a confused precipitate from an energy which has no longer a conscious centre. The supramental consciousness on the other hand is founded upon the supreme consciousness of the timeless Infinite, but has too the secret of the deployment of the infinite Energy in time. It can either take its ...
... n. Seeking her soul she passed further through another zone where she met three universal Energies or Powers: The Mother of Sorrows, the Power of unlimited psychic sympathy and love, the Madonna of Might, the power of Right, maintaining the reign of Law in the world, the Mother of Light, —the power of mental or intellecutal—knowledge. Each of these had a deformation of its working reflected in human... Divine Gnosis". — Life Divine. Some of these gradations act in a way that might suggest a mental operation; Sri Aurobindo warns against the error— "They are not merely methods, way of knowing, or faculty or power of cognition; they are domains of being, grades of the substance and energy of the Spiritual being, fields of existence which are each a level of the universal Consciousness-Force... source of this Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth- Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies,—not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Over- soul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Con ...
... tions to the mental & pranic heavens as well as to the mental & pranic koshas of the material world. This movement initiates the completion of the trailokyadrishti first indicated in the Alipur jail. It marks also the growing emergence of the sukshma shabdadrishti in the sthula hearing. In the tapas the mental energies of will at the side which were formerly confused by the mental tejas with the... features and abandoned assertions of that sadhana, the justification of the mental tejas against the mental inertia, the extension of the dasya by submission to those chosen & allowed by the Ishwara, the removal of the fragments of straining, desire, nirananda, doubt of siddhi etc in the jada prakriti. 30 December 1913 The mental ideas & suggestions are now usually justified in their substance; but... was thought ugra tapas was forbidden. The failure, however, was due to the immixture of effort & desire & anishata generally & the mental nature of the tapas and these again to the necessities, essential & teleological, of the process of the transition from the mental to the ideal being. The second chatusthaya is, therefore, nearing full completion, the third preparing it; the first now only suffers ...
... truth of the spiritual reality. And must not this mean that we abandon all earthly or limited mental existence for something which is its opposite,—either for some pure state of the Spirit or else for some world of the Truth of things, if such exists, or other worlds, if such exist, of divine Bliss, divine Energy, divine Being? In that case the perfection of humanity is elsewhere than in humanity itself;... divine Real-Idea. There is therefore no reason to suppose that there cannot be any real play of the higher divine consciousness in a world of forms or that forms and their immediate supports, mental consciousness, energy of vital force and formal substance, must necessarily distort that which they represent. It is possible, even probable that mind, body and life are to be found in their pure forms in the... This higher mind is able to perceive and deal with other souls as other forms of its pure self; it is capable of sensing them by pure mental impact and communication and no longer only by vital and nervous impact and physical indication; it conceives too a mental figure of unity, and in its activity and its will it can create and possess more directly—not only indirectly as in the ordinary physical ...
... maintenance of health, but for a greater efficiency of the body and for the development of certain qualities and capacities not of the body only but of morale and discipline and the stimulation of mental energies: but I pointed out also that these could be and were developed by other means and that there were limitations to this utility. Page 240 In fact, it is only by sadhana that... communication on the one who calls; an interchange of psychic communication is quite sufficient to set the Force at work. At the same time it is not an impersonal Force and the suggestion of a divine energy that is there ready to answer and satisfy anybody who calls it is not at all relevant here. Page 226 It is something personal to the Mother and if she had not this power and... for what I saw, though, so vividly? Can you ask him and tell me? “ Page 234 I have been very much pleased by the account received of Raja Dhiren of Lalgola and the zeal and energy which he has put in the work for the August 15 th celebration. Please let him know how highly I have appreciated the way in which he has opened to the consciousness and force and all the work he ...
... are not their own, by self-surrender, by sacrifice, by a share in all man’s action, strength, being & bliss, and by this mutual help man’s being physical, vital, mental, spiritual is kept in a state of perfect & ever increasing force, energy & joy favourable to the development of immortality. This is the process of Yajna, called often Yoga when applied exclusively to the subjective movements & adhwara... knowledge. But, so far as we can understand from the Purana, she is the goddess of mind only, of intellect & imagination and their perceptions & inspirations. Things spiritual & the mightier supra-mental energies & illuminations belong not to her, but to other powers. Well, we meet Saraswati in the Vedas;—and if she is the same goddess as our Puranic & modern protectress of learning & the arts, the Personality... material, mental or spiritual, any substance, wealth, chattels, qualities, psychological conditions. Page 38 Saraswati has the power of firm plenty, vajini, by means of or consisting in many kinds of plenty, copious stores of mental material for any mental activity or sacrifice. But first of all she is purifying, pavaka. Therefore she is not merely or not essentially a goddess of mental force ...
... maintenance of health, but for a greater efficiency of the body and for the development of certain qualities and capacities, not of the body only but of morale and discipline and the stimulation of mental energies: but I pointed out also that these could be and were developed by other means and that there were limitations to this utility. In fact, it is only by sadhana that one could go beyond the limits... essential form is or seems to be in man the mental being or mental person which the Upanishads speak of as the mental leader of the life and body, manomayaḥ prāṇa-śarīra-netā." 14 Would not the mental being be part of the human personality—the mental, nervous and physical composite? The mental being spoken of by the Upanishad is not part of the mental nervous physical composite—it is the manomayaḥ... any of these things. 18 September 1933 "Therefore the psychic life-energy presents itself to our experience as a sort of desire-mind, which we have to conquer if we mean to get back to the true self" [ p. 350 ]. It means the life-energy which comes from within and is in consonance with the psychic being—it is the energy of the true vital being, but in the ordinary ignorant vital it is deformed ...
... ideal and practice of Brahmacharya, which meant not only physical continence, but a constant burning aspiration for the knowledge of the Brahman. This one ideal uplifted the physical, vital and mental energies in unified concentration to achieve self-knowledge and self-mastery. For this reason, the pupil came to be called the Brahmacharin, one who has resolved to follow the discipline of Brahmacharya... within and illumines the path of the journey. Agni is the all-pervading energy and heat in the earth and in the heaven and it has the secret power of uniting the light of the heaven and the heat of the matter. It is thus the secret power of physical transmutation. At its highest Agni is not merely the heat or the energy, not merely the soul, not merely a God, it is an aspect of the Supreme... recognizes a secret relationship between the manifest and occult energies and actions that lie behind all that we physically see and experience. This relationship, it is held, is that of an interchange and, which is characteristically described as yajna, sacrifice. The Veda holds that the entire world is, in fact, a massive Energy flowing according to rhythm, which is that of an interchange between ...
... vision, tells us: "...we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, - not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-... intelligence" (pp. 326-27). We may consider the "physical mental", which Sri Aurobindo designates "the true physical mind" (p. 328), as the high part of the physical mind, and the "mental physical" at its best operation as the low one. Page 63 Another "part of the physical mind" (p.329), a "much' lower action of the mental physical" (p.327), is "the mechanical mind...which, left... functions - first, to work upon external things and give them a mental order with a way of practically dealing with them and, secondly, to be the channel of materialising and putting into effect whatever the thinking and dynamic mind sends down to it for the purpose" (p.328). Thus the mixture of the physical mental and the mental physical has a halo as it were of higher things than its actual ...
... 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... 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... have anything to ask me or it is so seldom. But that shows a terrible mental laziness! At times I tell you, "Don't question, try to find out by yourselves certain inner things", that is understood; but when I am here and tell you, "Haven't you any questions to ask?" Silence... So, that proves that you have no mental curiosity. And I don't ask you necessarily to put questions on what I ...
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