... is a very good thing to do when one loves gymnastics. It is mental gymnastics. Well, if you want to be truly intelligent, you must know how to do mental gymnastics; as, you see, if you want really to have a fairly strong body you must know how to do physical gymnastics. It is the same thing. People who have never done mental gymnastics have a poor little brain, quite over-simple, and all their life ...
... suppleness, subtlety, strength and other virtues, In fact, if you wish to be truly intelligent, you must learn a bit of mental gymnastics, even as you have to do physical gymnastics if you wish to have a strong capable body. People who have never done mental gymnastics have a small elementary brain; all their life they think like children. Mental exercise means that you must know how to do it ...
... it suppleness, subtlety, strength and other virtues. In fact, if you wish to be truly intelligent, you must learn a bit of mental gymnastics, even as you have to do physical gymnastics if you wish to have a strong powerful body. People who have never done mental gymnastics have a small elementary brain; all their life they think like children. Mental exercise means that you must know how to do it ...
... ourselves, "What's the use of all this?" So with what attitude should we study? I have always said that studies have the same effect on the brain as gymnastics on the muscles. For example, mental gymnastics are very necessary to make one's mental activity supple, to strengthen and enrich it and give it a subtlety of understanding it would not have if you didn't do these gymnastics. Of Page 364... person is truly unreasonable, it is impossible!" Well, this is the same thing; if I take certain books and read them to you, you cannot follow because you have completely neglected philosophical mental gymnastics. It is exactly the same thing if someone who has not done mathematics is asked to follow a mathematical reasoning—he won't be able to.... And so, this means that if you want to express fully, ...
... nothing concrete there, 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... point, it will be a great progress. Otherwise, they bring out of the storeroom everything they have learnt. It is not very interesting, but at least it gives them some mental gymnastics. And the class system is a democratic system, eh? This is because... you must be able in a limited time, in a limited space... you have to teach the greatest possible number of people, so that ...
... going to the scholar and a few days later went and argued it out with him. Naturally, he remained unmoved. Back home, Amma consoled me with, "This should stop you from being dazzled by mental gymnastics; especially your own. Never forget what Mother says in that prayer, ‘Extricate me from the illusionary consciousness of my mind, from its world of fantasies’." Recently, when I related this... before us intellectuals, because your faith and surrender are spontaneous, while we spend years mentalising everything….’ " Interestingly, thereafter, even when she saw me wallowing in mental gymnastics, Amma never reminded me of that bitter incident. Similarly, in my first months with her, she told me a couple of times to meditate regularly every morning and evening, inspiring me with how ...
... from and opposed to all other things. Hegel boasted that in Europe they had succeeded in separating reason from life and you see their philosophy – it has nothing to do with life; it is all mental gymnastics, it does not form part of life. While in India, philosophy has always been a part of life; it has an aim. In the political philosophy of Europe you find, if they accept democracy... from and opposed to all other things. Hegel boasted that in Europe they had succeeded in separating reason from life and you see their philosophy – it has nothing to do with life; it is all mental gymnastics, it does not form part of life. While in India, philosophy has always been a part of life; it has an aim. In the political philosophy of Europe you find, if they accept democracy ...
... nothing concrete there, 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! (A mathematician disciple:) The same thing applies to ...
... But when we reach that point, it will be a great progress. Otherwise, they bring out of the storeroom everything they have learnt. It is not very interesting, but at least it gives them some mental gymnastics. And the class system is a democratic system, eh? This is because... you must be able in a limited time, in a limited space... you have to teach the greatest possible number of people, so that ...
... accused of murder, all the proofs are against him, but the master stroke of the lawyer Perry Mason changes the situation. Right through the story there are mysteries and the trial is like the mental gymnastics of a master gymnast. But each time, when I have finished the book, I feel that I have gained nothing, learnt nothing new, that it was a waste of time. It is not absolutely useless. You have ...
... fairly complete mental development and are fully conscious on the intellectual plane, can usefully adopt this method; otherwise it is a dead letter for all those who don't have an ability for mental gymnastics and so cannot follow all the acrobatics of the mind. And finally, Sri Aurobindo has told us somewhere in The Life Divine that to follow the path of spiritual experience, one must have within ...
... want to follow a systematic course of metaphysics and ethics. I am also thinking of reading The Life Divine . Page 194 If you read metaphysics and ethics, you must do it just as mental gymnastics to give a little exercise to your brain, but never lose sight of the fact that this is not a source of knowledge and that it is not in this way that one can draw close to knowledge. Naturally ...
... occultism. She came into contact with great artists and thinkers like Rouault, Rodin, Matisse, Anatole France. She had read a number of books,—in fact, libraries. But she had not yet done the 'mental' gymnastics of metaphysical philosophy, comparative studies, and systems of law and sociology. And if with Theon, Mother had touched death, with Paul Richard she would touch the world's Falsehood. It was ...
... is usually given can, at the most, serve as a gymnastic exercise to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulae used in each of these ramifications constitute, in each case, a special and well-defined language. A true education of the mind, that which will prepare man for a ...
... experience of Being you would know it is not nothing. "Mere" etymologically means "pure" : Being is pure existence. Much of present day philosophy is only a play of words and ideas, it is mental gymnastics without any experience behind. In India there was always connection between philosophy and knowledge. True knowledge cannot do without experience, as true science can't do without experiment ...
... transition from the indirect and abstract truths of the mind to the direct and concrete Truth of the great Self is obviously not effected on the summits of the Spirit – it has nothing to do with mental gymnastics, just as the other power had nothing to do with the ape's skills. It is effected in a most down-to-earth way, in everyday life, in the minuscule, the futility of the moment, which is futile ...
... that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a gymnastic exercise to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulae used in each of these branches constitute, in each case, a special and well-defined language. A true education of the mind, that which will prepare man for a ...
... never have been a universe, because nothing comes out of nothing. We shall see this as we read on; then you will have to do philosophical gymnastics. But anyway, even without philosophy and mental gymnastics, it is obvious that to make something, you need to have something to make it with. There is or was a whole period in the development of the human mind in which men tried very seriously to prove ...
... that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language. A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five ...
... beloved Mother, I want to follow a systematic course of metaphysics and ethics. I am also thinking of reading "The Life Divine". If you read metaphysics and ethics, you must do it just as mental gymnastics to give a little exercise to your brain, but never lose sight of the fact that this is not a source of knowledge and that it is not in this way that one can get knowledge. Naturally, this does ...
... unshapely. With regard to your mental body too it would not serve any purpose to have a mind or intellect that is unable to think powerfully, cogently, closely. It is harmful when you take to mental gymnastics only for its own sake, to exclusive intellectual acrobatics—discussions, disputations, verbal quibbles etc., etc.; in that case the result attained is a disproportionate growth. But the development ...
... such other departments of mental work train up the dynamic 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 ...
... "synthesis" and he speaks of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But I must confess I have no idea of what Hegel says. Western philosophies are so mental and dry. They seem to lead to nothing, only mental gymnastics trying to find out things like, "What is judgment?" and "What is not judgment?" They appear to be written for the purpose of using the mind, not for finding or arriving at the Truth. People ...
... the knowledge — to know oneself and then one becomes master of all…. This is the ideal, but to develop the base, the foundation, even to learn, I mean, ordinarily one must work hard and do mental gymnastics to know, to understand, to study, and to express better one’s profound feelings, and one’s emotions, the sensations, in a word, to enlarge one’s comprehension, the skill, the intelligence, to ...
... your mental body too it would not serve any purpose to have a mind or intellect that is unable to think powerfully, cogently, closely. Page 257 It is harmful when you take to mental gymnastics only for its own sake, to exclusive intellectual acrobatics – discussions, disputations, verbal quibbles, etc., etc.; in that case the result attained is a disproportionate growth. But the development ...
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