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English [3532]
A Captive of Her Love [2]
A Centenary Tribute [24]
A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo [2]
A Greater Psychology [29]
A National Agenda for Education [3]
A Philosophy of Education for the Contemporary Youth [2]
A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man [6]
A Philosophy of the Role of the Contemporary Teacher [2]
A Pilgrimage to Sri Aurobindo [2]
A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best [12]
A Scheme for The Education of Bengal [12]
A Vision of United India [12]
A stream of Surrender : Minakshi-Amma [1]
Adventures in Criticism [5]
Alexander the great [1]
Amal-Kiran - Poet and Critic [24]
Among the Not So Great [14]
Ancient India in a New Light [7]
Arguments for the Existence of God [7]
Arjuna's Argument At Kurukshetra And Sri Krishna's Answers [3]
Aspects of Sri Aurobindo [21]
Aspiring Swan [1]
At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo [1]
Auroville references in Mother's Agenda [5]
Autobiographical Notes [27]
Bande Mataram [25]
Beyond Man [26]
Bhagavadgita and Contemporary Crisis [3]
Blake's Tyger [4]
Blessings of the Grace [3]
By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin [9]
By The Way - Part II [4]
By The Way - Part III [2]
Catherine the Great [1]
Chaitanya and Mira [3]
Champaklal Speaks [5]
Champaklal's Treasures [5]
Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II [10]
Child, Teacher and Teacher Education [11]
Children's University [1]
Classical and Romantic [10]
Collected Plays and Stories [9]
Collected Poems [12]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1 [33]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2 [26]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 [29]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 [32]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 5 [11]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 6 [3]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 [37]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8 [11]
Conversations with Sri Aurobindo [1]
Demeter and Persephone [2]
Down Memory Lane [5]
Early Cultural Writings [29]
Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo [8]
Education For Character Development [4]
Education and the Aim of human life [5]
Education at Crossroads [8]
Education for Tomorrow [4]
Emergence of the Psychic [5]
Essays Divine and Human [29]
Essays in Philosophy and Yoga [52]
Essays on the Gita [29]
Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo [30]
Evolution II [1]
Evolution and the Earthly Destiny [31]
Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God [14]
Evolving India [6]
Finding the Psychic Being [1]
From Man Human to Man Divine [13]
Gods and the World [2]
Growing up with the Mother [5]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1 [14]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 2 [12]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 3 [6]
Guidance on Education [4]
Hitler and his God [40]
How to Bring up a Child [2]
Hymns to the Mystic Fire [14]
I Remember [10]
Ideals of Auroville [1]
Images Of The Future [2]
In the Mother's Light [32]
India's Rebirth [7]
Indian Identity and Cultural Continuity [3]
Indian Poets and English Poetry [6]
Inspiration and Effort [18]
Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results [5]
Integral Yoga of Transformation [4]
Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species [4]
Integral yoga and Evolutionary Mutation [3]
Isha Upanishad [27]
Joan of Arc [1]
Karmayogin [19]
Kena and Other Upanishads [25]
Landmarks of Hinduism [12]
Learning with the Mother [1]
Lectures on Savitri [2]
Letters on Himself and the Ashram [37]
Letters on Poetry and Art [32]
Letters on Yoga - I [36]
Letters on Yoga - II [33]
Letters on Yoga - III [23]
Letters on Yoga - IV [37]
Life of Sri Aurobindo [11]
Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1) [23]
Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 2) [27]
Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3) [30]
Light and Laughter [9]
Lights on Yoga [4]
Listen with your Heart - Welcome the Mother [3]
Living in The Presence [3]
Man-handling of Savitri [7]
Mantra in Music by Sunil [1]
Marie Sklodowska Curie [2]
Memorable Contacts with The Mother [8]
Moments Eternal [8]
More Answers from the Mother [4]
Mother or The Divine Materialism - I [19]
Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III [18]
Mother or The New Species - II [22]
Mother steers Auroville [2]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Five [23]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Four [9]
Mother's Chronicles - Book One [1]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Six [16]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Three [10]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Two [1]
Mother’s Agenda 1951-1960 [18]
Mother’s Agenda 1961 [22]
Mother’s Agenda 1962 [26]
Mother’s Agenda 1963 [25]
Mother’s Agenda 1964 [13]
Mother’s Agenda 1965 [14]
Mother’s Agenda 1966 [10]
Mother’s Agenda 1967 [27]
Mother’s Agenda 1968 [11]
Mother’s Agenda 1969 [14]
Mother’s Agenda 1970 [13]
Mother’s Agenda 1971 [5]
Mother’s Agenda 1972-1973 [4]
Mrinalini Devi [1]
My Burning Heart [1]
My Pilgrimage to the Spirit [6]
My Savitri work with the Mother [7]
Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth [8]
Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body [25]
Nachiketas [3]
Nagin Bhai Tells Me [2]
Nala and Damayanti [2]
Neanderthal Looks On [1]
Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo [42]
Nishikanto - the Brahmaputra of inspiration [1]
Notebooks of an Apocalypse 1973-1978 [1]
Notebooks of an Apocalypse 1978-1982 [1]
Notes on the Way [17]
Old Long Since [3]
On Art - Addresses and Writings [5]
On Education [27]
On Savitri [2]
On Sri Aurobindo's Savitri [18]
On The Mother [53]
On Thoughts and Aphorisms [9]
On the Path [4]
On the Way to Supermanhood [1]
Our Light and Delight [18]
Our Many Selves [13]
Overhead Poetry [2]
Overman [6]
Parables from the Upanishads [5]
Parvati's Tapasya [2]
Patterns of the Present [8]
Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1 [26]
Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2 [22]
Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays [25]
Philosophy of Value-Oriented Education [6]
Pictures of Sri Aurobindo's poems [3]
Prayers and Meditations [1]
Preparing for the Miraculous [11]
Principles and Goals of Integral Education [6]
Problems of Early Christianity [7]
Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga [7]
Questions and Answers (1929-1931) [14]
Questions and Answers (1950-1951) [15]
Questions and Answers (1953) [19]
Questions and Answers (1954) [23]
Questions and Answers (1955) [17]
Questions and Answers (1956) [19]
Questions and Answers (1957-1958) [29]
Record of Yoga [29]
Reminiscences [13]
Savitri [46]
Science, Materialism, Mysticism [10]
Seer Poets [3]
Selected Episodes From Raghuvamsam of Kalidasa [3]
Significance of Indian Yoga [3]
Six Talks [4]
Socrates [2]
Some Answers from the Mother [10]
Some Letters from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother [2]
Spiritual bouquets to a friend [2]
Sri Aurobindo - 'I am here, I am here!' [1]
Sri Aurobindo - A dream-dialogue with children [1]
Sri Aurobindo - His Life Unique [5]
Sri Aurobindo - The Poet [20]
Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master [15]
Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history [27]
Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision [9]
Sri Aurobindo And The Mother [8]
Sri Aurobindo And The Mother - On India [5]
Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny [8]
Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga [6]
Sri Aurobindo came to Me [14]
Sri Aurobindo for All Ages [12]
Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness [1]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume I [6]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume II [4]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume III [2]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV [10]
Sri Aurobindo's Humour [4]
Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine [15]
Sri Aurobindo's Message [6]
Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects [9]
Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study [19]
Sri Krishna In Brindavan [4]
Sri Rama [8]
Sudhir Kumar Sarkar: A Spirit Indomitable [3]
Supermind in Integral Yoga [4]
Sweet Mother [2]
Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads [3]
Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda [4]
Taittiriya Upanishad [2]
Talks by Nirodbaran [25]
Talks on Poetry [32]
Talks with Sri Aurobindo [47]
Teilhard de Chardin and our Time [11]
The Adventure of the Apocalypse [1]
The Aim of Life [12]
The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri [9]
The Birth of Savitr [4]
The Crucifixion [2]
The Destiny of the Body [44]
The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System and The Mother's Contribution to it [1]
The Divine Collaborators [6]
The Future Poetry [18]
The Genius Of India [1]
The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga [3]
The Golden Path [6]
The Good Teacher and The Good Pupil [18]
The Grace [1]
The Hidden Forces of Life [13]
The Human Cycle [41]
The Indian Spirit and the World's Future [17]
The Inspiration of Paradise Lost [7]
The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo [24]
The Life Divine [55]
The Mind Of The Cells [1]
The Mother (biography) [17]
The Mother - Past-Present-Future [9]
The Mother Abides - Final Reflections [6]
The Mother on Auroville [2]
The Mother with Letters on the Mother [31]
The New Synthesis of Yoga [2]
The Philosophy of Love [1]
The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo [4]
The Practice of the Integral Yoga [22]
The Problem Of Aryan Origins [3]
The Psychic Being [14]
The Renaissance in India [27]
The Revolt Of The Earth [1]
The Riddle of This World [6]
The Role of South India in the Freedom Movement [9]
The Secret Splendour [6]
The Secret of the Veda [14]
The Signature Of Truth [6]
The Spirit of Auroville [1]
The Story of a Soul [3]
The Sun and The Rainbow [12]
The Sunlit Path [10]
The Supreme [3]
The Synthesis of Yoga [53]
The Thinking Corner [16]
The Veda and Human Destiny [1]
The Veda and Indian Culture [2]
The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo [18]
The Wonder that is K D Sethna alias Amal Kiran [1]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 1 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10 [14]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11 [9]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3 [5]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 4 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 5 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6 [4]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7 [8]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8 [5]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 9 [3]
To the Heights [1]
Towards A New Social Order [2]
Towards A New Society [5]
Towards the Light [1]
Tribute to Amrita on his Birth Centenary [5]
Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo [10]
Uniting Men [2]
Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation [4]
Vedic and Philological Studies [14]
Visions and Voices [1]
Visions of Champaklal [2]
Visions-Experiences-Interview [2]
Vyasa's Savitri [2]
Wager of Ambrosia [4]
Words of Long Ago [8]
Words of the Mother - I [10]
Words of the Mother - II [6]
Words of the Mother - III [15]
Work - an offering [2]
Filtered by: Show All
English [3532]
A Captive of Her Love [2]
A Centenary Tribute [24]
A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo [2]
A Greater Psychology [29]
A National Agenda for Education [3]
A Philosophy of Education for the Contemporary Youth [2]
A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man [6]
A Philosophy of the Role of the Contemporary Teacher [2]
A Pilgrimage to Sri Aurobindo [2]
A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best [12]
A Scheme for The Education of Bengal [12]
A Vision of United India [12]
A stream of Surrender : Minakshi-Amma [1]
Adventures in Criticism [5]
Alexander the great [1]
Amal-Kiran - Poet and Critic [24]
Among the Not So Great [14]
Ancient India in a New Light [7]
Arguments for the Existence of God [7]
Arjuna's Argument At Kurukshetra And Sri Krishna's Answers [3]
Aspects of Sri Aurobindo [21]
Aspiring Swan [1]
At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo [1]
Auroville references in Mother's Agenda [5]
Autobiographical Notes [27]
Bande Mataram [25]
Beyond Man [26]
Bhagavadgita and Contemporary Crisis [3]
Blake's Tyger [4]
Blessings of the Grace [3]
By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin [9]
By The Way - Part II [4]
By The Way - Part III [2]
Catherine the Great [1]
Chaitanya and Mira [3]
Champaklal Speaks [5]
Champaklal's Treasures [5]
Champaklal's Treasures - Edition-II [10]
Child, Teacher and Teacher Education [11]
Children's University [1]
Classical and Romantic [10]
Collected Plays and Stories [9]
Collected Poems [12]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1 [33]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2 [26]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 [29]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 [32]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 5 [11]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 6 [3]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 [37]
Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8 [11]
Conversations with Sri Aurobindo [1]
Demeter and Persephone [2]
Down Memory Lane [5]
Early Cultural Writings [29]
Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo [8]
Education For Character Development [4]
Education and the Aim of human life [5]
Education at Crossroads [8]
Education for Tomorrow [4]
Emergence of the Psychic [5]
Essays Divine and Human [29]
Essays in Philosophy and Yoga [52]
Essays on the Gita [29]
Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo [30]
Evolution II [1]
Evolution and the Earthly Destiny [31]
Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God [14]
Evolving India [6]
Finding the Psychic Being [1]
From Man Human to Man Divine [13]
Gods and the World [2]
Growing up with the Mother [5]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1 [14]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 2 [12]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 3 [6]
Guidance on Education [4]
Hitler and his God [40]
How to Bring up a Child [2]
Hymns to the Mystic Fire [14]
I Remember [10]
Ideals of Auroville [1]
Images Of The Future [2]
In the Mother's Light [32]
India's Rebirth [7]
Indian Identity and Cultural Continuity [3]
Indian Poets and English Poetry [6]
Inspiration and Effort [18]
Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results [5]
Integral Yoga of Transformation [4]
Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species [4]
Integral yoga and Evolutionary Mutation [3]
Isha Upanishad [27]
Joan of Arc [1]
Karmayogin [19]
Kena and Other Upanishads [25]
Landmarks of Hinduism [12]
Learning with the Mother [1]
Lectures on Savitri [2]
Letters on Himself and the Ashram [37]
Letters on Poetry and Art [32]
Letters on Yoga - I [36]
Letters on Yoga - II [33]
Letters on Yoga - III [23]
Letters on Yoga - IV [37]
Life of Sri Aurobindo [11]
Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1) [23]
Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 2) [27]
Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3) [30]
Light and Laughter [9]
Lights on Yoga [4]
Listen with your Heart - Welcome the Mother [3]
Living in The Presence [3]
Man-handling of Savitri [7]
Mantra in Music by Sunil [1]
Marie Sklodowska Curie [2]
Memorable Contacts with The Mother [8]
Moments Eternal [8]
More Answers from the Mother [4]
Mother or The Divine Materialism - I [19]
Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III [18]
Mother or The New Species - II [22]
Mother steers Auroville [2]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Five [23]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Four [9]
Mother's Chronicles - Book One [1]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Six [16]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Three [10]
Mother's Chronicles - Book Two [1]
Mother’s Agenda 1951-1960 [18]
Mother’s Agenda 1961 [22]
Mother’s Agenda 1962 [26]
Mother’s Agenda 1963 [25]
Mother’s Agenda 1964 [13]
Mother’s Agenda 1965 [14]
Mother’s Agenda 1966 [10]
Mother’s Agenda 1967 [27]
Mother’s Agenda 1968 [11]
Mother’s Agenda 1969 [14]
Mother’s Agenda 1970 [13]
Mother’s Agenda 1971 [5]
Mother’s Agenda 1972-1973 [4]
Mrinalini Devi [1]
My Burning Heart [1]
My Pilgrimage to the Spirit [6]
My Savitri work with the Mother [7]
Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth [8]
Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body [25]
Nachiketas [3]
Nagin Bhai Tells Me [2]
Nala and Damayanti [2]
Neanderthal Looks On [1]
Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo [42]
Nishikanto - the Brahmaputra of inspiration [1]
Notebooks of an Apocalypse 1973-1978 [1]
Notebooks of an Apocalypse 1978-1982 [1]
Notes on the Way [17]
Old Long Since [3]
On Art - Addresses and Writings [5]
On Education [27]
On Savitri [2]
On Sri Aurobindo's Savitri [18]
On The Mother [53]
On Thoughts and Aphorisms [9]
On the Path [4]
On the Way to Supermanhood [1]
Our Light and Delight [18]
Our Many Selves [13]
Overhead Poetry [2]
Overman [6]
Parables from the Upanishads [5]
Parvati's Tapasya [2]
Patterns of the Present [8]
Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1 [26]
Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2 [22]
Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays [25]
Philosophy of Value-Oriented Education [6]
Pictures of Sri Aurobindo's poems [3]
Prayers and Meditations [1]
Preparing for the Miraculous [11]
Principles and Goals of Integral Education [6]
Problems of Early Christianity [7]
Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga [7]
Questions and Answers (1929-1931) [14]
Questions and Answers (1950-1951) [15]
Questions and Answers (1953) [19]
Questions and Answers (1954) [23]
Questions and Answers (1955) [17]
Questions and Answers (1956) [19]
Questions and Answers (1957-1958) [29]
Record of Yoga [29]
Reminiscences [13]
Savitri [46]
Science, Materialism, Mysticism [10]
Seer Poets [3]
Selected Episodes From Raghuvamsam of Kalidasa [3]
Significance of Indian Yoga [3]
Six Talks [4]
Socrates [2]
Some Answers from the Mother [10]
Some Letters from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother [2]
Spiritual bouquets to a friend [2]
Sri Aurobindo - 'I am here, I am here!' [1]
Sri Aurobindo - A dream-dialogue with children [1]
Sri Aurobindo - His Life Unique [5]
Sri Aurobindo - The Poet [20]
Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master [15]
Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history [27]
Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision [9]
Sri Aurobindo And The Mother [8]
Sri Aurobindo And The Mother - On India [5]
Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny [8]
Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga [6]
Sri Aurobindo came to Me [14]
Sri Aurobindo for All Ages [12]
Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness [1]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume I [6]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume II [4]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume III [2]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV [10]
Sri Aurobindo's Humour [4]
Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine [15]
Sri Aurobindo's Message [6]
Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects [9]
Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study [19]
Sri Krishna In Brindavan [4]
Sri Rama [8]
Sudhir Kumar Sarkar: A Spirit Indomitable [3]
Supermind in Integral Yoga [4]
Sweet Mother [2]
Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads [3]
Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda [4]
Taittiriya Upanishad [2]
Talks by Nirodbaran [25]
Talks on Poetry [32]
Talks with Sri Aurobindo [47]
Teilhard de Chardin and our Time [11]
The Adventure of the Apocalypse [1]
The Aim of Life [12]
The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri [9]
The Birth of Savitr [4]
The Crucifixion [2]
The Destiny of the Body [44]
The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System and The Mother's Contribution to it [1]
The Divine Collaborators [6]
The Future Poetry [18]
The Genius Of India [1]
The Gita and its Synthesis of Yoga [3]
The Golden Path [6]
The Good Teacher and The Good Pupil [18]
The Grace [1]
The Hidden Forces of Life [13]
The Human Cycle [41]
The Indian Spirit and the World's Future [17]
The Inspiration of Paradise Lost [7]
The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo [24]
The Life Divine [55]
The Mind Of The Cells [1]
The Mother (biography) [17]
The Mother - Past-Present-Future [9]
The Mother Abides - Final Reflections [6]
The Mother on Auroville [2]
The Mother with Letters on the Mother [31]
The New Synthesis of Yoga [2]
The Philosophy of Love [1]
The Poetic Genius of Sri Aurobindo [4]
The Practice of the Integral Yoga [22]
The Problem Of Aryan Origins [3]
The Psychic Being [14]
The Renaissance in India [27]
The Revolt Of The Earth [1]
The Riddle of This World [6]
The Role of South India in the Freedom Movement [9]
The Secret Splendour [6]
The Secret of the Veda [14]
The Signature Of Truth [6]
The Spirit of Auroville [1]
The Story of a Soul [3]
The Sun and The Rainbow [12]
The Sunlit Path [10]
The Supreme [3]
The Synthesis of Yoga [53]
The Thinking Corner [16]
The Veda and Human Destiny [1]
The Veda and Indian Culture [2]
The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo [18]
The Wonder that is K D Sethna alias Amal Kiran [1]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 1 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10 [14]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11 [9]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3 [5]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 4 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 5 [3]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6 [4]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7 [8]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8 [5]
The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 9 [3]
To the Heights [1]
Towards A New Social Order [2]
Towards A New Society [5]
Towards the Light [1]
Tribute to Amrita on his Birth Centenary [5]
Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo [10]
Uniting Men [2]
Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation [4]
Vedic and Philological Studies [14]
Visions and Voices [1]
Visions of Champaklal [2]
Visions-Experiences-Interview [2]
Vyasa's Savitri [2]
Wager of Ambrosia [4]
Words of Long Ago [8]
Words of the Mother - I [10]
Words of the Mother - II [6]
Words of the Mother - III [15]
Work - an offering [2]
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Showing 600 of 3532 result/s found for Mind, Life and Matter

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Sevenfold Chord of Being

... hemipshere of knowledge and ignorance made of mind, life and body. This Overmind connects the Supermind with the lower creation of mind, life, and matter. Sri Aurobindo says that the Overmind acts as a veil covering with its wings the whole triple creation of mind, life and matter. It veils also the face of the higher worlds from the sight of the lower. In one sense, it brings the Light to the lower, in... connection with the All. In the first the concentration is on the Oneness, in the second the concentration is on the Eachness. This Supermind in its descent has created the triple world of Mind, Life and Matter. We have seen in previous chapters that even in the world of Matter, based upon what appears to be the principle of Inconsciece, there is a rising scale of manifestation from Matter to... Overmind can be said to be the 'golden lid', for, it is light which covers the whole cosmos and glows like a cosmic eagle covering with its wings of light the whole triplicity of the Mind, Life Page 251 and Matter. So from below, from mind, one sees the light of the Overmind first, not the light of the Supermind with which it is connected. In a sense it screens one off from the Higher Light ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine
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Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Supermind and the Life Divine

... establish it here. Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results  >  PART THREE

... In the integral Karma Yoga, Sri Aurobindo points out, it is not enough to know the Divine Shakti as the one Cosmic Force that moves us and all creatures on the planes of Mind, Life and Matter. For at the level of Mind, Life and Matter, the cosmic force acts as the lower Nature, Apara Prakriti, and, although the Divine Knowledge, Light, Power are concealed there and at work in the ignorance and can break... more established when the aspect of cognition and the aspect of will of the higher mind impose Page 58 themselves by a process of integration and descent on our substance of Mind, Life and Matter. In order to make this integration free from resistance or a revolt of the mind, life and body, a previously established control is very desirable as that creates a general responsiveness. Even ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results
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The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Supermind - Force of the New World

... Mind of Light Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life
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Autobiographical Notes  >  To and about Marie Potel

... stuff and body of the Divine and mind, life and matter are lesser sheaths, coverings or outer folds. To describe the "essence" as "l'immaterielle matière" is neither very clear nor very helpful. If you mean by matter substance, in one sense or in one line of experience all is substance—spirit, being, consciousness, ananda are substance; mind, life and matter are substance. Not only so, but all... substance of the Self and Brahman; it is within everything, above everything and when it descends upon one as true being, as consciousness, as Ananda, it enables the soul to separate itself from mind, life and matter, to face them instead of being involved in them and to act upon them and change them. If this is what you have felt and seen, it is true; but your language does not make it clear. But mark ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Autobiographical Notes
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A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  Supermind And The Life Divine

... establish it here. Supermind is the grade of existence beyond mind, life and Matter and, as mind, life and Matter have manifested on the earth, so too must Supermind in the inevitable course of things manifest in this world of Matter. In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind. this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal
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Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Sankhya-Yoga System

... is the living Consciousness and Force of the Divine, the divine Shakti. The Prakriti itself is divided into the lower and higher,—the lower is the Prakriti of the Ignorance, the Prakriti of mind, life and matter separated in consciousness from the Divine; the higher is the Divine Prakriti of Sachchidananda with its manifesting power of Supermind, always aware of the Divine and free from Ignorance and... he becomes aware of the higher Nature and seeks to come into contact with it. He can ascend into it and it can descend into him—such an ascent and descent can transform the lower nature of mind, life and matter. Prakriti is only the executive or working force—the Power be hind Prakriti is Shakti. It is the Chit-Shakti in manifestation: that is the spiritual consciousness. Page 44 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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The Life Divine  >  The Sevenfold Chord of Being

... The Supermind is the divine Gnosis which creates, governs and upholds the worlds: it is the secret Wisdom which upholds both our Knowledge and our Ignorance. We have discovered also that Mind, Life and Matter are a triple aspect of these higher principles working, so far as our universe is concerned, in subjection to the principle of Ignorance, to the superficial and apparent self-forgetfulness of... Consciousness and Bliss are the three highest and hidden Names of the Nameless, so this Supermind is the fourth Name 4 ―fourth to That in its descent, fourth to us in our ascension. But Mind, Life and Matter, the lower trilogy, are also indispensable to all cosmic being, not necessarily in the form or with the action and conditions which we know upon earth or in this material universe, but in some ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Lights on Yoga  >  Planes and Parts of the Being

... the living Consciousness and Force of the Divine, the divine Shakti. The Prakriti itself is divided into the lower and higher, - the lower is the Prakriti of the Ignorance, the Prakriti of mind, life and Matter separated in consciousness from the Divine; the higher is the Divine Prakriti of Sachchidananda with its manifesting power of Supermind, always aware of the Divine and free from Ignorance and... he becomes aware of the higher Nature and seeks to come into contact with it. He can ascend into it and it can descend into him - such an ascent and descent can transform the lower nature of mind, life and Matter. * The Overmind has to be reached and brought down before the supermind descent is at all possible - for the Overmind is the passage through which one passes from Page 20 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Lights on Yoga
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Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Supermind or Supramental

... based on the harmony and unity of the One, not disturbed by a veil of Ignorance or any disguise. The Supermind therefore does not transcend all manifestation, but it is above the triplicity of mind, life and matter which is our present experience of this manifestation. (4) The Overmind is a sort of delegation from the Supermind (this is a metaphor only) which supports the present evolutionary universe... is here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above. There is no longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga  >  Integral Yoga

... own sure foundation, the evolution of divine life would be a progress in felicity, a march through light to Ananda.'¹ Supermind is, according to Sri Aurobindo, a grade of existence beyond, mind, life and Matter. And, between Mind and Supermind are the intermediate grades which Sri Aurobindo has termed the 'Higher Mind', 'Illumined Mind', 'Intuitive Page 23 Mind', and 'Overmind'.² The Supermind... supermind from below and by a descent of the supermind from above. As explained by Sri Aurobindo: 'In fact, supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga
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Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Appendix I: The Tangle of Karma

... the Spirit than mind, life and matter and these wait for their expression and only when they are expressed can we escape from this system of harmony through discords and of a perfection on the whole that subsists by imperfection in the detail. And as we open to a greater knowledge, we find that even for such harmonies, stabilities, perfections as the energies of Mind, Life and Matter can realise, they ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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A Greater Psychology  >  Purusha and Prakriti: Soul and Nature

... the living Consciousness and Force of the Divine, the divine Shakti. The Prakriti itself is divided into the lower and higher, — the lower is the Prakriti of the Ignorance, the Prakriti of mind, life and Matter separated in consciousness from the Divine; the higher is the Divine Prakriti of Sachchidananda with its manifesting power of supermind, always aware of the Divine and free from Ignorance... becomes aware of the higher Nature and seeks to come into contact with it. He can ascend into it and it can descend into him — such an ascent and descent can transform the lower nature of mind, life and Matter. Letters on Yoga, p. 287 In the experience of yoga the self or being is in essence one with the Divine or at least it is a portion of the Divine and has all the divine potentialities ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology
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Life of Sri Aurobindo  >  Pondicherry: 1927-1950

... here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above. There is no longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge... individual, himself, to prepare for its general manifestation in this apparently undivine lower nature. The ultimate result of this manifestation would be the transformation and divinisation of mind, life and matter. It would mean for man his transfiguration into Superman. But this supramentalisation was not sought by Sri Aurobindo in any egoistic spirit of self-aggrandisement or even with the larger ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life of Sri Aurobindo
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Essays Divine and Human  >  Nature: The World-Manifestation

... existence in the universe. 25 The Divine is the eternal Self and Spirit; but Nature too is everlasting power of the Self, eternal conscious-Force of the Spirit. Page 195 Mind, life and Matter are powers of that Power, energies of that Force, substance of that Spirit, Spirit and Matter are not separate and contrary creations, but Matter itself is a self-creation of the Spirit. ... timeless manifestation in the worlds of Sachchidananda. One who is Two and becomes the Two who become Many,—this is the formula of the perpetual manifestation in time in the three worlds of Mind, Life and Matter. One who is in himself for ever the Two and for ever innumerably All and Eternal and Infinite, this is the indication of the Supreme who is beyond Time and Timelessness in the highest Absolute ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human
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The Life Divine  >  The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence

... find in them a complete freedom and knowledge. The other three powers and planes of being, of which we are even at present aware, form a lower hemisphere of the manifestation, a hemisphere of Mind, Life and Matter. These are in themselves powers of the superior principles; but wherever they manifest in Page 689 a separation from their spiritual sources, they undergo as a result a phenomenal... existence. It is this that is the significance of the plan and order of the terrestrial evolution; it is this necessity that must determine all its steps and degrees, its principle and its process. Mind, Life and Matter are the realised powers of the evolution and well-known to us; Supermind and the triune aspects of Sachchidananda are the secret principles which are not yet put in front and have still to be ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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The Life Divine  >  The Divine Life

... be a free manifestation of the power and workings of the root Force of existence, the force of an all-determining conscious spirit whose formulations of consciousness work out inevitably in mind, life and matter. Acting in the light and power of the supramental knowledge, the evolving gnostic being would be more and more master of himself, master of the forces of consciousness, master of the energies... principle. In their essential nature these new powers must have the character of a control of mind over life and matter, of the conscious life-will and life-force over matter, of the spirit over mind, life and matter; they would have the character also of a breaking down of the barriers between soul and soul, mind and Page 1076 mind, life and life: such a change would be indispensable for the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Integral Knowledge

... Mind, Life or Matter as the original principle, and we reject the limitation to our apparent Nature which is their practical conclusion. Becoming as the working out of the energies of Being, Mind, Life and Matter as inferior terms of the higher divine Nature to be illumined, uplifted, transformed by the higher terms is our view of the knowledge.—We reject also intermediate theories like that which makes ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Knot of Matter

... and ignorance. But if on the contrary it is immortal and infinite Spirit which has veiled itself inMatter and is emerging, the development of a liberated supramental being who shall impose in Mind, Life and Matter a higher law than that of limitation and division, is the inevitable conclusion from the nature of cosmic existence. There is no reason why such a Page 483 being should not liberate ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Descent of the Supermind

... all I am not trying to change the world all at once but only to bring down centrally something into it has not yet, a new consciousness and power. Not in their entirety [ will cosmic Mind, Life and Matter be transformed ]—for that is not our business. It is ourselves that we have to transform and change the earth consciousness by bringing in the supramental principle into the evolution there ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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Aspects of Sri Aurobindo  >  Sri Aurobindo's Enlargement of Spiritual Metaphysics

... did not have their poise in the sheer Supermind they missed altogether the transformative aspect. God was indeed taken as omnipotent but it was never thought that he could totally divinise mind, life and matter. Indeed the thought of doing so was never taken as having entered God's consciousness! Just as even God cannot make a square circle or effect 2+2=5, so also He cannot be ascribed the power to ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Aspects of Sri Aurobindo
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The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Synthesis of the Disciplines of Knowledge

... falsehood. Mind, Life, Matter exist and mental, vital, physical individualisation exists as facts in Nature, but the identification of the soul with these things is a false identification. Mind, Life and Matter are ourselves only in this sense that they are principles of being which the true self has evolved by the meeting and interaction of Soul and Nature in order to express a form of its one existence ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga
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Our Many Selves  >  Glossary of Names and Terms

... intelligence, ideas, thought perceptions, etc.). Behind this superficial consciousness there exists a far greater, deeper and more powerful consciousness in touch with the universal planes of Mind, Life and Matter. This hidden consciousness, referred to as our inner being, consists of the inner mental, the inner vital and the inner physical, with the psychic (the soul) as the innermost being which, as ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves
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The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Synthesis of the Systems

... which, proceeding from an omniscient and omnipotent Self-existence, have the surety of their own fulfilment and contain in themselves the nature and law of their own becoming in the terms of mind, life and matter. The eventual omnipotence of Tapas and the infallible fulfilment of the Idea are the very foundation of all Yoga. In man we render these terms by Will and Faith,—a will that is eventually s ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga
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The Indian Spirit and the World's Future  >  Vivekananda and Our Spiritual Future

... Itself in order to manifest the Truth in the terms of all that begins as its utmost contradiction. In that faultless cosmos there is no absence of the individual soul and its instruments of mind, life and matter. A supreme individual selfhood is there the counterpart of the evolving spark of the Divine that is here our soul; it is measured out and distinguished from its likes by a movement of ideative ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Indian Spirit and the World's Future
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Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth  >  The Mystery of Rebirth

... universe. Its Supermind (divine Mind or Gnosis) is the real creative agent and has arranged the cosmic order not directly as such but indirectly through the three subordinate and limiting terms of Mind, Life and Matter. The material universe is the lowest stage of a downward plunge of the manifestation leading to the involution of the manifested being of Sachchidananda into an apparent nescience of ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mysteries of Death, Fate, Karma and Rebirth
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A Greater Psychology  >  Sri Aurobindo on Human Development: a Transpersonal Perspective

... of mind which was already there involved in Life and Matter. It is the pressure of the spiritual worlds above Mind which is now preparing the manifestation of the Spirit yet slumbering in Mind, Life and Matter. The growing urge towards spiritual growth in humanity today is the push of the Consciousness-Force towards the next higher rung of evolution. Prior to the appearance of the human being ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology
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Integral Yoga of Transformation  >  Part Five

... dilution and mixture, far inferior in its knowledge and force and results. A mutilated power, a partial effect or hampered movement is the consequence." 55 The descent of the overmind in mind, life and matter and transformation of these layers of Nature has been considered by Sri Aurobindo as the accomplishment of the spiritual transformation; but even this transformation is unable to do fully what ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga of Transformation
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Inspiration and Effort  >  Poetic Values and Powers (A Letter)

... as having more of the essence of the Ultimate. The cause of this tendency lies in the lagging of our Nature-parts behind our pure self. The self soars up to the Eternal, but our nature of mind, life and matter remains untransformed. As long as no key to their absolute transformation is found, it is logical to conclude that they labour under a basic undivinity and hence must be finally dropped and ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Inspiration and Effort
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The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Planes of Our Existence

... beginning envisaged from the point of view of the utility of these various planes to the supreme object of our liberation. It takes as its basis the three principles of our ordinary being, mind, life and matter, the triune spiritual principle of Sachchidananda and the link principle of vijñāna , supermind, the free or spiritual intelligence, and thus arranges all the large possible poises of our being ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga
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Letters on Yoga - III  >  The Universal or Cosmic Consciousness

... descend into it as often as it likes. The Divine is not bound by human philosophies—it is free in its play and free in its essence. One has to get above the cosmic consciousness of the mind, life and matter by entering into the spiritual levels above the ordinary mind, into the higher consciousness. This does not cut one off from the cosmic consciousness, but one sees it without being involved ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - III
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A Greater Psychology  >  The Superconscient: Gradations of the Higher Consciousness

... that formula and is not a power for a dynamic transcendence. Here in earth-life it has to work upon a cosmic formula whose basis is the entire nescience which results from the separation of Mind, Life and Matter from their own source and supreme origin. Overmind can bridge that division up to the point at which separative Mind enters into Overmind and becomes a part of its action; it can unite individual ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology
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Letters on Yoga - I  >  The System of the Chakras

... with the other worlds. According to our system the three lower centres are the vital, the lower vital and the physical—but the planes are quite different. The three lower planes are mind, life and matter and it is true that the human mind confines itself to these three activities. But it is not true that its activities are confined to the vital and physical things. What is the fourth ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Meaning and Purpose of Avatarhood

... for the manifestation; something of that is foreseen by those who have vision but not the whole. An Avatar is supposed to be from birth. Each soul at its birth takes from the cosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new external personality for himself. What prevents the Divine from doing the same? What is continued from birth to birth is the inner being. Page 471 Each being in ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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The Life Divine  >  The Double Soul in Man

... the subliminal soul in us open to the universal delight which the cosmic soul takes in its own existence and in the existence of the myriad souls that represent it and in the operations of mind, life and matter by which Nature lends herself to their play and development; but from this cosmic delight the surface soul is shut off by egoistic walls of great thickness which have indeed gates of penetration ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Supermind as Creator

... process of creation, from being to becoming, from the One to the Many, from the absolute, to the relative, or, from the Truth-Consciousness to the world as we know it, includes the creation of mind, life, and matter. So mind is a derivative power of this Truth-Consciousness. Therefore, there is a relation between them. Mind, even without its knowing, is supported by this Consciousness. Mind is not left ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine
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The Renaissance in India  >  A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - 3

... exclusive prominence. But against that tendency too there is now a powerful reaction, not towards replacing the spirit without life by life without the spirit, but towards a spiritual possession of mind, life and matter. Still it is true that the ascetic ideal which in the ancient vigour of our culture was the fine spire of life mounting into the eternal existence, became latterly its top-heavy dome and tended ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India
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The Practice of the Integral Yoga  >  Sadhana of the mind

... The Practice of the Integral Yoga XXI Sadhana of the mind Mind , Life and Matter, the mental . the vita l and the physical. arc the three instrument s of manifestation o f the Spirit in the field of embodied existence up on earth. But all these three instrument s arein their present normal functioning very much flawed and imperfect.. Each one o f ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Practice of the Integral Yoga
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Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Yoga and Education

... The Human Aspiration The Methods of Knowledge Evolution What is Time? The Destiny of the Individual Infinity and Eternity Mind, Life and Matter Page 361 In Search of the Soul Death and Conquest of Death Personal Effort The Meaning of Prayer The Supreme Teacher Varieties ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays
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Letters on Yoga - I  >  Spiritual Evolution and the Supramental

... have said [ in the preceding letter ], speculation on the results of the manifestation of a new supramental principle in the earth consciousness Page 281 organising itself there as mind, life and matter have already organised themselves—for that is what it comes to—is a little perilous and premature, because we must do it with the mind and the mind has not the capacity to forecast the action ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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The Life Divine  >  The Ascent towards Supermind

... that formula and is not a power for a dynamic transcendence. Here in earth-life it has to work upon a cosmic formula whose basis is the entire nescience which results from the separation of Mind, Life and Matter from their own source and supreme origin. Overmind can bridge that division up to the point at which separative Mind enters into Overmind and becomes a part of its action; it can unite individual ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga  >  Appendix

... were here one would have to be ready before one could get the final change. (Letters on Yoga, p. 15.) * * * Not in their entirety — for that [the transformation of the Cosmic Mind, Life and Matter] is not our business. It is ourselves that we have to transform and change the earth-consciousness by bringing in the supramental principle into the evolution there. Once there it will n ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga
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Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  Life

... It must pass through that phase in order to go beyond. This is a condition enforced by evolutionary process working in the medium of inconscient matter. It is the necessity and a condition. Mind, life and matter—all the three are,—the world in which we live is,—governed by a veiled operation of supermind. The more important conception that emerges out of it is that the world is not a play of falsehood ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine
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On The Mother  >  A Passage to Japan

... of Krishna and Kali, divine Knowledge coupled with divine Power; and then, the opening up of the higher planes of consciousness up to and including the supramental, and the subjection of mind, life and matter to these powers; finally, the possession of the supramental Light and Force, and through it the supramentalisation of earth-existence - this was the master-plan for the terrestrial transformation ...

K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   On The Mother
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The Life Divine  >  The Philosophy of Rebirth

... s of the universe; its divine Supermind or Gnosis has arranged the cosmic order, but arranged it indirectly through the three subordinate and limiting terms of which we are conscious here, Mind, Life and Matter. The material universe is Page 784 the lowest stage of a downward plunge of the manifestation, an involution of the manifested being of this triune Reality into an apparent nescience ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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On The Mother  >  Descent of Krishna

... character, how about the world of trees, plants and flowers, and of animals such as cows and cats and the rest? It was part of Mirra's mystic apprehension of omnipresent Reality that spirit, mind, life and matter were involved in one another in the cosmic drama, and the way of wisdom would be to infer or actually see the One behind the multiplicity of the phenomenal world. Hence the capital interest ...

K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   On The Mother
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Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2  >  The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

... governs and upholds the worlds. And it is the supramental power that transforms our mind, life and body—not the Sachchidananda consciousness which supports impartially everything. Mind, Life and Matter which constitute the lower hemisphere of existence are a triple aspect of the higher principles of the upper hemisphere but working here in subjection to the principle of Ignorance, and in ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2
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The Life Divine  >  The Triple Transformation

... harmony; its global action enables it indeed to create a harmony whole and perfect in itself or to unite or fuse its harmonies together, to synthetise; but, labouring under the restrictions of mind, life and matter, it is obliged to do it by sections and their joinings. Its tendency of totality is hampered by its selective tendency which is accentuated by the nature of the mental and life material in which ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  The Question of Avatarhood

... outer personality for his manifestation? Page 401 That would be a possession, not an Avatar. An Avatar is supposed to be from birth. Each soul at its birth takes from the cosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new external personality for himself. What prevents the Divine from doing the same? What is continued from birth to birth is the inner being. 18 December 1935 The Avatar and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram
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Sri Aurobindo And The Mother  >  Appendix

... that formula and is not a power for a dynamic transcendence. Here in earth-life it has to work upon a cosmic formula whose basis is the entire nescience which results from the separation of Mind, Life and Matter from their own source and supreme origin. Overmind can bridge that division up to the point at which separative Mind enters into Overmind and becomes a part of its action; it can unite individual ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo And The Mother
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Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history  >  The Supramental Manifesto

... love, joy and refined essence of being which is our true soul... 18 Like the subliminal psychic entity which is the true soul, there are also the subliminal or deeper realities of Mind, Life and Matter: The subliminal mind in us is open to the universal knowledge of the cosmic Mind, the subliminal life in us to the universal force of the cosmic Life, the Page 423 ...

K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history
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Isha Upanishad  >  Chapter V: The Soul, Causality and Law of Nature.

... conscious existence. We have, to start with, this fundamental divergence already noted between ordinary psychology & the psychology of Vedanta,—the former recognising only three principles, Mind, Life and Matter, or adding at most a fourth, Soul or Spirit, while the latter, with a deeper inlook, a wider outlook, a firmer foundation of daring experiment and probing analysis, distinguishes between various ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad
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The Signature Of Truth  >  SUPERMIND AND OVERMIND

... and Power that alone can utterly re-create life in terms of the Spirit. For, in the Overmind there is already the play of possibilities which marks the beginning of this lower triple world of Mind, Life and Matter in which we have our existence. And whenever there is this play and not the spontaneous and infallible working of the innate Truth of the Spirit, there is the seed of distortion and ignorance ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Signature Of Truth
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Questions and Answers (1929-1931)  >  Supermind and Overmind

... and Power that alone can utterly re-create life in terms of the Spirit. For, in the Overmind there is already the play of possibilities which marks the beginning of this lower triple world of Mind, Life and Matter in which we have our existence. And whenever there is this play and not the spontaneous and infallible working of the innate Truth of the Spirit, there is the seed of distortion and ignorance ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1929-1931)
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The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri  >  Hemispheres of Existence

... governs and upholds the worlds. And it is the supramental power that can transform mind, life and body - not the Sachchidananda consciousness which supports impartially everything. Mind, Life and Matter which constitute the lower hemisphere of existence are a triple aspect of the higher principles of the upper hemisphere but working here in subjection to the principle of Ignorance, and in apparent ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri
[exact]

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1  >  On Avatarhood

... use his outer personality for his manifestation?       That would be a possession not an Avatar. An Avatar is supposed to be from birth. Each soul at its birth takes from the cosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new external personality for himself. What prevents the Divine doing the same? What is continued from birth to birth is the inner being.         You wrote: "The Avatar is ...

Nagin Doshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1
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Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1  >  Centres and Planes of Consciousness

...       According to our system the three lower centres are the vital, the lower vital and the physical — but the planes are quite different. The three lower planes Page 8 are mind, life and matter and it is true that the human mind confines itself to these three activities. But it is not true that its activities are confined to the vital and physical things.       The Vedanta also ...

Nagin Doshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1
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Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  24 July 1957

... 24 July 1957 " In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable. It is only by the approach and arrival ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)
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The Psychic Being  >  The Double Soul

... the subliminal soul in us open to the universal delight which the cosmic soul takes in its own existence and in the existence of the myriad souls that represent it and in the operations of mind, life and matter by which Nature lends herself to their play and development; but from this cosmic delight the surface soul is shut off by egoistic walls of great thickness which have indeed gates of penetration ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Psychic Being
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Aspects of Sri Aurobindo  >  Supramental Avatar And Physical Transformation

... workings are the Avatars who have brought down the Supramental World into this lower triple universe?" I suppose you mean Avatars who came with the mission of establishing the Supermind in mind, life and matter on the earth. For, surely the Supramental World has not yet been brought down. Some Light, Force and Consciousness of it manifested in the subtle-physical on February 29, 1956 and the Supermind ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Aspects of Sri Aurobindo
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The Destiny of the Body  >  Metaphysics of Life and Death

... Real-Idea or Supermind." 3 This Supermind that is the divine Gnosis has created and arranged the cosmic order, but arranged it indirectly through three other subordinate and limiting terms, Mind, Life and Matter, which form by some sort of refraction in this lower hemisphere of existence a triple aspect of the divine quaternary, and work, "so far as our universe is concerned, in subjection to the ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body
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Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 5  >  A Note on Supermind

... for mind – apr ā pya manas ā saha. Supermind is not a function: It is a reality, the reality itself, the fundamental substance that underlies the world and its formulations of Mind, Life and Matter. It is that secret Energy of Consciousness and Being that lies as the seed and sprouts up and gradually expresses itself in its variant poises of mount­ing potency. These poises are not mere ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 5
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Nagin Bhai Tells Me  >  Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo on Avatarhood

... for his manifestation? Page 74 That would be a possession not an Avatar. An Avatar is supposed to be from birth. Each soul at its birth takes from the cosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new external personality for himself. What prevents the Divine doing the same? What is continued from birth to birth is the inner being. You wrote: "The Avatar is a special ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Nagin Bhai Tells Me
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The Life Divine  >  Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya

... Inconscience from which we arise in the evolution and inevitably destined to evolve, but are secretly present, occult actively with flashes of intuitive emergence in the cosmic activity of Mind, Life and Matter. It is true that their action is concealed and, even when they emerge, it is modified by the medium, material, vital, mental in which they work and not easily recognisable. Supermind cannot ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Our Many Selves  >  The Superconscient

... and Power that alone can utterly re-create life in terms of the Spirit. For, in the Overmind there is already the play of possibilities which marks the beginning of this lower triple world of Mind, Life and Matter in which we have our existence. And whenever there is this play and not the spontaneous and infallible working of the innate Truth of the Spirit, there is the seed of distortion and ignorance ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves
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The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Realisation of the Cosmic Self

... of the divine Ananda, feel all the action of the universal mind flowing into our mentality and our thought-action flowing out upon it as a wave into that wide sea. This unity embracing all mind, life and matter in the light of a supramental Truth and the pulse of a spiritual Bliss will be to us our internal fulfilment of the Divine in a complete cosmic consciousness. But since we must embrace all ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga
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Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Supermind in the Evolution

... natural place and no longer be a matter of doubt or questioning to an intelligence bewildered by the complexity of the world; it would appear as the inevitable consequence of the nature of mind, life and Matter, the fulfilment of their meaning, their inherent principle and tendencies, the necessary perfection of their imperfection, the summit to which all are climbing, the consummation of divine existence ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
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The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2  >  Our Ideal

... ess, however, there are varying degrees, in accordance with the nature of the work it has got to do. In the inferior ranges of evolutionary Nature—the lower hemisphere, as it is called, of Mind, Life and Matter— Descent is partial and indirect and relative, the aim being a more or less reconditioning of Matter, not its thorough transformation: this becomes possible when Nature has risen to Mind and ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2
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Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Our Ideal

... s, however, there are varying degrees, in accordance with the nature of the work it has got to do. In the inferior ranges of evolutionary Nature – the lower hemisphere, as it is called, of Mind, Life and Matter-Descent is partial and indirect and relative, the aim being a more or less reconditioning of Matter, not its thorough transformation: this becomes possible when Nature Page 30 ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3
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A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  Supermind In The Evolution

... natural place and no .longer be a matter of doubt or questioning to an intelligence bewildered by the complexity of the world; it would appear as the inevitable consequence of the nature of mind, life and Matter, the fulfilment of their meaning, their inherent principle and tendencies, the necessary perfection of their imperfection, the summit to which all are climbing, the consummation of divine existence ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal
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The Destiny of the Body  >  The Descent of the Supermind

... Supermind that is sustaining and governing this manifested lower worlds by its self-concealed power and law. But at present the Supermind is involved and hidden behind this lower triplicity of mind, life and matter: it cannot act overtly or in its own intrinsic power, because of the absence of proper instrumentation in the earth-nature. Its "power veils itself and [its] law works unseen through the ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body
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Isha Upanishad  >  The Isha Upanishad

... to its own law of motion but containing latent, expressed or half-apparent in itself its six sisters or companions. Nature is composed of Being, Will or Force, Creative Bliss, Pure Idea, Mind, Life and Matter,—Sat, Chit or Tapas, Ananda, Vijnanam, Manas, Prana and Annam. The Soul, Purusha, can seat itself in any of these principles and, according to its situation, its outlook changes and it sees ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad
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Savitri  >  Philosophy

... describes Sri Aurobindo as "a self-exiled and self-imprisoned Dante" and The Life Divine as, "a philosophical Divina Commedia having its Inferno in the Spirit's descent into the ignorance of mind, life and matter, its Purgatorio in the ascent to the true knowledge of the so-called Supermind and its Paradiso in the ineffable mysteries of Satchidananda. His spiritual guides, his Virgil and Beatrice, ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri
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The Life Divine  >  Matter

... relative and instrumental sense; it has an unlimited power of combination, but its creative motives and forms come to it from above: all created forms have their base in the Infinite above Mind, Life and Matter and are here represented, reconstructed—very usually misconstructed—from the infinitesimal. Their foundation is above, their branchings downward, says the Rig Veda. The superconscient Mind of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best  >  Spirituality and Yoga

... systematic and methodized pursuit of spirituality and direct spiritual experience. Spirituality, in its distinctiveness, aims at the knowledge and possession of the Spirit, as distinguished from Mind, Life and Matter; it pursues Spirit as an object of knowledge and not merely as an object to be merely believed in by an act of faith or under the pressure of the claims of dogma. Spirituality is distinguishable ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best
[exact]

The Life Divine  >  The Supreme Truth-Consciousness

... the fundamental knowledge from which it proceeds to the play of the cosmos. But what then is the origin of mentality and the organisation of this lower consciousness in the triple terms of Mind, Life and Matter which is our view of the universe? For since all things that exist must proceed from the action of the all-efficient Supermind, from its operation in the three original terms of Existence, ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision  >  Appendix (Aesthesis Higher than Mental)

... _______________ ³ Life Divine 4 Letters Vol. III Page 101 "As yet there is no Overmind language created Overmind, used by Overmind beings." "Overmind has to take mind, life and Matter as its medium and field, work under their dominant condition accept their fundamental law and method." "Overmind has to use a language which has been made by mind, not by itself." " It can ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision
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The Life Divine  >  The Two Negations: The Materialist Denial

... energy of sensibility imprisoned in its material formulation; and when the dividing ignorance is cured which gives us the sense of a gulf between Life and Matter, it is difficult to suppose that Mind, Life and Matter will be found to be anything else than one Energy triply formulated, the triple world of the Vedic seers. Nor will the conception then be able to endure of a brute material Force as the mother ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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Sri Aurobindo - The Poet  >  Swan of the Supreme and Spaceless Ether

... our mentality and our thought-action flowing out upon it as a wave into that wide sea. This unity embracing 1 Ibid., pp. 423-24 2 Ibid., pp. 424-25. Page 300 all mind, life and matter in the light of a supramental Truth and the pulse of a spiritual Bliss will be to us our internal fulfilment of the Divine in a complete cosmic consciousness." 1 Our approach through ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - The Poet
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Supermind in Integral Yoga  >  Part Six

... Systems of Yoga Against this background, there was a need to review the entire fund of knowledge pertaining to the nature of liberation and perfection as also to the Spirit, Supermind, Mind, Life and Matter. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as a result of a vast research, the dimensions of which covered all the planes of existence and intricate secrets of psychology, occultism and spirituality, have ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Supermind in Integral Yoga
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Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  6: The Chain of Being

... Guardian, the Invincible, and from beyond he upholds their laws. Scan the workings of Vishnu and see from when he has manifested their laws.” 11 “It is difficult to suppose,” he wrote, “that Mind, Life and Matter will be found to be anything else than one Energy triply formulated, the triple world of the Vedic seers.” And he affirmed: “The old Vedic knowledge will be justified,” 12 not because it ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God
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Beyond Man  >  Chapter Twelve: Krishna and the World of the Gods

... is here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above,’ 8 writes Sri Aurobindo in a letter. In The Life Divine he says about the Gods and the Overmind: ‘If ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Beyond Man
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Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Triple Status of Supermind

... that we know,—in mind, life and body—in the mental, vital and physical worlds, so to speak. They are a working out of that principle. Now in these chapters Sri Aurobindo is trying to show that Mind, Life and Matter are a working of the Supermind from behind the veil. These chapters are devoted to the development of the idea that Supermind first projects out of itself, the Truth-Consciousness ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine
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Essays on the Gita  >  The Supreme Word of the Gita

... the impalpable background of the One and Absolute, but because of its blind encumbered and limited working misrepresents to the human mind by the figure of ego and other inadequate figures of mind, life and matter the greater sense, the deeper realities of existence. There is a supreme, a divine Nature which is the true creatrix of the universe. All creatures and all objects are becomings of the one divine ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita
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The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Master of the Work

... greater step to be taken after the surrender of our instrumental ego to the Divine Shakti. It is not enough to know her as the one Cosmic Force that moves us and all creatures on the planes of mind, life and matter; for this is the lower Nature and, although the Divine Knowledge, Light, Power are there concealed and at work in this Ignorance and can break partly its veil and manifest something of their ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga
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Our Light and Delight  >  The Mother, Sri Aurobindo and the Procession of the Avatars

... the same conditions as attend the birth of any man? What these conditions are as well as what the Avatar does we gather from Sri Aurobindo:¹ "Each soul at its birth takes from the cosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new external personality for himself. What prevents the Divine from doing the same? What is continued from birth to birth is the inner being." Evidently the Avatar is not only ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Our Light and Delight
[exact]

A Greater Psychology  >  Sri Aurobindo on the Structure and Organisation of the Being

... here that begins the separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their working out as if they were independent truths and this is a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind, Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation, separation from the indivisible Truth above. 48 It is (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly) by the power of the overmind releasing ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology
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Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Vedic Knowledge and Supermind in the Light of Sri Aurobindo

... ess and Bliss. So, you now see that the world, as seen in Vedic times, consisted of these planes: the three highest Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. Then comes the supermind, and then come mind, life and matter. This was their world-knowledge. I must say that I am making a great injustice to the Veda by summarising so primitively and so briefly, so naively. But this is the basic formula, you might ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays
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Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-3-Part-2

... cannot see".— Letters Vol III. "As yet there is no Overmind language created by Overmind, used by Overmind beings"— Letters Vol. III. Page 264 "Overmind has to take mind, life and Matter as its medium and field, work under their dominant condition, accept their fundamental law and method".—-Letters Vol. III. "Overmind has to use a language which has been made by mind ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study
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Letters on Poetry and Art  >  Examples of Overhead Poetry

... harmonisation of all possibles, for which the intervention of the highest Truth-Consciousness, the Super mind, would be indispensable. But at present the intervention of Overmind has to take mind, life and matter as its medium and field, work under their dominant conditions, accept their fundamental law and method; its own can enter in only initially or partially and under the obstacle of a prevailing ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Poetry and Art
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Overman  >  4: A First Sketch of Supermanhood

... main rungs of the ladder of being, covering the whole of existence. In the “upper hemisphere” there is Existence, Consciousness-Force, Bliss, and Supermind; in the “lower hemisphere” there is Mind, Life and Matter. Supermind is the manifesting aspect of the Absolute. It is a Truth-Consciousness, a Unity-Consciousness, it is the Brahman with attributes that are usually ascribed to God. We should never ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Overman
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Child, Teacher and Teacher Education  >  Philosophy of Spiritual Education 2

... systematic and methodized pursuit of spirituality and direct spiritual experience. Spirituality, in its distinctiveness, aims at the knowledge and possession of the Spirit, as distinguished from Mind, Life and Matter; it pursues Spirit as an object of knowledge and not merely as an object to be merely believed in by an act of faith or under the pressure of the claims of dogma. Spirituality is distinguishable ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Child, Teacher and Teacher Education
[exact]

The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System and The Mother's Contribution to it  >  The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System

... is the Supramental world, with the four Maha-Shaktis, aspects of the Divine Mother: Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. Below the Supermind and behind the universe of Mind, Life and Matter is the world of the Great Gods. They receive light from the Supramental. It is they that govern our universe. Hindu culture represented these Gods as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva in the Puranas ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Spiritual System and The Mother's Contribution to it
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Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness

... which changed the material groove, then the introduction of Mind into Life, which changed the vital and material grooves. The Supermind represents a third change of groove, which will change Mind, Life, and Matter. This change has already begun; the experience is in progress. Essentially, the supramental process works to free the consciousness contained in each element. It does not upset the universal ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
[exact]

The Indian Spirit and the World's Future  >  The Spiritual Life and World-Problems: Two Letters to a Seeker

... soul and receiving something of its light. Mind, Life Force, Matter are themselves the Divine concealed, and the soul is just the centre and guide of a world which is not ultimately a contradiction of its divine spark but a veiled perfection which it has to clear of encumbrances and help to unveil. A divine Mind, a divine Life Force, even a divine Matter have to be realised and established. Then alone... suppose, a few general words could hold the heart of the matter. Let me first repeat your question: "Why do we come into this world and whither are we going?" I'll begin with the words: "this world." What is the nature of this world? It seems to start in brute matter without consciousness. It develops the quivering of life. It attains the level of mind. It keeps straining beyond the mental. It is a world... certain mind-made rules of ethics. The ethical endeavour has considerable value, but it cannot eradicate the evil from the roots. Our present mental-vital-physical status lacks the light and the force by which alone suffering and conflict can be avoided. We have to explore our deeper ranges of being, bring into the forefront the inner self, the true soul, call down into the mind and the life-energy ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Indian Spirit and the World's Future
[closest]

The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Existence of Spiritual Force

... spiritual entity, the power of an original consciousness, whether it be Maya or Shakti, and the result an illusion or real. In the world so far as man is concerned we are aware only of mind energy, life energy, energy in matter; but it is supposed that there is a spiritual energy or force also behind them from which they originate. All things, in either case, are the results of a Shakti, energy or force... force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the means which these energies use, or it may act directly on mind, life or matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either way is prima facie possible. In a case of cure of illness, someone is lying ill for two days, weak, suffering from pains and fever;... statement about spiritual force is another matter, but I doubt whether the time has come for it or whether it could be understood by the mere reasoning intelligence. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - II: The Divine Force All the world, according to Science, is nothing but a play of Energy—a material Energy it used to be called, but it is now doubted whether Matter, scientifically speaking, exists except ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life
[closest]

Letters on Yoga - II  >  The Divine Force

... now doubted whether Matter, scientifically speaking, exists except as a phenomenon of Energy. All the world, according to Vedanta, is a play of a power of a spiritual entity, the power of an original consciousness, whether it be Maya or Shakti, and the result an illusion or real. In the world so far as man is concerned we are aware only of mind energy, life energy, energy in matter; but it is supposed... force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the means which these energies use, or it may act directly on mind, life or matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either way is prima facie possible. In a case of cure of illness, someone is lying ill for two days, weak, suffering from pains and fever;... attitude, the external concrete only and refuses to join to it the internal concrete—or if the physical Mind at every step raises a dance of doubts which refuses to allow the nascent experience to develop. Even the scientist carrying out a new experiment would never succeed if he allowed his mind to behave in that way. Concrete? what do you mean by "concrete"? 1 It [ spiritual force ] has ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  Gnosis and Ananda

... plane in each lower world of consciousness. But in the lower planes not only is it reached by a sort of dissolution into it of the pure mind or the life-sense or the physical awareness, but it is, as it were, itself diluted by the dissolved form of mind, life or matter, held in the dilution and turned into a poor thinness wonderful to the lower consciousness but not comparable to its true intensities... descent even on the lower planes where the Purusha plays with his modified and qualified Nature. There can be the experience of a spiritual and boundless Ananda on the plane of matter, on the plane of life, on the plane of mind as well as on the gnostic truth-plane of knowledge and above it. And the Yogin who enters into these lesser realisations, may find them so complete and compelling that he will... of the mind-Nature. But since the mental being is capable of receiving the gnosis in a way in which the life soul and physical soul cannot receive it, since he can accept it with knowledge though only the limited knowledge of a mental response, he may to a certain extent govern by its light his outer action or, if not that, at least bathe and purify in it his will and his thinkings. But Mind can arrive ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

The Secret of the Veda  >  The Doctrine of the Mystics

... Bliss—Ananda World of creative delight of existence (Janaloka) 4) Knowledge or Truth—Vijnana World of the Vastness (Maharloka) 5) Mind World of light (Swar) 6) Life (nervous being) Worlds of various becoming (Bhuvar) 7) Matter The material world (Bhur) Now this system which in the Purana is simple enough, is a good deal more intricate in the Veda. There... Sat-Chit-Ananda The triple divine worlds 2) The Link-World Supermind   The Truth, Right, Vast, manifested in Swar, with its three luminous heavens 3) The triple lower world Pure Mind Life-force Matter Heaven (Dyaus, the three heavens) The Mid-Region (Antariksha) Earth (the three earths) And as each principle can be modified by the subordinate manifestation of the others within... our works. The Rishis and the Gods find for us our luminous herds; the Ribhus fashion by the mind the chariots of the gods and their horses and their shining weapons. Our life is a horse that neighing and galloping bears us onward and upward; its forces are swift-hooved steeds, the liberated powers of the mind are wide-winging birds; this mental being or this soul is the upsoaring Swan or the Falcon ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Secret of the Veda

A Greater Psychology  >  Validity of Supraphysical and Spiritual Experience

... only what Matter is and what are its processes, but what mind and life are and what are their processes, and one must know also spirit and soul and all that is behind the material surface: only then can we have a knowledge sufficiently integral for a solution of the problem. For the same reason those views of existence which arise from an exclusive or predominant preoccupation with Mind or with... all that is beyond the universe. The Mind, in seeking for such a Reality and testing each thing from Matter upwards to see if that might not be It, has not proceeded on a wrong intuition. All that is necessary is to carry the inquiry to its end and test the highest and ultimate levels of experience. The Life Divine, pp. 648-54 Yoga is not a matter of theory or dogma, like philosophy... knowledge of Reality. In our view the Spirit, the Self is the fundamental reality of existence; but an exclusive concentration on this fundamental reality to the exclusion of all reality of Mind, Life or Matter except as an imposition on the Self or unsubstantial shadows cast by the Spirit might help to an independent and radical spiritual realisation but not to an integral and valid solution of ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Life Divine  >  Reality and the Integral Knowledge

... what Matter is and what are its processes, but what mind and life are and what are their processes, and one must know also spirit and soul and all that is behind the material surface: only then can we have a knowledge sufficiently integral for a solution of the problem. For the same reason those views of existence which arise from an exclusive or predominant preoccupation with Mind or with Life and... In our view the Spirit, the Self is the fundamental reality of existence; Page 679 but an exclusive concentration on this fundamental reality to the exclusion of all reality of Mind, Life or Matter except as an imposition on the Self or unsubstantial shadows cast by the Spirit might help to an independent and radical spiritual realisation but not to an integral and valid solution of the... vain round of recurrence, we must escape from the cycles of Nature into the formlessness and featurelessness of permanent Being. Ashamed of Matter and its grossness, impatient of the purposeless stir and trouble of Life, tired out by the goalless running of Mind or convinced of the vanity of all its aims and objects, we have to release ourselves into the eternal repose and purity of the Spirit. The ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Wonder that is K D Sethna alias Amal Kiran  >  The Wonder That is K. D. Sethna alias Amal Kiran

... soul and receiving something of its light. Mind, Life-Force, Matter are themselves the Divine concealed, and the soul is just the centre and guide of a world which is not ultimately a contradiction of its divine spark but a veiled perfection which it has to clear of encumbrances and help to unveil. A divine Mind, a divine Life-Force, even a divine Matter have to be realised and established. Then alone... suppose, a few general words could hold the heart of the matter. Let me first repeat your question: ‘Why do we come into this world and whither are we going?’ I’ll begin with the words:' this world’. What is the nature of this world? It seems to start in brute matter without consciousness. It develops the quiverings of life. It attains the level of mind. It keeps straining beyond the mental. It is a world... Secrecy awaits... the godlike original of every part of us. Not merely are an ideal mind and life-force there, ready to descend, but a perfect body exists as well - a super-physicality which will transfigure the present 'vesture of decay in which the soul has had to play its role on the terrestrial stage in life after life for millennia." (4) "I'll deal with one more question of yours today: 'How ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Wonder that is K D Sethna alias Amal Kiran

The Life Divine  >  Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti

... exists as its forms or its movements; this is an Absolute which takes all relativities in its embrace. The Upanishads affirm that all this is the Brahman; Mind is Brahman, Life is Brahman, Matter is Brahman; addressing Vayu, the Lord of Air, of Life, it is said "O Vayu, thou art manifest Brahman"; and, pointing to man and beast and bird and insect, each separately is identified with the One,—"O Brahman... Prakriti without Purusha is inert, mechanical, inconscient. Prakriti develops as its formal self and basis of action primal Matter and in it manifests life and sense and mind and intelligence; but intelligence too, since it is part of Nature and its product in primal Matter, is also inert, mechanical, inconscient,—a conception which sheds a certain light on the order and perfectly related workings... Infinite Consciousness to preside over that world and a holding back of all that is not needed for that movement. In the same way the putting forth of an independent action of some power like Mind, Life or Matter must have as its support a similar principle of self-limitation. It cannot be said that such a movement must be impossible for the Infinite, because it is illimitable; on the contrary, this ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume II  >  Correspondence 1935

... now doubted whether Matter, scientifically speaking, exists except as a phenomenon of Energy. All the world, according to Vedanta, is a play of a power of a spiritual entity, the power of an original consciousness, whether it be Maya or Shakti, and the result an illusion or real. In the world so far as man is concerned we are aware only of mind-energy, life-energy, energy in Matter; but it is supposed... psychic work in the human being, 1 could very well point to the letter and say "like that". The ordinary vital is another guess thing! The psychic is the soul, the divine spark animating matter and life and mind and as it grows it takes form and expresses itself through these three touching them to beauty and fineness—-it works even before humanity in the lower creation leading it up towards the... supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies or [through?] their means, or it may act directly on mind, life or matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either way is prima facie possible. In a case of cure or illness, someone is ill for two days, weak, suffering from pains and fever; he ...

Dilip Kumar Roy   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume II

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  Matter

... substance from matter to life does not seem to help very much. When the substance that is matter takes up mind, then mind becomes incapable, "half-blind", looses its freedom, its wings are clipped, its feet are tied to the earth. Matter is mind, life is animal grossness, mind is rendered impotent. Now this view that acceptance of the substance of matter, by life or by mind, or by mind and life together,... embodies life or mind, it allows life and mind to change it a little. It allows life or mind to make a little modification or change in its inertia or inconscience. To a very small measure inertia does respond to the demand of mind or life but prevents a total conquest of ignorance. And this is because matter is the principle of division carried to the last point. The basis of action of matter therefore... this attitude as the last word of wisdom because life or mind are limited in their operations when they are encased in matter would not be the correct solution. It may be the first reaction of mind because to mind matter is ignorance at its height. The acme of ignorance is matter; it does not know, because it has no mind. Page 228 Matter is blind and inconscient, it creates and destroys ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  Kena Upanishad: An Incomplete Commentary

... rousing by the shock of their contact & awakening to activity the latent life & mind in matter. That life & mind in matter would then proceed, under the superior help & impulse, to organise a nervous system for the use of life and a system of life-movements Page 302 in the nerves for the use of mind fit to express in matter the superior organisations who have descended here. It was indeed the... the sound that touches the ear is immediately taken in by the mind-informed life, the mind-informed & life-informed matter & becomes a part of the experience of Brahman in that system. Not only does it create a vibration in body, a stream of movement in life but also an impression in mind. This is inevitable, because mind, life & matter are one. Where one is, the others are, manifest or latent, involved... might be called an unconscious mind in plants, although in some there are even vague movements of intelligence, the life system organised is suitable only for the flow of rasa, sap, sufficient for mere life, not for prana, nerve force, necessary for the operation in matter of mind. Apah is sufficient for life, vayu is necessary for life capable of mind. In the animal life is organised on a different plan ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Appendix II: Matter

... true and complete conquest and taking up of body by life, of life by mind, of all three by the spirit. This can seem possible only when we have found the real truth of Matter as of Soul, Mind and Life. As Life is found to be force of Spirit, and Mind to be consciousness of Spirit, so Matter is found to be body and substance of Spirit. Matter as a thing in itself is non-existent. What we see of... the condemnation put by most religions upon Matter. The conflict begins with Life and increases as higher principles evolve. There is a discord between Life and Matter ending in death, the defeat of Life; but really there is a constant compromise, Life usingMatter and even death for its own continuance: Mind struggles with the limitations of life and matter, and there is a half victory, a constant... Chapter XXIV Appendix II: Matter Life then is not an inexplicable dream or impossible evil; it is a force of being, a pulsation of the divine All-existence capable of divine outflowering. But there still remains the problem of Matter. This problem is of a fundamental importance. For all here, mind, life, body, depend on Matter, evolve out of it; Matter is their support, conditions their ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Necessity of Supermind

... As Life is limited and hampered by the conditions of its synthesis with Matter, so Mind is limited and hampered by the conditions of its synthesis with Life in Matter. Neither Matter nor Life has found anything proper to their own formula which could help to conquer or sufficiently expand its limitations; they have been compelled each to call in a new principle, Matter to call into itself Life, Life... the sense in Mind. If, then, such a deeper principle of consciousness exists, it must be that and not mind which is the original and fundamental intention concealed in Nature and which eventually and somewhere must emerge. But is there any reason for supposing that it must emerge here and in Mind, as Mind has emerged in Life and Life in Matter? We answer in the affirmative because Mind has in itself... already a principle of Mind striving towards self-manifestation. The will to enlighten and consciously govern the life and the form must have been already existent in that which appears to us inconscient; it must have been there before mind was evolved. For, if there were no such necessity of Mind in Matter, if the stuff of mentality were not there already and the will to mentalise, Mind could not possibly ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  Evolution in the Vedantic View

... relations. Life here evolves in body; mind here evolves in vitalised substance. It is not enough to say, as we have said, that the conception of Brahman is stamped in grain of mind, through mind in grain of life, through life in grain of matter & so produces particular form. For what we actually start with seems to be not life moulding matter, but life evolving out Page 419 of matter or at least... Ananda which we call life, matter, mind, Page 418 are eternally one in themselves embracing a diversity of mere transient forms & individual activities which emerge from, abide in & one day return into their totality, material form into the substance of the pancha bhutas, individual life into the oceanic surge of the world-pervading life principle, individual mind, whenever that is dissolved... least in matter. Afterwards, no doubt, its needs & circumstances react on matter & help to mould it. Even if we suppose the first moulding to be only latent life and mind, the primacy of matter has to be explained. Page 420 × It is not known what "idea" Sri Aurobindo is referring to here, or whether the writing ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Matter

... the Arya Essays in Philosophy and Yoga Chapter XXIV Matter Argument Life and Mind are in the fact of evolution conditioned by the body and therefore by the principle of Matter. The body is the chief difficulty in the way of a spiritual transformation of life; it has therefore been regarded by spiritual aspiration as an enemy and the escape from the... material existence has been made an indispensable condition of the final emancipation.—The quarrel begins with the struggle between Life and Matter with the apparent defeat of life in death as its constant circumstance; it continues with the struggle of the Mind against the life and the body and culminates with the struggle of the spirit against all its instruments; but the right end and solution of these... the problem of the reality of Matter. Our present experience of Matter does not give us its truth; forMatter is only an appearance of the Reality, a form of its force-action presented to the principle of sense in the universal consciousness. As Mind is only a final dividing action of Supermind and Life of Conscious-Force working in the conditions of the Ignorance, so Matter as we know it is only the final ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Life Divine  >  The Knot of Matter

... dynamic force of Life, as this dynamic but apparently unconscious Life secretes within it an ever-working unapparent Mind of whose secret dealings it is the overt energy, as this ignorant, unillumined and groping Mind in the living body is supported and sovereignly guided by its own real self, the Supermind, which is there equally in unmentalised Matter, so all Matter as well as all Life, Mind and Supermind... inertia, obstruction, negation and even persuades Life and Mind that they cannot go farther, cannot pursue to the end their partial victory. Life strives to enlarge and prolong itself and succeeds; but when it seeks utter wideness and immortality, it meets the iron obstruction of Matter and finds itself bound to narrowness and death. Mind seeks to aid life and to fulfil its own impulse to embrace all knowledge... cut out of the difficulty,—as undoubtedly it is; but a short cut or any cut is no solution. Still, there, in Matter undoubtedly lies the crux; that raises the obstacle: for because of Matter Life is gross and limited and stricken with death and pain, because of Page 256 Matter Mind is more than half blind, its wings clipped, its feet tied to a narrow perch and held back from the vastness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Science, Materialism, Mysticism  >  Matter Life Mind

... And on an involutionary and evolutionary plane of matter, with life and mind not functioning in the way in which on the other planes matter and mind or else life and matter do, - that is, openly from the very start, though in subordination - life and mind cannot be bound to subordination always in the way in which matter and mind or else life and matter are bound on those planes. The graded emergence... of both life and mind in blind brute matter. Matter, merely subordinating life and mind, would be quite a different thing: life and mind, though always subordinate, would always be manifest in it and there would be no travail of them, no conflict with the material base and continent. Such matter would be, like life and mind on their own planes, "typal". And it is exactly such matter's existence... involved or concealed form of life life and upon life as an involved or concealed form of mind,without implying merely a reductionism from the higher end. This view which at the same time makes matter pro-file and anti-life as well as life pro-mind and anti-mind provides the rationale of what we actually observe: life manifesting in Page 282 matter and utilising by fighting it to a considerable ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Science, Materialism, Mysticism

The Life Divine  >  Life

... truth of that which they are. Consequently, the triple world that we live in, the world of Mind-Life-Body, is triple only in its actual accomplished evolution. Life involved in Matter has emerged in the form of thinking and mentally conscious life. But with Mind, involved in it and therefore in Life and Matter, is the Supermind, which is the origin and ruler of the other three, and this also must emerge... on its own forms but on forms of life and matter; it connects, too, and supports, as a middle term between them, the mutual commerce of the two, mind and matter. This means of commerce Life provides in the continual currents of her pulsating nerve-energy which carry force of the form as a sensation to modify Mind and bring back force of Mind as will to modify Matter. It is therefore this nerve-energy... of sense-mind and intelligence. It is in the middle stage that we catch the idea of Life as distinguished from Matter and Mind, but in reality it is the same in all the stages and always a middle term between Mind and Matter, constituent of the latter and instinct with the former. It is an operation of Conscious-Force which is neither the mere formation of substance nor the operation of mind with substance ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Appendix I: The Human Aspiration

... already there. Matter is a form of veiled Life; Life a form of veiled Mind; Mind may well be a form and veil of a higher power, the Spirit, which is supramental in its nature. Nature has implanted an impulse towards life in certain forms of Matter and evolves it there, a similar evolutionary impulse towards mind in certain forms of life, an impulse in certain minds towards what is beyond Mind, towards the... accordance of a mortal mind, life and body with a secretly indwelling immortal spirit is the final problem; the spiritualisation or divinisation of mind, life and body, a divine life, would be the perfect solution. The search after these solutions by the human being is not irrational; it is rather the very effort and striving of Nature within him. Life appears in Matter, Mind in Life because they are... The accordance of immortal spirit with a mortal mind, life and body is her third and final problem; its complete solution would be the evolution of a divine being and a divine nature. As Nature has implanted the impulse to life in matter, to mind in life, so she has implanted in mind the impulse towards the evolution of what is beyond mind, spiritual, supramental. Each impulse justifies itself ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Human Aspiration

... says, you accept that when life comes out of matter, or the inconscient, it was involved already there in some form of potentiality, in some form of itself. Life must have been there in the inconscient matter. It is then that it can come into being. Mind, when it comes out of Life, must have been in matter already involved before evolution from matter to life, from life to mind could take place. Then he... faculties, capacities of mind, of life, of search, of discovery, of reason and try to find out. He cannot rest at his present level. Movement toward perfection is possible. Now, that brings the question as to how life has come into being. Is life the result of Matter, of the Inconscient Energy ? Life seems to arise from the inconscient energy, and this life again gives rise to Mind. Why should the ... there is no contradiction, Matter itself is the spirit involved, or with a mask, so to say; and Spirit is holding all the potentialities of Matter within itself. There is a complete indivisible series from Matter to Spirit: Matter to Life, to Mind, to Supermind, to the Spirit is a graded scale or a hierarchy. Some say the pure Spirit is real but Matter is mechanical, inert, unconscious, therefore ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects  >  Sri Aurobindo's Message Of Synthesis

... one to the other such as life, mind, super-mind and the grades that link mind to supermind ; then only the identification and identity between the two become complete and we can, according to Sri Aurobindo, envisage a divine life upon the earth with Matter as the pedestal and Spirit as the summit of that life. Spirit is the soul and reality of what we call Matter and Matter is the body and form of... differing only in manifestation. Matter is Spirit involved and Spirit is Matter evolved out of its own involution—a play of hide and seek leading to self-discovery. It is the constant urge of the hidden Spirit to emerge out of its involution that has created the successive steps in the ascension of consciousness into life, mind, higher mind, illumined mind, intuition, over mind—and supermind as the last term... term of its self-expression. In divine life, this supermind has to be reached through a complete annulment of the separative and limited ego-consciousness and its powers brought down to mind, life and body to create a divine life in Matter through a total and radical transformation of their nature and substance. In Yoga also which is the practical side of his philosophy, the triple part of Karma ...

Jibendra Kumar Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

Essays Divine and Human  >  Man and Superman

... apparent inconscience only the three powers of Mind and Life and Matter. 60 Matter, one might say from a certain viewpoint, is purely a matter of mathematics. That cannot be said of Mind or of Life. Then again, Matter is a matter of formulas. Everything purely material is created according to a formula. Page 244 Again, Matter is a matter of magic. It is a thing of magical and irrational... evolved is form of matter with life and mind housed in it, what has yet to be evolved is supermind liberating from their narrow limits and transforming mind and life and matter. Here on earth and in the material universe matter has been the first term, the basis of things, the condition of all that must evolve here. Life can evolve here only so far as it can persuade or compel matter to give it a form... here and for their evolutionary possibilities in the world of Matter. A world of subtle Matter presses on the shapeless Inconscient for the manifestation of forms; a world of essential Life presses on form of Matter for the manifestation of an embodied life; a world of essential Mind presses on animate life for the manifestation of mind in the living body. This compulsion is so great as to contradict ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  An Aspect of Emergent Evolution

... they inevitably lead. After Matter came Life; that is to say, out of Matter came Life, and that can only be because Life was involved in Matter. And if such a conclusion makes of Matter a potentially living thing, we shall have to accept the position. In the same way, Mind that followed Life came out of Life, because Mind was involved in Life; and if that means endowing Life with a secret mentality, well... explanation hardly explains. It simply posits the existence of Matter and Life and Mind and whatever is to come hereafter in the infinity of God, but the passage from one to another, the connecting link between two succeeding terms, and the necessity of the link, are left as obscure as before. Life is tagged on to Matter and Mind is tagged on to Life in the name of the Lord God. Bertrand Russell made a... materialist like Professor Broad would consider Mind and Life as fundamentally formations of Matter, however different they might seem from each other and from the latter. Water, the so-called miracle product of Oxygen and Hydrogen, according to him, is as material as these two; even so Life and Mind, however miraculously produced, being born of Matter, are nothing but the same single reality, only ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2  >  An Aspect of Emergent Evolution

... they inevitably lead. After Matter came Life; that is to say, out of Matter came Life, and that can only be because Life was involved in Matter. And if such a conclusion makes of Matter a potentially living thing, we shall have to accept the position. In the same way, Mind that followed Life came out of life, because Mind was involved in Life; and if that means endowing Life with a secret mentality, well... explanation hardly explains. It simply posits the existence of Matter and Life and Mind and whatever is to come hereafter in the infinity of God, but the passage from one to another, the connecting link between two succeeding terms, and the necessity of the link, are left as obscure as before. Life is tagged on to Matter and Mind is tagged on to Life in the name of the Lord God. Bertrand Russell made... materialist like Professor Broad would consider Mind and Life as fundamentally formations of Matter, however different they might seem from each other and from the latter. Water, the so-called miracle-product of Oxygen and Hydrogen, according to him, is as material as these two; even so, Life and Mind, however miraculously produced, being born of Matter, are nothing but the same single reality, only ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2

Hitler and his God  >  A Double Ladder

... planes of consciousness that like a double ladder lapse into the nescience of Matter and climb back again through the flowering of life and soul and mind into the infinity of the Spirit”. 931 This is how the gradations of existence as we know them came about: matter, life, mind, and the planes where all what surpasses the mind comes from. These gradations are also called “the great chain of being”. Arthur... principles] implicit in itself … In fact, life, mind, Supermind are present in the atom.” Ultimately “Matter is a form of Spirit, a habitation of Spirit, and here in Matter itself there can be a realization of Spirit.” For “Matter itself is a substance and power of spirit and could not exist if it were anything else.” 933 ... major opus The Life Divine. “But very little light has been shed on the inner side, the side of consciousness, and what little has been observed is rather of its physical basis and instrumentation than of the progressive operations of Consciousness in its own nature. “In the evolution, as it has been observed so far, although a continuity is there – for Life takes up Matter and Mind takes up submental ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Hitler and his God

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  The Place of Reason

... principles of matter, life and mind. They are separate and distinct from one point of view-the logical and practical. But life came out of matter, and then mind out of life--that is the evolutionary conception. In other words, matter shades off into life, there is a point where it is difficult to say whether it is matter or life; similarly there is a point where life shades off into mind, where mind and life... life are fused together. We can further say that in matter there is a life and there is a mind, and in life there is a matter and a mind and in mind too there is a matter and a life. But these facts of Nature are disconcerting to the one-track mind of the logical philosopher and make the confusion worse confounded for him. Page 339 for whom things are either black or white. In the global... good company of the ancient Rishis – as an instrument for the discovery or realisation of the Absolute or the integral Reality, he asserts, on the other hand, almost in the same breath as it were, that mind can have some idea or conception of what is beyond it, which it so often vainly strives to seize or represent. Evidently, the rationalist logic fails to hold together the two ends, as it is further ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

The Life Divine  >  The Ascending Series of Substance

... Tantriks of India had long ago reduced this matter of the higher human life and body to a science. They had discovered six nervous centres of life in the dense body corresponding to six centres of life and mind faculty in the subtle, and they had found out subtle physical exercises by which these centres, now closed, could be opened up, the higher psychical life proper to our subtle existence entered into... forces, life-movements, sense-movements, Page 270 thought-movements, developments, culminations, self-fulfilments of that world must be dominated and determined by this initial fact of Conscious-Life to which Matter and Mind must subject themselves, must start from that, base themselves upon that, be limited or enlarged by its laws, powers, capacities, limitations; and if Mind there seeks... Omnipresent Reality and the Universe Omnipresent Reality and the Universe The Life Divine Chapter XXVI The Ascending Series of Substance There is a self that is of the essence of Matter—there is another inner self of Life that fills the other—there is another inner self of Mind—there is another inner self of Truth-Knowledge—there is another inner self ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11  >  Sri Aurobindo - 1

... law of existence. When life appeared in Matter, wherever there was material life, the Page 66 matter thus taken up by life behaved differently from dead matter: an organic body does not follow the strict mechanical laws of inanimate bodies. Likewise a life endowed with mind has a different functioning than mere life. And a body which houses a life and mind, which has, as it were... movement. First: Matter, Life, Mind-Intelligence—these are not distinct or separate entities, one coming after another, the succeeding one simply adding itself to the preceding, coming we do not know from where. Not so, for something cannot come out of nothing. If life came out of Matter, it is because life was there hidden in Matter, Matter was secretly housing, was instinct with life. That only can... can evolve which was involved. So, again, if Mind came out of life, it is because Mind was involved in life and therefore also in Matter although at a farther remove. Yet again, vital mind developed into Intelligence and consciousness proper, and it could be only because that too was its secret nature and hence the secret nature of Life and even brute Matter. Thus the whole chain of gradation is linked ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Problem of Life

... is the representative of mind in the world is unable to deal with the general Page 207 life and his own life effectively because he does not know his own universality. The central drive of pure mind is to know. First, it drives man to know matter. It drives mind to know life. Mind wants to know matter; mind wants to know and tries to understand life; and mind wants to understand man... universal life. It ends in creating universal matter and out of it starts Page 205 evolution. Then there is the ascent. In the ascent this drive of universal mind becomes possible because of the conscious entity, that is the ego. The ascent rises from matter to life, to mind, to Supermind. When life has reached the point of creating a conscious centre of ego on the basis of matter, then... in life, that is, the mental being, it forces the mind to go back, to reverse the process of individualizing into a necessity of accepting collective life, the need for interchange, the need for exchange, the need for "other" in order to fulfill one's self. That is what the process of nature seems to do when it evolves from the inconscience of matter. Life begins with the inconscience of matter, develops ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2  >  Lines of the Descent of Consciousness

... Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Life arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter... and its secondary form Overmind, (3) Mind— (i) mind proper and (ii) the intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending consciousness starting from Matter rises into Life, passes on through Life and Psyche into Mind, driving towards the Supermind and Sachchidananda. At the present stage of evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it is now striving to cross it altogether... taken up by the mental stuff, life becomes dynamic Page 33 sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations in other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 2

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny  >  Lines of the Descent of Consciousness

... Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Life arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter... and its secondary form Overmind, (3) Mind— (i) mind proper and (ii) the intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending consciousness starting from Matter rises into Life; passes on through Life and Psyche into Mind, driving towards the Supermind and Schchidananda. At the present stage of evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it is now striving to cross it altogether... mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the plant. Life is in its ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

The Life Divine  >  The Evolutionary Process - Ascent and Integration

... must be: but, although Matter is the first substance, the original and ultimate Power is not an inconscient material Energy; for then life and consciousness would be absent, since Inconscience can not evolve consciousness nor an inanimate Force evolve life. There must be, therefore, since Mind and Life also are not that, a secret Consciousness greater than Life Consciousness or Mind Consciousness, an Energy... the progressive operations of Consciousness in its own nature. In the evolution, as it has been observed so far, although a continuity is there,—for Life takes up Matter and Mind takes up submental Life, the Mind of intelligence takes up the mind of life and sensation,—the leap from one grade of consciousness in the series to an other grade seems to our eyes immense, the crossing of the gulf whether... it is greater than Mind, it must be a supramental Consciousness-Force; since it is a power of essential substance other than Matter, it must be the power of that which is the supreme essence and substance of all things, a power of the Spirit. There is a creative energy of Mind and a creative Life Force, but they are instrumental and partial, not original and decisive: Mind and Life do indeed modify the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

A Centenary Tribute  >  Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Aster Patel

... grounded in matter. It is the matrix in which we live and move and work. Our entire external personality - not only the body - but in a large measure, the life parts in us and several levels of the mind even, have their base in matter. We have a ground of rootedness in materiality. It is thus that we are here on the earth and live and function as we do.   And, yet, as the mind develops the... straining. A totality of process of the conscious being existing in life and matter begins. There is no sense of hiatus anywhere. There is an ease of self-effectuation, marked by simplicity... There is no 'knowing' and, then, a 'doing'. There is a 'seeing' - that just 'works' itself out!   When this new positioning of the mind is firmly established - which takes time, as there are customary r... of the experience - so the form of sharing it. Direct... and as it comes, in its pristine quality.   When the mind reaches its zenith of development - and arrives at the same time at a keen and agonising awareness of its inability to deal effectively with life and with matter - then Page 296 it is getting ready to exceed itself. But not by an increase of its own activity ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Centenary Tribute

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Lines of the Descent of Consciousness

... Thus when Matter yields Life, Matter is not destroyed: it means Life has appeared in Matter and exists in and through Matter and Matter thereby has attained a new mode and constitution, for it is no longer merely a bundle of chemical or mechanical reactions, it is instinct with life, it has become organic matter. Even so, when Lire arrives at Mind, it is not dissolved into Mind but both Life and Matter... and its secondary form Overmind, (3) Mind – (i) mind proper and (ii) the intermediary psyche, (4) Life, (5) Matter. The ascending consciousness starting from Matter rises into Life, passes on through Life and Psyche into Mind, driving towards the Supermind and Schchidananda. At the present stage of evolution, consciousness has arrived at the higher levels of Mind; it is now striving to cross it altogether... mental stuff, life becomes dynamic sentience and Matter is transformed into the grey substance of the brain. Matter thus has passed through a first transformation in Life and a second transformation in Mind; it awaits other transformations on other levels beyond Mind. Likewise, Life has passed through a first transformation in Mind and there are stages in this transformation. In the plant, Life is in its ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Evolution of Consciousness

... long-planned miracle. Thenceforward she was busy no more exclusively with matter for its own sake, but most with palpitant plasmic matter useful for the expression of life; the evolution of life was now her one intent purpose. And slowly too mind manifested in life, an intensely feeling, a crude thinking and planning vital mind in the animal, but in man the full organisation and apparatus, the developing... from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man, so much has she completed of her journey; a huge stretch or a stupendous leap still remains before her. As from matter to life, from life to mind, so now she must pass from mind to supermind, from man to superman; this is the gulf that she has to bridge, the supreme miracle that she has to perform before she can rest from her struggle and discontent... series of millions she stooped to make this earth a habitable planet. For all that incalculable time she was or seemed busy only with the evolution of Matter; life and mind were kept secret in an apparent non-existence. But the time came when life could manifest, a vibration in the metal, a growing and seeking, a drawing in and a feeling outward in the plant, an instinctive force and sense, a nexus ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  Three Fragments of Commentary

... Who is its Lord & ruler? Who sends forth the mind—kena preshitam, who guides it so that it falls in its ranging on a particular object and not another (kena patati)? The mind is our centre; in the mind our personal existence is enthroned. Manomayah pranasariraneta pratisthito 'nne, a mental guide and leader of the life & body has been established in matter, and we suppose & feel ourselves to be that... remarkable for its omissions. It omits to tell us what in relation to the transcendent & immanent Brahman this mind, life, sense activity really are. It omits even to mention one tattwa which one would think as important as mind, life & sense-activity—there is no least reference to matter. These omissions are remarkable; they are also significant. The Sage of the Kena Upanishad has a distinct object... anything which does not bear upon that object or to overstep the strict limits of that province. Matter is beyond his immediate field, therefore he makes no reference to matter. Careless of comprehensiveness, he keeps to the exact matter of his revelation—the working relations between man's mental life and his supreme Existence. With the same scrupulous reserve he abstains from the discussion of the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Materialism

... anterior to it and Matter itself dependent on the essential pre-existence of life and mind. A greater question comes, whether mind itself is the last term or there is something beyond, whether soul is only an apparent result and phenomenon of the interaction of mind, life and body or we have here an independent term of our being and of all being, greater, anterior, ultimate, all matter containing and contained... mystery, the lower end. Life and Mind, like the Vedic Agni, have their two extremities hidden in a secrecy, and we should by this way only have hold of the tail-end: the head would still be mystic and secret. To know more we must have studied not only the actual or possible action of body and matter on mind and life, but explored all the possible action of mind too on life and body; that opens undreamed... universal truth of being. Matter surely is here our basis, the one thing that is and persists, while life, mind, soul and all else appear in it as a secondary phenomenon, seem somehow to arise out of it, subsist by feeding upon it,—therefore the word used in the Upanishads for Matter is annam , food,—and collapse from our view when it disappears. Apparently the existence of Matter is necessary to them ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  28 May 1958

... Nature; Matter could not have become animate if the principle of Life had not been there constituting Matter and emerging as a phenomenon of Life-in-Matter; Life-in-Matter could not have begun to feel, perceive, think, reason, if the principle of Mind had not been there behind life and substance, constituting it as its field of operation and emergent in the phenomenon of a thinking life and body:... 28 May 1958 " It is quite true that to a surface view Life seems only an operation of Matter, Mind an activity of Life, and it might seem to follow that what we call the soul or spirit is only a power of mentality, soul a fine form of Mind, spirituality a high activity of the embodied mental being. But this is a superficial view of things due to... in Mind is the sign of a power which itself has founded and constituted life, mind and body and is now emerging as a spiritual being in a living and thinking body. How far this emergence will go, whether it will become dominant and transform its instrument, Page 331 is a subsequent question; but what is necessary first to posit is the existence of Spirit as something else than Mind and ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Ladder of Self-Transcendence

... experience of Matter; it is dominated by the ignorance and inertia of the tamasic Power proper to physical existence. In the individual it becomes a materialised soul, annamaya puruṣa , whose life and mind have developed out of the ignorance and inertia of the material principle and are subject to their fundamental limitations. For life in Matter works in dependence on the body; mind in Matter works in... being; spirit itself in Matter is limited and divided in its self-relation and its powers by the limitations and divisions of this matter-governed and life-driven mind. This materialised soul lives bound to the physical body and its narrow superficial external consciousness, and it takes normally the experiences of its physical organs, its senses, its matter-bound life and mind, with at most some limited... perfection is impossible; the soul that attains only so far would have to return to the physical life for a greater experience, a higher self-development, a more direct ascent to the Spirit. Above matter and life stands the principle of mind, nearer to the secret Origin of things. The Spirit poised in mind becomes the mental self of a mental world and dwells there in the reign of its own pure and luminous ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Two Negations

... "the collective unconscious", whatever it may mean. The ancient seers and mystics had the experience of the cosmic consciousness : they knew matter to be only one working of the cosmic energy, another is life and the third is mind. In man matter, life and mind have organized the possibility of realising the witness Self, the Purusha. What is the test that he has actually done it ? The test... ordinary experience we know that life transcends matter but it does not reject it, it rises above it. So, also mind transcends life and matter but does not reject either. There are philosophies that assert that the Transcendent is the only Reality and everything else is unreal. The aim of man is to reach or ascend to the Transcendent by rejecting the world and life. The Spirit is pure and luminous... regard the control of mind over material energies, Sri Aurobindo laid down, long ago, a fundamental principle, indicating the nature of the new age of conquest even of Matter, conquest not dependent always on gross physical means and processes but the conquest of Matter by the Spirit. The control that man has attained over Nature at present is the control of mind and of life-force, which are in ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

The Life Divine  >  The Order of the Worlds

... nce. 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 itself is a product of Energy, and mind and life must be regarded as superior products of the same... there are no supraphysical worlds; there is no action of supraphysical principles exterior to Matter, no pressure of an already existent Mind and Life upon the material plane. It has then to be asked what are mind and life, and it may be answered that they are products of Matter or of the Energy in Matter. Or else they are forms of consciousness that arise as results of an evolution from Inconscience... untenable. Spirit must be capable of basing its manifestation on the Mind principle or on the Life principle and not only on the principle of Matter; there can then be and logically there should be worlds of Mind and worlds of Life; there may even be worlds founded on a subtler and more plastic, more conscious principle of Matter. Three questions then arise, interrelated or interdependent:—whether ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Subject of the Upanishad

... supreme and final power? Is mind all or is this human existence only a veil of something greater, mightier, more remote and profound than itself? The Upanishad replies that there is such a greater existence behind, which is to the mind and its instruments, to the life-force and its workings what they are to the material world. Matter does not know Mind, Mind knows Matter; it is only when the creature... creature embodied in Matter develops mind, becomes the mental being that he can know his mental self and know by that self Matter also in its reality to Mind. So also Mind does not know That which is behind it, That knows Mind; and it is only when the being involved in Mind can deliver out of its appearances his true Self that he can become That, know it as himself and by it know also Mind in its reality... according as our vital force in obedience to the mind deals with its impacts and objects, so will be our outward life and existence. The world is for us what our mind and senses declare it to be; life is what our mentality determines that it shall become. The question is asked by the Upanishad, what then are these mental instruments? what is this mental life which uses the external? Are they the last witnesses ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Isha Upanishad  >  The Eternal in His Universe

... Page 239 out of the inertia of gross physical materiality Life, Mind, SupraIntelligence, Will until we know our infinite and eternal Self who is one with the Supreme Self of the Universe. With inanimate matter the world began, says evolutionary Science; but in inanimate matter there is no evidence of life or mind or spirit, no apparent possibility of the evolution of animate conscious... with the Mind, which is alone self-acting and introspective, as the eleventh. So far however the Mind acts with rapidity and directness under the comparatively light restrictions of subtle matter in the Dream State; it is a psychical sense, an instrument of the soul for knowing and dealing with life in the psychical world of subtle matter. Only in the physical evolution of gross matter do the sense-organs... vital energies. Just as Prana is involved in Anna and has to be evolved out of it, so Mind is involved in Prana and has to be evolved out of it. The moment Life begins to liberate itself from the obscuration of gross matter, the first step has been taken towards the evolution of Mind. We see the gradual development of Mind in animal evolution; the highest animal forms below man seem to possess not only ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Life

... conscious being, variously represented in various forms of life.—Life is an energising of conscious being in substance of Matter, which on one side is constantly supplying the material of physical formation and on the other labouring to release mind and sense from their subconscious sleep in Matter. It is therefore the dynamic link between Mind and Matter. To create form and evolve consciousness out of its... the form of Force to which we give the name of Life, and Life in Matter is an energy or power in dynamic movement which builds up forms, energises, maintains, disintegrates and recreates; death itself is only a process of life. It is one all-pervading Life or constant movement of dynamic energy which creates all these forms of the material universe and is not destroyed in the destruction of its forms... Philosophy and Yoga Chapter XIX Life Argument Sri Aurobindo prefixed brief summaries or "arguments" to fifteen chapters of The Life Divine when they were first published in the Arya in 1916 and 1917. He omitted these summaries when he revised the book in 1939-40 . Mind as a final action of Supermind is a creative and not only a perceptive power; ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body  >  Perfection of the Body

... physical processes are given a spiritual or psychic turn and raised to a higher motion than belongs properly to the ordinary life and Matter, as for instance in the Hathayogic and Rajayogic use of the breathing or the use of Asana. Ordinarily a previous preparation of the mind and life and body is necessary to make them fit for the reception of the spiritual energy and the organization of psychic forces... figure and action of it that must be reached and enter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at the very least, such a Truth Consciousness must be in communication with our own mind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and action, impel its motives, take hold of its forces... a prospect of total achievement. This complete human self-fulfilment might well pass beyond limitations and be transformed into the character of a divine life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the power of life and the light of mind would draw down into it the superior or supreme Page 712 power and light of the spirit and in an earthly body shed its parts of inconscience and ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Science of Consciousness

... Mind evolves in embodied life, but was pre-existent to matter and life, latent, omnipresent, involved, a hidden cause of action waiting for life and matter to be ready for its manifestation which comes when the movement of energy has reached a greater intensity. So supermind is prior to mind, latent, omnipresent, involved even in matter and life, a hidden cause of action and waits for mind to be... then seven notes, matter, Page 311 life, mind, supermind, bliss self, self of conscious energy, self of primary conscious existence. But the experience we get as we ascend in the scale leads us to the discovery that what in evolution appears subsequent is prior in reality. Life evolves in matter, but was pre-existent to matter, latent, omnipresent, waiting for matter to be ready to be... of universal matter, but both of the separate bodies are one with the indivisible intervening matter, therefore not separate in reality, but indivisibly connected in energy, and one matter in fundamental reality. Put otherwise, two bodies are images or formations of one indivisible ethereal space, which is in reality one indivisible movement of material energy, life-energy, mind energy. This ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Psychology of Self-Perfection

... n of being in which we at present live, the spirit's energy of life works between the two 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... evolution. But matter too is capable of refining to subtler forms of substance in which it becomes more apparently a formal density of life, of mind, of spirit. Man himself has, besides this gross material body, an encasing vital sheath, a mental body, a body of bliss and gnosis. But all matter, all body contains within it the secret powers of these higher principles; matter is a formation of life that has... material nature; and, though in this matter life and mind have developed their own energies, yet they are limited and bound up in the action of the lower material, which is to the ignorance of his practical surface consciousness his original principle. Mind in him, though he is an embodied mental being, has to bear the control of the body and the physical life and can only by some more or less considerable ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4  >  Sri Aurobindo

... existence. When life appeared in Matter, wherever there was material life, the matter thus taken up by life behaved differently from dead matter: an organic body does not not follow the strict mechanicallaws of inanimate bodies. Likewise a life endowed with mind has a different functioning than mere life. And a body which houses a life and mind, which has, as it were, flowered into life and mind moves and... movement. First: Matter, Life, Mind-Intelligence – these are not distinct or separate entities, one coming after another, the succeeding one simply adding itself to the preceding, coming we do now know from where. Not so, for something cannot come out of nothing. If life came out of Matter, it is because life was there hidden in Matter Matter was secretly housing, was instinct with life. That only can... can evolve which was involved. So, again, if Mind came out of life, it is because Mind was involved in life and therefore also in Matter although at a farther remove. Yet again, vital mind developed into Intelligence and consciousness proper, and it could be only because that too was its secret nature and hence the secret nature of Life and even brute Matter. Thus the whole chain of gradation is linked ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4

A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  Perfection Of The Body

... physical processes are given a spiritual or psychic turn and raised to a higher motion than belongs properly to the ordinary life and Matter, as for instance in the Hathayogic and Rajayogic use of the breathing or the use of Asana. Ordinarily a previous preparation of the mind and life and body is necessary to make them fit for the reception of the spiritual energy and the organisation of psychic forces... figure and action of it that must be reached and enter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at the very least, such a Truth-consciousness must be in communication with our own mind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and action, impel its motives, take hold of its forces... a prospect of total achievement. This complete human self-fulfilment might well pass beyond limitations and be transformed into the character of a divine life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the power of life and the light of mind would draw down into it the superior or supreme power and light of the spirit and in an earthly body shed its parts of inconscience and become a perfectly ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Involution and Evolution

... recognise life are not evident or are only slightly evolved in the dullness of the material covering? Material energy would be then Life packed into the density of Page 324 Matter and feeling out in it for its own intenser recognisable power which it finds within itself in the material concealment and liberates into action. Life itself would be an energy of a secret mind, a mind imprisoned... concealed from us in the shell of material Nature. The Spirit which manifests itself here in a body, must be involved from the beginning in the whole of matter and in every knot, formation and particle of matter; life, mind and whatever is above mind must be latent inactive or concealed active powers in all the operations of material energy. The only alternative would be to drive in between the two sides... development of the immaterial from Matter, still is that development a creation or a liberation, a birth of what did not exist before or a slow bringing out of what already existed in suppressed fact or in eternal potentiality? And the interest of the question becomes acute, its importance incalculable when we come to the still unexplained phenomenon of life and mind. Is life a creation out of inanimate substance ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Life Divine  >  Man and the Evolution

... of Nature from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind, may be conceded: but there is no proof yet that Matter developed into Life or Life-energy into Mind energy; all that can be conceded is that Life has manifested in Matter, Mind in living Matter. For there is no sufficient proof that any vegetable species developed into an animal existence or that any organisation of inanimate matter developed into a... and pass into other-nature. If the Consciousness-Force of the Infinite has manifested Life after manifesting Matter and Mind after manifesting Life, it does not follow that it will proceed to manifest Supermind as the next terrestrial creation. For Mind and Supermind belong to quite different hemispheres, Mind to the lower status of the Ignorance, Supermind to the higher status of the Divine Knowledge... which is of primary consequence. Another self-evident conclusion is that there is a graduated necessary succession in the evolution, first the evolution of Matter, next the evolution of Life in Matter, then the evolution of Mind in living Matter, and in this last stage an animal evolution followed by a human evolution. The first three terms of the succession are too evident to be disputable. It may ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  9: Innumerable Life

... call, or prayer, or perhaps love, indefinitely repeated by the Mind of the cells. But while in the first ages of Life, a crust or carapace of any sort eventually formed itself to separate beings, forms, distinct modes in the midst of this mass of Consciousness-Force or amorphous Matter-Consciousness and to protect this precarious life, here at the other end of evolution, the individual is already formed—it... degrees of Matter, two ways of living the same Matter, separated by the barrier of the physical Mind. A true physical, as Sri Aurobindo said, and the other. True Matter, Matter seen and lived by the cells of the body, and the other seen and lived by the Mind? But for the ordinary consciousness that lives in the mental cage, everything that happens on the other side of the cage, in the same Matter however... It is life innumerable. It is physical life without separation. It is the great unity of Life—unity of Matter, of Consciousness—lived materially. It is the wonder of that life that was being prepared by thousands of years of painful separation in a small prison of fossilized Matter. And one well understands that one had to become conscious cellularly in order to be able to build that life. It is ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Evolution

... it is to be finally accepted by the human mind. Again, Force in indeterminate Matter without any Conscious-Soul being all the beginning and all the material of things, Mind, Life and Consciousness can only be developments out of Matter and even only operations of Matter. They cannot be at Page 171 all things in themselves, different from Matter or in the last degree independent of it.... evolution of Life in Matter must have been produced and governed not by a material principle, but by a Life-Principle working in and upon the conditions of Matter and applying to it its own laws, impulses, necessities. This idea of a mighty Life, other than the material Principle, working in it and upon it has begun to dominate the advanced thought of Europe. The other idea of a still mightier Mind working... by heredity was too hastily and completely asserted; it is now perhaps in danger of being too summarily denied. Not Matter alone, but Life and Mind working upon Matter help to determine evolution. Heredity is only a material shadow of soul-reproduction, of the rebirth of Life and Mind into new forms. Ordinarily, as a constant factor or basis, there is the reproduction of that which was already evolved; ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny  >  Sri Aurobindo

... existence. When life appeared in Matter, wherever there was material life, the matter thus taken up by life behaved differently from dead matter: an organic body does not not follow the strict mechanical laws of inanimate bodies. Likewise a life endowed with mind has a different functioning than mere life. And a body which houses a life and mind, which has, as it were, flowered into life and mind moves and... movement. First: Matter, Life, Mind-Intelligence—these are not distinct or separate entities, one coming after another, the succeeding one simply adding itself to the preceding, coming we do now know from where. Not so, for something cannot come out of nothing. If life came out of Matter, it is because life was there hidden in Matter Matter was secretly housing, was instinct with life. That only can... can evolve which was involved. So, again, if Mind came out of life, it is because Mind was involved in life and therefore also in Matter although at a farther remove. Yet again, vital mind developed into Intelligence and consciousness proper, and it could be only because that too was its secret nature and hence the secret nature of Life and even brute Matter. Thus the whole chain of gradation is linked ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-2-Part-1

... his life and even his body, all derive their sustenance from an infinitesimal flow of current from the vast cosmic mind, cosmic life and cosmic matter. In fact, it is these mighty cosmic forces from the subliminal and dark unknown but powerful forces from the subconscient that govern man's life. "Our lives translate these subtle intimacies; All is the commerce of a secret Power." ... "Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods, "As if Matter's plinth, and viewless base To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme, "It swelled upwards but none could see its top". It rose from the Inconscience to Matter, from there to Life and Mind and thence to the Divine, "A ladder of delivering ascent, ... "On our road from Matter to eternal Self, To the Light that made the worlds, the Cause of things" then, mind would be justified in concluding that Life is merely an accident, an illusion, or a freak and that it is a strange "Inconscience monstrously engendering soul". The existence of the human I being in such a world is much more inexplicable and the mind would only see it as "A ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

On Education  >  Perfection Of The Body (Sri Aurobindo)

... physical processes are given a spiritual or psychic turn and raised to a higher motion than belongs properly to the ordinary life and Matter, as for instance in the Hathayogic and Raja yogic use of the breathing or the use of Asana. Ordinarily a previous preparation of the mind and life and body is necessary to make them fit for the reception of the spiritual energy and the organisation of psychic forces... figure and action of it that must be reached and enter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at the very least, such a Truth-Consciousness must be in communication with our own mind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and action, impel its motives, take hold of its... prospect of total achievement. This complete human self- fulfilment might well pass beyond limitations and be transformed into the character of a divine life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the power of life and the light of mind would draw down into it the superior or supreme power and light of the spirit and in an earthly body shed its parts of inconscience and become a perfectly ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   On Education

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  15: Intelligence that is Consciousness that is Being

... Ignoring a problem does not solve it. How did life appear in matter? How does an organism consisting only of matter produce consciousness? The mind-body problem remains vividly discussed though unexplained, and the present gross materialistic stance of neurobiology, that all is matter and that consequently life and consciousness are (epi)phenomena of matter, raises more questions than it answers. A television... worlds of matter (or substance), life and mind are known as “the three strides of Vishnu.” “Matter is only energy in action, and as we know in India, energy is force of consciousness in action.” (LY 222) “There is no such thing as the self-evident Matter posited by nineteenth century Science,” (LY 224) leading to the circle of metaphysical materialism, its magic formula, that all is matter because there... three lower ones: matter, life, mind. Our eyes are only able to perceive what we call ‘matter’, but this Earth, and the life and mental consciousness on it, remain connected to their involutionary planes of origin. “The immense material world in which we live is not the sole reality but only one of innumerable potential and existent universes; all of them need not have either Matter as we know it or ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

Hitler and his God  >  “In Matter Lies the Crux”

... because of Matter Mind is more than half blind, its wings clipped, its feet tied to a narrow perch and held back from the vastness and freedom above of which it is conscious. Therefore the exclusive spiritual seeker is justified from his viewpoint if, disgusted with the mud of Matter, revolted by the animal grossness of Life or impatient of the self-imprisoned narrowness and downward vision of Mind, he ... all is the Brahman; if so, then “Matter also is the Brahman and it is nothing other than or different from the Brahman.” “Matter is a form of Spirit, a habitation of Spirit, and here in Matter itself there can be a realization of the Spirit.” 940 “In Matter undoubtedly lies the crux; that raises the obstacle [to the spiritual effort]: for because of Matter Life is gross and limited and stricken... the divine life is a life of essential, spontaneous and inherent unity.” 944 According to Sri Aurobindo evolution cannot stop or be stopped in its tracks, and the appearance of the supramental being, the Aurobindonian superman, is inevitable. “The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not the ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Hitler and his God

The Life Divine  >  The Human Aspiration

... evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form... more animal part of man, but impossible for his fully awakened mind, and usually even his practical parts only escape from the general necessity either by shutting out the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise. For essentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, life and matter in their own sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its perceptions. The greater the apparent... which are beyond Mind. In that case, the unconquerable impulse of man towards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality presents itself in its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulse by which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond Mind, and appears to be as natural, true and just as the impulse towards Life Page 5 which she has planted in certain forms of Matter or the impulse ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision  >  The Life Divine : Some Aspects

... that life manifesting in Matter is compelled to accept grossness and subjection to pain and] death, and that Mind in Matter becomes limited, dull and; blind. In fact, one finds that Matter, Life and Mind, each' one of them, is trying to overpower the other two in life. Matter may be said to be the fundamental element of our earth, it is ignorance incarnate on whose dark background Mind and Life... The process of evolution ______________ 6 ( Savitri : Book III Canto 4, P . 308. Page 8 has proceeded from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind. Man, the mental being, is transitional because he has yet to ascend to higher Consciousness beyond Mind. This is the great spiritual Odvssey that man has now to undertake consciously.If material science lays open before man a wide—practically... Life seem to arise. Matter seems only form— without consciousness, a work of brute inconscient energy. The second thing about the working of Matter is its subjection to mechanical laws. It opposes Life and Mind by its sheer inertia and. thus renders the conquest of ignorance by them difficult, if not impossible. The third characteristic is that the process of division reaches its culmination in ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision

Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects  >  The Divine Being - Spirit And Matter

... creation of Matter. He apparently loses Himself in the Force of His own creative consciousness. Gradually, on the principle of evolution, consciousness has to emerge out of its involution in the Unconsciousness or the Inconscient. From this sea of inconscience, emerges only Matter—inconscient Matter ; then it emerges into life as in plants and vegetables and then into the undeveloped Mind of the animals... - Spirit And Matter I had earlier written something of the nature of the Divine Being and His manifestations in myriads names and forms which constitute our Universe. Now, the mystery is how and why should the One Divine be manifested or manifest Himself into the 'Many instead of remaining the unchanging and infinite One. We are aware of the Universe of Matter, Life and Mind which is cognisable... inconscience and ending with the Supramental conciousness which is the final emergence of the Truth-conscious spirit from its involution in Matter. This in a nut-shell is the whole history of the evolution of consciousness which is the theme of Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine. It is difficult to understand at first but persistent study will bring »"$ne the Light of Truth and Knowledge. Darwin has ...

Jibendra Kumar Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Perfection of the Body

... given a spiritual or psychic turn and raised to a higher motion Page 523 than belongs properly to the ordinary life and Matter, as for instance in the Hathayogic and Rajayogic use of the breathing or the use of Asana. Ordinarily a previous preparation of the mind and life and body is necessary to make them fit for the reception of the spiritual energy and the organisation of psychic forces... figure and action of it that must be reached and enter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at the very least, such a Truth-consciousness must be in communication with our own mind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and action, impel its motives, take hold of its forces... suffusing and radiating from it as a lamp reflects and diffuses the luminosity of its indwelling flame, carrying in itself the beatitude of the spirit, its joy of the seeing mind, its joy of life and spiritual happiness, the joy of Matter released into a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant ecstasy. This would be the total perfection of the spiritualised body. All this might not come all ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  Sri Aurobindo and the Philosophers

... strong feeling that, instead of matter being a form of mind, mind seems often to be a form of matter. Most of our practical life is based on what appears to be the independent existence of matter. And when we ask ourselves: wouldn't matter be more amenable to mind if it were just an idea? - the answer makes us seriously doubt Berkeley's position. Matter does impress us as a power in itself... all our mental life. But. can mind realise wholly its archetype without the other parts of our being doing the same? No: if, as experience teaches us, we cannot rest finally in mind and, for the sake of a harmonious sense of life, grant matter a separate status, we must strive after an archetype of matter too. Here also the perfection we are seeking cannot be got out of matter itself. Not... itself which we contact by means of mind. Mind does not bring us perfect harmony and fulfilment: it struggles and gropes, it is not the master-magician of life. Nor does matter as known in practical experience hold the secret we are vaguely aware of. There must be something else. Matter and mind seem to be two forms of some other reality which contains the archetypes of them both, archetypes ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Nachiketas  >  A Synoptic Essay on Immortality

... establish itself so fully in Matter that it can continue to live in Matter without end. There is, thus, the Law of Death; and this Death operates because in the struggle between Life and Matter, Matter continues to impose itself and Matter becomes victorious over Life. This victory of Matter over Life is victory of the Law of Death. Page 82 Next, Mind evolves in Life, it is because of the pressure... evolution of Life in Matter, Mind in Life, but the mechanism of the evolution is, according to Sri Aurobindo, not identical with what the Darwinian theory wants us to believe. According to him, the Law of evolution has three processes. There is, first, the multiplication of forms of Matter; when these forms become numerous and complex, the evolutionary force working in Matter, brings out Life from the... the depths of Matter, in which it is already latent. This process of Ascent from Matter to Life is aided by the forces, which come down from the world of Life. In other words, it is by the junction of Life struggling to burst out of Matter and the forces of Life coming down from the typal world of Life that eventually Life could be established in Matter. But after Life is established in the form of minute ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Nachiketas

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Supreme Sense

... sensations; but it is only the eidolon of Matter, as for instance the image of the form cast upon the eye, with which the mind is directly concerned. For the mind operates upon Matter not directly, but through the Life-force; that is its instrument of communication and the Life-force, being in us a nervous energy and not anything material, can seize on Matter only through nervous impressions of form... reason of in terms of this embodiment of mind in Matter; for these sheaths or koṣas are formations in a more and more subtle substance reposing on gross Matter as their base. Let us imagine that there is a mental world in which Mind and not Matter is the base. There sense would be quite a different thing in its operation. It would feel mentally an image in Mind and throw it out into form in more and... theories about sense and mind and the Brahman. We know of sense only as an action of the organs through which embodied mind communicates with external Matter, and these sense-organs have been separately developed in the course of evolution; the senses therefore are not fundamental things, but only subordinate conveniences and temporary physical functionings of the embodied mind. Brahman, on the other ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

A Greater Psychology  >  States of Consciousness

... aware of the Cosmic Self and knows the individual self to be one with it; of the Cosmic Energy and meets directly the action of the cosmic forces; of the cosmic mind, life, matter and feels first a contact of its individual mind, life, body with them, then a unity in which one's own individual mentality, vitality, physicality is felt as only a part of the universal, a wave of the ocean, a dynamo... world (or rather the surface of it) only through his outward mind and senses and by interpreting their contacts with the world. By yoga there can open in him a consciousness which becomes one with that of the world; he becomes directly aware of a universal Being, universal states, universal Force and Power, universal Mind, Life, Matter and lives in conscious relations with these things. He is then... 1071 The cosmic consciousness is that in which the limits of ego, personal mind and body disappear and one becomes aware of a cosmic vastness which is or filled by a cosmic spirit and aware also of the direct play of cosmic forces, universal mind forces, universal life forces, universal energies of Matter, universal overmind forces. But one does not become aware of all Page 220 ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2  >  Aswapati's Travels through the Worlds — An Overview

... development, Life proceeds from Matter, and Mind from Life, Spirit does not proceed form Mind, although man becomes aware of his spiritual reality after he has become conscious of his body, life and mind. Spirit in fact is the ground of which all other grades of consciousness stand. So in one sense it is primary. 13 Canto Two of Book X deals with the Kingdom of Gross Matter and the monism... delight. 36 The greater life reveals more than any other level the meeting of the opposites in life. It is a product of life's into matter, and therefore into ignorance and death. This is the source of agony in life. But it is also permeated with a mind and impregnated with the vision of the greatness of the spirit, and so it has its sublime side as well. Thus life is torn between these two pulls... ourselves we tie. 62 The Paradise of the Mind 63 At either end of this luminous stair of the mental consciousness Aswapati sees the heavens of the ideal mind. In these heavens he could have ended his long pilgrimage as he could have in the Paradise of the Life Gods. He is far away now from the contaminating touch of matter and life and he has full freedom to savour the realms of ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2

Autobiographical Notes  >  A Message to America

... West has concentrated more and more increasingly on the world, on the dealings of mind and life with our material existence, on our mastery over it, on the perfection of mind and life and some fulfilment of the human being here: latterly this has gone so far as the denial of the Spirit and even the enthronement of Matter as the sole reality. Spiritual perfection as the sole ideal on one side, on the... return of the soul to earth in many successive lives, in many successive bodies. The process of evolution has been the development from and in inconscient Matter of a subconscient and then a conscious Life, of conscious mind first in animal life and then fully in conscious and thinking man, the highest present achievement of evolutionary Nature. The achievement of mental being is at present her highest... been a tendency in some minds to dwell on the spirituality or mysticism of the East and the materialism of the West; but the West has had no less than the East its spiritual seekings and, though not in such profusion, its saints and sages and mystics, the East has had its materialistic tendencies, its material splendours, its similar or identical dealings with life and Matter and the world in which ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Autobiographical Notes

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Evolutionary Waking

... The Spirit became Matter and lay in the whirl, A body sleeping without sense or soul... Still consciousness was hidden in Nature's womb, Unfelt was the Bliss whose rapture dreamed the worlds. Being was an inert substance driven by Force. 2 'Lost in slumber, mute, inanimate', the material universe 'awaited life and sense and waking Mind.' The evolutionary nisus... then stand fully revealed in his robe of Matter and Nature steps into the eternal Light. Then only ends the dream of nether Life. 1 But that Golden Dawn, the overt emergence of the Supra-mental Consciousness, heralding the annulment of the nescient sleep of Night, is still lying in the womb of the future. In the meantime, does man, the mind-conscient being, possess no possibility... dreaming in the little in which he has gained partial awakening. As a matter of fact, Our mind lives far from the authentic Light Catching at little fragments of the Truth, 4 and our normal human awareness which is really no better than 1 Savitri, Book II, Canto I, p. 101. 2 The Life Divine, p. 684. 3 Cf. anyathā grhṇataḥ svapno nidrā ta ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  The Divine Body

... or sudden change? It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness... and direction towards brain and heart and life-force of the essential energy, ojas, of which this region is the factory so as to support the works of the mind and soul and spirit and the higher life-powers and limit the expenditure of the energy on lower things. The soul, the psychic being, could more easily fill all with the light and turn the very matter of the body to higher uses for its own greater... beginning and persist always so long as there is not the full and fundamental liberation and Page 150 its inconscience or half conscience and its binding of the soul and mind and life-force to Matter, to materiality of all kinds, to the call of the unregenerated earth-nature are there and constantly oppose the call of the spirit and circumscribe the climb to higher things. To the physical ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal

The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri  >  Sight in the Waking State

... faculty, passing through the different rungs such as "little life", "greater life", "heart", "physical mind", "little mind", "greater mind", "intellect", "thought", etc. Here are a few verses in each case: Page 50 (a) Matter's Sight : (1)"Out of the inconscient and subliminal Arisen, we live in mind's uncertain light And strive to know and master a dubious... intellect, the will, the sense-mind, the desire-self, the heart, even the body-consciousness, all "see" in different ways. All these and other similar parts of the being are "like fields into which forces from the same planes of consciousness in the universal Nature are constantly entering or passing." (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 947) Our mind and life and physical consciousness with... (484) (2)"But this is only Matter's first self-view" (484) (3)"Limited ... now by the dull body's sight" (372) (4)"A lump of Matter, a house of closed sight" (488) (5)"And Matter hides the soul from its own sight" (702) (6)"God wrapped his head from sight in Matter's cowl" (621) (7)"A miracle structure of the eternal Mage, Matter its mystery hides from its own ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

Isha Upanishad  >  Chapter I: God and Nature

... contains the potentiality, it is irresistibly led to develop under its own conditions that which it contains. For this reason Matter in the world tends to manifest Life, Life in Matter to rise into Mind, Mind in vitalised body to be released into Pure Idea, Pure Idea in matter-housed Mind to be consummated in divine Beatitude. The pervading law, therefore, which confines each species to the rule of its kind... a vitalised body & he tends through pure idea towards divine beatitude. Now just as matter informed with life, no longer obeys the processes of matter only, but, even while it affects life-processes, is also affected by them and finds its complete liberation in the conquest of matter by life, just as mind in a life body is affected, limited and hampered by vital & bodily processes, but still governs... consciousness. (3) Consciousness and life evolve out of matter; they must then have been all the time inherent & involved in matter. (4) Life itself seems to be an operation of involved consciousness working itself out of the imprisonment in matter. It is therefore conceivable that matter itself may be only a form of involved consciousness. Page 445 (5) Mind is a principle of mental self-conscious ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species  >  Part Four

... evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For Page 21 there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form of... regarded as a spiritual theory of evolution. According to the spiritual theory of evolution, the upward progress of consciousness emerging from Matter is aided by the typal worlds of subtle Matter, of Life, Mind and still higher worlds between mind and supermind, as also by the supramental integral consciousness, which remains undiminished, even while involutionary process takes place in a ... sensation responsive to the contacts of the other life and matter. Consciousness labours to manifest, as best as it can, Page 32 through the inadequacy of sensation, its own inherent delight of being; but it can only formulate a partial pain and pleasure. But when we come to Man, we find that the energizing consciousness appears as Mind more clearly aware of itself and things. This is still ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Problem of Consciousness

... connected together, the whole of existence seen in one gaze and life compelled to unmask its fathomless significance[.] A mysterious something involved in Matter, concealed by it, evolving from it but in a material house or figure, striving to reveal itself in life and mind, but concealed by its forms of life, concealed by its forms of mind, shooting out from them glimpses of itself, glimpses that... process of an Ignorance developing Knowledge. If so, it may well be that it is the self-awareness of the [eternal Existence] that is working out in the formula of inconscient Matter and ignorant Life and half-awakened Mind its own self-manifestation in the material universe. 87 But what is consciousness and what its relation to existence? How and why did it come into being in an inconscient... energy of Matter everywhere; it persists even after that seeing of things has been severely shaken. For now we are driven to see and say that there is no such thing as Matter in itself; what we call Matter is only a mass of phenomena of Energy, events of energy, which our senses regard as objects and our minds classify under the general name of Matter. But we can still hold that all phenomena are phenomena ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-10

... "Vain is thy longing to build heaven on earth." Mind, persuades the human being to ascend to higher levels but this "Mind...walks lamely on the earth," it cannot control the tumultuous senses. Mind creates the idea of your soul. But body and life are subjected to laws of matter. "If Matter fails, all crumbling cracks and falls." But what is Matter is not known. It is "an appearance and a symbol and... its ground in emptiness" so "that the spirit might adventure into Time." The spirit built a Thought in Nothingness. Matter was made the body of the Bodiless and slumbering Life breathed in Matter. Mind lay asleep in subconscient Life and became active in conscious Life. The waking mind gave rise to the Thinker: Man became a reasoning animal: he measured the universe, opposed his fate, conquered and... is a purpose in each stumble and fall." Even though to the outer view it seems that Matter is all and man's being is only a bubble on the ocean of Time still "the soul grows concealed within its house." Man studies life and thinks about its goal. "At last he wakes into spiritual mind."—There, in the spiritual mind—out of the narrow scope of finite thought—man glimpses eternity, touches the infinite ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Divine Body

... progressive or sudden change? It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness... and direction towards brain and heart and life-force of the essential energy, ojas , of which this region is the factory so as to support the works of the mind and soul and spirit and the higher life-powers and limit the expenditure of the energy on lower things. The soul, the psychic being, could more easily fill all with the light and turn the very matter of the body to higher uses for its own greater... its best are there in the beginning and persist always so long as there is not the full and fundamental liberation, and its inconscience or half-conscience and its binding of the soul and mind and life-force to Matter, to materiality of all kinds, to the call of the unregenerated earth-nature are there and constantly oppose the call of the spirit and circumscribe the climb to higher things. To the physical ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo  >  A Message To America

... West has concentrated more and more increasingly on the world, on the dealings of mind and life with our material existence, on our mastery over it, on the perfection of mind and life and some fulfilment of the human being here: latterly this has gone so far as the denial of the Spirit and even the enthronement of Matter as the sole reality. Spiritual perfection as the sole ideal on one side, on the... return of the soul to earth in many successive lives, in many successive bodies. The process of evolution has been the development from and in inconscient Matter of a subconscient and then a conscious Life, of conscious mind first in animal life and then fully in conscious and thinking man, the highest present achievement of evolutionary Nature. The achievement of mental being is at present her highest... been a tendency in some minds to dwell on the spirituality or mysticism of the East and the materialism of the West; but the West has had no less than the East its spiritual seekings and, though not in such profusion, its saints and sages and mystics, the East has had its materialistic tendencies, its material splendours, its similar or identical dealings with life and Matter and the world in which ...

Nirodbaran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Threefold Life

... such a field matters little; for the mere attempt is dynamic and creative. The struggle of Mind to elevate life is the promise and condition of the conquest of life by that which is higher even than Mind. Page 25 That highest thing, the spiritual existence, is concerned with what is eternal but not therefore entirely aloof from the transient. For the spiritual man the mind's dream of perfect... progressive by imprinting on the material mind the custom of progress, the habit of conscious change, the fixed idea of progression as a law of life. The creation by this means of progressive societies in Europe is one of the greatest triumphs of Mind over Matter. But the physical nature has its revenge; for the progress made tends to be of the grosser and more outward kind and its attempts at a higher or... more, the spiritual life and the material have existed side by side to the exclusion of the progressive mind. Spirituality has made terms for itself with Matter by renouncing the attempt at general progress. It has obtained from society the right of free spiritual development for all who assume some distinctive symbol, such as the garb of the Sannyasin, the recognition of that life as man's goal and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

The Life Divine  >  Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge

... employs his mind for the uses, interests, desires of the life and the body, as their servant and minister, not yet as their sovereign and master. It is as he Page 758 grows in mind and in proportion as his mind asserts its selfhood and independence against the tyranny of life and matter, that he grows in stature. On one side, mind by its emancipation controls and illumines the life and physicality;... of the Inconscient for the utility of our present mental and physical life on earth; this that is behind is a formation mediating between the Inconscient and the larger planes of Life and Mind which have been created by the involutionary descent and whose pressure has helped to bring about the evolution of mind and life in Matter. Our surface responses to physical existence have at their back the support... in essence a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into Page 754 mind, from the mind into the spirit. It is this that must be the method of our growth from a mental into a spiritual and supramental manifestation, out of a still half-animal humanity ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Action of Higher Worlds and Evolution

... interaction of our larger hidden being and our surface personality is the main secret of the rapid development that operates in man once he has passed beyond the lower stages of mind immersed in Matter. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - II: Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality × Necessarily... The Life Divine - II: The Order of the Worlds Our material world is the result of all the others, for the other principles have all descended into Matter to create the physical universe, and every particle of what we call Matter contains all of them implicit in itself; their secret action… is involved in every moment of its existence and every movement of its activity. And as Matter is the... of the life-world which enables life to evolve and develop here in the forms we already know; it is that increasing pressure which drives it to aspire in us to a greater revelation of itself and will one day deliver the mortal from his subjection to the narrow limitations of his present incompetent and restricting physicality. It is the pressure of the mind-world which evolves and develops mind here ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Double Denial

... The Materialist Negation Matter on the firm earth sits strong and sure. It is the first-born of created things, It stands the last when mind and life are slain, And if it ended all would cease to be. All else is only its outcome or its phase... If Matter fails, all crumbling cracks and falls. All upon Matter stands as on a rock. (Savitri... elaboration or, for that matter, in the emergence of life in the initially inanimate universe. For, according to the materialist view, the phenomenon of "life is of profound unimportance. Among the infinite permutations and combinations through which matter has passed, one has supervened in which matter has achieved consciousness. This consciousness by matter of itself is life. Life, then, is a chance... thoughts, feelings, the soul a fiction and mind and life only a material and mechanical manifestation and appearance of this machine which is worked out and automatically driven with a 1 Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. VIII, p. 489. Page 26 figment of consciousness in it by the forces inherent in inconscient matter." 1 (B) The Ascetic Refusal ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results  >  PART FOUR

... illustrated in the undeniable fact of evolution of Life in Matter and the evolution of Mind in Matter. What could be the driving force of evolution, unless it could be the presence of involved Life in Matter and of Mind in Matter? And considering that at the base of evolution is inconscience, that inconscience itself must be a state of involved Life and Mind. But considering that evolution is still continuing... and Establishment of the Supermind in Matter According to Sri Aurobindo, all problems of existence Page 66 are essentially problems of harmony; all Nature, he points out, seeks a harmony, life and matter in their own sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its perceptions. It is that drive towards harmony that reconciles Life and Matter, and even when they are sufficiently not... which are beyond mind. There is, Sri Aurobindo affirms, the unconquerable impulse in man towards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality, and this impulse can be seen in its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulse by which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond mind. The impulse of life towards the mind bears a great analogical relationship with the impulse of the mind towards what can ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  Evolution or Special Creation

... previous mode. Thus we can say that in the beginning there was only Matter and Matter was being churned until a point of tension or saturation was reached when Life precipitated  and became embodied and evident in Matter. In the same way, out of a concentrated incubation that Life underwent,  it brought down Mind from the hidden mind-plane and the vegetable kingdom gave birth to the animal. Latterly... known, the missing link. The transition stage between one form of life and another, between one species and its higher evolute is always absent, has left no trace of any kind and it is a matter of any man's guess. So the theory of mutation, saltum, sudden change, has been advanced. But that only restates the fact, clinches the matter, but does not explain it. If a sudden and thorough change is possible... consciousness from the higher into the lower. All the grades of being or consciousness are always there in the cosmic infinity, only it is a matter of gradual manifestation in the physical world. The higher scales are kept in the background,  the march of life starts from the lowest, the material rung. One by one they manifest or descend, formulate themselves  in the lower as these grow and rise and ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

The Destiny of the Body  >  Theories of Existence and Attitudes towards the Body

... Nature. "Matter could not have become animate if the principle of life had not been there constituting Matter and emerging as a phenomenon of life-in-matter; life-in-matter could not have begun to feel, perceive, think, reason, if the principle of mind had not been there behind life and substance, constituting it as its field of operation and emergent in the phenomenon of a thinking life and body:... emergence 1 The Life Divine, p. 679. 2 Ibid., p. 853. 3 The Human Cycle, p. 208. Page 46 of the involved Being and Consciousness — begins its course of ascent, it first develops, as it is bound to develop in the inverse order, Matter and a material universe: in Matter, life appears and living physical beings: in Life, Mind manifests and embodied... and terrestrial for its field, and with human mind and life for its nodus and turning-point of release towards a higher and a highest perfection." 1 As a matter of fact, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, "a spiritual evolution, an unfolding here of the Being within from birth to birth, of which man becomes the central instrument and human life at its highest offers the critical turning point ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Education and the Aim of human life  >  The Drawing of the New Age

... evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form of veiled Life, Life a form... states which are beyond Mind. In that case. the unconquerable impulse of man towards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality presents itself in its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulse by which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond Mind, and appears to be as natural, true and just as the impulse towards Life which she has planted in certain forms of Matter or the impulse Page... a direction; it aims towards a progressive manifestation of the powers of consciousness. Matter, on the physical plane, pressed by the forces of the vital and mental planes, of those worlds of life and thought which along with the world of matter constitute our universe, has organized itself and produced life. Animate forms have developed progressively in the vegetable and animal kingdoms throughout ...

Pavitra   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Education and the Aim of human life

The Life Divine  >  The Two Negations: The Refusal of the Ascetic

... —or perhaps only tolerates it; It embraces Life with Its vastness,—or else rejects it from Its infinitude. If the materialist is justified from his point of view in insisting on Matter as reality, the relative world as the sole thing of which we can in some sort be sure and the Beyond as wholly unknowable, if not indeed non-existent, a dream of the mind, an abstraction of Thought divorcing itself... self-existence: it was here before life and mind made their appearance; it will survive after they have disappeared and no longer trouble with their transient strivings and limited thoughts the eternal and inconscient rhythm of the suns. The difference, so metaphysical in appearance, is yet of the utmost practical import, for it determines the whole outlook of man upon life, the goal that he shall assign... tangle Page 23 of phenomenal life. And yet the question cannot be solved by logic arguing on the data of our ordinary physical existence; for in those data there is always a hiatus of experience which renders all argument inconclusive. We have, normally, neither any definitive experience of a cosmic mind or supermind not bound up with the life of the individual body, nor, on the other ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Life Divine  >  The Ascent of Life

... self-assertion and aggressive living. For these two first states of Life contain in themselves the seeds of a new principle and another state which must increase in proportion as Mind evolves out of matter through the vital formula into its own law. And still more must all things change when as Life evolves upward towards Mind, so Mind evolves upward towards Supermind and Spirit. Precisely because the... mortal Mind, parent of limitation and ignorance and the dualities, is only a dark figure of the supermind, of the self-luminous divine Consciousness in its first dealings with the apparent negation of itself from which our cosmos commences, so also Life as it emerges in our material universe, an energy of the dividing Page 210 Mind subconscious, submerged, imprisoned in Matter, Life as the... turns into the whole of basic existence; it is the consciousness of Matter and the accomplished type of material living. But there comes a new equipoise, there intervenes a new set of terms which increase in proportion as Life delivers itself out of this form and begins to evolve towards conscious Mind; for the middle terms of Life are death and mutual devouring, hunger and conscious desire, the sense ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  In Quest of Reality

... -energy and on that hypothesis better explain certain movements of Matter and Life and Mind in a global unity. Orthodox and die-hard views will always protest and cry that it is a m é salliance, a misjoinder to couple together Matter and Consciousness or even Life and Consciousness. But since the light has touched the higher mind even among Page 308 a few of the positivist type... secret life. And because there was life secreted within matter, therefore life could come out of matter; there is here no spontaneous generation, no arbitrary fiat nor a fortui­tous chance. The whole creation is a mighty stir of life. That is how the ancient Rishi of the Upanishad puts it: Life stirred and all came out. Now, let us advance another step forward. Beyond matter there lies life and... and beyond life-consciousness. Is consciousness too a mere epiphenomenon as life was once thought to be in the empire of matter? Or can it not be that consciousness is an extension - an evolute – of life, even as life is an extension, an evolute of matter? In other words consciousness is not a freak, even as life was not; it is inherent in life, life itself is a rudimentary movement of consciousness ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  Mind and Supermind

... it be with Mind and that which is beyond Mind. And all this progression is possible because these things are only different formations of one being and one consciousness. Life only reveals in Matter that which is involved in Matter, that which is the secret meaning and essence of Matter. It reveals, as it were, to material existence its own soul, its own end. So too Mind reveals in Life all that Life... preparation of the mind by the admission into it of a working higher than itself until the mind is capable of giving itself up to the supramental action which exceeds it and Page 44 which will finally replace it. In fact, Mind also has to follow the law of natural progression which has governed our evolution in this world from Matter into Life and Life into Mind. For just as Life-consciousness... consciousness is beyond the divided and dividing nature of Mind and unattainable by it through its own instruments. But as Matter is constantly prepared for the manifestation of Life until Life is able to move in it, possess it, manage in it its own action and reaction, and as Life is constantly prepared for the manifestation of Mind until Mind is able to use it, enlighten its actions and reactions by ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

The Life Divine  >  Death, Desire and Incapacity

... overtly or secretly conscious energy as its fundamental character. In the material world we inhabit Mind is involved and subconscious in Life, just as Supermind is involved and subconscious in Mind, and this Life instinct with an involved subconscious Mind is again itself involved in Matter. Therefore Matter is here the basis and the apparent beginning; in the language of the Upanishads, Prithivi, the ... action of Mind on Matter; in a sense, it may be said to be an energy aspect of Mind when it creates and relates itself no longer only to ideas, but to motions of force and to forms of substance. But it must immediately be added that just as Mind is not a separate entity, but has all Supermind behind it and it is Supermind that creates with Mind only as its final individualising operation, so Life also is... of which the life in us, because it is absorbed in the mere process of living as our mind is absorbed in the mere process of mentalising life and matter, is unconscious in its darkened action so that it serves them blindly and ignorantly and not, as it must and will in its liberation and fulfilment, luminously or with a self-fulfilling knowledge, power and bliss. In fact, our Life, because it is ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny  >  In Quest of Reality

... s-energy and on that hypothesis better explain certain movements of Matter and Life and Mind in a global unity. Orthodox and die-hard views will always protest and cry that it is a mesalliance, a misjoinder to couple together Matter and Consciousness or even Life and Consciousness. But since the light has touched the higher mind even among page 215 a few of the positivist type, the few... secret life. And because there was life secreted within matter, therefore life could come out of matter; there is here no spontaneous generation, no arbitrary fiat nor a fortuitous chance. The whole creation is a mighty stir of life. That is how the ancient Rishi of the Upanishad puts it: Life stirred and all came out. Now, let us advance another step forward. Beyond matter there lies life and beyond... beyond life—consciousness. Is consciousness too a mere epiphenomenon as life was once thought to be in the empire of matter ? Or can it not be that consciousness is an extension—an evolute—of life, even as life is an extension, an evolute of matter ? In other words consciousness is not a freak, even as life was not; it is inherent in life, life itself is a rudimentary movement of consciousness. The ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

Mother or The New Species - II  >  7. Krishna in Gold

... by the mind, lived by the mind, felt by the mind, that dies. It is a false death, as false as our life—it is the false life that dies. And it is a veil... over something else, which is material. No—not at all the paradise of a consciousness up above, after "death," but a material world of true Matter on the other side of the veil of death, which is only the death of the Mind. Another Matter in Matter... descent of the supramental substance into Matter. Only this substance, what it has put into physical Matter, can make this possible. It is a new ferment. Yes, perhaps like a drop of sodium hydrate in a test tube of dark iodine: everything gets cleared up. The Supermind is what clears Matter up, what makes all Matter one, just as the Mind is what cuts Matter up into millions of pieces... only to try... muscles and centuries of toil and of matter to be endlessly purified, clarified and subtilized—it is behind the mental inconscient. It is here, immediately: "a spring that I had not seen." It is separated from us only by the Mind: by the roots of the Mind. The Mind is the veil—but the mystery is to know how deep the roots, that is, Mind's darkening veil, go into Matter. We used to think that the Inconscient ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man  >  A Deeper Question

... evolution presupposes an involutionary process. If Life evolves in Matter, and Mind in Life, it must be because Life is involved in Matter and Mind in Life. The material Inconscience is the involved Super-conscience. Evolution is fundamentally a spiritual phenomenon. It is a phenomenon of an evolutionary self-building of Spirit on a base of Matter, which is itself a formation of spiritual reality... of ever-increasing complexity. At certain points in the history of things, finites assume new empirical qualities which are distinctive levels of experience—primary qualities, matter; and secondary qualities, life and mind. As explained in his book, Space, Time and Deity, the cosmic process has now reached the human level, and man is looking forward to the next higher quality of deity. According... origin. What comes later is more than what was there earlier. There is, according to him, a developing process marked by increasing complexity. It is true that the powers and properties of matter, life, mind, history and values are not entirely different. They interpenetrate and produce an increasing complexity and concentration. In man, evolution becomes conscious of itself. Tracing the story ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man

Lights on Yoga  >  The Goal

... Sachchidananda are in principle involved there in the earth-consciousness; but only Matter is at first organised; then life descends from the life plane and gives shape and organisation and activity to the life principle in Matter, creates the plant and animal; then mind descends from the mind plane, creating man. Now Supermind is to descend so as to create a supramental race. * In order to... the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter. This is an exceedingly difficult aim and difficult Yoga; to many or most it will seem impossible. All the established forces of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness are opposed to it and deny it and try to prevent it, and the Sadhak will find his own mind, life and body full of... embodied in living Matter has to rise so as to meet the higher consciousness; the higher consciousness has also to descend into mind, into life, into Matter. In that way the barriers will be removed and the higher consciousness will be able to take up the whole lower nature and transform it by the power of the supermind. The earth is a material field of evolution. Mind and Life, Supermind, Sach ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Lights on Yoga

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Evolutionary Destiny

... For, mind is too imperfect an expression and man too hampered and limited a creature to be the last terms of evolution . It must then imply a progressive ascent to higher and higher reaches of consciousness till it reaches the highest possible. As Nature has already evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, evolved beyond Life and manifested Mind, so she must now evolve even beyond Mind — which... l truth-consciousness and these will in their very nature transform mind and life and body even here upon earth into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit." 1 And if Matter — which has so far in the course of the long march of evolution taken into itself and manifested 'the power of life and the light of mind,' although in its original status it appeared to be lifeless and mindless... suffusing and radiating from it as a lamp reflects and diffuses the luminosity of its indwelling flame, carrying in itself the beatitude of the spirit, its joy of the seeing mind, its joy of life and spiritual happiness, the joy of Matter released into a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant ecstasy. This would be the total perfection of the spiritualised body." 2 But one further ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 1  >  Nature's Own Yoga

... through a series of awakenings — Matter awakening into life, life awakening into mind and mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the mind, into a power of conscious Spirit. The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescience—of Involution—has been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic... on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Page 18 Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the... stage of evolution is the status Page 10 of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man. The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 1

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Sevenfold Chord of Being

... different it may be from our experience of Life, Mind and Matter. For there must be a subordinate power and action of Supermind measuring, creating fixed standpoints of mutual view and interaction in the universal self-diffusion as between an infinite number of centres of the one Consciousness; and such a power would be what we mean by Mind. So too, Mind once given, Life, which is the working of will and energy... apparently involved in one of them which then becomes the initial principle, but all secretly at work and bound to evolve into manifestation. Therefore out of initial Matter latent Life and Mind have emerged as apparent Life and Mind, and latent Supermind and the hidden Spirit must emerge as apparent Supermind and the triune glory of Sachchidananda. Page 487 ... which constitute divine existence, but in inverted order. The Divine descends from pure existence to Supermind to cast itself into cosmic existence; the creature ascends from Matter toMind towards the Divine and meets it where mind and Supermind meet with a veil between them. By the rending of the veil each of the four divine human principles can find its transfigured self in its divine equivalent. This ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny  >  Natures Own Yoga

... through a series of awakenings—Matter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit. The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescience —of Involution—has been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic... diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement backward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling... working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-conscious life in man. The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Nature's Own Yoga

... through a series of awakenings – Matter awakening into Life, Life awakening into Mind and Mind now seeking to awaken into something beyond the Mind, into a power of conscious Spirit. The apparent or actual result of the movement of Nescience – of Involution – has been an increasing negation of the Spirit, but its hidden purpose is ultimately to embody the Spirit in Matter, to express here below in cosmic... diversity; but on the line which ends in Matter it enters into more and more obscure forms and forces and finally the virtual eclipse of the supreme light of the Divine Consciousness. Creation as it descends' towards the Ignorance becomes an involution of the Spirit through Mind and Life into Matter; evolution is a movement back­ward, a return journey from Matter towards the Spirit: it is the unravelling... working. Thus, the first stage of evolution is the status of inconscient Matter, of the lifeless physical elements; the second stage is that of the semi-conscious life in the plant, the third that of the conscious life in the animal, and finally the fourth stage, where we stand at present, is that of the embodied self-con­scious life in man. The course of evolution has not come to a stop with man and ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  The Supermind's Descent and The Mind of Light

... the mind and the vital mentioned by the Mother with the subliminal or inner mentality and vitality, mind and life-force in their own right apart from matter though thrusting their powers into matter, joining up with and developing the mental and the vital evolving from the "inconscience" of matter in which they lie "involved". The involved vital and mental that have evolved are mind and ... evolutionary mind, life-force and matter by converting the progressive Lightward straining of darkness and dusk into a process of ever-unfolding Light. Hence only the Supermind can create the radical change marked by the Mind of Light in the stuff of ignorance resulting from a breaking of the luminous ladder. No grade of Spiritual Mind can repair that break. So, the Mind of Light, however... life-force physical in the strict sense, while in the broad sense the vital and mental Page 107 "evolutes" of earth, in addition to being these, are constituted by their development under the pressure of mind and life-force from above matter and by their juncture with the powers thrust from the subliminal into terrestrial evolution. Physical mind, in the ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Aspects of Sri Aurobindo  >  An All-Round Revelation

... across the huge obstacles put up by the reality's initial negation of its own being. With the Soul-principle stirring from behind, Matter is evolved from the chaos of the Inconscient, then Life from Matter and Mind from Life. Veiled by Mind, as Mind is by Life and Life by Matter, Supermind and its accompaniments wait to be evolved. What is initially veiled will be of necessity laid bare in the terminal... vitality from Page 168 brute Matter, the breaking forth of self-conscious mentality from instinctive organic process, the upsurge of idealistic soul-sense and luminous spirituality from the perceptual-conceptual half-knowledge of the labouring intelligence. That upsurge carries even the promise of a fulfilled Mind, an accomplished Life-Force and even a perfected body because of the... One and the Many. The Supermind manifests below itself a hierarchy of "planes" disclosing the reality in various partial ways. At the lower end of the ladder there are the realms of Universal Mind, Life-Force and Subtle-Physical Substance, each organised into a set of interacting individual features. A realm of Soul-principle — a plane of World-Soul — exists at the back of them and is related to ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Aspects of Sri Aurobindo

Savitri  >  Appendix

... WORLD-STAIR     GROSS MATTER   (Canto II)    SUBTLE MATTER  (Canto II)    Material Paradise    LITTLE LIFE  (Cantos III, IV, V)    Insect, Animal, Early Man    GREATER LIFE   (Canto VI)     Kingdom of the Morning Star:   The Heroic Age SELF OF MIND WORLD-SOUL (Canto XIII)        ... GREATER MIND (Canto XI)   Higher mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive mind       LITTLE MIND (Canto X) Pigmy Thought, Intelligence, Reason        NIGHT   (Cantos VII, VIII) Mother of Falsehood & Sons of Darkness   DAY        (Cantos IX)  The Life-Gods: ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man  >  What is the Secret of Nature's Movement

... Page 25 We would have seen no evidence of a soul and no limit of Mind or Life in this immeasurable and interminable display of Matter. But after some aeons, we might have detected at least in one small corner of the universe an outbreak of teeming life, the phenomenon of living Matter, a Life in things that had emerged and become visible. But still we would have understood... Nature would still veil her secret. We would have seen a Nature concerned only with establishing this outburst of Life, this new creation, but Life living for itself with no significance in it. We could not have imagined that a thinking mind would appear in this minute island of life, that a consciousness could awake in the Inconscient, a new, greater and subtler vibration come to the surface and... immediate preoccupation, which also seems to be for ever her only business. Matter alone appears to be the sole, dumb and stark cosmic reality. If we were present there, conscious but uninstructed, we would only have seen appearing out of a vast abyss of an apparent non-existence an Energy busy with the creation of Matter, a material world and material objects, organizing the infinity of the inconscient ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man

Mother or The New Species - II  >  11: The Mind's Magic

... very life of the body. This is the "physical mind." A sort of primal thought in Matter. But then, it is not even a "thought," it is a breath, or rather an imprint. Probably the imprint of all the catastrophes it had to go through in order to awaken to life—a catastrophic awakening. The emergence from the great, quiet Sleep. The material consciousness, that is to say, the mind in Matter, was... world. Those are the higher powers of the Mind, which we hardly know or do not know at all (and so much the better). But they are powers imposed on Matter from above, they go on working as long as one remains in the proper conditions for the power, namely, in the mental heights. Matter is not really touched: it is muzzled. You can muzzle it for an entire life and be "cured"—but you die in the end, like... an idea, it's what in the conscious intelligence is expressed as the possession by an idea, a hypnosis—a sort of hypnosis accompanied by a fear in Matter. 29 The great fear of the physical Mind, which at heart is the fear of life, the negation of life, what we might call the "catastrophic will": let everything end in mortal peace. It's a sort of TWIST that you try to straighten out and which goes ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Essays Divine and Human  >  Consciousness and the Inconscient

... by consciousness. All that is is a consciousness veiled Page 300 or unveiled, manifesting or concealing its own substance. All is energy of consciousness masked by movement of mind and life and matter and taking forms which are merely motions of the energy stabilised to appearance, yet always in movement; for the consciousness that constitutes these forms is always in dynamic movement;... fact; there may be a subtler Matter which is not that but something else—a Matter not formed but motional, vibratory, aetheric. But, still, what can that be but a subtler motion of Energy, a vibration of Energy in Space? And of Space too we do not know what it is,—whether a mere conception of our mind and its sense or an extension of something that exceeds the grasp of our mind and sense,—perhaps an unseizable... spoken if we had used our fully awake mind and will. What is it that thus takes up the writing, the walk, the speech and completes our intention or betrays us? It must be either something of the mind behind or below its active surface movement or something of a driving life-force or action of the body. But in the first explanation there must be a part of the mind, not our conscious thought and will ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Question. What Godhead?

... is that which is represented by Mind and Life as opposed to gross Matter; for in Mind and Life we have the characteristic action of the Gods. The Upanishad is not concerned with the elemental, the adhibhūta ; it is concerned with the relation between the subtle existence and the spiritual, the adhidaiva and adhyātma . But the Page 18 Mind, the Life, the speech, the senses are governed... senses are dependent upon the nervous Life-force for their functioning. The Upanishad therefore begins by a query as to the final source or control of the activities of the Mind, Life-Force, Speech, Senses. The question is, kena , by whom or what? In the ancient conception of the universe our material existence is formed from the five elemental states of Matter, the ethereal, aerial, fiery, liquid... liquid and solid; everything that has to do with our material existence is called the elemental, adhibhūta . In this material there move non-material powers manifesting through the Mind-Force and Life-Force that work upon Matter, and these are called Gods or Devas; everything that has to do with the working of the non-material in us is called adhidaiva , that which pertains to the Gods. But above the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Mother or The New Species - II  >  8: The Triple End

... Our conception of what is miraculous is part of the false means, it is the Mind that has created the notion of the miracle, because for the mind everything obeys laws, so if something eludes the "law," it must be a miracle. But these laws are mental laws, mental creations, it is Matter as seen by the mind—outside of the Mind, everything is miraculous and a constant miracle. Or rather, everything is... with gospels once and for all, whether those of death or of eternal paradise? Suppose we start believing in Matter's truth, in the divine possibility of Matter, in the divine life in a true body? Well, then we must go and seek true Matter, that is all, without any prejudice of death or of life, without any of the prejudices of improved apes, whether scientific, materialistic or spiritualistic. Ingenuously... age and every country, were as if annulled or "ousted," by this new perception of Matter; as if all the gods, miracles, liberations, paradises and all the rest came still from the Mind and were mental projections; perhaps the magic lantern of the mind, but a lantern nevertheless in comparison to the golden dust of Matter. The supramental is not an improved mental vision, widened, extended, and more divine: ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Science, Materialism, Mysticism  >  Matter and Life

... where life and mind are each a separate uninvolved force and from where originally the precipitation of something of life and mind into matter-form took place and also the reverse push bringing about life's and mind's emergence was originally planted. Page 280 One mistake must be avoided. To give mind the basic status and to make life its involved condition and, through life's involution... by biological processes. In the other, matter is reduced to life and taken as a special limited case of vitality which is thus seen as fundamental.' So long as an ultimate reduction in ' Of course the term "fundamental" is relative. We are using it only as between two categories, matter and life. More fundamental than life would be mind and even beyond mind there could be spirit. But these are not... is more than one "depth-phenomenon" behind the "surface-phenomenon" of matter. A plane of mind no less than a plane of life must be declared to exist together with the material plane. However, to render interaction possible, we should say that just as matter is an involved form of life so also life is an involved form of mind. That would explain the steps of the evolution - the advent of explicit ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Science, Materialism, Mysticism

A Greater Psychology  >  Liberation and Transformation

... fundamentally as it is with only purification, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital. It means a bringing down of the Divine Consciousness static and dynamic into all these parts and the entire replacement of the present consciousness by that. This we find unveiled and unmixed above mind, life and body. It is a matter of the undeniable experience of many that this can descend... all is Brahman, life is a Page 170 dream, an unreality, only Brahman exists. One has Nirvana or Mukti, then one lives only till the body falls — after that there is no such thing as life. They do not believe in transformation, because mind, life and body are an ignorance, an illusion — the only reality is the featureless relationless Self or Brahman. Life is a thing of relations;... self but use mind, life and body, then the imperfections of these Page 172 instruments have to be faced and mended — they can only be mended by transformation. Letters on Yoga, p. 1143 A divine life in a material world implies necessarily a union of the two ends of existence, the spiritual summit and the material base. The soul with the basis of its life established in ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  14 May 1958

... only out of its precedent grade but in it, as Life emerges in Matter and is largely limited and determined in its self-expression by its material conditions, as Mind emerges in Life-in-Matter and is similarly limited and determined in its self-expression by life-conditions and material conditions, so Spirit too must emerge in a Mind embodied in Life-in-Matter and must be largely limited and determined... obvious that the most difficult way to approach this supramental life is intellectual activity. It could be said that it is much more difficult to pass from the mental to the supramental life than to pass from a certain psychic emotion in life—something that is like a reflection, a luminous emanation of the divine Presence in matter—to the supramental consciousness; it is much easier to pass from... 1958 May Questions and Answers (1957-1958) 14 May 1958 " As plant-life contains in itself the obscure possibility of the conscious animal, as the animal-mind is astir with the movements of feeling and perception and the rudiments of conception that are the first ground for man the thinker, so man the mental being ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2  >  From Death to Deathlessness-Lucretius

... by the gardener Mind Created on thy Matter's terrain plot; It perishes with the plant on which it grows, For from earth's sap it draws its heavenly hue: Thy thoughts are gleams that pass on Matter's verge, Page 346 Thy life a lapsing wave on Matter's sea. 12 Death contends that everything stands upon Matter as on a rock and that if Matter fails all, crumbling... All thy high dreams were made by Matter's mind To solace its dull work in Matter's jail, Its only house where it alone seems true. A solid image of reality Carved out being to prop the works of Time; Matter on the firm earth sits strong and sure. It is the first-born of created things, It stands the last when mind and life are slain, And if it ended all would... a traveller, made Matter's world his starting point. God covered his face in Matter, infinity wore a boundless zero's form, eternity became a blank spiritual vast. The Timeless took its ground in emptiness, so that the spirit might adventure into Time. The spirit built a thought in nothingness; Matter was made the body of the Bodiless and slumbering life breathed in Matter. Mind lay asleep in subconscient ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Ascending Unity

... material forms the rudiments of precisely the same energy of life and its responses. And the question then arises whether there is not an unbroken continuity in Nature, no scissions and sections, no unbridgeable gulfs or impassable borders, but a complete unity, matter instinct with a suppressed life, life instinct with a suppressed mind, mind instinct with a suppressed energy of a diviner intelligence... secret of existence from its beginning. We come to a fathomless conception of this all, sarvam idam , in which we see that there is an obscure omnipresent life in matter, activised by that life a secret sleeping mind, sheltered in that sleep of mind an involved all-knowing all-originating Spirit. But then soul is not to be conceived of as a growth or birth of which we can fix a date of its coming or... was not spirit; an antinomy between spirit and matter became the base of his self-conception, or else more amply between spirit on the one side and on the other mind, life and body. Then conceiving of self as a pure entity, all else being not-self was separated from it as of quite another character. Incidentally, with the eye of his inveterate dividing mind, he saw it as his own separate self and, just ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Divine Collaborators  >  The Divine Manifestation And Divine Life

... the Divine Life Sri Aurobindo says, "The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of Super-mind towards the divine Being. The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and Supermind... This Manifestation of Spirit in Matter, of God in man, will be an unhampered expression of man's integral living in the Divine. His body, life, soul and mind, in possession of the Divine and possessed by Him, will reveal nothing but Him in thought and feeling and action, and fulfil Him and His Will in the world. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls the Divine Life. Defining Page 51 ... ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter." 1 With regard to the "Advent" of the Divine, that is to •say, His unveiled manifestation in collective humanity, the Mother has been as positive ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Divine Collaborators

Overman  >  2: Four Pillars

... also wrote in this connection: “Another self-evident conclusion is that there is a graduated necessary succession in the evolution, first the evolution of Matter, next the evolution of Life in Matter, then the evolution of Mind in living Matter, and in this last stage an animal evolution followed by a human evolution. The first three terms of the succession are too evident to be disputable.” 20 ... of substance” (Sri Aurobindo) – all denoting a cosmic hierarchy of levels in which Matter would be on the lowest rung, and Spirit, or God, or the Supreme Being, on the highest. In The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo writes about the “sevenfold chord of Being”, of which the “notes” are: matter, the vital or life-forces, mind, Supermind, Ananda, Consciousness and Being. On other occasions he mentions eight... changes in matter, and much more complex. Vital, mental and supramental elements must necessarily be involved. Evolution is not only physical, it is first and foremost spiritual. “All evolution is in essence a heightening of the force of consciousness in the manifest being so that it may be raised into the greater intensity of what is still unmanifest, from matter into life, from life into mind, from mind ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Overman

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Involved and Evolving Godhead

... insufficient figure of knowledge. This full power of the consciousness is supermind or gnosis,—supermind because to reach it we have to pass beyond and turn upon mind as the mind itself has passed and turned upon life and inconscient matter and gnosis because it is eternally self-possessed of Truth and in its very stuff and nature it is dynamic substance of knowledge. The true knowledge of things... its own supporting, yet resistant substance. Its greater subsequent and deliberately emerging movements, life and mind and intuition and soul and supermind and the light of the Godhead are already there, locked up and obscurely compressed into the initial power and first expressive values of Matter. Before there could be any evolution, there must needs be this involution of the Divine All that is... advance; nothing beyond mind need appear in the material world,—as indeed there was then no necessity for even mind to arise at all out of the meaningless blind material whirl. Consciousness itself would be only a Page 162 fortuitous apparition, a strange hallucinating reflection or ghost of Matter. Or if all were the work of a mechanical Force, then too mind need not have appeared at ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  11: The Transformation

... autonomous cellular life governed by the Mind of the cells, by that small indestructible, universal vibration. And as I did not understand very well back then what this new Mind was, I asked Mother: “How do you define this physical Mind, that which was subject to this transfer of power?”— That isn’t the physical Mind. It is the material Mind—not even the material Mind: the mind OF MATTER. It is the mental... He found the missing link between Matter and the Supermind, and all that remained was to “elaborate” it ... cell by cell. The mind is everywhere, he observed in one of the only revealing texts that He left on this subject and which we have already partially quoted And there is too an obscure mind of the body, of the very cells, molecules, corpuscles This body-mind is a very tangible truth; owing to... simplest key there is: it is the Mind of the cells that attracts or stops the formidable Current of the primary, supramental substance. It is the fixative or connector of the supramental vibration. That was why Mother fainted every time She wanted to enter into contact with the Supramental by abolishing the Mind of the body: for it is the intermediary, the bridge between Matter as it is now, hardened, stuck ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man  >  Man is a Transitional Being

... a life perception which in its first forms depends on an internal sensation responsive to the contacts of the other life and of Matter. Consciousness labours to manifest, as best it can through the inadequacy of sensation, its own inherent delight of being; but it can only formulate a partial pain and pleasure. But when we come to Man, we find that the energizing consciousness appears as Mind more... evolution of Life in Matter, then the evolution of Mind in living Matter, and in this last stage an animal evolution followed by a human evolution. In particular, the essential point in the theory of spiritual evolution is the fact of the evolution of consciousness, a progression of spiritual manifestation in material existence. But even if all this is accepted, it may still be doubted that Man... a development of forms, of bodies, a progressively complex and competent organization of Matter, of Life in Matter, of consciousness in living Matter; in this scale the better organized the form, the more it is capable of housing a better organized, a more complex and capable, a more developed or evolved Life and consciousness. In regard to these common aspects, there does not seem to be a basis for ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  10: The Need to Be

... rust and dust, as if it had never existed. And indeed, it never did. Separation never was. Consciousness was never divided, Spirit is not as we think it, Matter is not as we see it; life and death—that first and fundamental division—are neither life as we know it nor death as we think it, but something else: a radical something else into which we are slowly toppling, as if into a bewildering and unexpected... is not an improved extension of the same old evolution; it is a leap, an evolutionary saltus into a different consciousness. A new evolution, Sri Aurobindo would say. A different life in Matter. A different Matter. A different law of being. For to be differently is to have a different power. But being begins with one drop. The Way Out Below Nature always gives us the means to move... heartily. The mind is the most striking negative proof of the neces­sity to be. Anything that pretends just collapses and dies. When we are, we shall no longer need to die; death is the ultimate expedient to force us to be in our body as in our soul. Then we may know what being is. For so-called "Mat­ter” does not exist without Spirit and so-called “Spirit” does not exist without Matter. The union ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

In the Mother's Light  >  The Divune Manifestation and the Divine Life

... the Divine Life Sri Aurobindo says, "The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of Supermind towards the divine Being. The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and Supermind... Manifestation of Spirit in Matter, of God in man, will be an unhampered expression of man's integral living in the Divine. His body, life, soul and mind, in possession of the Divine and possessed by Him, will reveal nothing but Him in Page 371 thought and feeling and action, and fulfil Him and His Will in the world. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls the Divine Life. Defining the process and... ignorant world- consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter.”¹ With regard to the "Advent" of the Divine, that is to say. His unveiled manifestation in collective humanity, the Mother has been as positive ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7  >  Jagadish Chandra Bose

... has in this way brought matter through the corridor of life right almost to the door-step of consciousness. Our ancient seer vision has thus been made sensible through in his genius. All that we see is one, not many. That one is not inanimate matter, it is instinct with life, it is living, nay, not only living but conscious. The truth that the Rishi in his divine vision has seen, and experienced in... the world there is a unity of life; behind the rhythms of matter is the rhythm of life. Even mineral objects feel fatigued, they faint from the application of poison, they look dying, then die. Plants also are no mere sum of material elements; they too have pulsation and nervous response, vibration of the heart and feeling of joy and sorrow, they have an involved consciousness. Jagadish Chandra has... spiritual. But that is a matter entirely for another field, another world. When the scientist is occupied with science he must shut the door on this his other aspect. A combination of the two creates confusion. Scientific research has to be carried on under the strict vigilance of the brain and the senses. If into that there intrude hopes, desires, feelings of the heart, life or imagination, Page ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

Savitri  >  'The Kingdoms of the Little Life'

... fragile tenement he grows Nature's lord. 54   From matter to life, from life to mind, and from mind to-he doesn't know yet. There is a continuous striving, there is a progressive effort but the desire is dogged by incapacity, the aspiration is followed (if at all) by only partial achievement. There are random movements, purblind advances; there is progress surely, but along an exasperating... sense- perceptions rule the Kingdom of the Little Life. But 'mind' is not long in soliciting and directing life, fitfully and uncertainly at first, but presently with more concerted and ambitious aim. Mind-crowned man has made his appearance on earth , and he is rich in endowments and his life is full of possibilities.         He becomes a mind, he becomes a spirit and self;       In his fragile... reptile, in insect— even this life is not devoid of meaning. 58 No doubt about it, Being is involved even in these lower realms and darkened vasts:   Even in these formless codings he [Aswapati] could feel Matter's response to an infant stir of soul. 59   In the adjoining second Kingdom of the Little Lite, Aswapati marks "a fierier breath of waking life". Here "an insect hedonism" ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Sri Aurobindo And The Mother - On India  >  Sri Aurobindo - The Hour of God

... mental being enslaved to life and matter; and where he is not enslaved to life and matter, he is the slave of his mind. But this is a great and heavy servitude; for to be the slave of mind is to be the slave of the false, the limited and the apparent.     The Self that thou hast to become is that self that thou art within behind the veil of mind and life and matter. It is to be the: spiritual... for this immortal substance; Vital he seeks after immortal life and the infinite power of his being; mental and partial in knowledge, he seeks after the whole light and the utter vision. Page 50     To possess these is to become the superman; for he is to rise out of mind into the Supermind. Call it the divine mind or knowledge or the Supermind; it is the power and light of... of limitation to discover infinity, out of death to find immortality, out of grief to recover divine bliss, out of ignorance to rescue divine self-knowledge, out of matter to reveal spirit. . . .     Our whole apparent life is a becoming, but all becoming has for its goal and fulfilment being-and God is the only being; to become divine in the nature of the world, in the symbol of our humanity ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo And The Mother - On India

In the Mother's Light  >  Physical Transformation

... no divine life upon earth. And yet, Sri Aurobindo affirms, the establishment of the divine life is inevitable, as it is the logical culmination of the process of evolution which brings out from the indeterminate inconscience the fundamental principles of existence involved there. As Matter has evolved, and life and mind, so the other principles must also evolve. Therefore the divine life on earth is... transformation of Matter, the transmutation of the physical being of man. But this is not a theme that originated with the Prayers and Meditations, but had its birth in the Mother's consciousness very early in her life, and has been ever since the one out-standing mission of her life. She too felt like Sri Aurobindo that divine perfection could only be attained in earthly life by conquering and ... the ultimate goal of our earthly life, as "the transformation of Matter" which is, as is well known, the ¹ Words of Long Ago by the Mother. Page 356 central aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga and philosophy. In her Prayer of the 26th November, 1912, the Mother, addressing the Divine, says, "...Thou who everywhere raisest up Matter in this ardent and wonderful aspiration ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

The Divine Collaborators  >  Physical Transformation

... divine life upon earth. And yet, Sri Aurobindo affirms, the establishment of the divine life is inevitable, as it is the logical culmination of the process of evolution which brings out from the indeterminate inconscience the fundamental principles of existence involved there. As Matter has evolved, and life and mind, so the other principles must also evolve. Therefore the divine life on earth... transformation of Matter, the transmutation of the physical being of man. But this is not a theme that originated with the "Prayers and Meditations," but had its birth in the Mother's consciousness very early in her life, and has been ever since the one, outstanding mission of her life. She too felt like Sri Aurobindo that divine perfection could only be attained in earthly life by conquering and... of our earthly life, as "the transformation of Matter" which is, as is well known, the central aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga and philosophy. In her Prayer of the 26th November, 1912, the Mother, addressing the Divine, says, "....Thou who everywhere raisest up Matter in this ardent and wonderful aspiration, in this sublime thirst for Eternity." These ideas of "raising up Matter," the "aspiration ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Divine Collaborators

Savitri  >  'The Kingdoms and the Godheads of the Little Mind'

... shies away from the subtler engines of the mind. It can foot the well-trodden path, but turns away from trackless jungles and strange seas of thought. Although content thus to feed on "scraps of life and Matter's bones in its kennel of objective certitude", even this pigmy figure plays an allotted role in the cosmic play.         The second of Mind's deputies is "a rash Intelligence" with its... her tireless strivings to pluck the heart of the mystery, Mind has three divers deputies—three loyal serfs—to advance her cause and promote her work. The first of these is,         A pigmy Thought...       A technician admirable, a thinker crude,       A riveter of Life to habit's grooves,       Obedient to gross Matter's tyranny,... 97   It is the perfect servant, but... still to come. Mind's knowledge has to be followed by a "greater Gnosis". Aswapati marks two new powers overshadowing the "dwarfish trinity" and perched in a "high breathless stratosphere". These two "sun-gaze Daemons" are "a huge high-winged Life-Thought" and "a pure Thought-Mind"; these powers hold the key to the higher Gnosis; these are the godheads of the Kingdoms of the Greater Mind. Page ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

The Life Divine  >  The Evolution of the Spiritual Man

... Nature; Matter could not have become animate if the principle of life had not been there constituting Matter and emerging as a phenomenon of life-in-matter; life-in-matter could not have begun to feel, perceive, think, reason, if the principle of mind had not been there behind life and substance, constituting it as its field of operation and emergent in the phenomenon of a thinking life and body:... only out of its precedent grade but in it, as life emerges in matter and is largely limited and determined in its self-expression by its material conditions, as mind emerges in life-in-matter and is similarly limited and determined in its self-expression by life conditions and material conditions, so spirit too must emerge in a mind embodied in life-in-matter and must be largely limited and determined... ty. There are powers of the mind and the life-force which have not been included in Nature's present systematisation of mind and life in matter, but are potential and can be brought to bear upon material things and happenings or even brought in and added to the present systematisation so as to enlarge the control of mind over our own life and body or to act on the minds, lives, bodies of others or ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Rebirth, Evolution, Heredity

... behind the veil of material process, or else that mind is only a process of life and life only a process of matter. Therefore finally we have to suppose the physical theory capable of explaining by purely material causes and a material constitution the mystery of the emergence of life in matter and the equal mystery of the emergence of mind in life. It is here that difficulties begin to crowd in which... assumption, for it has never been proved—is that development of non-living matter results under certain unknown conditions in a phenomenon of unconscious life which is in its real nature only an action and reaction of material energy, and the development of that again under certain unknown conditions in a phenomenon of conscious mind which is again in its real nature only an action and reaction of material... problem of our being. One of these is the ancient view that not only incidence of body and life on mind and soul, but incidence of mind and Page 283 soul on body and life have to be considered. Here too there is the evolutionary idea, but physical and life evolution, even the growth of mind, are held to be only incidental to a soul evolution of which Time is the course and the earth ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2  >  Savitri- Its Inner Significance

... is the eternal Avatar who prepared the Inconscient Matter for the manifestation of Life. According to Sri Aurobindo's philosophy of evolution we see how out of Matter Life emerged and how out of both Matter and Life, 17 Ibid., pp. 667, 679. 18 Questions and Answers, CWM, Vol. 9, p. 333. Page 144 Mind came upon this creation. How could all these emerge... whole dynamic kingdom of nature. So, this is how the divine consciousness, in Matter called Satyavan, brought forth Life from Matter. And when Life element in Nature was mature—it may take billions of years and it has taken truly a long long time—it is only then that he brought forth the element of Mind and that Mind is Man. We also know from Sri Aurobindo's philosophy that evolution can... Avatar from the earth itself, in the sense of evolution of Matter to Life and Mind, etc. This simultaneous movement from below and above is essential. In this manner Satyavan now represents the mental consciousness of man. He is the son of Dyumatsena and "Dyumatsena is Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan. He is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2

In the Mother's Light  >  Transformation

... is calculated to rid the nature of these very basic defects and limitations. Matter, life, and mind have their spiritual counterparts in Existence, Consciousness- Force and Supermind respectively. If Matter is converted into the immortal substance of the eternal Existence, life into the luminous Consciousness-Force, and mind into the Supermind, they shed for ever their obscuring deficiencies and become... emergence of the psychic being or the soul and its self-infusion into the mind, life and body. This is called psychicisation. The innate aspiration, devotion, love and joy of the psyche are transmitted into the Mind, life and body which, progressively cleansed of the taint Page 119 of the inconscience in Matter, begin to radiate the soul. This psychic transformation is in itself... nature of man are the physical body, the vital, that is to say, the principle and active formation of life, and the mind. Behind this triple formation is the psyche or the soul evolving in this nature for a divinely perfect self-expression and self-fulfilment on earth. But the body, life, and mind, being derived from material inconscience, are normally turbid and impure, and cannot mirror the immaculate ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1)  >  chapter 005

... forms. It is indeed this Existence after which we Aurobindonians Page 34 strive and by which we hope to change matter no less than mind to a perfect instrument of a Divine Life on earth. I think your final impression of me from this letter will be that I am not quite unlike the first American woman to come to the Ashram, one Mrs. Macpheeters whom an Ashramite correctly hit off by... (I) "What is mind" - "No matter!", (2) "What is matter?" - "Never mind!". Now for a spot of seriousness. Most philosophical problems arise from a lack of comprehensiveness in vision. The two questions and answers which I have quoted at the end of the last para seem often a necessity because of the exclusivist tendency in conceptual thought. To a comprehensive vision matter and mind are not opposites... a mere byproduct, a useless halo, as it were, of brain processes. Rather, mind and matter are both the aspects of a single reality which manifests itself through their opposition as well as interplay - a reality not "neutral" in its "stuff" a la Bertrand Russell but more luminous than mind and more substantial than matter: in short, a fundamental divine Existence variously creative of its own forms ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1)

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  15: An Upside-Down Volcano

... for the Mind believes, then disbelieves, then believes again, then darts off somewhere else in the great bazaar of ideas. But Matter does not need to believe. For it, to feel is to believe. It was in Matter that Sri Aurobindo worked, directly. Perhaps He worked to make Matter believe in itself. How did He go about it? The Work on Matter He went about it first on his own matter, and this... prevented the advent of the human type. It is a Yoga meant for life and life only, 16 Sri Aurobindo exclaimed one day, when asked once again if He had withdrawn to seek some salvation or other. It is The Mind that seeks its salvation, the Mind that invents disciplines, the Mind that builds heavens and windmills (and hells, too), but life is not saved in the least, even after millions of hours of ... Him; but diseases are Matter's falsehood, an opacity equivalent to mental stupidity—and He said, I am now attempting suc­cessfully to perfect [the immunity] and test it by exposure to abnormal conditions. 3 The only way to work on Matter is to make it react. You can work on a cold or a toothache like you mentally wade through the dusty pages of The Phenomenology of the Mind, or as you grapple ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

Sri Aurobindo's Message  >  The Glorious Future

... figure and action of it that must be reached and enter into a first operation if there is to be a divine life or any full manifestation of a spiritualised consciousness in the world of Matter. Or, at the very least, such a Truth-consciousness must be in communication with our own mind and life and body, descend into touch with it, control its seeing and action, impel its motives, take hold of its... total achievement. This complete human self-fulfilment might well pass beyond limitations and be transformed into the character of a divine life. Matter after taking into itself and manifesting the power Page 34 of life and the light of mind would draw down into it the superior or supreme power and light of the spirit and in an earthly body shed its parts of inconscience and become... spirit, its joy of the seeing mind, its joy of life and spiritual happiness, the joy of Matter released into a spiritual consciousness and thrilled with a constant ecstasy. This would be the total perfection of the spiritualised body. Sri Aurobindo The One Thing Essential The one thing essential must take precedence, the conversion of the whole life of the human being to the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo's Message

Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  24 DECEMBER 1940

... have been reading today Plotinus on Matter by Dean Inge. It is curious that what he was trying to describe in various ways with much difficulty is what we call the Inconscient in Matter. But as he had no knowledge of the Inconscient he couldn't express it properly. Of course he is speaking of Matter as a. principle, not as a form. This Dean Inge has a confused mind, he can't state his thoughts clearly... properly be more said to be the real instrument. The life principle is the principle of desire, a straining after various objects of desire. Life is the root of all desires with which it affects the mind. The desires of the mind are not really its desires because its business is to know, to perceive. DR. MANILAL: Life is the seat of emotions, I thought. SRI AUROBINDO: Emotions, sensations and several... mistake most people usually commit, especially those influenced by Western ideas. They don't make any distinction between mind and life, they consider them the same. This President of the Philosophical Congress at Madras says that mind is hungry. Mind is not hungry; it is the life and body that are hungry. PURANI: Professor Atreya calls Krishnamurti a philosopher. SRI AUROBINDO (chuckling): Bhagwan ...

Nirodbaran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Aspects of Sri Aurobindo  >  A Foreword to philosophy

... ealised splendour through intervening terms of itself which are mind and life-force. This explains the rise of living and thinking forms, half-obscure and half-enlightened, in the material universe as a preparatory step to the emergence of a spiritual consciousness which will display and fulfil all that life and mind hint at in matter. Page 3 The first objection to such a promising... material existence in which life and mind develop because of a hidden Spirit in it and the spiritual existence which contains the ideal realities of all that is gradually worked out here, there is a subtle psychological existence which reveals itself with its derivative light and power in the form and scope afforded them by nature-force on the material plane. For, matter contains, on this hypothesis... apparent non-mind and non-life, living and conscious creatures emerge, how at last human beings come to be, yearning for truth and bliss and freedom and God, rising towards the contemplation of absolute values and thrilling with the emotion of supernal ideals. That these beings should be callous, ferocious and stupid is explicable on account of the vast superficial insentience of matter out of which ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Aspects of Sri Aurobindo

Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo  >  Evolution of Consciousness

... seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in facer the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally... which we have to escape, but a field of manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature in Matter and from Matter through Life and Mind to what is beyond Mind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sachchidananda in life. 17 Page 83 × Sri Aurobindo, Letters... consciousness in the human being is at present completely identified with the disguise of form, and regards itself as the mind. The ordinary, mind-identified state of the human being is therefore one of spiritual unconsciousness. The illusory identification of consciousness with the mind inevitably leads to dysfunction and suffering. As a result of the pressure of suffering, consciousness is compelled ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo

Savitri  >  'The Godheads of the Little Life'

... material universe—the Kingdom of matter and energy—there wakes up at some auspicious moment "a dream of living"; thus life arrives on the cosmic scene. But life by its Page 92 very nature is no static divinity, for it hides in its pulse "a consciousness with mute stifled beats of sense"; and in an agony of excitement and uncertainty it gropes for mind. The brute becomes man, equipped... equipped with the "delicate enginery" of mind. When man acts, he relies not on the instinct alone (as does the brute) but also on the play of thought's processes. From the marriage of matter and energy, first life, then mind, have ensued and now there are higher potentialities still:   The illumined soul-ray fell on heart and flesh And touched with semblances of ideal light The stuff... of a distant hour".         The play of mind on the material universe and life's realms is enterprising and exciting, but it cannot effectively 'control' events, and it cannot pluck the heart of the mystery of existence:         This minute elaborate orchestrated life       For ever plays its motiveless symphonies.       The mind learns and knows not, turning its back to truth; ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  The Integral Transformation-2

... world has become annam or Matter, cit of the world of tapas has become Life, and mahas has become Mind. Matter, which is derived from sat or the luminous substance of the transcendent existence, is not something intrinsically inert and obscure, but has become so on account of its phenomenal evolution from the utter darkness of the Inconscience. Similarly, Life is not something intrinsically... their essential unity and identity with their divine counterparts and be converted into their substance, force and light. Matter or annam can be converted into the luminous, immortal substance of sat. Life or prāna into the effulgent force of cit-tapas, and Mind into the boundless glory of the Supermind or vijñāna. Their eventual transformation is foreshadowed in the very trend of their... involved must fully evolve. What is it, then, that is involved here in Matter? According to ancient Indian philosophy, it is the Supreme Being, saccidānanda, that is involved in Matter, and evolution is nothing but a progressive emergence of the involved saccidānanda. The highest that has evolved up to now is the mind of man, a mind, be it noted, which is enfolded in ignorance, and struggles for, but ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

Essays Divine and Human  >  Nature

... nothing in that darkness justified itself as a cause of its creation. Unless mind was inherent in brute matter,—& in that case matter is only apparently brute,—it was impossible for matter to produce mind. But since this leads us to an impossibility, it cannot be the truth. We must suppose then, if matter is brute, that mind is also brute. Intelligence is an illusion; there is nothing but a shock of... materially on its surroundings. In face of these examples how can we assert that there is no life in the stone, no mind in stone or tree? The premise of the syllogism by which science denies mind to the tree or life to the stone, viz that where there is no outward sign of life or conscious mentality, life & mentality do not exist, is proven to be false. The possibility, even a certain probability presents... this secret consciousness is, but the knowledge gained by Yoga enables us to assert positively that this is the complete mental being within who guides life & body, manomayah pranashariraneta. He it is who conducts our evolution & awakes mind out of life & is more & more getting possession of this Page 130 vitalised human body, his medium & instrument, so that it may become what it is not ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  The Physical Nature and its Purification-1

... the universal unity in his consciousness and life. The physical mind, because of its obscurity and attachment to Matter, has always been the despair of the spiritual seekers. The intense yearning for a self- annihilating absorption in the unconditioned Absolute derives a part of its stimulus from the apparently irredeemable character of the physical mind, and the constant resistance it opposes to... expositions. THE PHYSICAL MIND The physical mind is that part of our mind which is linked to our physical and nervous organism through the brain and preoccupied with the gross objects of sense. It is the lowest and most materialised part of our mind, par- taking more or less of the density, obscurity and inertia Page 262 of Matter, and incapable of breathing in any... modem mind is a combination of the vital mind and the physical, exploiting the intellect for its own ends. Page 266 merely physical, economic being, the human animal. It will be a reversion to the dead uniformity of a mechanised society, bound up with its material needs and their satisfaction, and harnessing the intellect to the service of Matter. But the soul and the higher mind of ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Entire Purpose of Yoga

... we call humanity. He has manifested in the world through the play of all-governing Soul with its own formative Will or Shakti a rhythm of existence of which Matter is the lowest term and pure being the highest. Mind & Life stand upon Matter (Manas & Prana on Annam) and make the lower half of world-existence (aparardha); pure consciousness and pure bliss proceed out of pure Being (Chit and Ananda out... It has to be effected in the individual in order that it may be effected in the race. Humanity is a mental existence in a living body; its basis is matter, its centre & instrument mind & its medium life. This is the condition of average or natural humanity. In every human being there is concealed (avyakta) the four higher principles. Mahas, pure ideality in vijnana, is not a vyahriti but the source... the divine state & the human animal is the door of escape for man into the supernatural or divine humanity. Inferior mankind gravitates downward from mind towards life & body; average mankind dwells constant in mind limited by & looking towards life & body; superior mankind levitates upward either to idealised mentality or to pure idea, direct truth of knowledge & spontaneous truth of existence; supreme ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Early Cultural Writings  >  About Astrology

... psychical conditions on the earth and thereby determining our psychical states and movements. In a more truly rationalistic view mind and matter are always influencing and determining each other; here too, given a universal mind and matter so acting upon individual matter and mind, the movements of the planetary system may be one or even the first nodus of their activities, and the assertions of astrology... psychical being. If matter and mind were entirely independent entities having no influence or determining effect upon each other, then such a result could not be; but that is not the case. According to the materialistic view of the universe which claims to be the sole rationalistic view, mind is itself an effect of matter and all its states and movements are determined by matter. There is nothing then... scientific and rationalistic European mind and not yet lifted. Mr. N. P. Subramania Iyer has undertaken an astrological series which will deal with the various parts of astrology, and the present volume contains the text and translation of the Kalaprakasika , a treatise on the selection of the right times by astrological rule for undertaking any and every action of human life. The book is well printed and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Early Cultural Writings

Letters on Yoga - I  >  Science and Yoga

... That is something which goes beyond mere magic. The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon Matter can be extended to an almost illimitable degree. It must be remembered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or life-energy acting directly on material energy and substance; if they do they... spiritual functions from grey matter and white matter) make me always suspicious. It looks like manufacture of the mind, pseudo-science. Science and Superstition It is quite true that the word "superstition" has been habitually used as a convenient club to beat down any belief that does not agree with the ideas of the materialistic reason, that is to say, of the physical mind dealing with the apparent... no real equation between them and physiological processes and at the most mind and body react on each other as is inevitable since they are lodging together. But even a great physical scientist like Huxley recognised that mind was something quite different from matter and could not possibly be explained in the terms of matter. Only since then physical Science became very arrogant and presumptuous and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

A Greater Psychology  >  Consciousness the Reality

... in which we recognise the existence of a sub-animal life? If so, we must then suppose that there is a force of life and consciousness originally alien to Matter which has yet entered into and occupied Matter, — perhaps from another world.... The ancient thinkers believed in the existence of such other worlds,... 1 which perhaps sustain life and consciousness in ours or even call it out by their... Essentially, we arrive at that unity which materialistic Science perceives from the other end when it asserts that Mind cannot be another force than Matter, but must be merely development and outcome of material energy. Indian thought at its deepest affirms on the other hand that Mind and Matter are rather different grades of the same energy, different organisations of one conscious Force of Existence... below Mind, it emerges in Mind, it shall ascend Page 7 into yet superior forms beyond Mind. For the Force that builds the worlds is a conscious Force, the Existence which manifests itself in them is conscious Being and a perfect emergence of its potentialities in form is the sole object which we can rationally conceive for its manifestation of this world of forms. The Life Divine ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Human Cycle  >  Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age

... existence as the large pulsation of a great evolving Life, the creator of Matter, which would have enabled it to deal with our existence on the basis of Life as the original reality, Life as the great Eternal, prāṇo brahma . And already it has in germ, in preparation a third conception, the discovery of a great self-expressing and self-finding inner Mind other than our surface mentality as a master-power... successive sounding of higher and higher powers that mediate between Matter and Spirit. The human intellect in modern times has been first drawn to exhaust the possibilities Page 253 of materialism by an immense dealing with life and the world upon the basis of Matter as the sole reality, Matter as the Eternal, Matter as the Brahman, annaṁ brahma . Afterwards it had begun to turn towards... satisfaction of the life-instincts, which can only be an intensification of his present mode of existence, but through the greatening of his mental and psychic being and a discovery, bringing forward and organisation of his subliminal nature and its forces, the utilisation of a larger mind and a larger life waiting Page 251 for discovery within us. It would see in life an opportunity for ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  Sri Aurobindo and the Crisis of Modern Man

... Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p, 42. Page 197 case concealed from us in the shell of material Nature. "Matter could not have become animate if the principle of life had not been there constituting Matter and emerging as a phenomenon of life-in-matter; life-in'matter could not have begun to feel, perceive, think, reason, if the principle of mind had not been there behind life and substance... the inverse order, Matter and a material universe; in Matter, Life appears and living physical beings; in Life, Mind manifests and embodied thinking and living beings. Thus also, the Delight of existence involved at the base emerges from the original insen-tience into the contrary forms of pleasure and pain. And this is the actual state of the evolutionary ascent with Mind and Man as its highest... small vibrant concretions of energy and substance, of life, of mind, as if that were all she could get out through the crass obstacle, the dull reluctant medium of an inconscient stuff of existence. At first she houses herself in forms of Matter which appear to be altogether unconscious, then struggles towards mentality in the guise of living Matter and attains to it imperfectly in the conscious animal ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best  >  Integral Realization of the Integral Reality

... cannot be convincing unless we recognize a series of ascending terms between Spirit and Matter. But page - 100 here, again, the integral experience of the Veda and the Upanishads confirms a series of ascending terms, —Life, Mind, Supermind and the grades that unite Mind to Supermind - between Spirit and Matter. In fact, not only the Veda and the Upanishads but several other theories also maintain... the Soul and Terrestrial Existence; Key to the new Integral Aim of Life The central point of importance in the solution lies in the discovery of Sri Aurobindo that spiritual evolution is the sense of our birth and terrestrial existence. In the light of this discovery, he found that the evolution of mind, life and spirit in Matter would be the sign of the possibility and even eventual inevitability... being as a means of ascension and therefore the one proper business of life in this world of Matter. Finally, in all these theories, the role of the individual and the way in which the individual can relate itself with the cosmic life, cosmic consciousness and even with supra-cosmic reality is underlined. Supra-cosmic Aim of Life But there are theories and even yogic experiences which, even ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  23 October 1957

... your ordinary eyes and consciousness, you say, "It has no life, no consciousness." For one who knows how to see behind appearances, there is, hidden at the centre of this Matter—at the centre of each atom of this Matter—there is, hidden, the Supreme Divine Reality working from within, gradually, through the millennia, to change this inert Matter into something that is expressive enough to be able to... the centre of Matter and impels this Matter from within outwards towards a progressive development which will liberate the Spirit working from within. So, in the outer appearances as you see them, at first you find the mineral kingdom with stones, earth, minerals which to us, in our outer consciousness, appear absolutely unconscious. Yet, behind this unconsciousness there is the life of the Spirit... works from within in order gradually to transform this Matter that is completely inert in appearance, so that its organisation may lend itself more and more to the manifestation of consciousness. And he says here that at first this veil of inert Matter is so total that, to a superficial glance, it is something Page 210 that has neither life nor consciousness. When you pick up a stone and look ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Mother or The New Species - II  >  4. The Supramental Descent

... being. And the body is the "bridge," because this consciousness is in the body, not in the mind. It is not an improvement of the mind, it is a clarification of Matter, which sees for itself and does what it sees. A fantastic simplification of everything. The great Exactness. Really another life. Perhaps the life. In short, a mutation of and in the body consciousness. But the word "mutation" is again... Supramental is Matter's direct vision. It is Matter itself seeing, doing, effectuating and knowing directly, without going through the Mind. It is Matter's own consciousness—in Matter—directly and infallibly shaping its own world. We cannot really understand anything of this Supramental, because we always put a mental coating on it; if we could just sense a little this consciousness buried in Matter, in the... consciousness. 10 Sometimes we wonder if Matter, our own corporeal matter, will not become conscious before we do; or rather if its true, pure, already existent consciousness will not circumvent the Mind by a sort of evolutionary strategy and, taking us by surprise, reveal an unexpected world. It is a question of allowing Matter its free expression, of the Mind releasing its obscuring grip—such is the ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Mother or The New Species - II  >  18. The Changing of Time

... the tiny tremors of the material Mind are frozen there—as if the NO of Matter were entirely engulfed there in its absolute YES, in its Rest at last. But not a rest of Death: a rest of supreme Life. Basically, the aspiration for Death is the dark search for the true life, it is life seeking Life. Death is the caricature of eternal Life; it can be undone only in the Life supreme... on earth. And we are... the true body, we could say. A narrow threshold, which represents perhaps the primal insertion of Mind into Matter, just where the Mind connects with the cells: the subtlest form of the physical Mind, just when it is born, so to speak. A kind of minute tremor. I am now studying the way in which Matter, the body, can be in constant Harmony with the divine Presence. And its so interesting: it's not at... what helped Matter awaken to life—to the catastrophe of life. But I believe it is only the catastrophe of an individual life enclosed in an individual body, in which the Vibration cannot flow, in which we are trapped in false time, which is a false space divided by distances of not-I. It is the "I" that creates all distances because it places everything else outside itself. It is life far away, divided ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Nature of the Supermind

... of operation, yet when we look close we shall find that it is really the supermind which organises matter, life, mind and reason. And this actually is the knowledge towards which we are now moving. There is even a quite visible intimate action of the consciousness, persistent in life, matter and mind, which is clearly a supramental action subdued to the character and need of the lower medium and to... the atom and force are not aware of it and are only the obscure body of matter and of power created by its first effort of self-manifestation. The presence of such an intuition becomes Page 794 more evident to us in all the action of life because that is nearer to our own scale. And as life develops overt sense and mind, as in the animal creation, we can speak more confidently of a vital intuition... an emotional and a sensational mist and vapour with here and there lightnings and illuminations. There is a vital mind which is shut away even from the light of intellectual truth, and lower still in submental life and matter the spirit involves itself entirely as if in a sleep and a night, a sleep plunged in a dim and yet poignant nervous dream, the night of a mechanical somnambulist energy. It is ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Mystery of Matter

... beyond the formula of the material universe.... These gradations of substance, in one important aspect of their formulation in series, can be seen to correspond to the ascending series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and that other higher divine triplicity of Sachchidananda. In other words, we find that substance in its ascension bases itself upon each of these principles and makes itself s... of Matter seizable by that sense." 2 "...The sharp division which practical experience and long habit of mind have created between Spirit and Matter has [not] any fundamental reality.... Substance is the form of itself on which it works, and of that substance if Matter is one end, Spirit is the other. The two are one: Spirit is the soul and reality of that which we sense as Matter; Matter... radiation 1 Errol E. Harris, Nature, Mind and Modern Science (1954), pp. 380-81. (Italics ours) Page 308 from matter and the creation of matter from radiation have been experimentally achieved and these have come to substantiate Einstein's famous equation E=mc 2 which incidentally established the fundamental identity of matter and energy. The materialisation of energy ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Mother or The New Species - II  >  21: The Cellular Level

... whole evolution is a tremendous process of solidification, a building of a cage, at one level or another. "False matter" did not wait for our Mind to start forming—perhaps it has made it thicker than the other species had; it is true that we are the only ones to be cut off from universal life, the only ones to know personal pain and death, the only ones to experience disorder and to be deprived of the... the world. Whereas the other Matter has no "I," or all is "I," and it "flows" without walls—Matter flows. We may be told that it is consciousness that flows, perhaps, or an imagination of consciousness, but not Matter. We could reply that it is another imagination of consciousness that solidifies Matter! But the point is that it is not an imaginary perception of the Mind, but a cellular perception,... divided and separated life—but how to speak the full and total life everywhere? So at times She took to her organ: I was trying to play music, precisely *TO SAY something. Others will come and invent a musical language, the creative Word, the mantra of Matter, but in the meantime you had only to be able to walk in that strange life, or rather in that strange kind of Matter, that strange Time, that ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga  >  Sri Aurobindo and the Concept of the Unconscious in Psychology

... inconscient Matter emerge successively Life and Mind. Explaining the nature and function of Life as a middle term between Mind and Matter, Sri Aurobindo writes: Page 31 "Life then reveals itself as essentially the same everywhere from the atom to man, the atom containing the subconscious stuff and movement of being which are released in consciousness in the animal, with plant life as a midway... intelligence. It is in the middle stage that we catch the idea of Life as distinguished from Matter and Mind, but in reality it is the same in all the stages and always a middle term between Mind and Matter, constituent of the latter and instinct with the former." 15 The Surface Being To return to Sri Aurobindo's fourfold classification of the human constitution, man's surface consciousness... thinking and reasoning. He distinguishes mind from the other two elements of the surface nature, namely, the vital and the body-consciousness, which are mixed up with mind on the surface. The vital is the Life-Nature made up of sensations, energies of action, instincts, impulses, desires, feelings and emotions. The body, says Sri Aurobindo, "is not mere unconscious Matter: it is a structure of a secretly conscious ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Divine Superman

... mental being enslaved to life and Page 150 matter; and where he is not enslaved to life and matter, he is the slave of his mind. But this is a great and heavy servitude; for to be the slave of mind is to be the slave of the false, the limited and the apparent. The self that thou hast to become, is the self that thou art within behind the veil of mind and life and matter. It is to be the spiritual... Physical, he seeks for his immortal substance; vital he seeks after immortal life and the infinite power of his being; mental and partial in knowledge, he seeks after the whole light and the utter vision. To possess these is to become the superman; for [it] is to rise out of mind into the supermind. Call it the divine mind or Knowledge or the supermind; it is the power and light of the divine will... spiritual, the divine, the superman, the real Purusha. For that which is above the mental being, is the superman. It is to be the master of thy mind, thy life and thy body; it is to be a king over Nature of whom thou art now the tool, lifted above her who now has thee under her feet. It is to be free and not a slave, to be one and not divided, to be immortal and not obscured by death, to be full of light ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Inwardization and the Ascension

... potentialities much superior to those of our surface mind and life and body. As a -matter of fact, "it is capable of a direct communication with the universal forces, movements, objects of the cosmos, a direct feeling and opening to them, a direct action on them and even a widening of itself beyond the limits of the personal mind, the personal life, the body, so that it feels itself more and more... the existing walls of our too narrow mental, vital, physical existence. This widening can extend itself to a complete entry into the consciousness of cosmic Mind, into unity with the universal Life, even into a oneness with universal Matter." 1 But this first result is not all that can be desired. For, however cosmic in scope and perfected in dynamism, our being remains still embedded... on the "strong hard and bright lid of mind, — mind constricting, dividing and separative" 3 — that clouds the superconscient from our waking consciousness. This pressure be- 1 The Life Divine, p. 276. (Italics ours) 2 Ibid, p. 910. 3 Ibid., p. 910. Page 127 comes in the end so great that the lid of mind wears thin, opens and disappears, and ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

A Greater Psychology  >  The Outer (Surface) Being

... waking consciousness is determined and limited by the balance between mind and matter worked out by life in its evolution, this direct cognisance is usually impossible in our ordinary waking state and has therefore to be brought about by throwing the waking mind into a state of sleep which liberates the true or subliminal mind. Mind is then able to assert its true character as the one and all-sufficient... intelligence. It is in the middle stage that we catch the idea of Life as distinguished from Matter and Mind, but in reality it is the same in all the stages and always a middle term between Mind and Matter, constituent of the latter and instinct with the former. The Life Divine, p. 186 There are four parts of the vital being — first, the mental vital which gives a mental expression... domain of mind mostly for its utility for the support, comfort, use, satisfaction and entertainment of his physical and sensational existence. For the physical mind takes its stand on matter and the material world, on the body and the bodily life, on sense-experience and on a normal practical mentality and its experience. All that is not of this order, the physical mind builds up as a ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  Values Higher and Lower

... is an unreal distinction, due to mind's prejudice and preference, that says one is first and the other next or last, one is more important and the other less. The true truth is that Spirit and Matter are one: for Matter is Spirit involved and Spirit is Matter evolved. The position can be stated in this form also: without Spirit, Matter does not exist; without Matter, Spirit does not manifest. ... discovered: it is still under discussion, at least. As a matter of fact, the goal itself is none too clear and definite: sometimes we think of a saintly transformation of human nature, sometimes the growing power of Intuition, very vaguely and variously defined, replacing or supplementing intellect and thus adding a new asset to man's life and consciousness. The crucial problem however lies... to establish the Dharma. Sri Aurobindo's stand in this field is very definite and clear. The goal or end is clear, and with it the way too. What he envisages is the transformation of Matter and material life, that is to say, neither rejecting it as an impossible thing nor trying to gloss it over with a coat of mental luminosity, but delving into it and cleaning and purifying it, removing its mire ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Letters on Yoga - I  >  Descent and Transformation

... Higher Consciousness down into the earth-consciousness and establish it there as a constant realised force, just as mind and life have been established and embodied in Matter, so to establish and embody the Supramental Force. It would not be possible to change all that [ ordinary life on earth ] in a moment—we have always said that the whole of humanity will not change the moment there is the Descent... (as of other worlds) which evolves with the evolution of life on the planet. Yes, all that [ humans, animals, vegetables, minerals ] is the earth consciousness—mineral = matter, vegetable = the vital-physical creation, animal = the vital creation, man = the mental creation. Into the earth consciousness so limited to mind, vital, matter has to come the supramental creation. Necessarily at first... not to make the earth a supramental world but to bring down the Supramental as a power and established consciousness in the midst of the rest—to let it work there and fulfil itself as Mind descended into Life and Matter and has worked as a Power there to fulfil itself in the midst of the rest. This will be enough to change the world and to change Nature by breaking down her present limits. But what, ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  12: The Interregnum of the Mind

... and that is that. We still do not know what true life is, we are not true Matter yet; we are only matter-shut-up-in-a-box. And we wonder if all those marvelous realizations they have harped on about for ages, those liberations and “muktis” and peaks of light and white infinitudes are not simply the same upper part of the fishbowl, where the Mind, out of breath, mistakes its own vaporization for... . acetylene lamps. But the Mind has other layers, both above and below. Above, where "inspirations” come from, the pure and universal sources of the Mind; below, infinite layers representing the entire formation of the Mind throughout evolution, down to the deepest layer, a first Mind in Matter, what Sri Auro­bindo would call the "body-mind” and Mother the “cellular mind,” that which holds the secret... to the newly acquired force. The mental barrier has Himalayan layers of thickness compared to which Matter is as light as a breeze. But the Mind has its roots right down in Matter, which is another solid secret we shall soon uncover with Mother. For the moment, Mirra had not yet conquered the Mind. Strangely enough, it is the last thing She explored, at the end of the curve—perhaps not so "strangely ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

Preparing for the Miraculous  >  9: Sri Aurobindo and the Big Bang

... century, is that it recognizes only matter as the substance of reality and the object of its study. The wisdom of ages in East and West has held that the layers of reality are those of matter, the life forces, mind, and the spirit, in the traditions called the “Chain of Being.” Since Lorentz and Einstein materialistic science has to accept from its formulas that matter equals energy, and that each term... spirituality is holistic, based on experience. Science is an activity of the mind, restricting itself to matter as perceived by the senses. Spirituality can know now; to really know, science will have to break through the boundaries of materialism it has imposed on itself, and take up the exploration of the realms of life and mind before it can found a durable knowledge.) Decades before Sri Aurobindo... of the Yoga one has to be one-pointed in one’s heart, but in one’s mind, as a human incarnation in the present time, one has to be open and wide-ranging, therein following the example of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. “We have to find a truth that can entirely reconcile Spirit and Matter and can give to both their due portion in Life and their due justification in Thought, amercing neither of its rights ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Preparing for the Miraculous

The Human Cycle  >  Civilisation and Culture

... Cycle Chapter IX Civilisation and Culture Nature starts from Matter, develops out of it its hidden Life, releases out of involution in life all the crude material of Mind and, when she is ready, turns Mind upon itself and upon Life and Matter in a great mental effort to understand all three in their phenomena, their obvious action, their secret laws,... attachment to the life of the body, the life of the vital needs and impulses and the ideal of the merely domestic and economic human animal; but essentially and commonly he is the mental barbarian, the average sensational man. That is to say, his mental life is that of the lower substratum of the mind, the life of the senses, the life of the sensations, the life of the emotions, the life of practical ... constantly re-create in new and better forms himself, his own inner existence, his mentality, but also to control and re-create correspondingly his environment. He has to turn Mind not only on itself, but on Life and Matter and the material existence; that is very clear not only from the law and nature of the terrestrial evolution, but from his own past and present history. And there comes from the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle

Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  August

... The "physical vital" is life limited by the material body, – the life-force bound up in matter. It is life moving in the nervous system. It cannot exist apart from the material body. It is quite different from the vital being proper with its relative freedom. It is life subject to the laws of matter. There is a tremendous power in matter also, but that is not life-force. Life-force is quite apart from... descend again and consciously bring down the Supramental Light, Truth and Harmony to govern and transform our nature – that is, our mind, life, and body. There is thus an involution of the lower powers upward into the Truth from which the Spirit descends into Matter and then a manifestation of that Truth in all the nature. It is not all who can do this. There is an idea that everybody can do... between the physical mind and the material mind ? Sri Aurobindo : The material mind is a part of the physical Disciple : What is the physical? Sri Aurobindo : As I have not got the same inspiration of the subject, I shall ask X. to explain it { a pause ). I spoke about four things in the physical : (1) physical mind, (2) Physical Vital, (3) Matter proper and (4) The Supermind ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

A Greater Psychology  >  Foreword

... There is no question about it: the modern world has irreversibly discovered the fact that the world evolves — Matter evolves, life evolves, mind evolves. And Spirit evolves — or, we might say, Spirit is the entire evolutionary process of its own unfolding, from matter to life to mind to the higher and su-perconscient realms of Spirit's own being. This evolutionary unfolding of Spirit — as it plays... relies on nothing but frisky dirt, dynamic matter, and process systems (e.g., chaos theories, far-from-equilibrium dissipative structures, autopoiesis, etc.) cannot even begin to explain the extraordinary series of transformations that brought forth life from matter and mind from life, and that is destined to bring forth, in just the same way, higher mind and overmind and supermind: Spirit alone can... view, whereas they are clearly the view he is convicting. Aurobindo's integral embrace is, if anything, the opposite of racism. When it comes to a "greater psychology" — one which includes body, mind, soul, and spirit, in both ascending/evolutionary and descending/involutionary currents — Aurobindo has much to teach us, as is clearly and beautifully documented in the book you now hold in your hands ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

A Greater Psychology  >  The Inconscient

... seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally... small vibrant concretions of energy and substance, of life, of mind, as if that were all she could get out through the crass obstacle, the dull reluctant medium of an inconscient stuff of existence. At first she houses herself in forms of Matter which appear to be altogether unconscious, then struggles towards mentality in the guise of living Matter and attains to it imperfectly in the conscious animal... Existence. The Life Divine, pp. 318-19 The body... is a creation of the Inconscient and itself inconscient or at least subconscient in parts of itself and much of its hidden action; but what we call the Inconscient is an appearance, a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe. Matter is the field and ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

A Greater Psychology  >  Consciousness: the Materialistic and the Mystical Views

... existence and I can feel it everywhere enveloping and penetrating the stone as much as man or the animal. 14 Consciousness, Mind and Matter The development of recent research and thought seems to point to a sort of obscure beginning of life and perhaps a sort of inert or suppressed consciousness in the metal and in the earth and in other 'inanimate' forms, or at least the... y, we arrive at that unity which materialistic Science perceives from the other end when it asserts that Mind cannot be another force than Matter, but must be merely development and outcome of material energy. Indian thought at its deepest affirms on the other hand that Mind and Matter are rather different grades of the same energy, different organisations of one conscious Force of Existence... existence and the conscious Force that builds the universe. Therefore, consciousness is not confined to the human being, but is present in the animal, the plant and also in matter. Human consciousness is not identical with mind; mental consciousness is only a middle term below which lie levels of consciousness which to us are subconscient, and above which there exist levels of consciousness which ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Life Divine  >  Conscious Force

... the existence of a sub-animal life? If so, we must then suppose that there is a force of life and consciousness originally alien to Matter which has yet entered into and occupied Matter,—perhaps from another Page 94 world. 1 For whence, otherwise, can it have come? The ancient thinkers believed in the existence of such other worlds, which perhaps sustain life and consciousness in ours or... Essentially, we arrive at that unity which materialistic Science perceives from the other end when it asserts that Mind cannot be another force than Matter, but must be merely development and outcome of material energy. Indian thought at its deepest affirms on the other hand that Mind and Matter are rather different grades of the same energy, different organisations of one conscious Force of Existence. ... × The curious speculation is now current that Life entered earth not from another world, but from another planet. To the thinker that would explain nothing. The essential question is how Life comes into Matter at all and not how it enters into the matter of a particular planet. ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Supermind and Humanity

... descent in which mind and life can keep something of their truth and something of the light of the spirit, something of their true and real being; here we see an original inconscience and a struggle of life and mind and spirit to evolve out of the material inconscience and in a resultant ignorance to find themselves and grow towards their full capacity and highest existence. If mind succeeds in that... levels of consciousness in their climb towards self-transcendence. Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind and what I have called Higher Mind, these and other levels of a spiritualised and liberated mentality, will be able to reflect in the uplifted human mind and its purified and exalted feeling and force of life and action something of their powers and prepare the ascent of the soul to their own plateaus... 576 its own, a just instinct in its action within certain limits and this when not interfered with by life's desires and mind's errors can work with a certain accuracy and sureness. But Supermind alone has the truth-consciousness in full and, if this comes down and intervenes, mind, life and body too can attain to the full power of the truth in them and their full possibility of perfection. This ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  Supermind And Humanity

... descent in which mind and life can keep something of their truth and something of the light of the spirit,. something of their true and real being; here we see an. original inconscience and a struggle of life and mind and. spirit to evolve out of the material inconscience and in a. resultant ignorance to find themselves and grow towards their full capacity and highest existence. If mind succeeds. Page... levels of consciousness in their climb towards self-transcendence. Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind and what I have called Higher Mind, these and other levels of a spiritualised and liberated .mentality, will be able to reflect in the uplifted human mind and its purified and exalted feeling and force of life and action something of their powers and prepare the ascent of the soul to their own plateaus... knowledge of its own, a just instinct in its action within certain limits and this when not interfered with by life's desires and mind's errors can work with a certain accuracy and sureness. But Supermind alone has the truth-consciousness in full and, if this comes down and intervenes, mind, life and body too can attain to the full power of the truth in them and their full possibility of perfection. This ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Mystery of Life and Death

... sleep of Matter entirely subconscious so as to seem wholly mechanical; the middle stage is that in which it becomes capable of a response still submental but on the verge of what we know as consciousness; the highest is that in which life develops conscious mentality in the form of a mentally perceptible sensation which in this transition becomes the basis for the development of sense-mind and i... intelligence. It is in the middle stage that we catch the idea of life as distinguished from Matter and Mind, but in reality it is the same in all the stages." 1 Thus, "there is no break, no rigid line of demarcation between the earth and the metal formed in it or between the metal and the plant and...there is none either between the elements and atoms that constitute the earth or metal and the... appears at first sight to be. As a matter of fact, death as death has no Separate or intrinsic reality: it is there solely to serve the purpose of life. We can even go farther and state that death is a process and phase of life itself and that the latter, and by no means death, is the fundamental all-pervading truth of existence. But what is Life, what are its criteria ? Biological ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  Sight More Sight

... s." 14 As a matter of fact, consciousness is quite involved and asleep in a state of self-oblivious absorption in the bosom of the inconscient Matter, "hesitating on the verge between involution and conscious evolution," 15 between a state of profound sleep and "a dim unclosing of the eyes," in the first non-animal forms of life, half-awake and somewhat consciously evolving in "mind housed in a living... taken from Sri Aurobindo's Savitri. 13. The Life Divine, p. 552. 14.15, 16, 17. The Life Divine, p. 630. Page 104 evolutionary ascent, has not yet arrived at its noontide effulgence. The cosmic sleep and the somnambulist dream-state of the waking soul has by no means terminated with man and mind-consciousness. As a matter of fact, man's present status is at best a state... an emotional and a sensational mist and vapour with here and there lightnings and illuminations. There is a vital mind which is shut away even from the light of Page 103 intellectual truth, and lower still in submental life and matter the spirit involves itself entirely as if in a sleep and a night, a sleep plunged in a dim and yet poignant nervous dream, the night of a mechanical ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  Supermind And Mind Of Light

... of life mind, and a. gradation of planes of Matter, Life and Mind culminating in the emergence of Supermind. The secret truth that emerges in Supermind has been there all the time, but now it manifests itself and the truth in things and the meaning of our existence. It is in this series of the order of existence and as the last word of the lower hemisphere of being, the first word of the higher... ignorant mind would soon drift into a chaos; it could not in fact come into existence or remain in existence unless supported by the secret Omniscience of which it is the cover; a world governed by a blind inconscient force might repeat constantly the same mechanical workings but it would mean nothing and arrive nowhere. This could not be the cause of an evolution that creates life out of Matter, out of... very substance of this Matter. Yet, in the blindness of Matter itself there are signs of a concealed consciousness which in its hidden fundamental being sees and has the power to act according to its vision and even by an infallible immediacy which is inherent in its nature. This is the same Truth that is apparent in Supermind but is here involved and seems not to be. The Mind of Light is a subordinate ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal

Savitri  >  'The Symbol Dawn'

... Inconscient matter lies inert, like a coiled pythoness of a woman:         Its formless stupor without mind or life.... 3   But in this seemingly 'fathomless zero' lie nevertheless the germs of immortal life. The banian tree waxes immense through centuries in its majestic grandeur. But where lay its beginning? In the tiny seed planted in the womb of the nascent earth! Thus, for the life that... later. The present is what matters, and the poem is concerned with it.         Savitri, the princess of Madra and darling daughter of King Aswapati, has married the exiled King Dyumatsena's dear son, Satyavan. She is living in the forest with her husband and his elders, sharing uncomplainingly their austere life. Between Savitri and Satyavan a true marriage of minds has been effected. Satyavan... hint of Savitri's life and trial has been given. After all, we know the story of Savitri's struggle and victory. It is this Savitri of popular legend that is seen to forge the link between the inconscient matter and the Superconscient Life Divine. The life-giving rays of the Sun turn the tiny seed buried in the pond into a bright pearly lotus.         Savitri begins her life as an artless innocent ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Mother’s Agenda 1961  >  March 11, 1961

... natural life: the manifestation of Mind was in accord—was STILL in complete accord—and in total harmony with the ascending march of Nature, without perversion Page 120 or deformation. This was the first stage of Mind's manifestation in material forms. How long did it last? It's hard to say. But for man it was a life like a sort of flowering of animal life. My memory is of a life where... the body, the body with the demands of the climate. Life was wholly spontaneous and natural, as a more luminous and conscious animal life would be, with absolutely none of the complications and deformations brought in later by the mind as it developed. I have a recollection of this life, for I relived it when I first became conscious of the life of the entire earth; but I can't say how long it lasted... all the other elements of the earth: harmony with animal life and a great harmony with plant life—there was a kind of spontaneous knowledge of how to use the things of Nature, the qualities of plants, fruits and all that vegetal nature could offer. There was no aggressiveness, no fear, no contradictions or frictions, and no perversion—the mind was pure, simple, luminous, uncomplicated. It was certainly ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1961

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Supermind and Mind of Light

... of life mind, and a gradation of planes of Matter, Life and Mind culminating in the emergence of Supermind. The secret truth that emerges in Supermind has been there all the time, but now it manifests itself and the truth in things and the meaning of our existence. It is in this series of the order of existence and as the last word of the lower hemisphere of being, the first word of the higher ... ignorant mind would soon drift into a chaos; it could not in fact come into existence or remain in existence unless supported by the secret Omniscience of which it is the cover; a world governed by a blind inconscient force might repeat constantly the same mechanical workings but it would mean nothing and arrive nowhere. This could not be the cause of an evolution that creates life out of Matter, out of... very substance of this Matter. Yet, in the blindness of Matter itself there are signs of a concealed consciousness which in its hidden fundamental being sees and has the power to act according to its vision and even by an infallible immediacy which is inherent in its nature. This is the same Truth that is apparent in Supermind but is here involved and seems not to be. The Mind of Light is a subordinate ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Old Long Since  >  Visions and Voices

... of ignorance that is matter is perforce a little slackened. Yet the all-pervasive and Page 56 basic principle of ignorance pursues relentlessly the beings of the world of sense-mind and causes sleep, fatigue, disease and death. As in the plant, so in the animal world also, the individual animal dies, but the collective life-force, the total rhythm of the sense-mind continues. The plant... parent, the matter-world, and therefore the royal representatives of the plant-world, the huge trees in their forests of majestic symphonies enjoy a longer life than the animals which are the direct manifestation of a pronounced rebellion against the laws of the world of matter. Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted... world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter were a plane figure, then the number­less beings of the sense-world are so many fixed points on that plane, and the animals of the world of sense-mind are so many moving ...

Amrita   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Old Long Since

Visions and Voices  >  Visions and Voices

... of ignorance that is matter is perforce a little slackened. Yet the all-pervasive and Page 7 basic principle of ignorance pursues relentlessly the beings of the world of sense-mind and causes sleep, fatigue, disease and death. As in the plant, so in the animal world also, the individual animal dies, but the collective life-force, the total rhythm of the sense-mind continues. The plant world... parent, the matter-world, and therefore the royal representatives of the plant-world, the huge trees in their forests of majestic symphonies enjoy a longer life than the animals which are the direct manifestation of a pronounced rebellion against the laws of the world of matter. Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted... world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter were a plane figure, then the number­less beings of the sense-world are so many fixed points on that plane, and the animals of the world of sense-mind are so many moving ...

Amrita   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Visions and Voices

Mother's Chronicles - Book Six  >  The Traveller

... physical life. The human mass go on preferring darkness to light, ignorance to knowledge, falsehood to truth. Life and matter were constantly preyed upon by the nasty undivine forces, as they had always been. Why? What happened? "It is the vital mixture—" Sri Aurobindo explained, "the mixture of the life-forces—that comes in and corrupts the whole spiritual movement." And leaves our life and body ignorant... Nolini said. "Sat, Chit and Ananda above; mind, life and body below; and the Supermind linking them up." The Supermind plane stands between the upper hemisphere—Sat, Chit and Ananda—and the lower hemisphere— life, mind and body. Nolini specified that "this was later elaborated in The Divine Plan." ] There one finds also the description of Super mind's three layers and its suns. Sri Aurobindo... logically why the Consciousness which emerges out of Matter to fashion life, give form to animal, to man, should stop with the last and not become something more than mere man. Page 313 Now, why did Sri Aurobindo say that it felt like 'digging the earth' if indeed the ancient Yogis had prepared the field? The fact of the matter is that their aim in general was to attain the Supermind ...

Sujata Nahar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species  >  Part Five

... developing plan in it. Another conclusion is that there is a graduated necessary succession in the Page 46 evolution; first the evolution of Matter, next the evolution of Life in Matter, then the evolution of Mind in living Matter, and in this last stage an animal evolution followed by a human evolution. In particular, the essential point in the theory of spiritual evolution is the fact... a development of forms, of bodies, a progressively complex and competent organization of Matter, of Life in Matter, of consciousness in living Matter, and that in this scale the better organized the form, the more is it capable of housing a better organized, a more complex and a more developed or evolved Life and consciousness. In regard to these common aspects, there does not seem to be a basis for... every vital fibre has to be persuaded to accept an entire renunciation of all that hitherto represented to its own existence. In the words of Sri Aurobindo: "Mind has to cease to be mind and become brilliant with something beyond it. Life has to change into a thing vast and calm and intense and powerful that can no longer recognize its old blind eager narrow self or petty impulse and desire. Even ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species

The Sun and The Rainbow  >  Sri Aurobindo and the Reshaping of Man

... evidence of life or mind in inert matter, and we naturally study them most easily where they are most completely manifested; but if the scientific point of view is correct, we shall ultimately find them, at least in rudimentary forms, all through the universe." Again, Science, unless it wishes to emulate the dogmatic materialism of the nineteenth century, cannot be pledged to a mere reduction of life and mind... country and then the entire world to the highest intensity and continuity possible of a divinised life to which the phenomena of inspiration and intuition are scattered pointers in a world not yet awake Page 31 to that Yoga of Nature which, through the evolution of matter, vitality and mind, drives integrally towards an earthly unfoldment as of a godhead in the soul of man. 4 ... "Omega Point" — but also as evolution's original impetus derived from God's omnipresence in matter — "Alpha Point". However, Teilhard misses the all-round goal of the Integral Yoga which a science grown spiritual must envisage: the divinisation of the bodily being itself to crown the divinisation of mind and life. His "Alpha" and "Omega", also interpreted in terms of a "Cosmic Christ", is in the end ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Sun and The Rainbow

Arguments for the Existence of God  >  Appendix 2

... the existence of a sub-animal life? If so, we must then suppose that there is a force of life and Page 119 consciousness originally alien to Matter which has yet entered into and occupied Matter, — perhaps from another world.* For whence, otherwise, can it have come? The ancient thinkers believed in the existence of such other worlds, which perhaps sustain life and consciousness in ours or... Essentially, we arrive at that unity which materialistic Science perceives from the other end when it asserts that Mind cannot be another force than Matter, but must be merely development and outcome of material energy. Indian thought at its deepest affirms on the other hand that Mind and Matter are rather different grades of the same energy, different organisations of one conscious Force of Existence. ... sinks into vital and material movements which * The curious speculation is now current that Life entered earth not from another world, but from another planet. To the thinker that would explain nothing. The essential question is how Life comes into Matter at all and not how it enters into the matter of a particular planet. Page 120 are for us subconscient; above, it rises into the ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Arguments for the Existence of God

Beyond Man  >  Chapter Twenty: The Golden Day

... transform it; The mind of matter : the consciousness in the atoms and elementary particles of so-called gross matter as experienced by our senses, but which seems already to escape the grip of the physicists. ‘Matter itself is found to be the result of something that is not Matter,’ 24 Sri Aurobindo already wrote in The Life Divine. Let us now follow some of the phenomena of... but secretly at work. In fact life, mind and Supermind are present in the atom.’ 21 (Sri Aurobindo) The instrument of the supramental transformation is the adhara, the complex whole of sheaths or ‘bodies’ forming the housing of the soul of which we with our external senses can see only the most external, gross material sheath. In the adhara the contact with Matter occurs via the cells, which of... body: The mind of the body : the mental consciousness of the body as a whole; the mastery over the mind of the body is an elementary condition in most yogas and was realized by the Mother long before she went to Pondicherry; The mind of the cells : the very own, age-old consciousness of the cell, the transformation of which is indispensable in order to reach out to Matter-as-such and transform ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Beyond Man

Tribute to Amrita on his Birth Centenary  >  Visions and Voices

... ignorance that is matter is perforce a little slackened. Yet the all-pervasive and Page 56 basic principle of ignorance pursues relentlessly the beings of the world of sense-mind and causes sleep, fatigue, disease and death. As in the plant, so in the animal world also, the individual animal dies, but the collective life-force, the total rhythm of the sense-mind continues. The plant... parent, the matter-world, and therefore the royal representatives of the plant-world, the huge trees in their forests of majestic symphonies enjoy a longer life than the animals which are the direct manifestation of a pronounced rebellion against the laws of the world of matter. Under the pressure of the upward aspiration of the secret will-in-things the veil that lies over the sense-mind is lifted... a world where mind is the principal factor, peopled with human beings, emerges with its own characteristic laws quite different from those of the worlds of matter, sense and sense-mind. A new law means a new rhythm. If the world of matter were a plane figure, then the numberless beings of the sense-world are so many fixed points on that plane, and the animals of the world of sense-mind are so many moving ...

Amrita   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Tribute to Amrita on his Birth Centenary

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  A Pathway towards Immortality

... not to pause there but to adventure into a gloom of which mortal ignorance is only an attenuated form - the abyss from which evolving life and mind have sprung and which must be conquered if life and mind are to be completely divinised, for, unless matter is also divinised, the embodied deity will always have feet that are fragile. The promise of Victory could grow a realised Triumph only... "inconscience" of matter where the Truth is deep-asleep. This uniqueness leads us to look upon Sri Aurobindo as, in the most literal sense, the Scientist of the Spirit - one who in the light of the highest spiritual Knowledge grapples with the plane of matter, the basic sphere of Science, and asserts that, until the heart of matter's mystery is spiritually entered and possessed, the Life Divine can... breaks out by a most difficult process. Hence the rise of life and mind in a context of enormous randomness and devious waste, as though it were an emergence through layer on obstructive layer, through labyrinth on misleading labyrinth of gloom. Yes, the Rishis recognised the immense obstruction at the roots of life and mind. They recognised too the necessity not only of ascending ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  Sri Aurobindo and Human Evolution

... devolution - from the supreme Spirit, a series in which plane of mind and life occultly exist between Spirit and matter. Forces of these planes press upon matter and enter into it to assist the push within it to evolve life and mind in material terms. The supreme Spirit also has an involved figure of itself in matter and that is why there can be no ultimate satisfaction in earth existence... Evolution starts with a seeming opposite of all that we can imagine of Godhead: a vast welter of blind brute energy - insensitive, unconscious, amoral matter. Out of this arises the élan of life and out of life arises the activity of mind. Sri Aurobindo says that evolution occurs because the emergent powers are already in a state of involution within the physical cosmos. And the involution... Spirit which provides the ground and goal. In Sri Aurobindo's view, the Spirit is the Truth of existence not in the sense of the Real as opposed to the unreal that is the universe of mind and life and matter, or in the sense of the Perfect that can never be found in the world's formations. Sri Aurobindo avers that if all things have come from the Spirit, there must be in the Spirit a supporting ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Questions and Answers (1929-1931)  >  5 May 1929

... support. And yet it is the fixity of the form that made death inevitable. Matter had to assume forms; individualisation and the concrete embodiment of life-forces or consciousness-forces were impossible without it and without these there would have been lacking the first conditions of organised existence on the plane of matter. But a definite and concrete formation contracts the tendency to become at... expression and action. It is something like an intermediary between the true knowledge, whose seat is in the higher regions above the mind, and realisation here below. The intellect or, generally speaking, the mind gives the form; the vital puts in the dynamism and life-power; the material comes in last and embodies. How is one to meet adverse forces—forces that are invisible and yet quite living... experience. If this belief could be cast out first from the conscious mind, then from the vital nature and the subconscious physical layers, death would no longer be inevitable. But it is not only in the mind of man that this idea of death exists. The animal creation knew it before him. Death as a fact has been attached to all life upon earth; but man understands it in a different sense from the ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1929-1931)

The Mother Abides - Final Reflections  >  What Is to Be Done

... the present cycle, still present though past and dead in a way. We know that matter evolved out of ether, life emerged from dead matter, and mind evolved out of life. We know that—although we do not know exactly how life sprang forth from lifeless matter or how mind managed to get into mindless life, that is, into animal life. There are so many hows and many more possible and impossible answers. ... a new line of growth. So thus from matter came life, from life came mind—and man was born. Yes, man is the highest peak of evolution on earth up to now. In him the mind or mental consciousness seems to have reached its highest possible height. But still, man is not fully a mental being, he is rather a mental animal. Page 59 The mind is not yet the master in his Adhara; the true... intellect, they may create a sort of terrestrial mental atmosphere, a spiritual reflection in the mind: that too is good. In the outer world, especially in Europe and America where the modern life and consciousness are centred in the intellect, where intellectual light is the only light, the unrivalled master of life, well, let them discuss and speculate; they will acquire at least some mental knowledge, a ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Mother Abides - Final Reflections

Essays Divine and Human  >  Man and the Supermind

... of a godhead to be born out of Matter. The appearance of the superman in the human world will be the fulfilment of that distant shining promise. The difference between man and superman will be the difference between mind and a consciousness as far beyond it as thinking mind is beyond the consciousness of plant and animal; the differentiating essence of man is mind, the differentiating essence of... parts, it will transform mind, life and body into its own divine and luminous nature. Man in himself is hardly better than an ambitious nothing. He is a narrowness that reaches towards ungrasped widenesses, a littleness straining towards grandeurs which are beyond him, a dwarf enamoured of the heights. His mind is a darkened ray in the splendours of the universal Mind. His life is a striving exulting... gnosis. Man is a mind imprisoned, obscured and circumscribed in a precarious and imperfect living but imperfectly conscious body. The superman will be a supramental spirit which will envelop and freely use a conscious body, plastic to spiritual forces. His physical frame will be a firm support and an adequate radiant instrument for the spirit's divine play and work in Matter. Mind, even free and in ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

The Life Divine  >  Man in the Universe

... aware of and possess that which they both are and therefore stand explained to each other, in harmony with each other, unified. The disorders of life and mind cease by discerning the secret of a more perfect order than the physical. Matter below life and mind contains in itself the balance between a perfect poise of Page 49 tranquillity and the action of an immeasurable energy, but does not... utilising form as a medium through which Person can deal with Page 51 substance. The animal life emerging out of Matter is only the inferior term of his existence. The life of thought, feeling, will, conscious impulsion, that which we name in its totality Mind, that which strives to seize upon Matter and its vital energies and subject them to the law of its own progressive transformation, is the... To the Life-Spirit, therefore, the individual in whom its potentialities centre is pre-eminently Man, the Purusha. It is the Son of Man who is supremely capable of incarnating God. This Man is the Manu, the thinker, the Manomaya Purusha, mental person or soul in mind of the ancient sages. No mere superior mammal is he, but a conceptive soul basing itself on the animal body in Matter. He is conscious ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Occultism - Science of Hidden Forces

... Lamas know something of the laws of occult (mental and vital) energy and how it can be made to act on physical things. That is something which goes beyond mere magic. The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost illimitable degree—but that has nothing to do with the stone-throwing affair which is of a lower and more external order. In your (2) and (3) different ... possibilities. Formulas and their application, a mechanisation of latent forces, can be astonishingly effective in the occult use of mind power and life power just as it is in physical Science, but this is only a subordinate method and a limited direction. For mind and life forces are plastic, subtle and variable in their action and have not the material rigidity; they need a subtle and plastic intuition... other sense, (3) the handling of material objects by mind-energy or vital force, e.g. making a pencil move and write on paper. All these things are possible and have been done. It must be remembered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or life-energy acting directly on material energy and substance; ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life

Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects  >  A Letter On Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

... and material life are subject to constant change and are fleeting and transitory. The sages have .found that there is an eternal Reality stable and unchanging behind this phenomenal world of constant change. Matter or material life is subject to birth, growth,, development and decay and nothing .can stop this process of creation, preservation and destruction. But what is matter ? It is only a... difficult to follow the evolutionary process which is the sole theme of the Divine Life. Sat or existence becomes Matter, Chit or Consciousness hides itself in conscience and Ananda into its opposite insensibility. 'The first to emerge from this swoon of inconscience is matter, dull and insensitive, then slowly life emerges in the form of vegetable Kingdom with clearly discernible consciousness ... tests. Physical life suffers from the experience of dualities like heat and cold, hunger and thirst, pain and pleasure, attractions and repulsions etc. which are so true to ordinary human consciousness but there is the subjective way of evading or escaping them by complete detachment and living in the spirit. The spiritualists claim that theirs is an abiding and eternal reality while matter Page 459 ...

Jibendra Kumar Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  16 October 1957

... Sri Aurobindo tells us that evolution is the result of an involution. Thus, life is involved in Matter, mind is involved in life and supermind is involved in mind. Nothing can come out of nothing; it is because the Supreme is involved in Matter that the Supreme can emerge from Matter.—Editor × ... darkness, Love into hatred, Bliss into suffering, Life into death and Truth into falsehood. And they proceeded with their creations independently, in separation and disorder. The result is the world as we see it. It was made progressively, stage by stage, and it would truly take a little too long to tell you all that, but finally, the consummation is Matter—obscure, inconscient, miserable.... The creative... the Spirit. 1 The first question: "If all that is to manifest is already involved in Matter, are there, hidden in it, other principles besides the supermind which will be revealed when it has been fully manifested?" Logically speaking, "yes", for essentially, there is an identity between Matter and the Supreme. But—and this brings in the second question: "Did the involution take place ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Talks on Poetry  >  The Heart and the Art of Poetry - Talk Twenty Seven

... sky never exercised. But when the anatomical knife and the magnifying microscope probed into man's material constitution they could discover no special and separate life-force or mind-energy: Matter itself seemed to exhibit life and mind as two unusual properties. So the scientists thought it reasonable to suppose that here was only a complex organisation of the same stuff which was lifeless and mindless... a more impossible miracle than to accept a non-material or spiritual origin for the physical universe — a Divine Being hidden within or behind phenomena and gradually manifesting itself as Matter, as Life, as Mind and pushing towards Supermind through even an Age of Atheism and Materialism. Indeed, the scientists did not attend properly to the nature of the very thought by which they became scientific... Art offers we make life not worth living — in spite of the steam engine, the telegraph, the mill-machinery and the mathematical formulas of Physics. Of course, a little more acuteness of mind would have led Mallarme to argue: "If the entire value of life is centred in what Science cannot give, then surely Science has not said the last word on life and on the world in which life has come to hope and ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Talks on Poetry

Preparing for the Miraculous  >  6: Being Human and the Copernican Principle

... drastic cut is made between matter and everything else. The reason seems to be the physiological restrictions of the evolutionary human being, who can only measure things perceived by the senses. The phenomena of life are obvious but for the most part indefinable, and this goes still more for the phenomena of the mind and the spirit. The result will be that living beings are studied as complex compounds... the sons and daughters of Mother Earth. As such they carry in them the evolutionary gradations of their formation – matter, the life forces, mind. Because these evolutionary gradations correspond to the cosmic gradations, the human being is rightly called a “microcosm.” The gradations are concretely expressed in what yogic experience has called the “chakras,” lined up in the subtle body along the backbone... of the worlds, from the highest expressions of the divine Consciousness to the lowest, those of the Inconscient. Thus was established “the Chain of Being:” in descending order spirit, mind, the life forces, and matter. In its urge to regain the divine Origin, the evolution is the slow re-conquest of the original and central Consciousness, ascending the existing scale step by step. The downward movement ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Preparing for the Miraculous

On Education  >  Mother's Action in a Class of Children Aged Sixteen to Eighteen

... material, act on the gross matter of the cell? It is just like asking, "How does the will act on matter?" All life is like that. You should explain to these children that their whole existence is the result of the action of the will, that without will, matter would be inert and immobile and that it is precisely the fact that the vibration of will acts on matter that makes life possible. Otherwise there... from the body and to concentrate it on the deeper life, so as to bring this deeper consciousness into the body. If the sense of "self" has identified itself more with the mind in life, is this the same sense of "self" that has all the experiences after death, that is, that retains at the same time the memories of life? I am asking this about the mind, for it remains formed a little longer than the... would be no life. If they want a scientific answer and want to know how, it is more difficult, but the fact is there, it is a fact that can be seen at every second. 20 July 1968 How does one become conscious of the physical being? Mankind, nearly all of mankind, is conscious only of the physical being. With education, the number of men who are conscious of their vital and mind is increasing ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   On Education

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny  >  The Intuition of the Age

... existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth ? Matter forms the lowest level of reality... embodiment of rationality and reasonableness. As a matter of fact, it would not be far wrong to say that it is the Hellenic culture which has been moulding humanity for ages; at least, it is this which has been the predominating factor, the vital and dynamic element in man's nature. Greece when it died was reborn in Rome; Rome, in its return, found new life in France; and France means Europe. What Europe... also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypes— swarupa and swabhava— in the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man. This is the truth that is trying to dawn upon the new age. Not matter but that which forms the substance of matter, not intellect ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  The Intuition of the Age

... existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?   Matter forms the lowest level of... embodiment of rationality and reasonableness. As a matter of fact, it would not be far, wrong to say that it is the Hellenic culture which has been moulding humanity for ages; at least, it is this which has been the predominating factor, the vital and dynamic element in man's nature. Greece when it died was reborn in Rome; Rome, in its return, found new life in France; and France means Europe. What Europe... spirit; and so also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypes - swarupa and swabhava - in the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.   This is the truth that is trying to dawn upon - the new age. Not matter but that which forms the ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision  >  Some Contribution of Sri Aurobindo to Psychology

... everything but nothing is formulated or expressed, The subconscient lies between this Inconscient and the conscious mind, life and body. It contains the potentiality of all the primitive reactions to life which struggle out to the surface from the dull and inert strands of Matter and form by a __________________ ¹ On Yoga II, Tome One, P . 358-359 Page 150 constant d... for they then share the immortality of the psychic. Otherwise the psychic draws mind and life into itself and enters into an inter-natal quiescence. "I2 ( vii ) CENTRES OR CHAKRAS "Everything here that belongs strictly to the earth plane is evolved out of the Inconscient, out of Matter - but the essential mental being exists already, nor involved, in the ____... errors here: 1. That mind and spirit are the same thing; 2. That all consciousness can be spoken of as "Mind". 3. That all consciousness therefore, is of a spiritual substance. 4. That the body is merely Matter, not conscious, therefore something quite different from the spiritual part of nature."² SOME FUNCTIONS " First the spirit and the mind are two different things ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  3: The Mind of the Cells

... and all the false habits of its individualization in rivalry with everything else. A mongoose has no physical Mind, man has one, a diabolical one. This is our great misery. It is the vast web that is so deeply rooted in human Matter that we feel we cannot uproot it without uprooting life itself from our bodies. It is this cage of the “I” that all philosophies, religions and sociologies come up... Supreme Presence [or the Power, the “other thing,” the great Current] without that, WITHOUT THIS PHYSICAL MIND, by annulling it, caused fainting 4 . Which means that the physical Mind was a kind of link, of connector between Matter (or the body) and the Power that drives, animates Matter⎯ suppress it and nothing holds the Current anymore, it just goes through: you faint. So, it was like a death... It was the Mind saying prayers; it would have experiences and say prayers; well, here we are, now it's the experience of all the cells: an intense aspiration, and suddenly all that starts expressing it in words. It is as if this body-mind, on behalf of the body [it was the body beginning to be “mentalized”] , were saying a prayer And it very much has the sense of the oneness of Matter. So there was ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

The Future Poetry  >  Poetic Vision and the Mantra

... critical situation in life, its constant keeping of that in view and always returning upon it, and to its method which is to seize on a spiritual experience or moment or stage of the inner life and throw it into the form of thought; and this, though a delicate operation, can well abide within the limits of the poetic manner of speech. Only where it overburdens itself with metaphysical matter and deviates into... within him and not exile himself into artificial standpoints. From our present point of view we may say that the poet may do as he pleases in all that is not the essential matter. Thought-matter may be prominent in his work or life-substance predominate. He may proceed by sheer force of presentation or by direct power of interpretation. He may make this world his text, or wander into regions beyond,... modern mind at the present day seems to be towards laying a predominant value on the thought in poetry. We live still in an age which is in a great intellectual trouble and ferment about life and the world and is developing enormously the human intelligence,—often at the expense of Page 32 other powers which are no less necessary to self-knowledge,—in order to grapple with life and master ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Future Poetry

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  12 March 1958

... intervention of a supraphysical force or law of Nature or by a creator Mind acting with full power and directly on Matter. An action of a supraphysical Force and a creator may be conceded in every new appearance in Matter; each such appearance is at bottom a miracle operated by a secret Consciousness supported by a veiled Mind- Energy or Life-Energy: but the action is nowhere seen to be direct, overt, sel... previous evolution of mind in body to the point at which such a receptivity would be possible. It is quite conceivable that such an evolution from below and such a descent from above cooperated in the appearance of humanity in 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... Nature: in order to happen it would seem to need either the conscious intervention of an invisible mental being to form the body he intended to inhabit or else a previous development of a mental being in Matter itself who would be already able to receive a supraphysical power and impose it on the rigid and narrow formulas of his physical existence. Otherwise we must suppose that there was a pre-existent body ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

The Life Divine  >  Reality Omnipresent

... Spirit and Matter that we shall best arrive at their reconciling truth and so at some strongest foundation for a reconciling practice in the inner life of the individual and his outer existence. We have found already in the cosmic consciousness a Page 29 meeting-place where Matter becomes real to Spirit, Spirit becomes real to Matter. For in the cosmic consciousness Mind and Life are in... the soul, the truth, the essence of Matter. Both admit and confess each other as divine, real and essentially one. Mind and Life are disclosed in that illumination as at once figures and instruments of the supreme Conscious Being by which It extends and houses Itself in material form and in that form unveils Itself to Its multiple centres of consciousness. Mind attains its self-fulfilment when it becomes... to the cosmic consciousness Mind, illuminated by a knowledge that perceives at once the truth of Unity and the truth of Multiplicity and seizes on the formulae of their interaction, finds its own discords at once explained and reconciled by the divine Harmony; satisfied, it consents to become the agent of that supreme union between God and Life towards which we tend. Matter reveals itself to the realising ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  Science and Spiritual Knowledge

... contact and then into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters". 4 Now, the only and true function of a religion is, or should be, to prepare man's mind and life up to the point - and that in as catholic a manner as possible - where spiritual consciousness can directly take them up and illumine and govern... laboured under the sense of the cosmic Illusion. A supposed metaphysical dualism between Spirit and Matter, Reality and Appearance, has created in the collective Indian mind a feeling of the vanity of earthly existence, of the unimportance of things in Time, of the essential illusoriness of human life and its terrestrial aims and the unreality of the phenomenal world. The garb of the ascetic has been... active manifestation in our life, is one of the functions of Yoga and Spirituality. For, to reach a satisfactory solution of the problems, both individual and collective, that are besetting the life of humanity today, men must know not only what Matter is and what its processes and potentialities are, but also spirit and soul and all that is behind the material surface. As a matter of fact, as Sri Aurobindo ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

A Greater Psychology  >  The Scientific Study of Consciousness

... in Matter but as energies and see that they are quite other energies than the material, with their own peculiar qualities, powers and workings.... Only a limited range of the phenomena of life and mind could be satisfied by a purely biophysical, psycho-physical or bio-psychical explanation.... To know more we must have studied not only the actual or possible action of body and Matter on mind... Prerequisites for Consciousness Research Having examined and explained Matter by physical methods... — it is not really explained, but let that pass, — having failed to carry that way of knowledge into other fields beyond a narrow limit, we must then at least consent to scrutinise life and mind by methods appropriate to them.... Adhering still to the essential rigorous method... and Matter only the field, body and instrument of her workings. The first view is quantitative and purely mechanical, the second lets in a qualitative and a more spiritual element. We do not at once leap out of the materialistic Page 318 circle, but we see an opening in it which may widen into an outlet when, stirred by this suggestion, we look at life and mind not merely ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 1  >  A Yoga of The Art of Life

... edifice that is human nature and human life into the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate. Another question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will... here and now —here upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very body—not hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much. As to the extent of realisation, we say again that that is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the substance that... denser regions of the emotions and desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very Page 5 form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 1

A Centenary Tribute  >  Sri Aurobindo's Vision-Kireet Joshi

... evolution presupposes an involutionary process. If Life evolves in Matter, and Mind in Life, it must be because Life is involved in Matter and Mind in Life. The material Inconscience is the involved Super-conscience. Evolution is fundamentally a spiritual phenomenon. It is a phenomenon of an evolutionary self-building of Spirit on a base of Matter, which is itself a formation of spiritual reality.... of ever-increasing complexity. At certain points in the history of things, finites assume new empirical qualities which are distinctive levels of experience - primary qualities, matter; and secondary qualities, life and mind. As explained in his book Space, Time and Deity , the cosmic process has now reached the human level, and man is looking forward to the next higher quality of deity. According... its origin. What comes later is more than what was there earlier. There is, according to him, a developing process marked by increasing complexity. It is true that the powers and properties of matter, life, mind, history and values are not entirely different. They interpenetrate and produce an increasing complexity and concentration. In man evolution becomes conscious of itself. Tracing the story of ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Centenary Tribute

The Mind Of The Cells

... evolutionary transition, no longer from matter to life, but from life to something else that Mother called “over-life,” which we might just as well call “over-death,” because it is no longer life as we know it, nor obviously the death that goes along with it. It is what Sri Aurobindo called the “life divine.” 8 The Mind of the Cells Beneath its fourfold web, the body lives... organized by the mind, the first movement of the mind in Life, that which made the transition from animal to man, the first mentalization of matter. Well, something in there protests, and naturally, by protesting creates disorders. We are poised at the edge of human life, before “something” that does not exist in the animal and which has caused all the complication of human life, all its non-knowledge... do you annul this physical mind to reach the natural state, the pure cell, stripped of any scientific, catastrophic and mental covering? That really is Mother and Sri Aurobindo's extraordinary discovery: that of the “mind of the cells,” the greatest biological revolution since the first living particle began attacking and fleeing at the frontier of inanimate matter and life. That is the second e ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Mind Of The Cells

The Destiny of the Body  >  Metaphysical Factors of Death

... mastered Life. (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book X, Canto III, p. 629) Death is the constant denial by the All of the ego's false self-limitation in the individual frame of mind, life and body. (Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, p. 103) It was the conditions of matter upon earth that have made death indispensable. The whole sense of the evolution of Matter has been... solution is no solution at all, and mind fails miserably in the end. As a matter of fact, the problem cannot be solved on the plane of the mind, for essentially this is a question of satisfying in full the infinite aspiration of an immortal being, — the secret godhead, the embodied Divine, — lodged in the confines of a mortal life and body. Hence, the mind of man, baffled by the immensity of... and pulls. Thus it is that in the compass of an individual existence, there exists an acute discord and disparity in the contrary self-drives of the three evolutionary formations, Matter, Life and Mind. Instead of being anyonyabaddhaādhu, 3 each one offering the others its helping hands, and grhitakaṇthā 4 , all seized and governed by the divine Lord in the supremely harmonious ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Fullness of Yoga - In Condition

... illuminated life, body & mind, from the symbol to reality, from man separated from God to man in God & God in man. In brief, as she has aspired successfully from matter to life, from life to mind & mental ego, so she aspires & with a fated success to an element beyond mind, the vijnana of the Hindus, the self-luminous idea or Truth-self now concealed & superconscious in man and the world, as life was always... concealed in matter and mind in life. What this vijnana is, we have yet to see, but through it she knows she can lay firm hold on that highest term of all which is the reality of all symbols, in Spirit, in Sachchidananda. The aim of Nature is also the aim of Yoga. Yoga, like Nature at its summit, seeks to break this mould of ego, this mould of mentalised life body and materialised mind, in order to... which she seeks to surpass. This human symbol, this type we now are is a mental being with a mental ego, working in a vital case by mind always, but upon matter, in matter & through matter. It is limited in its higher workings by its lower instruments. Its basis of mind is egoistic, sensational & determined by experience & environment, its knowledge therefore pursues wider or narrower circles in a fixed ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Mind of Light

... of which Nature is striving and is destined to show herself capable. Matter developed its organised forms until it became capable of embodying living Page 586 organisms; then life rose from the subconscience of the plant into conscious animal formations and through them to the thinking life of man. Mind founded in life developed intellect, developed its types of knowledge and ignorance,... its being which are the visible, indicative and efficient embodiments of its essential nature. There appear in the evolutionary process organised forms and activities of Matter, the types of life and the living beings, the types of mind and the thinking beings, the luminosities and greatnesses of the spiritual principle and the spiritual beings whose nature, character, personality, mark the stages of... yet a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth-conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest it ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Renaissance in India  >  The Renaissance in India - 4

... practical fruits or to the knowledge of life and man and mind based upon the idea of matter or material energy as our starting-point; a spiritualised culture will make room for new fields of research, for new and old psychical sciences and results which start from spirit as the first truth and from the power of mind and of what is greater than mind to act upon life and matter. The primitive aim of art and poetry... Indian mind; some have told us that too much religion ruined India, precisely because we made the whole of life religion or religion the whole of life, we have failed in life and gone under. I will not answer, adopting the language used by the poet in a slightly different connection, that our fall does not matter and that the dust in which India lies is sacred. The fall, the failure does matter, and... joy, light, power, perfection. Spirit without mind, Page 33 spirit without body is not the type of man, therefore a human spirituality must not belittle the mind, life or body or hold them of small account: it will rather hold them of high account, of immense importance, precisely because they are the conditions and instruments of the life of the spirit in man. The ancient Indian culture ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  A Yoga of the Art of Life

... desires, of life activity and vital dynamism; finally, it gets into brute Matter itself, the hard and obscure rock of the physical body, for that too has to be illumined and made the very form and figure of the Light supernal. The Divine in his descending Grace is the Master-Architect who is building slowly and surely the many-chambered and many-storeyed edifice that is human nature and human life into the... here and now – here upon this earth of material existence and now in this life, in this very body – not hereafter or elsewhere. How long exactly that will mean, depends on many factors, but a few decades on this side or the other do not matter very much. As to the extent of realisation, we say again that that is not a matter of primary consideration. It is not the quantity but the substance that counts... the mould of the Divine Truth in its perfect play and supreme expression. But this is a matter which can be closely considered when one is already well within the mystery of the path and has acquired the elementary essentials of an initiate. Another question that troubles and perplexes the ordinary human mind is as to the time when the thing will be done. Is it now or a millennium hence or at some ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Isha Upanishad  >  Part II: The Field and Instruments of Vedanta

... God, the nature & relation of matter, mind, life in order to satisfy an intellectual craving. If we can systematise our guesses about these things, if we can present the world with a theory intellectually interesting or logically flawless, we are satisfied. But the ancients wished to know these things because they thought they were of the greatest importance for man's life and being. Whether they had... the obscuration in matter and ascend from the obscurer manifestation to the less obscure, from an air in which light comes to us from above to emergence in the very light itself. The spirit in the stone, clod and metal is at the bottom of that ladder; tree & plant and all vegetable life a little higher; animal life dwelling in vitality but using from below the lower functions of mind and a reason which... climbs yet higher; man dwelling in the lower mind but using matter & vitality from above and from below taking possession of reason and imagination, seems, of all beings on earth, to be at the top. But above man's present position, above the heart in which he dwells & the imagination & reason to which he rises there opens out a wider atmosphere of life, there shoots down on him a more full & burning ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Reincarnating Soul

... of the successive couches of the earth is a simple matter compared with the analysis of this wonderful creation we call the personality. The mental being in resuming bodily life forms a new personality for its new terrestrial existence; it takes material from the common matter-stuff, life-stuff, mind-stuff of the physical world and during earthly life it is constantly absorbing fresh material, throwing... ideas. Our mind is a sleepy or careless sentry and allows anything to pass the gates which seems to it decently garbed or wears a plausible appearance or can mumble anything that resembles some familiar password. Especially is this so in subtle matters, those remote from the concrete facts of our physical life and environment. Even men who will reason carefully and acutely in ordinary matters and there... that makes us cling to the life of the body and believe readily that it is the same idea and form, that it is John Robinson who is reborn as Sidi Hossain, is a creation of the mentality. Achilles was not reborn as Alexander, but the stream of force in its works which created the momentarily changing mind and body of Achilles flowed on and created the momentarily changing mind and body of Alexander. Still ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Involutionary Sleep

... unclosing of the eyes, in the first non-animal forms of life in matter, half-awake and somewhat consciously evolving in "mind housed in a living body" 3 , and destined to be fully evolved and awake "by the awakening of the Supermind in the embodied mental being and nature". 4 Thus, what characterises Matter is not that it is bereft of all life or consciousness but that therein the involved c... Page 180 Matter, living physical bodies and a creature like man in whom the mind consciousness has emerged into the open to look around and wonder? The essential difference lies in "the more or less involved or more or less evolved condition of consciousness" 1 — quite involved and asleep in a state of self-oblivious absorption in inconscient Matter, "hesitating on the verge... communication with the surface or the outside world. But it must be noted that this inconscience of matter is entirely superficial and phenomenal. It is no more real than the ignorance of exclusive concentration of man's waking mind or the inconscience or subconscience of his sleeping mind. Only, here, the self-limitation of consciousness and the "superficially exclusive self-forgetful co ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Hymns to the Mystic Fire  >  RV V.1

... offering of man's whole internal & external life & activity to God in the gods, yajatháya deván, fulfilling the upward impulse, úrdhwa, which raises matter towards life, life towards mind, mind towards ideality & spirit, and thus consummating God's intention in the creature. In the next verse the nature of this human uplifting, this upward straining of the mind through heart & intellect to ideal Truth... are the two dawns, the two agencies which prepare the manifestation of God in us, Night fostering Agni in secret in the activities of Avidyá, the activities of unillumined mind, life & body, by which the god in us grows out of matter towards spirit, out of earth up to heaven, Dawn manifesting him again, more & more, until he is ready here for his continuous, pure & perfect activity. When this point of... he raises us to live in pure mind or yet beyond to the high plateaus of the pure ideal existence, adhi shnuná brihatá vartamánam, establishes & supports as the divine force that divine bliss in its seven forms in whatever houses of our being, whatever worlds of our consciousness, have been already possessed by our waking existence, life, body & mind, or life, body, mind and idea, dame dame dadhánah ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Hymns to the Mystic Fire

Mother’s Agenda 1951-1960  >  June 1958

... the perversion and ugliness created in life due to the intervention of the mind, a whole range of deformations that have aggravated suffering, misery, moral poverty, a whole zone of sordid and repugnant miseries that makes an entire portion of human life so hideous. That must disappear. That is what in many respects makes humanity infinitely inferior to animal life, with its simplicity and its natural... the spiritual and divine life. This is what was considered divine grace, divine succor, divine intervention. And even now, in this age of anguish, tension and hypertension, this sovereign peace is of all help the best received, the most welcome, the relief asked and hoped for. For many, it is still the true sign of divine intervention, of divine grace. In fact, no matter what you wish to realize... who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will automatically be saved, in another world—faith alone, without understanding, without intelligence. They never saw the supramental world, nor did they see that the great Sacrifice of the Divine in Matter is that of an involution which will lead to the total revelation of the Divine in Matter itself. Page 170 ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1951-1960

Questions and Answers (1954)  >  7 April 1954

... Mantra. But it is something quite exceptional, it is when the will formulated in the spirit wants to come down into matter and act directly upon matter that it makes use of the sound—not only of the word but of the sound, the vibrations of the sound—to act directly upon matter itself, in matter. It is the opposite movement. You are in the region of thought formulated in words, then from there you may rise... consciousness in itself and want to act upon matter to produce a result, this will comes down from plane to plane, and as it becomes more and more material, it defines itself clearly in words or even in a single word, and when it touches matter, instead of its being a silent word, it becomes a word articulated with sounds: a vibrations that will act directly upon matter. But one must first have gone high up... then the sum total is not very, very satisfactory. In ordinary life, with ordinary people, this happens all the time. For instance, take someone who is studying, working—a scientist making discoveries. He progresses in his studies, he knows more and more. But as he does not take any care of his inner life or private life or outward life, he may become more and more backward or unconscious or even full ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1954)

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Object of Knowledge

... the Infinite. For it lives in a closed prison of constructions and representations that are necessary for its action but are not the self-existent truth either of Matter or Life or Mind or Spirit. But if we can once cross beyond the Mind's frontier twilight into the vast plane of supramental Knowledge, these devices cease to be indispensable. Supermind has quite another, a positive and direct and living... the last terms to which we can reduce the universe, Force and Matter, Name and Form, Purusha and Prakriti, are still not entirely that which the universe really is, either in itself or its nature. As all that we are is the play and form, the mental, psychic, vital and physical expression of a supreme Self unconditioned by mind and life and body, the universe too is the play and form and cosmic sou... secret; Mind is an expression not of Life, but of that of which Life itself is a less luminous expression. And yet Mind also, our mentality, our thinking, understanding part, is not our Self, is not That, not the end or the beginning; it is a half-light thrown from the Infinite. The experience of mind as the creator of forms and things and of these forms and things existing in the Mind only, the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

The Riddle of This World  >  The Ascending And the Descending Movement

... bringing down of the divine consciousness into earth matter. When it not only touches the psychic but fuses with the higher mind, it is able to come into contact with and obey a greater light and knowledge. Ordinarily, the vital is either moved by the human mind and governed by its more or less ignorant dictates, or takes violent hold of this mind and uses it for the satisfaction of its own passions... action upon life.     But this too is not Sufficient for the divine life. To come into contact With the higher mind consciousness is not enough, it is only an indispensable stage. There must be a descent of the Divine Force from yet loftier and more powerful reaches. A transformation of the higher consciousness into a supramental light and power, a transformation of the vital and its life-force into... The two movements whose apparent contradiction confuses your mind, are the two ends of a single consciousness whose motions, now separated from each other, must join if the life-power is to have its more and more perfect action and fulfilment or the transformation for which we hope. The vital being with the life-force in it is one of these ends; the other is a latent dynamic power ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Riddle of This World

A Greater Psychology  >  Introduction by Arabinda Basu

... the same essence as God and is other than body, life and mind. Further, Consciousness, descended into and self-hidden in the Inconscient, progressively manifests itself. Another way of stating it is that it evolves its own higher levels which brings xiii about the emergence of Matter, Life and Mind in the world. The evolution of Mind, or mental beings, is a stage in this process of... the superman. Mind is the medium of the unfolding of the supermind and through that of the unveiled manifestation of the now-concealed and only partly revealed Divine Being. This revelation requires the transformation of Nature so that on all its levels, physical, vital and mental it may become conscious and spiritualised. The life of the supramental race of beings will be the Life Divine. The... self-conscious. As a dynamic reality, it is known as Consciousness-Force. As Consciousness-Force it manifests itself on many levels. It is life in plants, instinct in insects and animals, mental intelligence, will and feeling in human beings and powers higher than mind in yogis and mystics. It has the power of self-determination and self-limitation. By the exercise of this power it becomes determinate ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Mother or The New Species - II  >  23: The True Earth

... made our matter opaque. It is the physical Mind, the first mentalization of Matter. And that is also what makes the "I'm living," "they're dead," "it's here," "it's over there"—we have lost the memory of freedom. The journey of Mother and Sri Aurobindo is perhaps the great journey of the earth's return to freedom. When we have totally forgotten that we die, we shall be in the real life—or perhaps... death... or for life. It was something else completely. Another world. Another earth. And yet our earth. Really a third position or a third state in Matter. A deathless state. With Mother, I watched that wonderful hope slowly grow, that possibility of an unbroken life—"I am seeking the illusion that must be destroyed for physical life to be uninterrupted," she would say—a life in which you can... work—but so living! Life stripped of its false appearance! It's very interesting, you know! People are so accustomed to... travestying everything—all that is gone; there, it's gone. It’s the BODY'S activity; it's interesting: it's the body's inner life. 20 It is the body, the consciousness of the body that discovers the secret of the earth. Matter discovering the secret of Matter. The other side ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  God's Labour

... and death are fortuitous auxiliaries; they have come upon us simply because of the small and partial scale of our life to which we agreed. One can live here below, live a full life, upon a larger scale, upon the scale of infinity and eternity. That need not dissolve body and life and mind, the triple ranges that make up our earthly existence. In brief, man himself is not truly man, he is the reverse... consIstency, but when it reaches and possesses the physical being, it becomes the impervious solid obscurity that Matter presents. The root of the Cosmic Evil is in Matter. From there it shoots up and overshadows the upper layers of our being and consciousness. Even if the mind is cleaned, the vital cleared, still if the physical consciousness is not sufficiently probed into, purified and reclaimed... earth can be trans­formed into a heavenly earth and this human body into a "body divine". Matter or the physical body is not by itself the centre of gravity of the human consciousness; it is not that that pins the soul or the self to the life of pain and misery and incapacity and death. Matter is not the Evil, nor made up of Evil; it contains or harbours evil under the present circumstances ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Divine Shakti

... our ordinary mind in the ignorance and to its experience of things the force of Prakriti has a different appearance. When we look at it in its universal action outside ourselves, we see it first as a mechanical energy in the cosmos which acts upon matter or in its own created forms of matter. In matter it evolves powers and processes of life and in living matter powers and processes of mind. Throughout... this mechanical appearance of Prakriti which has preoccupied the modern scientific mind and made for it its whole view of Nature, and so much so that science still hopes and labours with a very small amount of success to explain all phenomena of life by laws of matter and all phenomena of mind by laws of living matter. Here soul or spirit has no place and nature cannot be regarded as power of spirit... direction of the life-power in us and not according to the law of the highest spiritual existence. The 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 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The "Arya's" Fourth Year

... establish from its data a comprehensive Adwaita. We have shown that mind and life and matter are derivations from the Self through a spiritual mind or supermind which is the real support of cosmic existence and by developing mind into that, man can arrive at the real truth of the spirit in the world and the real truth and highest law of life. The Self is Sachchidananda and there is no incurable antinomy... nescience of Matter and on its way to a return to its conscious integrality. To accomplish that return and manifest the spiritual life in the human existence is the opportunity given by the successions of rebirth. We accept the truth of evolution, not so much in the physical form given to it by the West Page 107 as in its philosophical truth, the involution of life and mind and spirit here... depend or in which they are gathered up. Therefore we gave the first place to the "Life Divine". Here we start from the Vedantic position, its ideas of the Self and mind and life, of Sachchidananda and the world, of Knowledge and Ignorance, of rebirth and the Spirit. But Vedanta is popularly supposed to be a denial of life, and this is no doubt a dominant trend it has taken. Though starting from the original ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

In the Mother's Light  >  The Subconscient and Inconscient

... substance of Reality into Matter, the dense and obscure primal substrate. In this fathomless night of existence or apparent non-existence, there is no stirring of life or mind, only a blind mighty Energy weaving stupendous systems of worlds and suns and moons and star-clusters and planets, as if in a dumb, creative sleep. Out of this tranced involution of the Spirit in Matter evolves Life, making the earth... staggering jolt and knock before he is fit for a sattwic or religious life." This tamas, of which the young man was a living embodiment, is a legacy of the Inconscient. It is more or less in all men, confined not only to their physical parts, but attacking also their minds and hearts and paralysing the springs of their life. Referring to this immobilising and disintegrating tamas, the Mother... dominant role in his life and nature that he can be called only a super-animal or a sub-man, rather than a full-fledged man. His conservatism, his un- willingness and inability to change, his forgetfulness of his divine origin and essence, his easy subjection to doubts and dull fatigue, to disease and death are all a trailing heritage from inconscient Page 179 Matter. Besides, there ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

Taittiriya Upanishad  >  Introduction

... Upanishads had discovered between the Spirit and the world of Matter, besides Life and Mind, an intermediate creative principle, which they called Vijnāna, comprehensive knowledge (as distinguished from Mind, which is the principle of piecemeal, analytical and partial knowledge). Therefore, we find Bhrigu making a further ascent from the Mind and discovering Vijnāna. As the Upanishad states: "He... process which was valid for the development of Bhrigu, places before the pupil the ascending terms of existence, Food, that is Matter, Prana, that is Life, and Eye and Ear, which represent the senses, the first appearances of the operation of consciousness, and next, the Mind. The teacher then asks the pupil to find out which of them, if any, is more fundamental and therefore the Eternal. The pupil... from all the regions. Swaha! O Lord, thou art my neighbour, thou dwellest very near me. Come to me, be my light and sun. 5 The fifth lesson gives an account of the three worlds of Matter, Life and Mind, and declares that Rishi Mahachamasya made known the fourth world, which is Mahas, the Vast. This account is again highly symbolic and would need a great deal of interpretation. 6. The ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Taittiriya Upanishad

Letters on Yoga - II  >  The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita

... a field of manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature in Matter and from Matter through Life and Mind to what is beyond Mind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sachchidananda in life. It is this that is the basis of the Yoga and gives a new sense to life. To the question in your last letter there can be no reply except that it is only either a... can do without the impulse towards Yoga or not—if you cannot, then it is useless thinking of the ordinary life without Yoga—your nature will compel you to seek after it even if you have to seek all your life with a small result. But the small result Page 445 is mainly due to the mind which always came in the way and the vital weakness which gives it its support for its reasonings. If you... ordinary Jivas (Jivakoti) who, once having ascended, have not the strength to descend again for divine work. The full truth lies in the supramental consciousness and the power to work from there on life and matter. Page 441 There is no real contradiction; the two passages 1 indicate in the Gita's system two different movements of its Yoga, the complete surrender being the crowning movement ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II

A Scheme for The Education of Bengal  >  Mind Of Light

... godheads of which Nature is striving and is destined to show herself capable. Matter developed its organised forms until it became capable of embodying living organisms; then life rose from the subconscience of the plant into conscious animal, formations and through them to the thinking life of man. Mind founded in life developed intellect, developed its types of knowledge and ignorance, truth and... its being which are the visible, indicative and efficient embodiments of its essential nature. There appear in the evolutionary process organised forms and activities of Matter, the types of life and the living beings, the types of mind and the thinking beings, the luminosities and greatnesses of the spiritual principle and the spiritual beings whose nature, character, personality, mark the stages of... a perfected instrument, truth-conscious and . delivered out of the Ignorance. Instead, it would be possessed already of what could be called a mind of Light, a mind capable of living in the truth, capable of being truth conscious and manifesting in its life a direct in place of an indirect knowledge. Its mentality would be an instrument of the Light and no longer of the Ignorance. At its highest ...

Pranab Bhattacharya (Dada)   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Scheme for The Education of Bengal

On Art - Addresses and Writings  >  Inaugural Address at Art Exhibition

... beginning-if ever there was a beginning,— organised Matter has evolved; from Matter, life; from life, Mind. Man represents this mental consciousness. But mind is not the last, though at present it is the highest term of this evolutionary movement. Man is, therefore, a transitional being. Page 73 The destiny of Man is to ascend beyond Mind to a Higher. Consciousness, to a new principle... photography find place in Sri Aurobindo's Ashram because his philosophy is one of fulfilment of the earthly life of man by the descent of the Divine consciousness. He has shown in his masterpiece, the Life Divine, that the opposition between Spirit and Matter is only apparent and that Matter holds within itself all the potentialities of manifesting the Spirit. From a study of universal evolutionary... to-day is for freedom with regard to subject matter and the method or the technique. There is demand for newness,—shall I say novelty?—, there is demand for the expression of the artist's personality. The artist wants to give individual interpretation of his experience. In India there is, perhaps a long standing fear and inferiority complex in the minds of our artists that unless they run with the ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   On Art - Addresses and Writings

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Parable of the Gods

... Agni is the heat and flame of the conscious force in Matter which has built up the universe; it is he who has made life and mind possible and developed them in the material universe where he is the greatest deity. Especially he is the primary impeller of speech of which Vayu is the medium and Indra the lord. This heat of conscious force in Matter is Agni Jatavedas, the knower of all births; of all things... great Life-Principle, he who moves, breathes, expands infinitely in the mother element. All things in the universe are the movement of this mighty Life; it is he who has brought Agni and placed him secretly in all existence; for him the worlds have been upbuilded that Life may move in them, that it may act, that it may riot and enjoy. If this Daemon be no birth of Matter, but some stupendous Life-force... force that supports our embodied life must become simply and purely a reflector of that supreme Consciousness and Power of which its highest ordinary action is only a twilight figure; the Life must become a passively potent reflection and pure image of that supreme Life which is greater than all our utmost actual and Page 83 potential vitality; the Mind must resign itself to be no more ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Vision of the Divine Body

... he will rise above himself and realise, not merely in thought and in his internal being but in life, a perfectly divine manhood. Otherwise either the promise of Life is cancelled, its meaning annulled and earthly being can only realise Sachchidananda by abolishing itself, by shedding from it mind, life and body and returning to the pure Infinite, or else man is not the divine instrument, there ... indication of the conquest of the material inconscience and Ignorance even in the very foundation of the reign of Matter,... a temporal sign of the spirit's victory here over Death and Matter". 5 But before this vision of the conquest of Death, can be realised in the life of man, the metaphysical necessity for its existence and sway so far has to be adequately met and abrogated. ... the Spirit manifesting in Nature.' For, it should be clearly borne in mind that the divine body thus envisaged can come into existence and its physical immortality be achieved and assured, not through the paltry efforts made by science, nor through the occult-spiritual influences that seek to act upon Matter through the sole agency of the powers of consciousness so far organised in earth-nature ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Problem of Suffering and Evil

... concealed and self-imprisoned Divine, imprisoned in Matter but with every potentiality held in its secret depths. Out of this Page 254 apparent Inconscience each potentiality is revealed in its turn, first organised Matter concealing the indwelling Spirit, then Life emerging in the plant and associated in the animal with a growing Mind, then Mind itself evolved and organised in Man. This evolution... making descend a greater power of consciousness that was above it. This is what is happening in the evolution of consciousness in our world, a world of inanimate matter producing under the stress of this necessity a power of life, a power of mind which bring into it new forms of creation and still labouring to produce, to make descend into it some Page 259 supramental power. It is farther an... no life, if told that there would soon be life on earth embodied in matter, he would have cried out, "What is that? It is impossible, it cannot be done. Life is possible only in a subtle body. It has never been and never will be embodied in gross matter. What, this mass of electrons, gases, chemical elements, this heap of mud and water and stones and inert metals, how are you going to get life in that ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

A Greater Psychology  >  Index

... Vital, the Life-mind, 44, 45, 55 See also vital mind under Mind Matter, 6, 121, 196, 325, 377, 400 Maya, 96 and the Self, 98 Mayavada (Illusionism), 373, 374, 375, 377 See also Shankara Mind, 61, 193, 337 cannot integrate the being, 19 and consciousness, 8-9, 41-43 evolution of mental life, 256-58 Higher Mind, 143-46, 352 ... see Cosmic Life Universal Matter, see Cosmic Matter Universal Mind, see Cosmic Mind Upanishad(s), 90fm\n, 296, 297 record of experiences, 184 Vedanta (Vedantic), 170-71, 303, 367, 373, 391, 393 meaning of Nirvana in, 226 Vidya, see Knowledge Vital (being), the, 17, 337 and the emotional being, 63 four parts of, 63-64 functions... Nirvana, 223-25 and ordinary consciousness, 219-20 and Overmind, 153 and Self-realisation, 222-23 Cosmic Life, 78-79 Cosmic Matter, 78-79 Cosmic Mind, 78, 79 Culture, 279-83 and barbarism, 281; see also Barbarism not the directing light of life, 283 cf. Civilisation Desire-soul, 89 cf. Vital (being), the Divine, the, 165, 379, 357-58, 376-80 ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7  >  A Letter

... of evolution preached by the West. According to that law of evolution there existed Matter first in the creation, and then appeared the animal, finally the human being. That is to say, the Western science has recognised, in the first instance, evolution on lower planes of Nature. First body, then life and then mind. But nothing can be as absurd and illogical as to say that the evolution of Nature has... leave aside the laws of body, life and mind and rise into the highest spiritual nature is called Yoga. But don't think, in doing Yoga you shall have to do away with this body, life and mind and keep aloof from the world and the earthly concerns. This theory is an absurdity on the face of it. The higher world can be contacted even while remaining in the body, life and mind, and it can also be infused... belongs to the terrestrial, the other to the supraterrestrial. This earth of clay or the lower region possesses body; life and mind. Man moves about according to the laws and customs, bondages and limitations of body, life and mind. But there exists a world, a plane above these three; and there the; knowledge of man does not depend on gross physical sensations or on syllogistic reasonings. There the ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  2: A Body Without Memory

... it can no longer gather from the great flow of life, freezing all movements in an invariable and invulnerable frame, sleeping and sleeping to imitate the stone’s peace, and dying to be finished once and for all with all that labour⎯a trepidant Mind, which is only a tissue of coagulated repetitions and habits and which even managed to coagulate Matter into a certain form of being, as if it were the... changes, the type of coagulation or materialization changes. If the physical Mind, which collects or perpetuates this vibratory mode changes, the whole organization of Matter must change. This was the phenomenon that occurred in Mother’s body. Cells that spontaneously repeat the mantra. A new Mind in Matter or of Matter, like a new force of propulsion and the agent of a new type of body upon earth... landscape which explains everything. Mother was trying to describe the functioning of the new being. The mind and vital have been instruments to knead Matter—knead and knead and knead in every possible way [to awaken this Matter to its own buried consciousness] : the vital through sensations, the mind through thoughts. But they strike me as transitory instruments which will be replaced by other states ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1  >  Higher and Lower Worlds

...       How was man involved on the earth in in-conscient Matter — with the divinity behind him?       The question is itself rather involved. Man has evolved from Matter — or rather Nature has worked first the plant, then the animal, then Man in a regular succession out of Matter. What is involved is not Man, but mind and life and spirit. "Involved" means that they are there even though there... there seems to be no mental activity (as in the tree) and no mental or vital activity (as in the stone); as the evolution goes on the involved life appears and begins to organise itself and the plants appear and then the animals; next mind, first in the animal, and then man appears.       What is meant by the Divine Consciousness?       By the Divine Consciousness we mean the spiritual... forces whose whole aim is to maintain the reign of Darkness, Falsehood, Death and Suffering as the law of life.       Are there hostile forces in every plane of our being?       The main strength of the hostile forces is in the vital — but there are some in the lower ranges of mind and smaller beings and forces in the subtle physical also.       Why are certain forces called hostile ...

Nagin Doshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1

Mother or The New Species - II  >  24. The Transformation of the World

... volcano. Mother had loosened the threads of the web and that Power—a tremendous Power—in Matter, from the other side of the enveloping veil, or rather the other side of the Wall of the physical Mind, was beginning to infiltrate and invade our Matter from within. A tremendous, invisible revolution within Matter. And as the years went by, the phenomenon became more extraordinarily striking: Mother... cease to exist. 200 That is how the cyclone could not enter Sri Aurobindo's room. A kind of immobility in the physical Mind: nothing reacts there. There, at the cellular threshold, beneath the coating of the Physical Mind, the laws of the false world end—the laws of false matter. And we cross the river very easily, we go through the shower of stones, and swamps full of snakes, and everything quite... manipulated everything—all of Matter—and without any division, without "over there." One was astonishingly in everything, except for the little outer shell (here, too, I finally understood what She meant, because it felt indeed like a crust): in the Power that was in everything or, more exactly, that carried everything. Life became strangely close and immediate, a compact oneness. Life really. And there, more ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Patterns of the Present  >  5: Science, Scientism, Modern Technology

... an exclusive one-sided knowledge; we must know not only what Matter is and what are its processes, but what mind and life are and what are their processes, and one must know also spirit and soul and all that is behind the material surface: only then can we have a knowledge sufficiently integral for a solution of the problem.” ( The Life Divine , pp. 652-53) “Science is in its own way an occultism”... mould of his own habitual notions the life of adults or the blunders of an ignorant mind which thinks fit to criticise patronisingly or adversely the labours of a profound thinker or a great scientist. At the best even this futile labour can extract, can account for only the externals of the things it attempts to explain; the spirit is missed, the inner matter is left out, and as a result of that capital... reality of Matter. But it is now evident that Matter is by no means fundamentally real; it is a structure of Energy: it is becoming even a little doubtful whether the acts and creations of this Energy itself are explicable except as the motions of power of a secret Mind of Consciousness of which its processes and steps of structure are the formulas. It is therefore no longer possible to take Matter as the ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Patterns of the Present

India's Rebirth  >  1929-1938: Letters

... field of manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature in Matter and from Matter through Life and Mind to what is beyond Mind till it reaches the complete revelation of Sachchidananda* in life. It is this that is the basis of [Sri Aurobindo's] Yoga and gives a new sense to life. 90 ___________________ * Sachchidananda: the eternal divine principle of... only in the mind and are not intended to have a practical manifestation in life! I have always written that my Yoga is Page 202 intended for the manifestation of a new principle of life and works are an essential part of my Yoga. If that manifestation were already there, there would be no need for my bringing down into life this new spiritual principle. Mahatma Gandhi's life expresses... reaches to a wideness and a grandeur that are beyond him, a dwarf enamoured of the heights. His mind is a dark ray in the splendours of the universal Mind. His life is a striving, exulting, suffering, an eager passion-tossed and sorrow-stricken or a blindly and dumbly longing petty moment of the universal Life. His body is a labouring perishable speck in the material universe. This cannot be the end of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   India's Rebirth

Letters on Yoga - I  >  Morality and Yoga

... l consciousness of mind, life and body. At each step of evolution we have this change, reversal, new base. Matter is bound in an involved consciousness which is in practice an inconscience; life in the plant in a still involved consciousness struggling for growth, expansion, persistence, seeking after movement and sensation and conscious living without yet reaching them; life in the animal in a... nothing else matters. Morality is a part of the ordinary life; it is an attempt to govern the outward conduct by certain mental rules or to form the character by these rules in the image of a certain mental ideal. The spiritual life goes beyond the mind; it enters into the deeper consciousness of the Spirit and acts out of the truth of the Spirit. As for the question about the ethical life and the need... sorts of forms whose common error is to ignore the essence and core of the matter. The Western intellect presents us with the strivings of the mind, life, emotions, passions, moral will and tells us these are the real spiritual things, man's highest aim and endeavour and all else is vain mysticism, asceticism, evasion of life. It appears that the lined and ravaged face of a Greek bust of Homer is a ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  18: The Physical Plunge

... live Matter through the Mind, except perhaps for a few blissful gardeners or artisans (though most of the time even they continue to race around in their heads, amidst their rose-cuttings or pottery). In fact, to descend into the physical means first of all to descend into inertia and darkness, because our substance is so accus­tomed to obeying the mind’s orders and being manipulated by the mind that... Saint-Pierre, but another earth, another Matter. The next Matter is to be made, or rather revealed, through the breaking of a million little habits of seeing in the wrong way, living in the wrong way, being in the wrong way. As for cosmic consciousness, we will find it in Matter, every minute and in the smallest pebble. The time has come to emerge from the Minds old cosmic imposture. Mao Tse-Tung’s “Great... not even a true “vital" like that of the animal, but still the Mind creeping in and lurk­ing in Matter), once clarity has been achieved and the first jungle cleared, then the physical consciousness, the consciousness of the body, begins to emerge. A perfectly autonomous consciousness—once it has been freed from these two usurpers, the mind and the vital. And a con­sciousness endowed with quite peculiar ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  Modernism - An Oriental Interpretation

... of the matter. They touched *Another similar cycle can be traced farther back in the past. The classicism of Græco-Latin culture dominated by mind and reason – although it was a kind of higher mind and intuitive reason – was supplanted by the heart movement that Christ and the Christian cult initiated. Page 145 life, caressed its contour and periphery and larger... secret of which we of the modern age are worshippers. Thus life has come to mean today the life exclusively of the senses, the life that is instinctive, reflexive, automatical in its elan, which is beyond the control of the conscious will and intelligence, the life that is interwoven and unified with body and matter. For it was this life which could never come to its own – not even in man's primitive... domination of the mind and the heart over life was the characteristic stamp of the movement of the human spirit in the past. Modernism means the release of life from this subjugation; it means the expression of life's own truths in its own way, life's self-determination: that is the great endeavour and achievement of today. It was a rationalised, emotionalised, idealised life that man sought ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Letters on Yoga - III  >  Experiences of the Self, the One and the Infinite

... substance that one can arrive at unity [ of matter, energy and mind ]—unity is in the spiritual consciousness. The material point is only one point among millions of millions—so that is not the base of unity. But once you get the unity in consciousness, you can feel through that the unity of mind substance, mind force, etc., the unity of life substance (mobile) and life force, the unity of material substance... personalities. It is only then that one can know the aspect or bhava one is intended to manifest. The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos—it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the Overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in Nature. A Vision of the Universal Self What you saw in the vision was the wide and... results in a knowledge that has no transforming effect on the life. But the theory of these Yogis is that one has to know the Self; life and what one does in life do not matter. Have you not read of the Yogi who came with his concubine and Ramakrishna asked him, "Why do you live like that?" He answered, "All is Maya, so it does not matter what I do so long as I know the Brahman." It is true Ramakrishna ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - III

The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri  >  Sense Action

... arrangement of external device elaborated in terrestrial life-evolution does not and cannot abrogate the basic fact that the true sense-action is in the mind and not in the optical apparatus. Here is an illuminating passage from Sri Aurobindo's Kena Upanishad: "Mind, subconscious in all Matter and evolving in Matter, has developed these physical organs in order to apply its... its inherent capacities of sight, hearing, etc. on the physical plane by physical means for a physical life... [But] sight and the other senses are not mere results of the development of our physical organs in the terrestrial evolution... they are inherent capacities [of Mind] and not dependent on the circumstance of terrestrial evolution and they can be employed without the use of the physical eye, ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

The New Synthesis of Yoga  >  Part-1

... became what we know as man, the present human being. (c) The progress of Nature from Matter to Life, from Life to Mind may be conceded: but there is no proof yet that Matter developed into life or Life-energy into Mind- energy; all that can be conceded is that Life has manifested in Matter, Mind in living Matter. (d) The constant creation of types is visible but that is no indubitable proof... evolution of Life in Matter, the evolution of Mind in Matter; but evolution is a word which merely states the phenomenon without explaining it. For there seems to be no reason why Life should evolve out of Page 33 material elements or Mind out of living form, unless we accept the Vedantic solution that Life is already involved in Matter and Mind in Life because in essence Matter is a form... Pure Mind Heaven (Dyaus, the three heavens) 4 Life-Force The Mid-Region (Antariksha) 5 Matter Earth (the three earths) Our earth, according to the Veda, has been shaped out of the dark inconscient ocean of existence, and our physical life lifts its high formations and ascending planes towards the heaven of mind having its own ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The New Synthesis of Yoga

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  The Force of Body

... Like slaves, like prisoners we bind ourselves to our limits. You call it common sense, but it is a stupid, narrow and ignorant sense; it does not truly know the laws of life. The laws of life are not what we think them to be, what our mind or intellect conceives them to be; they are quite other­wise. Page 391 ... only possible, but it is bound to happen, for it is a forward step in man's progress. First of all, you have to realise the power in your mind to the extent that it can act upon circumstances and change their effect upon you. Then the power can descend into Matter, into the substance, the cells of your body and endow the body with this capacity of control over things outside and around you. There... yourselves. But not that only. You should not only be master of your own selves, but master of the circumstances of your life, the circumstances, at least, that immediately surround you and concern you. You must note further that it is an experience that is not confined to the mind alone: it need not happen in your head only, it may and indeed must continue into the body. Certainly, this is a realisation ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Lower Triple Purusha

... use them so as to make life as tolerable or as happy as possible so long as it lasts. If we were really nothing more than such a minor movement of individualised mind in Matter, existence would have nothing more to offer us; its best part would be at most this struggle of an ephemeral intellect and will with eternal Page 457 Matter and with the difficulties of Life supplemented and eased... ends with death and has no second recurrence. Our own being is a sort of accident or at least a very small and minor circumstance in the universal life of Matter or the eternal continuity of the workings of material Force. Somehow or other a soul or mind has come to exist in a body and it stumbles about among things and forces which it does not very well understand, at first preoccupied with the difficulty... for if we did we could very soon arrive at the conscious control of the body by the life-power and of both by the sovereign mind; we should then be able to determine our physical and mental life to a very large extent by our will and knowledge as masters of our being and with a direct action of the mind on the life and body. By Yoga this power of transcending the physical self and taking possession ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Mother or The New Species - II  >  12. The Infiltration

... dible for our physical mind—begin to get through the mesh, as if we were dealing with another physical Nature—or perhaps the true one. We are completely misled, not only by false matter but by the false God that has ruled over this false matter. Reality is altogether different: an altogether different "God" and an altogether different "Matter." That God goes with that Matter which goes with that Death... carbon monoxide of their cities quite charming in comparison. But if a pure sound is injected into Matter, the effect can be equally magical; only, as our false matter is thick and sticky and repetitive, a lot of tenacity is needed. The same repetitive and parrot-like virtue of Matter and of the physical mind can be used in the other direction also and, "miraculously," it can start repeating a true sound... mental problem, because for birds, there is no difficulty. The difficulty is the structure of the mind, and the fact of living with other beings who themselves are terribly caught up in the mind. Truly, a transition has to be worked out from one species to another. And life changes too—when I say "life," I mean not only the way of relating to people and things, but the very quality of the air one ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Evolutionary Aim in Yoga

... s. It is not every form of matter that organises life although every form of matter teems with the spirit of life and is full of its urgent demand for release & self-manifestation. Not every form of life organises mind, although in all forms of life mind is there, insistent, seeking for its escape and self-expression. Nor is every mental being fitted to organise the life of ideal truth, although in... perfection or a decomposition of our humanity into the fruitful waste-matter of Nature. Page 110 Every nature, then, is a step towards some super-nature,—towards something natural to itself, but supernatural to that which is below. Life is supernatural to Matter, Mind supernatural to Life, Ideal Being supernatural to Mind, the Infinite Spirit supernatural to ideal being. We must, therefore... mutable becoming, that which is supernatural to it and that which is natural. Every state of existence has some force in it which drives it to transcend itself. Matter moves towards becoming life, Life travails towards becoming Mind, Mind aspires towards becoming ideal Truth, Truth rises towards becoming divine and infinite Spirit. The reason is that every symbol, being a partial expression of God ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

The Aim of Life  >  Life's Phiosophy

... monism and non-duality of mind and matter, the dynamics of matter and the dialectic of continuous change by evolution as well as leap, through action and interaction, cause and effect, thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It did not satisfy me completely, nor did it answer all the questions in my mind, and, almost unawares, a vague idealist approach would creep into my mind, something rather akin to the... the Vedanta approach. It was not a difference between mind and matter, but rather of something that lay beyond the mind. Also there was the background of ethics. I realised that the moral approach is a changing one and depends upon the growing mind and an advancing civilisation; it is conditioned by the mental climate of the age. Yet there was something more to it than that, certain basic urges which... elements, and no thinking person can ignore this invisible world. Science does not tell us much, or for the matter of that anything about the purpose of life. It is now widening its boundaries and it may invade the so-called invisible world before long and help us to understand this purpose of life in its widest sense, or at least give us some glimpses which illumine the problem of human existence. The ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Aim of Life

Savitri  >  'The Yoga of the King- The Yoga of the Soul's Release'

... everywhere, however veiled to our eyes. Light is hidden somehow in darkness, life in inconscience, knowledge in ignorance. There has been a 'descent', an 'involution', of God into matter; the ascent, the evolution, from matter to God is proceeding, and must conclude. Life is not unreal, life is not futile:         Life now became a sure approach to God,       Existence a divine experiment... showing all the ground A swift intuitive discernment shone. 3   Such thrusts of flame kindle the sluggish mind to life, making it scour the vasts between "summit and abyss" and gather knowledge-pearls of incalculable price. Thus awakened, alerted and active, the mind spreads out, the net is heavy with what has come its way and curious man can piece out the design behind the appearance:... therefore leader and representative of his race, and he is also the heart of humanity voicing forth its innermost aspiration. Thus his yoga too falls into three stages, and the first stage is the subject-matter of Book I, cantos 3,4 and 5. Page 71        As individual man, Aswapati's first dim spiritual awakening comes when he realises that the body—the material appearance— is not ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Letters on Yoga - III  >  Ascent and Descent

... Sachchidananda are in principle involved there in the earth consciousness, but only matter is at first organised; then life descends from the life plane and gives shape and organisation and activity to the life principle in matter, creates the plant and animal; then mind descends from the mind plane, creating man. Now supermind is to descend so as to create a supramental race. There are two movements—one... is with only purification, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital. It means a bringing down of Divine Consciousness static and dynamic into all these parts and the entire replacement of the present consciousness by that. This we find unveiled and unmixed above mind, life and body and not in mind, life and body. It is a matter of the undeniable experience of many that this can... embodied in living matter has to rise so as to meet the higher consciousness; the higher consciousness has also to descend into mind, into life, into matter. In that way the barriers will be removed and the higher consciousness will be able to take up the whole lower nature and transform it by the power of the supermind. The earth is a material field of evolution. Mind and life, supermind, Sachchidananda ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - III

Mother or The New Species - II  >  13. The Paths of Universalization

... BY THE MIND- the first stirrings of Mind in life making the passage from animal to human.... Well, something in there protests, and naturally this protest creates disorder. 6 Here we are, before the inevitable physical Mind, the remarkable something that was formed with man and caused the transition from animal to man. There is no physical mind in animals; there is only a cellular mind. The cage... secret complicity in Matter. I have personally observed a very remarkable phenomenon which recurred several times so that I would really get the point. This in itself is a strange experience: as soon as you want to try to understand how things really work in Matter, it is as if everything came to give you a demonstration—a complicity in the other direction—everything comes to life and seems to react... know what is here. There is a sort of veil to be lifted somewhere in our consciousness. We are always wondering if this veil is not the famous physical mind: the "deformation's spell" Sri Aurobindo spoke of. A cellular spell. True Matter When the meshes of the web loosen a little as a result of the impersonalization, as well as from the hammering of the mantra, all kinds of phenomena start ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  21 DECEMBER 1940

... MANILAL: The Hindu gives a short note on it, but I don't grasp it myself very well. It says, "What is mind? No matter" and "What is matter? Never mind." Something like that. SRI AUROBINDO: It means mind and matter are not the same. DR. MANILAL: But one thing I can't understand, Sir, about life and existence. If a living organism consists of living cells and each living cell has a soul— SRI... Either the body dies because the soul departs or the soul departs because the body is destroyed. According to one conception the soul is a portion of the Divine, and hence indestructible, while mind, life and body are instruments of its self-expression. It is the materialist's conception that soul and body are the same so that when the body dies existence ceases. Dr. Manilal was so thoroughly battered... AUROBINDO: A cell has a soul? DR. MANILAL: Yes, Sir, otherwise how could it live? SRI AUROBINDO: It lives because of the life in it, not because of the soul in it. You can ask "What is life?" DR. MANILAL: What is life then? SRI AUROBINDO: For that you have to read The Life Divine (Laughter) . PURANI: He wants a shortcut. NIRODBARAN: If each cell has a soul, then there are so many thousands ...

Nirodbaran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Talks with Sri Aurobindo

The Life Divine  >  The Origin and Remedy of Falsehood, Error, Wrong and Evil

... and evil is not native to the material principle, it is absent from the world of Matter. The duality begins with conscious life and emerges fully with the development of mind in life; the vital mind, the mind of desire and sensation, is the creator of the sense of evil and of the fact of evil. Moreover, in animal life, the fact of evil is there, the evil of suffering and the sense of suffering, the... why there should not be invisible cosmic forces mental and vital in their nature that act upon his mind and his life force. And if Mind and Life, impersonal forces, form conscious beings or use persons to embody them in physical forms and in a physical world and can act upon Matter and through Matter, it is not impossible that on their own planes they should form conscious beings whose subtler substance... but it would not be erratic by deviation, would not by its parts of obscurity sink into the false or fallible. But this could not be, because the hold of Inconscience on the matter, the surface substance, in which mind and life have to express themselves, makes the surface consciousness obscure and unresponsive to the light within; it is impelled moreover to cherish this defect, to substitute more and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  Varieties of Yoga

... into it from the universal life; and Prânâyâma controls the fivefold movement of life, purifies the entire nervous system by directing the circulation of the life-energy ¹ The Synthesis of Yoga or On Yoga-1 by Sri Aurobindo ² Fixed postures of the body for the purpose of Concentration. ³ Breathing exercises for the control of life-energy and mind. Page 20 through... ¹ Self and Nature. Page 18 linking it to life, and aiming at a marriage of Heaven and "Earth and the manifestation of Spirit in Matter, and the other, intense and exclusive, renouncing life in its intolerant thirst for the Light, and creating a permanent divorce between Purusha and Prakriti, Spirit and Matter, the One and the Many. The Vedic Yoga, grown obsolete and somewhat... Hathayoga is founded on the truth that the human body is not "a mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being".¹ It houses powers and energies which, once properly quickened and marshalled, can achieve the release of the human mind' and the soul from the cramping hold of Matter. The very body, which is the cause of man's bondage to ignorance and suffering ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  The Problem of Human Relations

... Life itself, by the resolution of the conflict between the two opposites which present themselves in the very foundations of Life in Matter" (italics ours). The resolution is attempted by the higher principle of Mind, but Mind in its nature being a separative consciousness cannot solve this problem within its own borders, and the harmony has to be sought in a Power still beyond Mind. "Indeed... an internal sensation responsive to the contacts of other life and of Matter. Consciousness labours to manifest as best it can through the inadequacy of sensation its own inherent delight of being; but it can only formulate a partial pain and pleasure. In man the energising Consciousness appears as Mind more clearly aware of itself and things; this is still a partial and limited, not an integral... the full emergence of Mind; for in vitality without conscious mind there can be no equation.... The mental being expressive of soul-consciousness is the nodus of the persistent individual and the persistent aggregate life; in him their union and harmony become possible." "This mental status of life is a condition in which we rise progressively beyond the struggle for life by mutual devouring and ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7  >  The Force of Body Consciousness

... Like slaves, like prisoners we bind ourselves to our limits. You call it common sense, but it is a stupid, narrow, ignorant sense; it does not truly know the laws of life. The laws of life are not what we think them to be, what our mind or intellect conceives them to be; they are quite otherwise. Page 138 ... only possible, but it is sure to happen, for it is a forward step in man's progress. First of all, you have to realise the power in your mind to the extent that it can act upon circumstances and change their effect upon you. Then the power can descend into Matter, into the substance, the cells of your body and endow the body with this capacity of control over things outside and around you. ... yourselves. But not that only. You should not only be master of your own selves, but master of the circumstances of your life, the circumstances, at least, that immediately surround you and concern you. You must note further that it is an experience that is not confined to the mind alone: it need not happen in your head only, it may and indeed must continue into the body. Page 137 ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  Man in the Universe

... emerge into mind; and in the mind, for the first time, one feels a subjective self, that is to say, a conscious individuality. This Infinite Consciousness Being and Delight, beginning with the dumb sleep of matter, creates forms and separateness of objects. From there it struggles into life and then, into various patterns and variations of life. And when it struggles and creates mind then it succeeds... Aurobindo says in the The Life Divine, that the universe is a diffusion of this Divine All, in infinite time and infinite space. And from that point of view the individual is its concentration and not diffusion. First it is a sort of diffusion, a throwing itself out into a multiplicity so to say, or into innumerable variety in matter or in Page 40 life or in mind. But the individual... but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action. For it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of mind and life and body in matter there are other forces and powers that can and do act from behind and from above. There is also a spiritual dynamic power which can be possessed by those who are advanced in spiritual ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  Delight of Existence - the Solution

... organism, in matter, there is no experience of pain. There may be vibrations only—call it positive and negative, if you like—but there is no cognizing subjective sense to feel pain, pleasure, or indifference. Pain begins with life in matter and grows with the mental consciousness in matter. When the mind is free and unegoistic, then probably pain also would become much less. When the mind becomes less... oneself with matter to know what matter feels like. But positive is there as a classification. Negative is there—which might be pain. This meeting of positive and negative becoming neutral might be neutral indifference. But in the actual process of evolution what we Page 120 see is that in matter there is no experience of joy. There is neutral movement also, afterwards of life, but it has... are transformed by man's sense of cultural values into "will to love," he has then an active philosophy of life which does not necessarily explain the why and wherefore of the cosmos, but supplies a code of conduct, a value of life by which he can live satisfactorily so far as his outer mind is concerned. But is the will to live the first impulse, and is it mere self-preservation ? In this chapter ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3  >  The Tragic Spirit in Nature

... could avoid Page 111 this life's inevitable tragic denouement. It was very simple, viz., to rise up from the inert ignorant unconsciousness, rise sufficiently high and fly or shoot into the orbits of other suns from where there is no more downfall, being totally free from all earthly downpull. But this need not be the only solution. Matter (the basic unconsciousness) was the master... unconsciousness; Page 110 but it casts its shadow upon the higher levels too—life and mind always lie in the penumbra of this original evil. A great personality means a great rise in consciousness; therefore it means also a strain upon the normal consciousness and hence a snap or scission sometime and somewhere. As the poet describes the tragic phenomenon— ......Poised... made manifest, dynamic on the surface. Then it will easily and naturally agree to submit to the higher law of Immortality. This would mean a reconditioning, a transmutation of the very basis of mind and life. The material foundation, the body conditions thus changed will bring about Page 112 that status of the wholeness of consciousness which holds and stabilises the Divine in ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  The Tragic Spirit in Nature

... discovered in India by which one could avoid this life's inevitable tragic denouement. It was very simple, viz, to rise up from the inert ignorant unconsciousness, rise sufficiently high and fly or shoot into the orbits of other suns from where there is no more downfall, being totally free from all earthly downpull. But this need not be the only solution. Matter (the basic unconsciousness) was the master... unconsciousness; but it casts its shadow upon the higher levels too – life and mind always lie in the penumbra of this original evil. A great personality means a great rise in consciousness, therefore it means also a strain upon the normal consciousness and hence a snap or scission sometime and somewhere. As the poet describes the tragic phenomenon – – poised on the unreachable abrupt sn... made manifest, dynamic on the surface. Then it will easily and naturally agree to submit to the higher law of Immortality. This would mean a reconditioning, a trans­mutation of the very basis of mind and life. The material foundation, the body conditions thus changed will bring about that status of the wholeness of consciousness which holds and stabilises the Divine in the human frame, which never suffers ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  Aspects of Modernism

... organization of life, have become a matter of course, and almost a matter of the past. But the reactions set up in the consciousness itself, the variations brought about in the very stuff and constitution of life still maintain a potency for the future and are to be counted. The scientific spirit, in one word, is rationalisation – rationalisation of Mind as well as of Life. With regard to Mind, ratio... c efficiency, whether in the matter of knowledge or of life-of mind or of morals was the motto of the early period of the gospel of science, the age of Huxley and Haeckel, of Bentham and the Mills. The formula no longer holds good either in the field of pure knowledge or in its application to life; it does not embody the aspiration and outlook of the contemporary mind, in spite of such inveterate ... facts as possible. Rationalisation of life means the government of life in accordance with these laws, so that the wastage in natural life due to the diversity and disparity off acts may be eliminated, at least minimised, and all movements of life ordered and organised in view of a single and constant purpose (which is perhaps the enhancement of the value of life). This rationalisa­tion means further ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Words of the Mother - III  >  Transformation and the Parts of the Being

... step towards the transformation of the physical. Psychic light in the material movements: essential condition for transformation. Psychic awakening in matter: matter open to spiritual life. Page 89 Matter under the supramental guidance: the condition required for its transformation. Supramental light in the subconscient: essential condition for transformation. ... organised around the psychic: the first stage of transformation. Mental opening: the first step of the mind towards transformation. Mental prayer: spontaneous in a mind aspiring for transformation. Thirst to understand: very useful for transformation. Honesty in the physical mind: preliminary indispensable condition for transformation. Page 88 Integral offering of... of the vital: an important stage towards transformation. Renunciation of emotional desires: indispensable for transformation. Not only the mind and the vital, but the body also in all its cells must aspire for the divine transformation. Physical plasticity: one of the important conditions of the transformation. Let the physical offer itself sincerely to the Divine and it ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Words of the Mother - III

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-2-Part-3

... intelligence which acts in the instinctive workings of life and dictates the exact behaviour which we find in matter. Not only does it work separately in matter and life but it also joins the physical with the vital and even goes further to the creation of thought and links I' human consciousness "to the effulgence of a Ray above". In the human mind also it is this intelligence present everywhere... approached nearer they were seen to be "Gods and living Presences". Their forces stand behind Nature and support her. They support matter, life and mind and in obedience to the divine command create this complex world "Where the infant spirit learns through mind and sense To read the letters of the cosmic script "And search for the secret meaning of the whole." The million-sided... three-bodied trinity". These three dwarf's were the physical mind, the mind of desire and the reasoning mind. The first of them was "A pigmy Thought needing to live in bounds "Absorbed and cabined in external sight". Everything to it appears to be a habit,—a habit of life, a habit of the world, a habit of the mind. This mind is content with the commonplace "Abhorring change as ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Isha Upanishad  >  The Worlds - Surya

... delight of being struggling to become conscious of itself in desire and sensation; the result is the emergence of Mind. So at least it appears to us in the ascending or evolutive movement. Wherever there is Matter, Life and Mind are present involved or evolving. So also, Life and Mind have some kind of material form as the condition of their activities. These three appear not as triune, owing to... that luminous oneness is Surya's most blessed form of all. THE LOWER CREATION In the lower creation also there are three principles, Matter, Life, and Mind. Sat or pure existence appears there as extended substance or Matter; Will or Force appears as Life which is in its nature creative or manifesting Force and that Force is in its nature a self-conscient will involved and obscure in the forms... belong, Tapas dwells upon Matter as its basis. Our consciousness is determined by the divisibility of extended substance in its apparent forms. This is Bhurloka, the material world, the world of formal becoming. Page 70 But we may conceive of a world in which dynamic Life-force with sensation emergent in it is the basis and determines without the gross obstacle of Matter the forms that it shall ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Our Many Selves  >  The Physical

... the body obeys the mind automatically in those things in which it is formed or trained to obey it, but the relation of the body to the mind is not in all things that of an automatic perfect instrument. The body also has a consciousness of its own and, though it is a submental instrument or servant consciousness, it can disobey or fail to obey as well. In many things, in matters of health and illness... person who has achieved it, but it doesn’t change the condition of matter or earthly life in the least. For this transformation to succeed, all human beings—even all living beings as well as their material environment—must be transformed. Otherwise things will remain as they are: an individual experience cannot change terrestrial life. This is the essential difference between the old idea of trans... material life. This vital physical part (supported by the lowest part of the vital proper) is therefore the agent of most of the lesser movements of our external life; its habitual reactions and obstinate pettinesses are the chief stumbling-block in the way of the transformation of the outer consciousness by the Yoga. It is also largely responsible for most of the suffering and disease of mind or body ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves

A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best  >  Quest of Supra-physical Realities

... enable man to lift himself out of slavery to his physical limits of being. It is an attempt in particular to possess and organize the mysterious, occult, and subliminal power of Mind upon Life and of both Mind and Life over Matter. Occultism also strives to know the secret of physical things, and in this striving the development of several sciences come to be promoted, particularly, astronomy, physics... domains which lie behind the surface appearances and extend to the realms of the subtle Matter, Life and Mind. In this definite scope, occultism excludes those domains which are psychic and spiritual, — since the psychic reality belongs to the domain that is profounder than the mind, and the spiritual is higher than the mind. Occultism may thus be described as the science of the subliminal, which is dist... life and of mind, should be subordinated and controlled by greater forces of the concealed spirit, which lies at levels that are deeper and higher than various levels of matter, life and mind. Occultism, in a restricted and precise sense, is limited to the domains of subliminal consciousness as distinguished from the domains of the Spirit, provided that we mean by the Page 16 subliminal ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best

Evolution and the Earthly Destiny  >  Physics or Philosophy

... that such a knowledge is not only possible, but that this alone is the right and correct knowledge. All 1 op. cit. ' Page 238 things—matter and mind and life and all—being but vibrations of consciousness, even as the colours of a spectrum are vibrations, electro-magnetic waves of different frequency, mystic discipline enables one to enter into... contacts reality only through this prism of vital force. It is the old story of the Upanishad in which the seeker takes the Body, the Life and the Mind one after another and declares each in its turn to be the only and ultimate reality, the Brahman. The truth of the matter is that the integral reality is to be seized by an integral organon. To an integralised consciousness the integral reality is directly... justified by their applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing in a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would say. What are facts ? What is life ? Anything more than what the senses and the mind have built up for us? Jeans himself is on the horns of a dilemma.1 Being a scientist, and not primarily a mathematician like Eddington, he cannot very well acquiesce in the liquidation ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution and the Earthly Destiny

On Thoughts and Aphorisms  >  Aphorism - 58

... outflowering of animal life. I have a memory of a life in which the body was perfectly adapted to its natural environment and the climate adapted to the needs of the body, the body to the needs of the climate. Life was wholly spontaneous and natural, just as a more luminous and more conscious animal life would be; but there were none of the complications and distortions that the mind brought in later in... perfectly harmonious and natural life; that is to say, the manifestation of the mind was in accord, was still in complete accord with the ascending march of Nature and totally harmonious, without perversion or distortion. This was the first stage of mind's manifestation in material forms. Page 88 How long did it last? It is difficult to say. But for man it was a life that was like a kind of ... the other elements on earth—harmony with animal life, and such a great harmony with plant life. There was a kind of spontaneous knowledge of how to use the things of Nature, of the properties of plants, of fruits and everything vegetable Nature could provide. No aggressiveness, no fear, no contradictions nor frictions and no perversions at all—the mind was pure, simple, luminous, uncomplicated. It ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   On Thoughts and Aphorisms

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  The Ever-Ascending March of Man

... from a crypt our minds ignore. Our deepest depths are ignorant of themselves; Even our body is a mystery shop; As our earth's roots lurk screened below our earth, So lie unseen our roots of mind and life. Our springs are kept close hid beneath, within; Our souls are moved by powers behind the wall. A thinking puppet is the mind of life: Its choice is... On our road from Matter to eternal Self, To the Light that made the world, the Cause of things, Well might interpret our mind's limited view Existence as an accident in Time, Illusion or phenomenon or freak, The paradox of a creative Thought Which moves between unreal opposites, Inanimate Force struggling to feel and know, Matter that chanced to read... read itself by Mind, Inconscience monstrously engendering soul. A mind looks out from a small casual globe And wonders what itself and all things are. Such is our scene in the half-light below. This is the sign of Matter's infinite, This the weird purport of the picture shown To Science the giantess, measurer of her field, As she pores on the record of ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

Early Cultural Writings  >  "Shama'a"

... culture. In India we as yet know next to nothing of what the most advanced minds of Europe are thinking and creating in the literary, artistic and philosophic field,—for that matter most of us, preoccupied with politics and domestic life, have a very inadequate information of what we ourselves are doing in these matters. It is to be hoped that this magazine will be an effective agent in curing these deficiencies... a certain type of European mind hesitating and held back in the grasp of the old that is dying and yet feeling the call of things that draw towards the future. The superstition of the perfect excellence of the Graeco-Roman tradition as rendered by England and France—more strictly the Latinised or semi-Latinised mind and the Renaissance tradition—survives: but as a matter of fact that tradition or what... there is failure, the soul has still its future chances. As a matter of historical fact the great periods of Eastern art were not periods of a passive acceptance of life. In India, the cradle of these philosophies, they coincided with an active exploration of the material universe through physical science and a strong insistence on life, on its government, on the exploration of its every detail, on ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Early Cultural Writings

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Heraclitus - II

... on the Many reveals to us an eternal oneness, no matter what we fix on as the principle of that oneness; yet is that unity inoperative except by the multiplicity of its powers and forms, nor do we anywhere see it void of or apart from its own multiplicity. One Matter, but many atoms, plasms, bodies; one Energy, but many forces; one Mind or at least Mind-stuff, but many mental beings; one Spirit, but... Still, one question remains to be resolved before we can move a step farther. Since there is an eternal One, what is that? Page 222 Is it Force, Mind, Matter, Soul? or, since Matter has many principles, is it some one principle of Matter which has evolved all the rest or which by some power of its own activity has changed into all that we see? The old Greek thinkers conceived of cosmic Substance... question which concerns us most nearly,—an essential and immortal existence of his own or is he simply a phenomenal and transient result in the evolution or play of some one original principle, Matter, Mind, Spirit, which is the only real reality of existence? Does unity exist at all and, if so, is it a unity of sum or of primordial principle, a result or an origin, a oneness of totality or a oneness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8  >  Living Matter

... Embracing each other in mad delight in this expanse of matter, In this inert dreamland two living beings are there free With no fetters, rapt in trance in each other's delight. They disappeared from the sight. And that living matter With no hope in it, is bound in its own mood as always. But my mind freed out of the matter's touch, I recognised the intent of the veiled conscious... the desert land has moved lazily To unite with the stone. No softness, No love is there in the union, it is matter's love, Stone's kiss. I looked towards the stream. It flows in silent speed - the stream of dreamland; Asleep, mighty, calm, as though the violent life-force Is imprisoned in Nature's arms on the crest of the Himalayas Away lies the exit, the way out. Where the... to the world of Truth. But on that way Is this the cataract of Life's river flowing down? Is this the true consummation? It hurtles down like a sinner in an unmeasurable speed Towards a crueller country. The wailing Of the river adown comes into my ears as though from a thousand sufferers! I looked about, my mind full of sadness, And thought, "Oh, the dead land! the still world ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8

Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species  >  Part Two

... space-time. The original matrix is space-time. Time is the mind of space. In course of time, space-time breaks up into finites of ever-increasing complexity. At a certain point in the history of things, finites assume new empirical qualities which are distinctive levels of experience — primary qualities, matter, and secondary qualities, life and mind. As explained in his book, 'Space, Time and Deity’, ... evaluated in terms of its origin. What comes later is more than what was there earlier. There is, according to him, a developing process marked by increasing complexity. Powers and properties of matter, life, mind, and values are not entirely different; they interpenetrate and produce an increasing complexity and concentration. In man, evolution becomes conscious of itself. Tracing the story of evolution... question can be raised as to why life should occur at all. The theory of the survival of the fittest does not carry us so far. Life has little survival value as compared with Matter from which it is supposed to have sprung. A rock survives for hundreds of millions of years, while even the oldest tree is only a few thousand years old. If survival was the aim of nature, life would never have appeared.¹¹ ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species

The Human Cycle  >  The Need of Administrative Unity

... And now that Science, that great power for uniformity of thought and life and method, is becoming more and more the greater part and threatens to become the whole of culture and life, the importance of these variations is likely to decrease. The only radical difference that still exists is between the mind of the Occident and the mind of the Orient. But here too Asia is undergoing the shock of Europeanism... all or most matters that could be viewed as having an international effect and importance. Before long it would invade and occupy even those fields in which the nations are now jealous of their own rights and power. And eventually it would permeate the whole system of the national life and subject it to international control in the interests of the better coordination of the united life, culture, ... communication the State can regulate parts of the order of life with which the cruder governments of old were quite unable to deal with any full effect. In the World-State, it may be thought, each country may be left to its own free action in matters of its internal order and, indeed, of all its separate political, social and cultural life. But even here it is probable that the World-State would demand ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  11: The Scientific Method

... supports the view of a gradual development of the life forms on our planet. According to this view evolution is the only reasonably sustainable scheme and explanation of our biological past. What remains very much in question is the understanding of the way it all happened, closely dependent on the interpretation of the nature of matter, life and mind. Stepping aside for a short while from the information... “a new sort of science” would have to be the child of a different kind of mind, one that can work with wholes and is not forced, because of its own constitution, to cut everything into parts. Galileo’s third premise is that all changes in matter are brought about by external forces. Matter is dead, it has no internal life or internal dispositions to react. Moreover, internal actions and reactions... at the moment.” (Russell Stannard 5 ) The problem of the whole and its parts is a problem of the mind, and hence cannot be solved by science itself as it recognizes only matter. Science is an exercise of the mind, a mental activity – a blatant truth which is often negated or overlooked. “Mind establishes this fiction of its ordinary commerce that [the given objects] are things with which it can ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  On Physical Transformation

... 22. The Life Divine, p. 593, 23. Ibid., p. 711. 24. Ya e ṣ a supte ṣ u j ā garti. (Katha Upanishad, V.8.) 25. The Life Divine, p. 853. 26.Cf. "The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the il... first an outbreak of teeming life and then the appearance of a thinking mind? Would it not have seemed to be a sheer absurdity to foresee that "in this minute island of life,... so inconspicuous amid the immensities, in one sole species out of this petty multitude, a mental being would emerge,... who would create all manner of utensils, tools, instruments out of Matter for all kinds of utilities... structure, live for the sake of mind and its interests, for thought and knowledge, develop into the thinker, the philosopher and scientist and, as a supreme 12. The Life Divine, p. 968. 13.Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth (1952 ed.), p. 74. 14. The Life Divine, p. 849. Page 232 defiance to the reign of Matter, awake in himself to the hidden ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

Savitri  >  'The Glory and Fall of Life'

... From the sleep of matter's inconscience has emerged the play of life and the attendant strife of the dualities: mind has sprouted, and with it doubt, and the engines of sorrow and joy. Life as it came from Heaven to colonise the earth had suffered a profound change, and all her sweetness has turned into "a maimed desire", and terrestrial existence, exemplifying the 'Fall of Life', has become but "an...        III   'The Glory and Fall of Life'         The passage from the world of subtle matter brings Aswapati to the life-realms, where the 'vital', the principle of life, has full play. The law of life here comprises birth, growth, decay and death. With an endless but blind appetite the life-principle explores all possibilities, regardless of consequences. Change... would become fact and reality would arrive. The "inscrutable Supermind" would help "the hazardous experimenting Mind" in its endeavours to end the Nescience and reach upto the Truth. All will then be possible. But in the meantime life is tied to the circuit of deception and failure. Life is almost in love with "amorous Death" and sleep imitates "extinction's peace". Man despairs of chastening and ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

The Renaissance in India  >  Indian Polity - 3

... and the greatness of the life they sheltered is certainly no sign of incapacity, but rather of a remarkable political instinct and capacity in the cultural mind of India. The one principle permanent at the base of construction throughout all the building and extension and rebuilding of the Indian polity was the principle of an organically self-determining communal life,—self-determining not only... expression of the life and mind of the people. It was not however a supreme parliament: for it had ordinarily no fundamental legislative powers, any more than had the king and council or the metropolitan assembly, but only of decree and regulation. Its business was to serve as a direct instrument of the will of the people in the coordination of the various activities of the life of the nation, to see... or by an intellectually constructed synthesis, but rather a natural outward form of the inborn tendencies and character of the complex social mind and temperament. At the other end, forming the ascetic and purely spiritual extreme of the Indian life-mind, we find the religious community Page 420 and, again, this too takes a communal shape. The original Vedic society had no place for ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India

A Greater Psychology  >  Psychical Phenomena

... not mere results of the development of our physical organs in the terrestrial evolution. Mind, subconscious in all Matter and evolving in Matter, has developed these physical organs in order to apply its inherent capacities of sight, hearing, etc. on the physical plane by physical means for a physical life; but they are inherent capacities and not dependent on the circumstance of terrestrial evolution... shells and representations or images inspired with a temporary life and consciousness and, it may be, carrying in them in one way or another some kind of beneficent or maleficent action or some willed or unwilled effectiveness on our minds or vital being or through them even on the body. These transcriptions, impresses, thought images, life images, projections of the consciousness may also be repr... true possession, by one's own will so as to effect partially or completely a victory of the mental being over the habitual nervous reactions of the body. The Life Divine, pp. 106-07 ...there is an action of the sense-mind which is superior to the particular action of the senses and is aware of things even without imaging them in forms of sight, sound, contact, but which also as a sort ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Destiny of the Body  >  Life's Ingenuity and Supermind

... soul's 1 The Life Divine, p. 853. 2 Cf. "The Divine descends from pure existence through the play of Consciousness-Force and Bliss and the creative medium of Supermind into cosmic being; we ascend from Matter through a developing life, soul and mind and the illuminating medium of supermind towards the divine being." (The Life Divine, p. 264) 3 The Life Divine, p. 844. (Italics... cannot but be struck by the amazing ingenuity displayed by Life although acting so far under the heavy load of a frontal ignorance. To cite only a few amongst a host of other instances that baffle the comprehension of even the twentieth-century men of science: (a) Harmony and co-ordination: We know that life is largely a matter of enzymes. Even the simplest of living cells contains a thousand... smallest living cells is already one of a complexity which the mind finds difficulty in grasping. How all these separate and complex enzyme-molecules are packed away in a tiny fragment of protoplasm, how they work in harmony with each other, producing that result which we recognise as life, we hardly know." 2 1 The Life Divine pp. 874-75. Cf. The Mother: "I may say with certainty ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Superlife - Life of Our Life

... Other Upanishads X The Superlife - Life of Our Life But the Brahman-consciousness is not only Mind of our mind. Speech of our speech. Sense of our sense; it is also Life of our life. In other words, it is a supreme and universal energy of existence of which our own material life and its sustaining energy are only an inferior result, a physical symbol, an... supreme Conscious-Being and above mind there is a divine and infinite principle of consciousness, will and knowledge which controls the ignorant action of mind, and it is by this superior principle and not by mind that Brahman cognises His own being whether in itself or in its manifestation, so also it must be with this Life-force. The characteristics of the life-force as it manifests itself in us... supports not only the operations of our physical life, but also those of the mind in the living body. Therefore by the control of the Pranic energy it is not only possible to control our physical and vital functionings and to transcend their ordinary operation, but to control also the workings of the mind and to transcend its ordinary operations. The human mind in fact depends always on the Pranic force ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Letters on Poetry and Art  >  Philosophers, Intellectuals, Novelists and Musicians

... him a great thinker 8 ) but his ideas about the Life-Force certainly do not make him a mystic. And do you really call that a constructive vision of life—a vague notion about a Life-Force pushing towards an evolutionary manifestation and a brilliant jeu d'esprit about long life and people born out of eggs and certain extraordinary operations of mind and body in these semi-immortals who seem to have... something in him beyond Page 520 a mere mind and body. But all that is very vague. There is no clear distinction between mind and soul and none between mind and vital and often the vital is taken for the soul. 30 June 1936 Taylor [Plato, p. 27] writes: "The first condition of enjoying real good and making a real success of life is that a man's soul should be in a good or healthy... says that the imagelessness or blankness of mind is a pure myth and an impossibility. As a Vedantist, I have always cherished the imagelessness of mind as the highest ideal. But I must admit that I have not made any appreciable advance in this direction, even after many years' practice. European scientists and thinkers have no authority in the matter, as they are perfectly ignorant of even the rudiments ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Poetry and Art

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Higher Lines of Karma

... cannot find his true satisfaction in living. But two things he has more and more to feel and to realise, first, that life and matter follow their own law and not, in man's sense of it at least, a moral, a rational, a mentally determined aesthetic or other mind order, and if he wishes to introduce any such thing into them, he must himself here create it, transcending the physical and the vital law and... infinite and absolute that he gets nearer in his total experience to the secret. There is so a chance of his discovering that as the beauty and irrefragable order of life and matter are due to the joy of the Infinite in life and in matter and the fidelity of the Force here at work to the hidden knowledge and will and idea of the Self and Spirit in them, so there is within his own hidden self, his own... which his own greater life rising above the vital and mental limitations can discover an infinite perfection and beauty and delight in itself and spontaneous irrefragable order. Meanwhile this third movement of mind discovers a law of the return of mental energies, pure in its kind and as certain as the vital and the physical, as faithful to itself, to the self of mind and to mind nature, a law not ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  Physics of Philosophy

... lays stress on extra-sensory knowledge: it declares that such a knowledge is not only possible, but that this alone is the right and correct knowledge. All Page 318 things – matter and mind and life and all – being but vibrations of consciousness, even as the colours of a spectrum are vibrations, electro-magnetic waves of different frequency, mystic discipline enables one to enter into... contacts reality only through this prism of vital force. It is the old story of the Upanishad in which the seeker takes the Body, the Life and the Mind one after another and declares each in its turn to be the only and ultimate reality, the Brahman. The truth of the matter is that the integral reality is to be seized by an integral organon. To an integralised consciousness the integral reality is directly... justified by their applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing in a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would say. What are facts? What is life? Anything more than what the senses and the mind have built up for us? Jeans himself is on the horns of a dilemma.1 Being a scientist, and not primarily a mathematician like Eddington, he cannot very well acquiesce in the ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Mother or The New Species - II  >  15. The First Exit from the Web or The New Type

... .. which just don't blossom. How hard it all is! Oh, how closed human life is! How shriveled, hardened, without light, without warmth... let alone joy. 6 This is exactly what She had felt seventy-nine years earlier in her little child's chair, at the age of five. Mother was looking for the something that makes this Matter shrivel up. That moment in evolution when things became warped. There... is a corporeal, material and universal reality infinitely more marvelous and concrete—the true concrete—without death and disease and all our Ignorance, and yet it is an earthly life in a real earthly body: the true Matter. These material cells had to acquire the capacity to receive and manifest the consciousness [is it "receive," or simply remove what is standing in the way?] and what permits a radical... "I"—an "I" in Matter, then? Perhaps.... We do not really know, we are walking through the forest with her. But sometimes, "the other thing" came and revealed itself, emerged from Matter—yes, it was there, and it was indeed the same world, it was not that She went into another consciousness (unless the body itself went into another consciousness: true Matter, perhaps, cellular Matter was emerging from ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

The Aim of Life  >  A Free Man's Worship

... either in terms of matter or in terms of mind, but can be seen either as matter or as mind depending upon the context in which a given object is considered. This hypothesis might seem abstruse, but many of Russell's views are rather complex and difficult. But what is important for us is to try to enter into his flow of thought, for it offers a view of life, an attitude towards life which are so refreshing... Bertrand Russell, and that is his scientific objectivism which gave him a sharp and uncompromising attitude towards the distinction between mind and matter. "The distinction of mind and matter came into philosophy from religion... I think that mind and matter are merely convenient ways of grouping events: Some single events belong only to material groups but others belong to both kinds of groups, and... to Russell, belongs to science. All dogmatic beliefs about matters which surpass definite knowledge belong to theology. Russell points out that between these two is a "No-Man's Land", the ever-changing realm of philosophy where the independent mind is free to speculate about unanswered, open questions. Is the world divided into mind and matter? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Aim of Life

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Contact with People Outside the Ashram

... blessings. In this matter the trouble seems to be the result of an education or influences, common enough at the present time, which turn the mind away from all living faith in the old beliefs Page 527 and standards of life and from any openness to the Truth that was embodied in them. It does not seem likely that a return to them can be brought about easily now. If the mind affected could come... purpose. 21 August 1931 Does Not Give Advice on Mundane Matters Since he has sent a stamped envelope, you can write to him (in Bengali) that it is no use putting these matters before Sri Aurobindo, as he makes it a rule not to advise people in their mundane affairs and confines himself only to what is proper to the spiritual life and for the rest to his own path of Yoga. I hope you... serious Yoga. Worldly life is a field of Karma (a field of growth) in which the soul progresses through the play of energies inner and outer, personal and universal producing a complexity of results until it is ready for the spiritual change. Once one practises this Yoga, the life becomes a part of the sadhana. Even so Sri Aurobindo seldom gives directions or advice in specific matters; only the Mother's ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  The Vital and Other Levels of Being

... the Vital The Spirit itself if it wants to manifest in matter must use the vital. It is so that things are arranged. The Higher Consciousness and the Vital The two movements whose apparent contradiction confuses your mind, are the two ends of a single consciousness whose motions, now separated from each other, must join if the life-power is to have its more and more perfect action and fulfilment... bringing down of the divine consciousness into earth matter. When it not only touches the psychic but fuses with the higher mind, it is able to come into contact with and obey a greater light and knowledge. Ordinarily, the vital is either moved by the human mind and governed by its more or less ignorant dictates, or takes violent hold of this mind and uses it for the satisfaction of its own passions... and impersonal divine Power to aid you. It is an old difficulty which has never been radically solved in life itself because it has never been met in the true way. In many ways of Yoga it does not so supremely matter because the aim is not a transformed life but withdrawal from life. When that is the object of an endeavour, it may be sufficient to keep the vital down by a mental and moral compulsion ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV  >  Correspondence 1947

... inconscient Matter into the Ignorance of mind, life and body tempered by an imperfect knowledge and is trying to lead us into the Light of the Spirit, to lift us into that light and to bring the light down into us, into body and life as well as mind and heart and to fill with it all that we are. This and its consequences, of which the greatest is the union with the Divine and life in the divine... and prejudices. One can depend on one’s reason in other matters provided the mind tries to be open and impartial and free from undue passion and is prepared to concede that it is not always right and may err; but it is not safe to depend on it alone in matters which escape its jurisdiction, especially in spiritual realisation and in matters of yoga which belong to a different order of knowledge... at that time have remained in the minds of many and account for the attitude of Nolini and Prithwi Singh to your book and must also be the psychological source of Nolini’s misunderstanding about the supposed order. We regret that a blow should have fallen on you and the pain accompanying it when no blow was really given or intended. Anyhow, the matter has been rectified; the library has ...

Dilip Kumar Roy   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV

Our Many Selves  >  Soul and Psychic Being

... Divine supporting all individual existence in Nature; the psychic being is a conscious form of that soul growing in the evolution—in the persistent process that develops first life in matter, mind in life, until finally mind can develop into overmind and overmind into the supramental Truth. The soul supports the nature in its evolution through these grades, but is itself not any of these things. ... supports the mind, vital, body, grows by their experiences, carries the nature from life to life. It is the psychic or caitya puruṣa . At first it is veiled by mind, vital and body, but, as it grows, it becomes capable of coming forward and dominating the mind, life and body; in the ordinary man it depends on them for expression and is not able to take them up and freely use them. The life of the being... development of an organised vital and mind. The soul is something of the Divine that descends into the evolution as a divine Principle within it to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light. It develops in the course of the evolution a psychic individual or soul individuality which grows from life to life, using the evolving mind, vital and body as its instruments. It ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves

Nachiketas  >   Appendix

... infinite, a concealed and self imprisoned Divine, imprisoned in Matter but with every potentiality held in its secret depths. Out of this apparent Inconscience each potentiality is revealed in its turn, first organised Matter concealing the indwelling Spirit, then Life emerging in the plant and associated in the animal with a, growing Mind, then Mind itself evolved and organised in Man. This evolution, this... making descend a greater power of consciousness that was above it. This is what is happening in the evolution of consciousness in our world, a world of inanimate matter producing under the stress of this necessity a power of life, a power of mind which bring into it new forms of creation and still labouring to produce, to make descend into it some supramental power. It is further an operation of creative... personality of the same being and a new instrumentation which takes the place of the old, a new mind, a new life, a new body: the new brain cannot be expected to carry in itself the images held by the old brain; the new life or mind cannot be summoned to keep the deleted impressions of the old mind and life that have been dissolved and exist no more. There is, no doubt, the subliminal being which may ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Nachiketas

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Terrestrial Law

... power of presence of the self that is in her. Life brings in a whole range of these transcendences, mind another and greater range, and since mind is so evidently imperfect and incomplete, a thing of seeking in its very nature, there must surely be a range or many ranges Page 390 of transcendence above mind. Man meets with the powers of his mind the rule of the physical action and the law... justice of life is to follow the curve of the vital energies, to maintain the functions of the life force and to give a return to its own powers. Its function is to survive, to reproduce itself, to grow and possess and enjoy, to prolong and enlarge and assure its action, power, having, pleasure as much as earth will allow. All means are good to life that secure these ends: the rest is a matter of right... vital energy and its physical means, of a putting forth of its powers and the kind of return it gets for those powers. At first—and this continues even after the emergence of mind in life and as long as mind is subservient to the life force,—that is all we see. Vital nature works out her ends faultlessly enough, but not by any means blamelessly in the ethical sense. Death is her second means of self-pr ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Great Aranyaka: A Commentary on the Brihad Aranyak Upanishad

... restlessly everywhere seizing everything and turning it into food or else because mind is the womb of all our higher consciousness;—earth is the footing because matter here, outward form, is the fundamental condition for the manifestation of life, mind and all higher forces. On Matter we rest and have our firm stand; out of Matter we rise to our fulfilment in Spirit. Then once again, after these higher... from its struggle to impose itself in a world not its own upon matter & nerve-life, is the medium of existence & the governing Force. If we keep in mind these ideas, we shall easily understand why the images are thus distributed in the sentence I have last quoted. Heaven is the back of the Horse, because it is on mind that we rest, mind that bears up the Gods & Gandharvas, Titans & men;—the mid-region... earths in which just as here matter is the predominant principle, so there nervous or vital energy is the main principle or else manas, still dependent on matter & vital energy; these earths they called Bhuvar. And rising beyond this atmosphere into the ethereal void they believed themselves to be aware of other worlds which they called Swar or heaven, where again in its turn mind, free, blithe, delivered ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

The Birth of Savitr  >  Resume of Savitri

... tyranny of Matter's logic imposed upon the Spirit's swiftness of thought. There has to be a greater Mind to see a greater truth. Only rarely does intuition bring to us superior knowledge, the higher gnosis. Sometimes Life-Thoughts come like shining Maruts, or else the pure Thought-Mind brings bodiless ideas in our midst. II: 11 The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind ... obeys the directive and with that begins her occult inward journey. She witnesses the play of the subconscient forces and also the possibilities that can bring the gods down. If out of Matter and Life emerged Mind, so can a being with diviner faculties arrive here. To mould humanity in God's shape or discover a new world or create a new world are present as three alternatives and Savitri becomes... greater powers to step into this physical manifestation. However, in the process, Matter's stiffness or jadatva overpowers her and she is no more here her freer happier old self. Life meets Death and they together now drive the insecure cart of dubious immortality. II: 4 The Kingdoms of the Little Life The great power has succumbed and earth failed to keep the joy ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Birth of Savitr

Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects  >  Sri Aurobindo's Message for To-day

... like matter, life and mind to emerge fully into its own sovereign and independent Reality. This Consciousness has taken millions of years and myriads of physical forms—insentient matter, plants, insects, birds and animal life—to come to the human mental stage of evolution but there also it is still enveloped by its inconscient beginnings and is even in the highest and widest reach of the mind only... spiritual consciousness which found a solution for all the malaise of earth life in a spiritual liberation of the soul alone while its instruments, the body, mind and life remained unchanged and tied to an ignorant separative consciousness which constitutes the individual ego, the root cause of all the ills and sufferings of earthly life. He found the inconscience or the nescience at the base of existence... truth-light. Its ultimate emergence "is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of earth-consciousness for the mind is not its last summit and its upward ascent has not ended". Mind at its best is only a half light and an insecure, untrustworthy and and unreliable guide to life. That is why all efforts to solve human problems on mental basis have always failed throughout the ages. It is only with ...

Jibendra Kumar Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Existence and Influence of Hidden Worlds

... possibility of an action of the higher planes on the material existence which can liberate the powers they represent, the powers of life, mind and spirit for the evolutionary intention inherent within Nature by the very fact of their embodiment in Matter. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - II: The Order of the Worlds × ... our mind and will and our life and members or refuse it. In the same way we become aware of larger domains of mind, a play, experience, formation of a greater plasticity, a teeming profusion of all possible mental formulations, and we feel their contacts with us and their powers and influences acting upon our parts of mind in the same occult manner as those others that act upon our parts of life. This... pressure may be traced to our own subliminal self or to the siege of universal Mind-forces or Life-forces belonging to our own world, there is an element which bears the stamp of another origin, an insistent supraterrestrial character. But the contacts do not stop here: for there is also an opening of our mind and life parts to a great range of subjective-objective experiences in which these planes ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  14: Sri Aurobindo

... automatic, not using thought like the mind.... The entirely and inherently enlightened Truth-Consciousness we attribute to Supermind would be the SAME reality appear­ing at an ultimate stage of the evolution, finally evolved and no longer wholly involved as in Matter or partly and imper­fectly evolved and therefore capable of imperfection and error as in life and mind, now possessed of its own natural... mecha­nisms. Only here, there is not just one level to clear up, but quite radically the whole gamut of evolutionary levels right down to the first mechanism of life in Matter. And finally, it is the same Force that is at work, through the Mind, the heart, the body or the stone—depending on the level we have crossed, we speak of mental force, vital or atomic force; and it does take on a mental, vital... electrons, hidden behind life, hidden behind the mind, which, at the end of the circuit, will express itself directly, instantly, all-powerfully, within an instrument that will let it flow without distorting it and will experience the individual joy of knowing what is happening, how it is happening, where it is going and why—everywhere at once, because Consciousness is one and Matter is one. Sri Aurobindo ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  Introduction

... concealed in God's Beyond That shall one day reveal its hidden face. Now mind is all and its uncertain ray, Mind is the leader of the body and life,... There are greater destinies mind cannot surmise Fixed on the summit of the evolving Path The Traveller now treads in the Ignorance, Unaware of his next step, not knowing his goal. Mind is not alt his tireless climb can reach, There is a fire... nor can his noetic faculty, Mind, be the supreme possible instrument of knowledge although we men seem at times to think so. For man as he is at present "is too imperfect an expression of the spirit, mind itself a too limited form and instrumentation; mind is only a middle term of consciousness, the mental being can only be a transitional being." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine) What is more... seeking Mind". But at this point the readers may object: Is it not an idle dream to hunt after this super-mind, for how can there be anything higher and greater than man's mind and reason? But we should note that Sri Aurobindo is no speculative philosopher. He is not satisfied merely with painting in rainbow colours an aureate picture of the ideal. He is a supreme scientist of life who proceeds ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

Mother or The New Species - II  >  5. The Supramental World

... trans-Siberian route, there will be a totality of consciousness and being encompassing all the routes in its own substance. Life will no longer be "thought"; it will be lived, simply. Matter itself will live instead of a thought of Matter. We see nothing of life, we live nothing of life—we only think it. Everything comes to us through a mental veil. It is that screen which has been removed. All the millennia... vastly different, still apply to the same Matter, which is simply used in a new way because of the new perception. We perceive Matter differently, so we use it differently, we discover new ways to deal with and handle it, but it is the same Matter. Up to a certain point, this is also what is going to happen to us. The apes merely grafted a new device, mind, onto the old terrestrial substance. But in... certain way of aspiring in Matter. In the Mind, we aspire for beauty and truth; in the heart, we aspire for love and oneness.... There must be a similar movement to be initiated at the level of Matter, in the body. A new rhythm to be found. Probably one must first be quite detached from all mental and vital movements in order to understand what the true movement of bodily Matter may be. On that riverbank ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Isha Upanishad  >  Chapter III: The Golden Rule of Life - Desire, Egoism and Possession

... the spirit centred and veiled in mind. Humanity still imprisoned in its surroundings, servilely reflects in its mind the habitual impact of outward things, the bahyasparshah, & gives to them a fixed & conventional mental value. The more humanity moves towards freedom & perfection, the more it will live in the mind itself, use outward circumstances of life & matter only as symbols of a free mental existence... . Mental beings, souls throned in mind, it is in mind our centre not in matter which is to us a mere case, circumference and result of mind, that we should seek our secret of bondage and our means of deliverance. All outward material action is in itself Maya, a thing without self-existent reality. Action is effected only as the outflow and physical symbol of mind; it has no inherent moral or spiritual... nature as human beings, the knot must be hidden somewhere in our minds, and, particularly, it should be sought in the emotional part of our minds. For where the centre of our active being is, there must be the knot of our bondage, and there also must we seek for the secret of its unloosing. If we had been material beings or centred in matter, the knot would have been in some material habit and the release ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Isha Upanishad  >  Action and the Divine Will

... transforms Life into the Immortality, the good, the beatitude. The Vedic gods are a parable of human life emerging, mounting, lifting itself towards the Godhead. Life, body, action, will, these are our first materials. Matter supplies us with the body; but it is only a temporary knot of the movement, a dwelling-place of the Purusha in which he presides over the activities generated out of the Life-principle... Upanishad. THE IMMORTAL LIFE-PRINCIPLE Life is the condition from which the Will and the Light emerge. It is said in the Veda that Vayu or Matarishwan, the Life-principle, is he who brings down Agni from Surya in the high and far-off supreme world. Life calls down the divine Will from the Truth-consciousness into the realm of mind and body to prepare here, in Life, its own manifestation. Agni... the mental being, the Purusha in the mind, upon his journey. WILL AND MEMORY This journey consists in a series of activities continued from life to life in this world with intervals of life in other states. The Life-principle maintains them; it supplies their material in the formative energy which takes shape in them. But their presiding god is not the Life-principle; it is the Will. Will is Kratu ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Planes or Worlds of Consciousness

... is a physical mind, a vital force and action which we call the vital physical, and the physical proper or material. Mind has its own realms and life has its own realms just as matter has. In the mental realms life and substance are entirely subordinated to Mind and obey its dictates. Here on earth there is the evolution with matter as the starting point, life as the medium, mind emerging from... become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition 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... to the higher and develop or manifest in themselves within their own formula something that corresponds to the superior power and its action. The material world has evolved life in obedience to a pressure from the vital plane, mind in obedience to a pressure from the mental plane. It is now trying to evolve supermind in obedience to a pressure from the supramental plane. In more detail, particular forces ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  19 March 1958

... the intervention of the mind in life has created, the perversions, the ugliness, the whole mass of distortions which have increased suffering, misery, moral poverty, an entire area of sordid and repulsive misery which makes a whole part of human life into something so frightful. That must disappear. This is what makes humanity in so many ways infinitely worse than animal life in its simplicity and the... spiritual and divine life. It was considered to be the divine grace, the divine help, the divine intervention. And even now, in this age of anguish, tension, hypertension, this sovereign peace is the best received aid of all, the most welcome, the solace people ask and hope for. For many it is still the true sign of a divine intervention, of divine grace. In fact, no matter what one wants to realise... who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will be automatically saved, in another world—by faith alone, without understanding, without intelligence. They have not seen the supramental world nor that the great Sacrifice of the Divine in Matter is the sacrifice of involution which must culminate in the total revelation of the Divine in Matter itself. Page 301 ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  On Translating the Upanishads

... meaning. It is misleading to translate Prana sometimes by life, sometimes by breath, sometimes by life breath or breath of life, because breath & life are merely subordinate aspects of the Prana. Atman again rendered indifferently by soul, spirit & self, must mislead, because what the West calls the soul is really the Atman yoked with mind & intelligence, and spirit is a word of variable connotation... precisely in that way in English. Again the Hindu idea of "immortality" is different from the European; it implies not life after death, but freedom from both life and death, for what we call life is after all impossible without death. Similarly Being does not render Purusha , nor "matter" rayi , nor askesis the whole idea of "tapas". To a certain extent all this may be admitted, but at the same time... arranged so as to be perfect symbols of certain deep metaphysical truths and to produce certain effects spiritual and material according to a scientific knowledge of the power of sound over both mind and matter; let us suppose that deep philosophical works had been written in the terminology of these symbols and often in a veiled allusive language; and let us suppose finally that these were translated ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Mother’s Agenda 1970  >  June 6, 1970

... wasting one's time, in the sense that matter remains without conscious utilization. Have you seen the aphorism? ( Satprem reads ) Page 228 534—The rejection of falsehood by the mind seeking after truth is one of the chief causes why mind cannot attain to the settled, rounded and perfect truth; not to escape falsehood is the effort of divine mind, but to seize the truth which lies... consciousness into matter, it will never develop. To let consciousness organize some matter through ones body is very good. To put things in order around oneself helps to put things in order in oneself. Another point: One should organize one's life not according to external and artificial rules, but according to an organized inner consciousness, because if one leaves life alone without imposing... or far-wandering error. ( Mother comments: ) Sri Aurobindo calls "divine mind" the prototype of the mental function that is totally and perfectly surrendered to the Divine and functions under the divine inspiration alone. If a human being lives only by and for the Divine, his mind necessarily becomes a divine mind. ( Then Mother takes up the reading of Savitri: the end of the Debate ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1970

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Remarks on Public Figures in India

... evolution of the being here. The embodiment of life has nothing to do with it. This embodiment is not of life, but of consciousness and its energy, of which life is only one phase or force. As life has developed mind, and the embodiment has modified itself to suit this development (mind is precisely the main instrument of ignorance seeking for knowledge), so mind can develop supermind which is in its nature... any moment in his life and, I suppose, never will be. What he has in its place is a remarkable type of unintentionally sophistic logic. Well, what this Page 184 reason, this amazingly, precisely unreliable logic brings about is that nobody is ever sure and, I don't think, he is himself really sure what he will do next. He has not only two minds, but three or four minds, and all depends on... peace? Peace is never easy to get in the life of the world and never constant, unless one lives deep within and bears the external activities as only a surface front of our being. And the work he has to do is the least peaceful of all. If Buddha had to lead the Indian National Congress, well! For the spiritual life there is perhaps no immediate possibility: his mind stands in between, for it has seized ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  The Triple Aim

... the Sun (meaning the Supermind or the supreme Gnosis) and yet retain the human body. But Sri Aurobindo asserts that all that is involved here in the Inconscience must necessarily evolve. As Matter, Life and Mind have evolved, so in due and inevitable course, the Supermind too must evolve and become the foundation and governing principle of the human consciousness. We shall live in the supramental... part of the lower being, is what is known as ascent in the Integral Yoga. Sri Aurobindo says that as man has risen from the life-mind of the animal, wrapped up in the chaotic cravings and appetites of the lower nature, into the comparative clarity and control of the mind of reason and reflection, so one day, by the force of the evolutionary élan of his soul, he will rise to the Truth-conscious... divine Will fulfilling itself in the terms of human life. The body too, transformed by the supramental force, will be released forever from the obscure hold of the Subconscient and the Inconscient, and, based on Light, filled with Light, and moved by Light, become a flexible means of divine action. MANIFESTATION OF GOD IN MATTER—THE THIRD AIM The ascent to the Supermind ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Nature and Action of Universal Forces

... why there should not be invisible cosmic forces mental and vital in their nature that act upon his mind and his life force. And if Mind and Life, impersonal forces, form conscious beings or use persons to embody them in physical forms and in a physical world and can act upon Matter and through Matter, it is not impossible that on their own planes they should form conscious beings whose subtler substance... first source of good and evil would be not in terrestrial life or in the evolution from the Inconscience, but in Life itself, their source would be supraphysical and they would be reflected here from a larger supraphysical Nature. This is certain that when we go back into ourselves very deep away from the surface appearance, we find that the mind, heart and sensational being of man are moved by forces... direction or another, of suggestions and impulsions which had disguised themselves as original movements of his own mind and against which he had to battle. He can realise that he is not a conscious creature inexplicably produced in an unconscious world out of a seed of inconscient Matter and moving about in an obscure self-ignorance, but an embodied soul through whose action cosmic Nature is seeking ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life

The Renaissance in India  >  Indian Polity - 1

... admit the greatness of the achievement of India in the things of the mind and the spirit, but would still point out that she has failed in life, her culture has not resulted in a strong, successful or progressive organisation of life such as Europe shows to us, and that in the end at least the highest part of her mind turned away from life to asceticism and an inactive and world-shunning pursuit by the... own rule of life, ācāra . In the sphere of administration the power of the king was similarly hedged in by the standing constitution of the Dharma. His right of taxation was limited in the most important sources of revenue to a fixed percentage as a maximum and in other directions often by the right of the bodies representing the various elements of the community to a voice in the matter and always... culture is its power to raise and enlarge the internal man, the mind, the soul, the spirit, its soundness is not complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made of it a rhythm of advance towards high and great ideals. This is the true sense of progress and there must be as part of it a sound political, economic and social life, a power and efficiency enabling a people to survive, to grow ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India

The Destiny of the Body  >  Introduction

... through Matter's gaze And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face, .......... These senses of heavenly sense grow capable, The flesh and nerves of a strange ethereal joy And mortal bodies of immortality. .......... Nature shall live to manifest secret God, The Spirit shall take up the human play, This earthly life become the life divine."... assures us that this need not be so. For it has to be noted that "the appearance of human body and mind on the earth marks a crucial step, a decisive change in the course and process of the evolution; it is not merely a continuation of the old lines. Up till this advent of a developed thinking mind in Matter, evolution had been effected not by the self-aware aspiration, intention, will or seeking of... and spiritual enjoyment, but at a supreme change of earthly life and existence and at a divine fulfilment of life here upon earth. Also, "the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the individual, but something to be gained for the earth-consciousness here." 3 Now, since Matter is the foundation of all evolutionary efflorescence, our body ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

From Man Human to Man Divine  >  Science and Philosophy

... graduated necessary succession in the evolution, first the evolution of Matter, next the evolution of Life in Matter, then the evolution of Mind in living Matter, and in this last stage an animal evolution followed by a human evolution." 29 In reality, a spiritual unfolding on earth is the hidden truth of our birth into Matter, and "if it is fundamentally an evolution of consciousness that has been... not yet developed which deals directly with the forces of the life-world and of Mind and so arrives at what is beyond Mind; but present-day science cannot do that." 38 And this hope for a meta-science is not at all without basis. For the spirit of transcendence is active in the heart of science itself. "When we have proved Matter and realised its secret capacities, the very knowledge which has... integral .faculty of knowledge is called for; and certainly Mind is too imperfect an 24.Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 78. 25. Ibid., p. 13. 26. Ibid., p. 323. 27. Ibid., p. 328. Page 49 instrument to play this role. "Mind is not sufficient to explain existence in the universe.... For Mind is that which does not know, which tries to know and which ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   From Man Human to Man Divine

Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision  >  Psychology

... experiences and inquiry. It gradually came to con- fine itself to mere intellectual speculation and inquiry into the nature of truth and the formulation of that truth in terms of mind. Later on, it moved on to the study of Matter and Life wherein it felt the Reality could be objectively studied. In India the tendency was to formulate a philosophical system on the basis of spiritual or psychological experience... ideas."³ Thought is explained as the result of brain discharge of the nerves, but it is still a standing question in modern psychology whether thought is a finer and subtler state of Matter or of Life or of Mind. George Russel (A. E.) in his book " The Candle of Vision " reports certain dream experiences of his own and asks the question about the process of their preservation in memory. There seem... in the fact that the outward-turned western mind has turned its eye upon himself and is trying to know the constitution of man. Perhaps some will dispute the statement that psychology today is nothing more than a mere beginning of a science.. But one can even go further and assert that today it is" not a single science with a definite subject matter. The standpoint of natural science adopted by ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Supramental Sense

... which will be its own, the unity of being of the infinite which will be its own being. It will experience matter, not only gross matter but the subtle and the most subtle, as substance and form of the spirit, experience life and all kinds of energy as the dynamics of the spirit, supramentalised mind as a means or channel of knowledge of the spirit, supermind as the infinite self of knowledge and power... communication between mind and mind without the aid of the physical organs and the limitations they impose on our consciousness. There are however two different kinds of action of these inner ranges of the consciousness. The first is a more outer and confused activity of the awakening subliminal mind and life which is clogged with and subject to the grosser desires and illusions of the mind and vital being... conscient and sensible. It is acutely aware of the life soul and life body in ourself and others. The supermind takes up this vital consciousness and vital sense, puts it on its right foundation and transforms it by revealing the life-force here as the very power of the spirit dynamised for a near and direct operation on and through subtle and gross matter and for formation and action in the material universe ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Divine Maya

... Infinite that is involved in the inconscient is rising, emerging from there into the triple world of matter, life and mind. That has culminated into the living and thinking being, man. Third is the process which is working out the One at play in the World. It would end by the recovery of Satchidananda here in life. The next question is : what is or could be, the actual process by which the Reality—the... at work in the universe. Mind is not the power that could create the world. It is sometimes said : Infinite Mind —meaning God's mind—created the world. But then infinite mind is not mind at all. An infinite human mind would only create infinite chaos. An infinite, Omnipotent mind would not be mind. What seems to be at work in the universe is Something more than mind and life. "The world expresses a... lower m ā yd of mind, life and body which is concerned with intermediate terms. Mind is only an intermediate term—there is no knowledge that governs the working of the mind; it is seeking for knowledge all the time. In the lower m ā y ā the soul of man is imprisoned in works, it is not free to create. That is why mind cannot explain the world and therefore we can say that mind did not create the ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

The Renaissance in India  >  A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - 5

... sustains the world is a conscious Will and Nature is its machinery of executive power. Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit. Man himself is not a life and mind born of Matter and eternally subject to physical Nature, but a spirit that uses life and body. It is an understanding faith in this conception of existence, it is the... to break out in the end from this mind bound to life and matter into a greater spiritual consciousness that is the innermost sense of Indian culture. It is this that constitutes the much-talked-of Indian spirituality. It is evidently very remote from the dominant European idea; it is different even from the form given by Europe to the Christian conception of life. But it does not mean at all that Indian... Indian culture concedes no reality to life, follows no material or vital aims and satisfactions or cares to do nothing for our actual human existence. It cannot truly be contended that a conception of this kind can give no powerful and inspiring motive to the human effort of man. Certainly, in this view, matter, mind, life, reason, form are only powers of the spirit and valuable not for their own sake ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  Hathayoga

... first objects of the Pranayama are to purify the nervous system, to circulate the life-energy through all the nerves without obstruction, disorder or irregularity, and to acquire a complete control of its functionings, so that the mind and will of the soul inhabiting the body may be no longer subject to the body or life or their combined limitations. The power of these exercises of breathing to bring... secret both of bondage and of release, of animal weakness and of divine power, of the obscuration of the mind and soul and of their illumination, of subjection to pain and limitation and of self-mastery, of death and of immortality. The body is not to the Hathayogin a mere mass of living matter, but a mystic bridge between the spiritual and the physical being; one has even seen an ingenious exegete... an age advanced beyond the ordinary span maintains the unimpaired vigour, health and youth of the life in the body; even the appearance of physical youth is sustained for a longer time. He has a much greater power of longevity, and from his point of view, the body being the instrument, it is a matter of no small importance to preserve it long and to keep it for all that time free from impairing de ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Mother or The New Species - II  >  22. The New Perception

... new vision not only of Matter but of life in Matter: a cellular vision, we could call it, although the term risks being vulgarized and debased; it would be better to call it: a bodily vision. It is the body looking directly at its world, without the intervention of the Mind and less and less the intervention of the eyes which are just as blurred, as if fixed beforehand by the Mind. Years later, Mother... y! The direct world—exact. Continuous Matter But let us not imagine that it is some kind of grandiose life (unless they are grandiose, things do not exist for the Mind) and that Mother was busy managing the destiny of the world and the government of nations—that also happened, but She was not "busy" doing this or that: it was a natural life in which She did not "choose" beforehand and... not exist, illness does not exist, gravity does not exist, rivers can be crossed effortlessly... as if the Matter we now live were a morbid invention of the Mind from one end to the other. A passing invention to make an individual cage. But this is not the truth of Matter, this is false matter. This is the material, experimental conclusion Mother was coming to: The notion of time and space, objectivity ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Aphorisms

... a restless mind and a troubled heart. Enjoyment is to his mind a fever, calm an inertia and a monotony. Page 204 Man is in love with the limitations of his physical being, yet he would have also the freedom of his infinite mind and his immortal soul. And in these contrasts something in him finds a curious attraction; they constitute for his mental being the artistry of life. It is not... and upon four legs; the worm is Man writhing and crawling towards the evolution of his Manhood. Even crude forms of Matter are Man in his inchoate body. All things are Man, the Purusha. For what do we mean by Man? An uncreated and indestructible soul that has housed itself in a mind and body made of its own elements. The End The meeting of man and God must always mean a penetration and entry... victory; Life, for as yet we have only accomplished birth and growth and dying; Unity, for as yet we have only accomplished war and association. In a word, godhead; to remake ourselves in the divine image. The Delight of Being If Brahman were only an impersonal abstraction eternally contradicting the apparent fact of our concrete existence, cessation would be the right end of the matter; but love ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Isha Upanishad  >  Chapter III

... that Science has almost completed its analysis of Matter, the next subject of inquiry must be Mind & Mind cannot be known except by as yet undiscovered or little-used introscopic instruments. Even if these are found, the most dangerous, intricate, difficult & varied experiments will be necessary; for mind is infinitely more elusive & elastic than matter. Where physical Nature confines herself rigidly... suffice. We find, as a matter of experience, that existence is one and yet existence is multiple; everywhere, to whatever nook or corner of being we penetrate, we find this riddle presenting itself, undeniable & ineffugable, of a multiplicity which appears, a unity concealed which yet the mind insists on as the sole truth of the multiplicity. Nor is the unity which our mind thus asks us to perceive... nature, Being, Non-Being, Consciousness, Prakriti & Purusha (Nature & Soul), Mind, Matter. How can these entities be compelled to give us their secret except by a profound & exhaustive interrogatory such as modern Science has applied to the lowest principle of Being, analysing & experimenting in every possible way with Matter? But the metaphysician does not base his process on the sure steps of experience ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1  >  The Yoga of Savitri The Finding of the Soul

... religion — the country of Life-mind. Savitri advances beyond this too, and comes to the domain of the measured mind, where spirit itself is seen as a form of mind. Here was a quiet country of fixed mind, Here life no more was all nor passion's voice; A cry of sense had sunk into a hush. Soul was not there nor spirit, but mind alone; Mind claimed to be the spirit... origins and the unfoldment of earth's destiny through the aeons. The appearance of creation from formlessness of the supreme Self, the shaping of Matter, the sprouting of the seeds of Life and the chaos of little sensiblities as well as the emergence of Mind were all seen as giant steps of the great energy of God on the road to Eternity. Human nature holds within itself both the forces of darkness... his voice: I am the mind of God's great ignorant world Ascending to knowledge by the steps he made; I am the all-discovering Thought of man. I am a god fettered by Matter and sense... A smith tied to his anvil and his forge. 41 Man has succeeded in mapping the heavens and analysing the stars but is ignorant of the secret purpose of life itself. He seems to explain ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1

A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best  >  Supermind in the Veda and the Aim of Immortality

... same time one brings down their power not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the body. And the highest of these levels, the one at which it aims is the supermind. Only when that can be brought down is a divine transformation possible in the earthconsciousness." 66 The New Integral Aim of Life: Yogic Accomplishment in Matter The integral aim that Sri Aurobindo came to... eternal oneness with the Beloved. There is a farther consequence also and that consists of wideness and freedom in spirit that embraces life and does not depend upon withdrawal from life, and one is able to become without egoism, bondage or reaction the channel in one's mind and body for a divine action poured out freely upon the world. Fourthly, the object includes the unity of freedom, purity, beatitude... includes perfection of mind and body. In the attainment of this perfection, therefore, the highest results of Rajayoga and Hathayoga are included; and these results should be contained in the widest formula of the synthesis finally to be effected by humanity. These results are envisaged to be employed for an integral mental and physical life, and the mental and physical life would be in its nature ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best

A Greater Psychology  >  The Inner Being; the Subliminal (Self)

... the Inconscient for the utility of our present mental and physical life on earth; this that is behind is a formation mediating between the Inconscient and the larger planes of Life and Mind which have been created by the involutionary descent and whose pressure has helped to bring about the evolution of Mind and Life in Matter. Our surface responses to physical existence have at their back the... universal knowledge of the cosmic Mind, the subliminal life in us to the universal force of the cosmic Life, the subliminal physicality in us to the universal force-formation of Cosmic Matter; 1 the thick walls which divide from these things our surface mind, life, body and which Nature has to pierce with so much trouble, so imperfectly and by so many skilful-clumsy physical devices, are there... Energy so that it is felt acting through the mind and life and body and the sense of individual action ceases. But more usually there are results of less amplitude; there is a direct awareness of universal being and nature, there is a greater openness of the mind to the cosmic Mind and its energies, to the cosmic Life and its energies, to cosmic Matter and its energies. A certain sense of unity of ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Education for Tomorrow  >  The Concept of Integral Education

... clear that the knowledge of the Spirit and the knowledge of Matter need to be blended and synthesized; supracosmic aim of life has to be enlarged by integrating with it the cosmic aim of life; the realizations of the Spirit have to be extended so as to cover the domain of Matter. And in doing so, all that is intermediate between Spirit and Matter has also to be perfected and brought into unity in complete... great assurance of the concept and practice of integral education and of the synthesis of the ancient secrets of the reign of Spirit over mind, life and the body and the modern secrets of utilisation of the life in perfecting the instrumentality of the body, life and mind. Integral education would not only aim at the integral development of personality, but it would also embrace all knowledge in its... a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development while in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man's ever Page 13 active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Education for Tomorrow

Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  On Books

... about it. Observed Matter and the laws of the physical sciences exist only by our mind. It is all a working in a circle. Our mind defines Matter in order to deal with what exists; it observes conservation of Matter, but that is because the mind is such that in order to observe Reality it must posit conservation first. Time and Space also, in the new Physics, seem to be our mind's formations of something... psychic being most purely reflects the Divine in the lower triplicity of mind, life and body. There are four higher levels : Sat, Chit, Ananda and Vijnana; they are in Knowledge while below in the three levels – mind, life and body – there is a mixture of Ignorance and knowledge. The psychic being is behind these three – mind, life and body; it is most open to the higher Truth; that is why it is i... other kind of space ? To my mind space is an extension of consciousness. Disciple : But extension is a property of Matter. Sri Aurobindo : Do you mean to say that when I get the experience of wide, extended consciousness, my consciousness becomes material ? Disciple : No. But Matter has extension. Sri Aurobindo : That is what your mind tells you ! Disciple ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Vision

... besetting interests of life, to fatigue and sleep, to the satisfaction of bodily desire. The life-force in man also is tied down to these small things; it has to limit the scope of its larger ambitions and longings, its drive to rise beyond the pull of earth and follow the heavenlier intuitions of its psychic parts, the heart's ideal and the soul's yearnings. On the mind the body imposes the ... the conditions of animal birth and life and death, of 'difficult alimentation' and facility of decay and disorder, disease and senescence, and a final dissolution in death? Will our mind and sense remain for ever shut up within the prison-"walls of the physical ego or limited to the poor basis of knowledge given by the physical organs of sense", 3 and our life-force ever bound to its mortal i... to drag down man's soaring spirit and frustrate the winged visions of his soul? As a matter of fact, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out, 2 the material body of man confronts him with a dual difficulty, psychological and corporeal : psychological, because of its animal origin; 1 The Life Divine, p. 838. 2 The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth (1952), pp. 43, 47. ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2  >  The Book of Beginnings- Savitri as a Path of Initiation

... of the World-Stair begin with the Kingdom of Subtle Matter and end with Aswapati's attainment of the Greater Knowledge. On the way he discovers the splendour of Life on its own plane and the "fall" of Life into material existence. To find out the cause of the fall he descends to the realm of Falsehood and Evil, then seeks in the Paradise of the Life Gods a remedy for the suffering of Earth under the... The "Little Kingdoms" of life and mind reveal to us our lowly place on the World Stair. All our pretensions to knowledge are held up to the mirror of Truth. In a brilliant display of his mastery of language Sri Aurobindo translates the complex formulae of modem physics effortlessly into words and adds the wry comment: Or so it seems to man's audacious mind Who seats his thought as the... indication of the strengths or the knowledge required: A mind absolved from life, made calm to know, A heart divorced from the blindness and the pang, The seal of tears, the bond of ignorance, He turned to find that wide world-failure's cause. 21 These are the conditions of entry into the Darkness: A perfect equality of mind first, and then immunity from all the influences arising ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Philosophy of the Upanishads

... the gross material world is to be found in the phenomena of life and mind. His assertion is perfectly positive and the Upanishad proceeds on it as on an ascertained and indisputable fact quite beyond the limits of mere guesswork, inference or speculation. But he goes yet farther and declares that there is yet a third universe of causal matter penetrating and surrounding both the subtle and the gross... Brahman manifests Himself in each of these Universes, in the Universe of Causal Matter as the Cause, Self and Inspirer, poetically styled Prajna the Wise One; in the universe of subtle matter as the Creator, Self and Container, styled Hiranyagarbha the Golden Embryo of life and form, and in the universe of gross matter as the Ruler, Guide, Self and Helper, styled Virat the Shining and Mighty One. And... principle and origin of Matter which by perpetual evolution rolls out through aeons and aeons the Page 353 unending panorama of things. 2 And for whose benefit? Surely for those conscious knowing and perceiving Egos, the army of witnesses, who, each in his private space of reasoning and perceiving Mind partitioned off by an enveloping medium of gross matter, sit for ever as spectators ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Our Many Selves  >  The Subconscient and the Inconscient

... unobserved by the mind, uncontrolled by it in their action. It can be held to include the dumb occult consciousness, dynamic but not sensed by us, which operates in the cells and nerves and all the corporeal stuff and adjusts their life process and automatic responses. It covers also those lowest functionings of submerged sense-mind which are more operative in the animal and in plant life; in our evolution... first emergence to evolve from it being Matter. × Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - II: Out of the Sevenfold Ignorance towards the Sevenfold Knowledge × Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine - I: Knowledge by Identity and... Introduction Our Many Selves The Subconscient and the Inconscient The subconscient is what is below the mind and conscious life just as the subliminal is what is behind the outer consciousness. Whereas the subliminal is an inner and larger consciousness compared to the surface consciousness, the subconscious is a nether and inferior, diminished co ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  Love-Its Place and Power-2

... the power of psychic love, and not by any other means. The mind's adoration and the heart's love and devotion are powerful aids to the development of psychic love, but in themselves they are incapable of reaching the Divine Love and bringing it down to transform human life. The mind's interest and aspiration may be damped by the frosts of life, and the heart's ardours even ¹ Prayers and Meditations... silence of self-extinction in the Brahman, an oblique mental movement, and argues an imperfect psychic awakening. A fully awakened psychic is an. eternal warrior, fighting life after life, if need be, for the transformation of Matter and the revelation of God's Light and Love upon earth. For a perfect illustration of this psychic love and its will and aspiration to divine service, we can only refer to... our nature. Our mind may have its egoistic intellectual gratifications, our vital may have the satisfaction of its desires, our physical being may have its material pleasures and comforts to pursue, but the soul in us has nothing but a one-pointed tension towards the Divine, and a consuming passion for a union and communion with Him. It has no other interest and no other aim in life. Its love for God ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  The Place of Study in Sadhana

... Metaphysics deals with the ultimate cause of things and all that lies behind the world of phenomena. As regards mind and consciousness, it asks what they are, how they came into existence, what is their relation to Matter, Life etc. Psychology deals with Page 73 mind and consciousness and tries to find out not so much their ultimate nature and relations as their actual workings and... from his intellectual superiors that a man's mind develops. There is no such rule. 1 It is better if the mind is strong and developed, but scholarship does not necessarily create a strong and developed mind. Intelligence does not depend on the amount one has read, it is a quality of the mind. Study only gives it material for its work as life also does. There are people who do not know... by it. Yes, the scientific mind does not lead very far [ in spiritual life ]; it only multiplies experiences but brings neither the realisation, nor the knowledge. Page 75 × The correspondent asked whether a scholar would progress rapidly in spiritual life if his mind was "developed, large and enlightened ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Three Steps of Nature

... Certainly, the mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature; it is not yet firmly founded in the human animal. The sign is that the fine and full equilibrium of vitality and matter, the sane, robust, long-lived human body is ordinarily found only in races or classes of men who reject the effort of thought, its disturbances, its tensions, or think only with the material mind. Civilised man has yet... be considered, in a sense, as an inverse manifestation, by which these supreme Powers in their unity and their diversity use, develop and perfect the imperfect substance and activities of Matter, of Life and of Mind so that they, the inferior modes, may express in mutable relativity an increasing harmony of the divine and eternal states from which they are born. If this be the truth of the universe,... mentality, but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses, and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason. Mind in man is first emmeshed in the life of the body, where in the plant it is entirely ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Towards the Light  >  Of Some Supreme Mysteries

... To be free and independent does not mean that one lives and moves as one chooses or has the feeling of doing so. A soul captured in the mind and the life and the body is never free or independent; its sense of freedom or independence is only a make-believe so that Inferior Nature might all the more easily utilise the imprisoned Soul for her own... expression and its continent, the Sat and the sakti . * The Soul is God's Grace upon Matter; it is the living spark from the Heart of the- Divine, sent down into Matter, in order to lift Matter into Divinity. The gods are the glories of the Supreme Divine; they are the agents that effect this transmutation... the Supreme descends into a more concrete form of creation. Page 25 The Supreme has pulverised himself into the atoms of Matter. Matter is Spirit divided ad infinitum and infinitely concretised. Utter Nescience is the focussing of utter Intelligence the farthest away from itself and upon ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Towards the Light

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2  >  Of Some Supreme Mysteries

... Untruth. *** To be free and independent does not mean that one lives and moves as one chooses or has the feeling of doing so. Page 361 A soul captured in the mind and the life and the body is: never free or independent; its sense of freedom or independence is only a make-believe so that Inferior Nature might all the more easily utilise the imprisoned soul for her own... is Purusottama, - the Spirit and its expression and its continent, the Sat and the s akti. *** The Soul is God's Grace upon Matter; it is the living spark from the Heart of the Divine, sent down into Matter, in order to lift Matter into Divinity. The gods are the glories of the Supreme Divine; they are the agents that effect this transmutation and the types that embody the... stands intact and inviolate. *** With each successive self-division, the Supreme descends into a more concrete form of creation. The Supreme has pulverised himself into the atoms of Matter. Matter is Spirit divided ad infinitum and infinitely concretised. Utter Nescience is the focussing of utter Intelligence the farthest away from itself and upon infinite points. *** ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2

Early Cultural Writings  >  The Spirit of the Times

... date matters little. It is enough that we find in Kalidasa's poetry the richest bloom and perfect expression of the long classical afternoon of Indian civilisation. The soul of an age is mirrored in this single mind. It was an age when the Indian world after seeking God through the spirit and through action turned to seek Him through the activity of the senses, an age therefore of infinite life, colour... grace of woman dominated the minds and imaginations of men. The spirit of the times pulses through all Kalidasa's poetry. His pages are often ablaze with its light & colour, often pregnant, sometimes indeed overweighted with its rich and manifold learning, its keen pleasure in every phase and aspect of life fills them with a various vividness and infinite richness of matter. Language & verse thrill... poet's Page 236 imagination. And behind the luxurious ease and sensuousness of court life we hear the clash of arms and glimpse the great & energetic motions of statesmanship and diplomacy. The variety of his genius specially fits Kalidasa for the interpretation of a rich & complex national life. From pages heavy with the obsession of the senses, the delight of the eye and the lust of the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Early Cultural Writings

The Psychic Being  >  Evolution and the Psychic

... consciousness; each life becomes a step in a victory over Matter by a greater progression of consciousness in it which shall make eventually Matter itself a means for the full manifestation of the Spirit." Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - II: Man and the Evolution It is difficult to understand, Sweet Mother Ah!... If you take terrestrial history, all the forms of life appeared one after... the point of emergence; and, when it emerges, it can hardly be doubted that its demand will be, as indeed it already is in the Mind itself when it undergoes the inner psychic influence, for a diviner, a more spiritual existence. In the nature of the earth-life where the Mind is an instrument of the Ignorance, this can only be effected by a change of consciousness, a transition from a foundation in Ignorance... 3. Growth and Development of the Psychic The Psychic Being Evolution and the Psychic "This terrestrial evolutionary working of Nature front Matter to Mind and beyond it has a double process: there is an outward visible process of physical evolution with birth as its machinery,—for each evolved form of body housing its own evolved power of consciousness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Psychic Being

Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 2)  >  chapter 025

... cannot divide our life into matters fit for the Divine and matters unfit. To do so is to hide certain portions of our life from her transfiguring touch. How then can we follow Sri Aurobindo's motto: "All life is Yoga"? This motto has a general philosophical insight - the vision of a spiritual goal implicit in the evolution from matter to vital force and from vital force to mind, mind with its vague... transformation which she was Page 284 endeavouring to pioneer in our own day for the sake of mankind would not matter in the long run. Is it not illogical to hold that such transformation has been hastened for us by her departure and that it is even likely in the life-time of some of us?   The Mother's grace has made the Ashram flourish even in her absence and it has become increasingly... ive and all-harmonising heart. Always to live with a sense of being born from that fountain of felicity is the very meaning of life for us.   You have asked me how to meditate or concentrate. I know of no particular method and these terms never occupy my mind. I am aware only - as I have been saying from a long time back- of a warmth and a glow in my heart, and the warmth is the Mother's presence ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 2)

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  10: Victory over Death or in Death?

... Falsehood, it will be possible to have a complete and real life, a true life on earth, entirely unveiled—because the very origin of the veil would remain there . What seems to us the last illusion, the ultimate simulacrum contains perhaps the very key to the last unveiling and perfect plenitude. One must really change the death of Matter, it is not sufficient to overleap it into another species. It... fire And life and death are both its fuel made. Life only was my blind attempt to love: Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory. 78 And Mother had I know not what light in her eyes, as if She had received the message, touched the message : Savitri says, life and death are the fuel , then: In my blind attempt LIFE ONLY was my attempt to love. It’s not “Life was only”, but “Life only”:... to want something else, to also open the little eyes of Matter in its cells. And when everything is at a homogeneous point, then there will no longer be “this side” and “that side”: it will all be the same side. The demarcation line is the death of a body. It is the point where the old Matter no longer follows the movement of the new Matter and does not manage to transform itself. So it sheds its ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  Interactions with Others and the Practice of Yoga

... the external nexuses,—of course, if one wills it to be so. The life of saṁsāra is in its nature a field of unrest—to go through it in the right way one has to offer one's life and actions to the Divine and pray for the peace of the Divine within. When the mind becomes quiet, one can feel the Divine Mother supporting the life and put everything into her hands. In her condition the one thing... be imposed on anyone as a principle, for that is the mental way of doing things, the way of the ordinary mind—it is as a need that it has to be accepted, when it is felt as a need, not as a general law or rule. Relations in Ordinary Life The best way to prepare oneself for the spiritual life when one has to live in the ordinary occupations and surroundings is to cultivate an entire equality and... gone astray into zones of false vital experiences; secondly, that absolute retirement is not necessary for the spiritual life. It is different however for people like X who are to the manner born or at least perfectly trained. A "restriction of publicity" is quite another matter. Also to be capable of solitude and to have the Ananda of solitude can always be helpful to sadhana, and a power of inner ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  Aurobindonian Viewpoints

... all as the creator of the world. Mind, to Sri Aurobindo, is not a synonym of consciousness: it is just one degree. Are you ascribing anti-mentalism to him by yourself employing the word "mind" broadly to signify consciousness and thinking he assumes for matter an existence outside consciousness altogether? I can quote you passages galore from The Life Divine to demonstrate that when a ... of things. As we individuals are conscious of depths unplumbed within us, of a check upon our subjective life from backgrounds unknown, of a limited sway over our own thoughts, of a bound to our creativity and our will, even so the cosmic mind must feel in its consciousness of matter and radiation as its own mental stuff an inherent absence of fullness and finality. If we assert that... mystics have spoken of a universal mind as holding in its mental stuff a full and final origin of matter and radiation they have ill-chosen their language as much as Jeans has done. A simple consideration will elucidate my point. Mentalism can describe a universal mind only by analogy with the nature of mind known to us. What is that nature? A universal mind would differ in many respects ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Emergence of the Psychic  >  The Psychic Being - Its Nature and Function

... divine origin. Without the psychic, Matter would never have awakened from its inconscience, it would never have aspired for the life of its origin, the spiritual life. Therefore, the psychic being in the human being is the manifestation of spiritual aspiration; but there is a spiritual life independent of the psychic. 24 — The Mother Is there a difference between the "spiritual" and the ... unseemly; but it does not become these things nor is it touched or changed by these opposites of itself which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation of mind, life and body. For the soul, the permanent being in us, puts forth and uses mind, life and body as its instruments, undergoes the envelopment of their conditions, but it is other and greater than its members. If the psychic entity had... movement; or, if the mind is over-confident to act in its own smaller light, attached to its own judgment, will and action of knowledge, then also the soul will remain veiled and quiescent and wait for the mind's farther evolution. For the psychic part within is there to support the natural evolution, and the first natural evolution must be the development of body, life and mind, successively, and these ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Emergence of the Psychic

Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species  >  Introduction

... movement necessitates the evolution of forms of Matter which grow gradually from its subtle states until solid states evolve. Upon these forms of Matter depend all our sensible experience; what we call the power of sensations, of vibrations of the mind, of the ego- sense and even of intelligence, which has the faculty of discrimination, is involved in Matter;-and because of that involution, the evolution... ā sad ī ya s ū kta ¹ refers to the "darkness wrapped in darkness" and points out that from the breath that stirred in that original darkness, there stirred the life-force as desire, and that that desire was the seed of the mind. In the Aitareya Upanishad, there is a fable which tells us that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when man was ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga, Evolution and the Next Species

Collected Poems  >  The Inconscient and the Traveller Fire

... error! Mind this half-light in me born, like the glow of a morrowless morn? Autographs, hieroglyphs of the reflexes life has engendered, Spasms of matter caught into luminous figments of thought. Nay, is not God but myself, Death's euphemism fictioned immortal, Nothing eternalised, bare, yet as if one who is None, Death yet for ever alive, an Inconscient troubled with seemings, Matter tormented... might die. O, was it life that He gave me? Pulse of my darkness, reflex and nerve-beat! More hopeless I suffer, Racked by the flame an obscure will in me kindled to save me. Life? or a sorrowful throb of my Matter teaching it anguish, Teaching it hope and desire trod down by Time in the mire? Life? this joy that weeps for its briefness, this foot-path for sorrow? Life, this embrace of a death... without life, without thought. Page 666 O all my worlds, you who glitter and wander, God has devised you Burning nails in my heart, stones of my prisonhouse. God, Architect tranquil relentless and mighty, built and incised you, Clamped with you Time, his road towards Nothingness, Death's deep abode. I the Inconscient have passioned for life and its beat and its glory,— Life that Death ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Collected Poems

A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man  >  Our Evolutionary Task

... mean a reversal of the present law of human consciousness and life. The divine superman Page 18 does not reject Matter and physical life, although he transforms it. One realizes that the soul has descended into the Inconscient and assumed the disguise of Matter for the adventure and the joy of creation and discovery. Life is seen as an adventure of the Spirit; it is not an error of the... the soul, but a deliberate enterprise that seeks a full transformation of material life on the earth. And when that transformation in achieved, the superman may not withdraw from life and Matter, but would continue to lead the evolution in Knowledge, a continuous self-unfolding of the infinite Spirit. It is envisaged that the evolution in Knowledge would be a more beautiful and glorious manifestation... giant, the ogre or devourer of the world. In the Asura, we find a mighty exhibition of an overpowering force, a self-possessed, self-held, even, it may be, an ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life power; he is strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating; he achieves even a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego. If we examine the history of ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Yoga, Science, Religion and Philosophy

... concentrate on the knowledge of Matter or on life and mind as embodied in Matter. It has also tended to develop those methods, which have proved successful in studies where empirical observation and measurement are feasible. It is evident that the domains with which philosophy, religion and Yoga deal with centrally transcend Matter or the boundaries of embodied life and mind; the Page 248 question... modifiable in the light of advancing quest. Religion may also be looked upon as quest of knowledge, but the object is to relate the human beings with something that lies beyond the realms of Matter, Life and Mind, and the distinguishing features of the methods are those of practice of beliefs, dogmas, rituals, ceremonies, prescribed acts and pursuits of social, ethical, and other institutional norms... universe or that which lies beyond the universe. Swami Vivekananda, for example, constantly spoke of religion as experiential in character and contended that religion is a matter of experience, a matter of knowledge and a matter of verifiable and repeatable knowledge. He even expounded at length, systems of Yoga and declared that Yoga is veritably a science par excellence - a science relating to those ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

On Thoughts and Aphorisms  >  Aphorism - 69

... g the mind. It is not necessary to pass through the mind, it is direct. Something enters into direct contact with the vital centres and makes them act—without passing through the thought, but with full consciousness. The consciousness does not work in the usual order, it goes directly from the centre of spiritual will to Matter. As long as one can keep this absolute immobility of the mind, the ... subjective point of view is sufficient. And that is relatively easy. But when it comes to including Matter in the work, Matter as it is in this world, where the very starting-point itself is wrong—we start from Inconscience and Ignorance—then it is very difficult. Because, in fact, so that this Matter could reach the individualisation Page 113 needed to recover the lost Consciousness, it... not determined by the mind—I am not speaking of thought and intellect—not even by the mind which usually makes us act. Usually, when we do something, we perceive within us the will to do this thing— Page 114 when we are conscious and observe ourselves doing it, we can see that; there is always—it may be very fleeting—the will to do it. It is the intervention of the mind, the habitual intervention ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   On Thoughts and Aphorisms

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Savitri As poetic Expression

... resistance of gross matter and bring out into expression some of its beauty in this gross material world. Above this subtle material plane comes the manifestation of Life on earth, and this life connects itself with the kingdom of the lower and the higher vital worlds of the Spirit. Similarly the mental world when it manifests here on earth gets connected with the worlds of higher Mind and its powers and... Third is Madhyam ā , the word that comes from the intermediate regions between the higher mind and the lower intelligence which deals mainly with life and matter. 4. The fourth is Vaikhari, the word or expression that comes from the throat, the sound expression, which generally deals with the outward life and outward expression of man's being. Sri Aurobindo, in his introduction to "Hymns to... Ignorance here and at last establishes the divine life on earth. It is this "Divine event" to which the whole creation of Sāvitrī tends. About the subject-matter of Sāvitrī, Sri Aurobindo himself wrote:— "Sāvitrī is the record of a seeing., of an experience which is not of the common kind and is often very far from what the general human mind sees and experiences. You must not expect a ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Prusna Upanishad of the Athurvaveda

... creatures, Prana the Life, who is Male, and Rayi the Matter, who is Female. 'These' said he 'shall make for me children of many natures.' आदित्यो ह वै प्राणः रयिरेव चन्द्रमा रयिर्वा एतत्सर्वं यन्मूर्तं चामूर्तं च तस्मान्मूर्तिरेव रयिः ॥५॥ 5) "The Sun verily is Life and the Moon is no more than Matter; yet truly all this Universe formed and formless is Matter; therefore Form and Matter are One. Page... एते प्रस्कन्दन्ति ये दिवा रत्या संयुज्यन्ते ब्रह्मचर्यमेव तद्यद्रात्रौ रत्या संयुज्यन्ते ॥१३॥ 13) "Day and night also are the Eternal Father, whereof the day is Life and the night is Matter. Therefore do they offend against their own life who take joy with woman by day; by night who take joy, enact holiness. अन्नं वै प्रजापतिस्ततो ह वै तद्रेतस्तस्मादिमाः प्रजाः प्रजायन्त इति ॥१४॥ Page 178 ... I tell thee. आत्मन एष प्राणो जायते । यथैषा पुरुषे छायैतस्मिन्नेतदाततं मनोकृतेनायात्यस्मिञ्शरीरे ॥३॥ 3) "Of the Spirit is this breath of Life born; even as a shadow is cast by a man, so is this Life extended in the Spirit and by the action of the Mind it entereth into this body. यथा सम्राडेवाधिकृतान् विनियुङक्ते । एतान्ग्रामानेतान्ग्रामानधितिष्ठस्वेत्येवमेवैष प्राण इतरान्प्राणान् पृथक्पृथगेव ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Letters on Yoga - I  >  Doubt and Faith

... it provided, they were used by another Light and a larger Mind than the intellect. When the intellect tried to decide things in this field, it always delayed matters. I suppose what it can do sometimes is to stir up the mind, plough it or prepare—but the knowledge comes only when one gets another higher than intellectual opening. Even in Mind itself there are things higher than the intellect, ranges... ) and I do not usually care to enter into personal matters. I do not know who gave you this information, e.g. that I have not done my sadhana in full Page 343 heat of work but have had to lead a very quiet and extremely retired life all the time. I am afraid, whoever he is, he knows nothing about either my past life or my present life or my Yoga. As for the ground put forward that there... ordinary life, it may be practically useful in battering down established things or established ideas or in certain kinds of external controversy to undermine a position that is too dogmatically positive; but I do not think it is of any positive use in matters even of intellectual inquiry. There is nothing it can do there that impartial discrimination cannot do much better. In spiritual matters discrimination ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Savitri's Modernism

... variety of style and subject matter the modem element naturally comes in as a most spontaneous and organic dement. This is as one should expect, because the whole vision of Sāvitrī is not otherworldly; it does not turn away from the life on earth. In the words of Mr. Sethna, Sri Aurobindo "outdoes the ancient scriptures in the aspiration to suffuse and transform earth's life with the golden Immortal... with "The Paradise of the Life-Gods" (Book II, Canto 9) he speaks of Aswapathy's thrilling experience as follows: "His earth, dowered with celestial competence, Harboured a power that needed now no more To cross the closed customs-line of mind and flesh And smuggle godhead into humanity." The revealing vision at times daringly explains to our mind the creation of the physical... Einstein and De Sitter's researches find an echo in "parent of an expanding universe", (Book II, Canto 5.) and while dealing with the formation of Matter the reader will have to have some familiarity with the latest theory of the electrical constitution of matter. He speaks of: "An ocean of electrical Energy Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles Constructing by their dance this ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

The Indian Spirit and the World's Future  >  The Passing of Sri Aurobindo: Its Inner Significance and Consequence

... the Divine has posited a difficult evolution of matter, life-force and mind - with a soul supporting them - out of a vast Inconscience, a primal darkness set by Him as the nether pole to the transcendent Absolute. Between the two poles and above the evolving earth and below the archetypal Supermind are various occult planes - Subtle Matter, Vitality, Mind, Overmind and, at the back of the first trio,... re of what superficially looks impossible - the quivering forth of vitality and sensation in seemingly lifeless Matter, the glimmering out of mind and reason in apparently instinctive animality, the all-perfecting revelation of Supermind in ostensibly groping intelligence, stumbling life-force and mortal body. So there never could be for Sri Aurobindo either a surrender to ordinary world-conditions... force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible. It should be possible and it is believed to be possible for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the intervention ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Indian Spirit and the World's Future

Letters on Yoga - I  >  Sachchidananda: Existence, Consciousness-Force and Bliss

... animate organisation that somehow develops in an originally inanimate and unconscious Matter. It is not inherent in life, for the plant has it not, it is rather a growing flicker that, once established, lasts intermittently through sleep and waking while life lasts and disappears with the dissolution of life. The ordinary mind identifies consciousness with human waking consciousness possibly shared by the... body to the planes where self is naturally conscious of its wideness and freedom, it knows itself as the self and not the mind, life or body. It is this stress of consciousness that makes all the difference. That is why one has to concentrate the consciousness in heart or mind in order to go within or go above. It is the disposition of the consciousness that determines everything, makes one predominantly... consciousness out of the universal nescience of Matter. The Sachchidananda is not in itself an active consciousness, it is simply pure existence, consciousness and bliss. By a Truth Consciousness is meant a knowledge consciousness which is immediately, inherently and directly aware of Truth in manifestation and has not to seek for it like Mind. Sachchidananda is everywhere behind the manifestation ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri  >  Supraphysical Subtle Visions

... always there. Only, as one is concentrated in the most material life, one does not notice it. For the normal functioning of this supraphysical occult sight, the conditions that have to be fulfilled are: (i) the quietening and the purification of the surface mind and vital; (ii) the opening up of the wall separating the outer mind and the inner consciousness; and, preferably, (iii) the capacity... experience and of the worlds of existence other than the material, which are all the time exercising their occult influences to shape and govern our outer life and consciousness. The following quotation from Sri Aurobindo pithily sums up the matter: "This power of vision... should not be rejected although it is not the most important thing - for the most important thing is the change of the... enter freely within and dwell there at will. In this connection we may read with profit the following letter of Sri Aurobindo addressed to one of his disciples who wanted to know the truth about the matter: "... this power or gift of [supraphysical sight] ... is a universal faculty present in all human beings, but latent in most, in some rarely or intermittently active, occurring as if by accident ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Ascent of Sight in Sri Aurobindo's Savitri

Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects  >  The Gita And The Mother

... and supramental change will achieve a complete and radical change of human nature so as to usher in a new birth, a new life and a new consciousness in the human life. Speaking of the evolutionary growth and ascent of consciousness from inert and inconscient matter, he traces how life consciousness developed out of the inconscience first in the vegetable kingdom, then in insects, worms, reptiles, birds... ss Page 8 of human beings is not the last term of the evolutionary progression of consciousness. It will exceed Mind as mind has exceeded the life consciousness of animals and culminate in supramental consciousness—its ultimate goal in terrestrial life. From a world of ignorance, sorrow and suffering, full of strife and discord, we shall enter a new world of peace, harmony, bliss... world order will be one of peace and harmony because of the superior race of men who will be the leaders of the terrestrial life. "The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of earth-consciousness ; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit." And again : "As there has been established on earth a mental consciousness and power which shapes ...

Jibendra Kumar Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

Savitri  >  'The Parable of the Search for the Soul'

... the appearance of huddled masses of matter, the emergence of life' in algae, plant and tree, in insect, bird and beast, to the ultimate flowering of 'mind' in man:         Mind nascent laboured out a mutable form,       It built a mobile house on shifting sands,       A floating isle upon a bottomless sea. 269     Restless and enterprising, Mind has made conquests of all sorts and... e carries the potencies of life, mind, and any powers that may be above mind, though all as yet held in suspension as it were. What is 'involved', nascent or held in suspense comes out when the time is ripe, and so the evolutionary march begins and continues.         There is a law that controls, yet transcends, the wide ranges of consciousness, from inert matter to man and the future superman... above, Mind has extended its inquiries into the lower as well as the higher regions of consciousness, Page 176 nether Hell as also .high Heaven. Mind has its handmaidens—fancy, imagination—and they annex vast territories of experience for man to lord over. In apprehension like a god, yet man can also solicit the dark and devalue himself:         Man's house of life holds ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1  >  The Eternal Bridegroom

... illusions of the mind. Death wants to impress upon Savitri that Matter alone exists: Mind has no independent existence. Mind may talk big, but all its talk is empty chatter. And so he says to Savitri: 37 Ibid., pp. 643-44. 38 Ibid., p. 644. Page 455 If Mind is all, renounce the hope of bliss; If Mind is all, renounce the hope of Truth. For Mind can never touch... wedlock? They are Matter and Spirit. Death says that if Matter is all then Spirit is a dream, and if Spirit is all then Matter is a lie. He says: The Real with the unreal cannot mate. Death wants Savitri to make up her mind. If she regards Spirit as supreme, then why does she bother about Matter? Why should the material form of Satyavan mean so much to her? If she believes in Matter then she must... thou hire the glorious charlatan Mind, 20 Ibid., p. 633. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., p. 633. Page 450 To weave from his Ideal's gossamer air A fine rainment for thy body's nude desires...? Daub not the web of life with magic hues... O human face, put off mind-painted masks... Accept thy futile birth, thy narrow life. For truth is bare like stone ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1

Our Many Selves  >  The Mental

... vital mind uses thought for the service not of reason but of life-push and life-power and when it calls in reasoning it uses that for justifying the dictates of these powers, imposes their dictates on the reason instead of governing by a discriminating will the action of the life-forces. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness The true thinking mind does... carefully distinguished from mind, even though it has a mind element transfused into it; the vital is the Life nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire soul in man and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, greed, lust etc. that belong to this field of the nature. Mind and vital are mixed up on... very long, for the mind to accept the Divine or the Yogic ideal while the vital is unconvinced and unsurrendered and goes obstinately on its way of desire, passion and attraction to the ordinary life. Their division or their conflict is the cause of most of the more acute difficulties of the sadhana. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Mind … people usually think that mind is just a mode ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves

The Renaissance in India  >  Indian Art - 1

... ion; for that will bring us to the positive side of the matter. All great artistic work proceeds from an act of intuition, not really an intellectual idea or a splendid imagination,—these are only mental translations,—but a direct intuition of some truth of life or being, some significant form of that truth, some development of it in the mind of man. And so far there is no difference between great... really the kind of imagination I personally demand; but though my acquired cultured mind explains this to me and may intellectually catch at the something more, my natural being will not be satisfied, Page 263 I am oppressed, not uplifted by this triumph of life and the flesh and of the power and stir of life,—not that I object to these things in themselves or to the greatest emphasis on the... whole way of the rendering to the human mind, even in the centre of our being to which the work appeals. The European artist gets his intuition by a suggestion from an appearance in life and Nature or, if it starts from something Page 266 in his own soul, relates it at once to an external support. He brings down that intuition into his normal mind and sets the intellectual idea and the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7  >  On Karmayoga

... higher life. The aim of sadhana is to establish the divine qualities in oneself and transform oneself. And for that one has first to change one's thought, mind and feeling. And thought is changed mainly by thought, by meditation, by will and Tapasya. The impact of active life may be of help in changing thought and feeling, but that would be only a help. Try to turn your eyes on your own life and activities... impossible for you to remain quiet. But you cannot make up your mind as to what you should do. You seem to think that whatever work you do would be commonplace and trivial and would have no inner support. You find no work after your heart. But I am afraid you have started from a wrong idea. Bear in mind that the most essential thing in one's life is 'to be' and not 'to do'. First, be something, then action... has done. No doubt, the world has no other standard of judgment, for it can see only the appearance. It has neither the capacity nor the time to look within. But mind you, you are a sadhak. You cannot acquit yourself that way. It matters little whether outwardly you remain idle or do something or even something utterly useless. Never try to judge yourself nor your progress, your capacity or even the ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

Savitri  >  'The Kingdom of Subtle Matter'

... Subtle Matter'         From the kingdom of gross matter or the material cosmos of order and harmony, though lacking "the sole timeless word", Aswapati crosses to the world of subtle material existence where "dwell earth-nature's shining origins". This is the world of physical mind, or, in other words, the world of matter shot through by the mind:         The golden issue of mind's labyrinth... possibility of realisation is rendered difficult now because of a blinding or obscuring veil, but even this will be pierced or broken through in the fullness of time.         The world of subtle matter is compact of delight and beauty and love and sweetness,         .. .a miracle of symmetric charm,       A fantasy of perfect line and rule. 48   By resolved limitation, it has... corresponding ascent as well. A truly mighty partnership is at work here. The plunge into the depths has obscured, not wholly extinguished, the light from above. At present it is true enough that earth-life is tainted by the shadows of defeat. Passion flames up for a while, but an end comes soon—all too soon—to the "sacred orgy of delight". Love fails us, power fails us, and even knowledge fails us. But ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  11: From the Infinite to the Infinitesimal

... man has packed God off to heaven (which is not so bad) while he himself dived into Matter like a guilty urchin: "short but sweet,” and after us heaven can fall. Having said that life is a condemned, reprehensible, anti-divine thing, this is the logical conclusion. Then, what to do? We don’t want to do away with life, so we do away with the Divine. 17 And at the same time they close their eyes to... inner worlds is not enough, we must triumph even in the most material worlds. 27 Man must accomplish his mission of purifying matter 28 transforming matter, 29 She said as early as 1912, even before meeting Sri Aurobindo. Man must enter the path of the divine life, 30 create a new race. 31 And with a prophetic vision of all that Sri Aurobindo's yoga would be, as well as her own up to... of being—it is no longer the same being! And it is no longer the same Matter, ft is something else ... some­thing divine, She would say. A supreme conjunction in which Spirit and Matter merge into a third thing ... which is the secret of the Future. And which is perhaps total being. Something that transmutes all opposites: life-death, still­ness-movement, time-eternity, being-becoming, high-low, you-me ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

Overman  >  3: Turning Towards the Earth

... that since embodied life is due to an inexplicable fall of the soul into Matter, liberation is not only freedom from false identification with the body but complete withdrawal from embodied life as well. But for Sri Aurobindo individual liberation is not an end in itself, but only a means to emancipate the divine consciousness in the collective existence and establish a divine life upon earth.” N. J... from politics only when he was sure that the idea of unconditional freedom was firmly imprinted on the political mind of India and that its eventual realisation was assured. Mirra’s life was not less radical. She had to break with her bourgeois background to enter the “bohemian” life of the artists’ world in Paris. The risks she took in her occult explorations were considerable, and once she actually... perfection of life here and not only a return to an eternal perfection elsewhere. This is the object, but in the method also there is the same integrality, for the entirety of the object cannot be accomplished without an entirety in the method, a complete turning, opening, self-giving of our being and nature in all its parts, ways, movements to that which we realise. Our mind, will, heart, life, body, our ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Overman

Collected Poems  >  Evolution - I

...     And man but a half-dark half-luminous sign     Of the transition of the veiled Divine From Matter's sleep and the tormented load Of ignorant life and death to the Spirit's light.     Mind liberated swam Light's ocean vast,         And life escaped from its grey tortured line; I saw Matter illumining its parent Night.     The soul could feel into infinity cast         Timeless God-bliss ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Collected Poems

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-7 and 8

... and sought her soul". She tried to correlate herself to the cosmos and find out the past. There in the indeterminate formlessness of Self she saw that "Matter learned to think and person grew". Life and Mind were formed, With Life. and Mind pleasure and pain as experience came. And yet all this seemed the work of a blind world-Energy. Man seemed only "A chaos of little sensibilities" "Gathered... dwells a superconscient god Around us is a vast of ignorance Lit by the uncertain ray of human mind, Below us sleeps the Inconscient dark and mute". But that is only the first self-view of Matter. There is a greater Self of knowledge waiting for us: "It shall descend and make earth's life divine". Summits of man's being are divine; there Eternity Page 312 and Divinity are... powers and I create new and magical things which Nature could never do. "What God imperfect left, I will complete." I have mastered the world of Matter, I am its King now. I am also mastering the secrets of Life and "Soon I shall know the secrets of the Mind". I shall even acquire occult powers. "When earth is mastered, I shall conquer heaven". Savitri did not reply to this voice but turned to ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Educational Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo

... body, life and mind, and that the perfection of the body, life and mind can be attained only when the powers of psychic and spiritual consciousness are bestowed upon the instruments of the body, life and mind. At an important stage of experimentation, the Mother gave the message that while India has or rather had spiritual knowledge but neglected Matter, the West has knowledge of Matter but has... integral education. In 1958, she entered upon the "Yoga of the Cells" which led her to the discovery of "a cellular mind" capable of reconstructing the nature of the body. From 1958 to 1973, she slowly uncovered the "Great Passage" to the next species and a new mode of life in Matter. An authentic and scientifically scrupulous account of this Passage is to be found in "Mother's Agenda" in 13 Volumes... great assurance of the concept and practice of integral education and of the synthesis of the ancient secrets of the reign of Spirit over mind, life and the body and the modern secrets of utilisation of the life in perfecting the instrumentality of the body, life and mind. Integral education would not only aim at the integral development of personality, but it would also embrace all knowledge in its ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  8: The Exit from the Second Web or the New Body

... the earth-history he would have argued like that. When only matter was there and there was no life, if told that there would soon be life on earth embodied in matter, he would have cried out, “What is that? It is impossible, it cannot be done. Life is possible only in a subtle body. It has never been and will never be embodied in gross matter. What, this mass of electrons, gases, chemical elements, this... were of Matter, those cells, they called in the truth of Matter, the life of Matter, they hooked the Mantra, the small golden vibration of the depths; they repeated, repeated their prayer of being, their love of being; they spun, spun that sole golden substance, dense, as the plant spins out the light of the sun, as the butterfly beetles on pollen, as simply, as blindly: it was a question of life or death... we are speaking of Matter, are we not, not miracle, unless it happens to be the miracle of Matter. The physical mind, said Sri Aurobindo, always comes in with its fixed line of the present and “No farther” and when the fixed line of the present is unfixed and overpassed, it again erects a new line and cries “No farther.” If an “elemental” who had attained to the physical mind had been present at ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

The Life Divine  >  Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality

... and their reign is over our outer mind, life and body, for these are mostly subject to the mechanism of Nature. But even here their mechanical power is absolute only over body and matter; for Law becomes more complex and less rigid, Process more plastic and less mechanical when there comes in the phenomenon of life, and yet more is this so when mind intervenes with its subtlety; an inner freedom... hidden being and our surface personality is the main secret of the rapid development that operates in man once he has passed beyond the lower stages of mind immersed in Matter. This resort must continue in the internatal stage; for a new birth, a new life is not a taking up of the development exactly where it stopped in the last, it does not merely repeat and continue our past surface personality and... as the physical evolution has not developed here an organisation of an overmental or supramental life in Matter. But, even so, the mental worlds are not likely to be the last normal stage of the after-death passage; for man is not entirely mental: it is the soul, the psychic being, and not the mind, that is the traveller between death and birth, and the mental being is only a predominant element ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

A Centenary Tribute  >  Extracts from Amal Kiran's Works-The Passing of Sri Aurobindo

... the Divine has posited a difficult evolution of matter, life-force and mind - with a soul supporting them - out of a vast Inconscience, a primal darkness set by Him as the nether pole to the transcendent Absolute. Between the two poles and above the evolving earth and below the archetypal Supermind are various occult planes - Subtle Matter, Vitality, Mind, Overmind and, at the back of the first trio,... e of what superficially looks impossible - the quivering forth of vitality and sensation in seemingly lifeless Matter, the glimmering out of mind and reason in apparently instinctive animality, the all-perfecting revelation of Super-mind in ostensibly groping intelligence, stumbling life-force and mortal body. So there never could be for Sri Aurobindo either a surrender to ordinary world-conditions... force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible. It should be possible and it is believed to be possible for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the intervention ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Centenary Tribute

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  13: Science and Religion

... themselves in their own mind, proud of their rationality and of the new world it has produced, and hanging on to matter as to a raft on a stormy sea. God, the Divine, ‘That’ has to be something more, essential, worthwhile, great. The patient people of the East discovered ‘That’ long ago, but the discovery is difficult and may demand the wager of an entire life. Above the mind one has to reach the spiritual... called ‘quantum syncretism’, is being born; it refers everything – matter and spirit – to an Absolute that is unknowable, but whose existence could be deduced from the extraordinary aspects of the new physics.” 28 Towards the end of his life, Albert Einstein once said: “You probably think that I look back on the work of my life with quiet satisfaction. Seen from nearby, it is totally different... not know how the universe began. We do not know why it is there. Charles Darwin talked speculatively of life emerging from ‘a warm little pond’. The pond is gone. We have little idea how life emerged, and cannot with assurance say that it did. We cannot reconcile our understanding of the human mind with any trivial theory about the manner in which the brain functions. Beyond the trivial, we have no other ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

Collected Poems  >  Contrasts

... What opposites are here! A trivial life     Specks the huge dream of Death called Matter; intense     In its struggle of weakness towards omnipotence, A thinking mind starts from the unthinking strife In the order of the electric elements.     Immortal life breathed in that monstrous death,     A mystery of Knowledge wore as sheath Matter's mute nescience. Its enveloped sense Or ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Collected Poems

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1  >  The Descent of Supermind

... higher beyond mind into the planes that lead to the full supramental.         Only today a suggestion from outside advised me to ask the Mother whether the knowledge that comes down in me at present is from the Higher Mind or the Intuitive. I said to myself: "If it is the true knowledge that is descending it matters little for me if it is from the Higher Mind or the Intuitive Mind or any other... forces above the human mind, especially Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind can be very intense and fiery. They have divine powers in them.         You said that "the Supermind descent into Matter is what is being attempted". In that case, has the Supermind already conquered the mental plane, the vital plane and the physical now that it is attempting to conquer Matter?       There can... it is we who are attempting.         Unless the mind and the vital are perfectly prepared how is it possible to bring the Supermind down into the physical or Matter?       And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared, — for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared until these ...

Nagin Doshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1

A Greater Psychology  >  Towards a Greater Psychology

... in the Taittiriya Upanishad Bhrigu Varuni meditating on the Brahman comes first to the conclusion that "Matter is Brahman" and only afterwards discovers Life that is Brahman, — so rising from the materialistic to the vitalistic theory of existence as European thought is now rising, — then Mind that is Brahman and then Knowledge that is Brahman, — so rising to the sensational and the idealistic ... nervous life in the body brings to his embodied mind; and even of those bringings he knows, he can retain and utilise only so much as his surface mind-sense attends to and consciously remembers; but there is a larger subliminal consciousness within him which is not thus limited. That consciousness senses what has not been sensed by the surface mind and its organs and knows what the surface mind has... but the whole real foundation and regards human mind as only a subtle development from the life and the body. That may be the actual truth of the animal side of human nature and of the human mind in so far as it is limited and conditioned by the physical part of our being. But the whole difference between man and the animal is that the animal mind, as we know it, cannot get for one moment away ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  The Nature of the Vital

... surrender as well as cause all the trouble possible. Without the vital there is no life or force of action or manifestation; it is a necessary instrument of the spirit for life. Vitality means life-force—wherever there is life, in plant or animal or man, there is life-force—without the vital there can be no life in matter and no living action. The vital is a necessary force and nothing can be done... about anything else being behind than what your mind was conscious of in its surface intention, there is more often than not something behind when the vital meddles in the matter—and it is a part of self-knowledge not to be misled by the mind's surface movements but to detect this something behind. For it is the habit of the vital to make a mask of the mind's arrangements about feelings and actions in order... habit of change in forms, that is all. A vital life, "a little higher than the animals" because of some play of mind, with death as its answer is all that human existence is as it is ordinarily envisaged. And yet there is an aspiration for something more; but the religions take hold of it and canalise it into something pointless for life and things remain as they are. Only a few indeed get beyond ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  Mind and the Brahman

... movement. Just as our self constitutes our mind, body, life, senses, so that Self constitutes all mind, body, life, senses; it is the origin and essentiality of things. Just as the gods govern, supported by our self, the cosmos of our individual being, the action of our mind, senses and life, so the Lord governs as Mind of the mind, Sense of the sense, Life of the life, supporting His active divinity by His... nothing to do with the form of the Brahman, the body of the Self, since it is not His form, but only His most external mask. Our first step therefore must be to get behind the forms of Matter, the forms of Life, the forms of Mind and go back to that which is essential, most real, nearest to actual entity. And when we have gone on thus eliminating, thus analysing all forms into the fundamental entities of... for the senses, but although they act in the senses, they are yet much more than that. They represent the divine power in its great and fundamental cosmic functionings whether in man or in mind and life and Matter in general; they are not the functionings themselves but something of the Divine which is essential to their operation and its immediate possessor and cause. They are, as we see from other ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  Intellect and the Intellectual

... standards drawn from its own limited experience; its attempts to explain the supraphysical by the physical or its demand for the proof of higher and occult things by the criterions proper to Matter and to mind in Matter; others also too many to enumerate here. Always it is substituting its own representations and constructions and opinions for the true knowledge. But if the intellect is surrendered, open... the higher mind, but even that does not see the whole Truth, only sides of it. Pure reason deals with things in themselves, ideas, concepts, the essential nature of things. It lives in the world of ideas. It is Page 14 philosophic and metaphysical in its nature. Intellect, Intellectual and Intelligence All depends on the meaning you attach to words used—it is a matter of nomenclature... prefer to use for the general faculty of mind the word intelligence. Ford has a great and forceful practical intelligence, keen, quick, successful, dynamic. He has a brain that can deal with thoughts also, but even there his drive is towards practicality. He believes in rebirth (metempsychosis), for instance, not for any philosophic reason, but because it explains life as a school of experience in which ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Ascending Series of Substance

... —There is such an ascending scale from the dense to the subtle even in material substance and beyond the subtlest material essence we have grades of other substance corresponding to the series of Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind and Spirit. Each, that is to say, is the basis of a world or other kind of existence in which these higher principles successively dominate the others and fulfil themselves with their... Chapter XXVI The Ascending Series of Substance Argument The materiality of Matter consists in a concentration of the density of substance and its resistance to the conscious-force of which through sense it becomes the object. An ascending scale of substance from Matter to Spirit must mean a diminution of resistance, division and bondage and an increasing subtlety, flexibility... existence. Therefore his complete perfection is through the ascent to supermind and the conquest of the physical also by the supramental substance so that he will be able to command a diviner physical life and conquer death in a divine body. Page 485 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  4: The Mutation of Death

... When darkness deepens strangling the earth’s breast AND MAN’S CORPOREAL MIND IS THE ONLY LAMP, As a thief’s in the night shall be the covert tread Of one who steps unseen into his house. A voice ill-heard shall speak, the soul obey, A power into mind’s inner chamber steal, A charm and sweetness open life’s closed doors And beauty conquer the resisting world, The truth-light... when they were some distance away, just on the periphery), it said, “Ah, no! I no longer want that, it belongs to the past.” ... It’s the One that has done the work, it is the change of this mind. 4 It is Matter itself that wages its own revolution. This phenomenon I could observe myself each time I became somewhat “clear”: one senses a suggestion approaching from a distance, on the “periphery... an unreal song, a non-reason for being. But this is not true! Life cannot spin non-life, it can only spin joy and more joy, because it is joy itself. It spins death only because it has not found the small key or in order to oblige us to find the small key of the real⎯the true life. It is that simple: what creates death creates life as well , it is a key that is turned in the wrong direction. It ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

Mother or The New Species - II  >  19. False Matter

... itself to Matter as it is, something that makes a wall in the same room—which bring us back, and Mother was always brought back, to that first mentalization of Matter, that catastrophic and defeatist Mind, it is the illusionist! We see nothing as it is, we are never in direct contact with the world and with Matter, not even with our own matter, we always are in contact through the Mind: it is a... an essential quality of Matter—it's false Matter, Matter as we think or feel it, but not Matter itself as it is. 27 A Worldwide Reversal of Consciousness Thus an enormous field of discoveries opens up before us. There is nothing to cure! Nothing to change! There is a web to be removed. And death is no more. Truly, a new life on earth. But Mother wanted this new life for the earth, not for... a mental perception of Matter. The Mind sees something outside and says: it is Matter, it is a bird, it is cancer, it is John Smith; while the body—the cellular body—does not "perceive" the world, you could say, it does not perceive Matter, it is not something it absorbs from outside and discharges again as a feeling, a thought or a definition: it becomes or is inside, it is in the world, in things ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Rebirth and Soul Evolution

... miracle, but a coming forward of that which was always there behind, an open taking up of the manifested life by a power which was always secretly presiding over the life evolution. What this theory of rebirth supposes is an evolution of being in the material world from matter to embodied mind and a universal spirit which ensouls this evolution, while our individual spirits exist in the universal... progressively to liberate the godhead of the spirit, seem Page 293 the only just and reasonable explanation of this labour of a matter-shackled soul which has attained a variable degree of humanity in the midst of a general progressive appearance of the life, mind and spirit in a material universe. Rebirth is the only possible machinery for such a soul evolution. Page 294 ... taking up of the lower life by the spirit which here becomes man? It would seem surely that there must have been some previous connection; the possessing mental or spiritual being must all the time have been preparing this lower life it thus occupies for a human manifestation. The whole evolution would then be an ordered continuity from the beginning and the intervention of mind and spirit would be no ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1)  >  chapter 011

... mental being will go beyond the utmost possibility open to mind itself. A widening of the mental consciousness and its achievement of technological mastery on a grand scale are the limits of its prognosis. But, if the cosmos is anthropos-oriented and if life emerges from matter and mind from life, there can be no necessary terminus with mind in however wide and powerful a form: a future Supermind is... farther. The Super-mind-principle brings the infinity of the Transcendent and so Page 83 an endless progression is possible, revealing deeper and still deeper ranges of the ultimate Divine. There will be no need of a pralaya. But if no pralaya is contemplated, what are we to make of the scientific theory of the sun's death and the consequent disappearance of the life on earth? Endless... total plasticity, adaptability, invulnerability, plus immunity from disease, stoppage of the ageing process, freedom from the stroke of death. Along with this transformation of one's matter, there must come a power over matter in general, which could change world-conditions, affect even the stellar cycle of "contraction and re-expansion" which the Time-extract speaks of. The world in which lives Man turned ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 1)

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  16: One Pure Little Cell

... cannot touch without getting entangled in a million threads equally sticky with false­hood—everything in the mind lies, even the truth lies. And the “bearers of light” are just as sticky with falsehood as the rest. One ... pure ... little cell. That is all. The Force is there in matter’s inconscient depths, as the Irresistible Healer, 9 Mother wrote in her journal of 1914. And She was getting impatient... under his fingers, in a body that no longer stopped at small physical borders and well understood the continuum of Matter. We have yet to shatter that great phantasmagoria of the separation of bodies before being able to see and touch the world in the other way—we are still babies of Matter, as it were, we do not know all that remains for us to discover, once we stop playing around with our futile ma... SOMETHING else for things to change. Sri Aurobindo was changing the inside of things, He was going straight to Matter—in silence. He was going where the cell responds to the exact vibration, the very one that made the Arya flow through his hands. One pure little cell in a single comer of matter is what can change the world. Everything else is the huge mental edifice a single thread of which we cannot ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  The Triple Foundation

... the drag and drift of its ambiguous appearances : a reproduction of the luminous existence, consciousness and bliss of the Supreme in terms of man's mind, soul, life and body. This faith, this irresistible belief in the eventual Apocalypse in Matter, informs. the call with its steadfast intensity, and no other spiritual- achievement, however high it may be, can fully satisfy those who have once had... and the tardy process of mortality," impatient of the stranglehold of Matter, and tired of the tossings of life, longs to reach its eternal Home of Love and Bliss. But, however intense and insistent this longing may be, it does not exhaust all the potentialities of the soul's aspiration. The mature soul, unveiling the mystery of life, regards this flight as a defeat and a frustration, and determines to... one's quest with a steady gaze of devotion, and, at the same time, detect the imperfections and impurities of one's nature, and reject them with a firm decision. Calm in the mind, calm in the heart of emotions, calm in the parts of life in which the executive energies have their play, and calm in the very cells of the body—this is what Sri Aurobindo means by calm as an essential element of the foundation ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

Mother’s Agenda 1962  >  January 12, 1962

... supramental life NO LONGER goes through the mind—the mind is an immobile zone of transmission. The least little twitch is enough to upset everything. ( silence ) So we can say that the Supermind can express itself through a terrestrial consciousness only when there is a constant state of perfect equality—equality arising out of spiritual identification with the Supreme: all becomes the Supreme in perfect... consciousness doesn't function in the usual sequence, it functions from the center of spiritual will straight to matter. Page 39 And so long as you can keep that absolute immobility in the mind, the inspiration is absolutely pure—it comes pure. When you can catch and hold onto this while you're speaking, then what comes to you is unmixed too, it stays pure. This is an extremely delicate functioning... point of view is sufficient—and that's relatively easy. But when it comes to incorporating matter into the work, matter as it is in this world where the very starting point is false (we start off in unconsciousness and ignorance), well, it's very difficult. Because, to recover the consciousness it has lost, Matter has had to individualize itself, and for that—for the form to last and retain this possibility ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1962

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10  >  The World is One

... sowing of the seed of a new earth-life—significant for the whole human race, for the East and for the West, particularly for India, for Japan, for Russia and even for England. And today's world has indeed become a world of compact unity in human achievement and also, alas, in human distress! Now if one goes to the very source, the very root of the matter, the cardinal fact of unity is that... the same polarisation, that is to say, reorientation, evocation of vibrations that are a pure or harmonious expression of the unity. Coming next to Mind, the unity here too, is quite marked, clearly discernible. There is only one Mind that rules the myriad mentalities of this world. Thoughts and 1 Laser: Light amplifications due to the stimulated emission of Radiation. Maser:... rocks, welds metals, and works as a surgeon's knife. Page 29 ideas are not in reality personal creations, they are various formulations of the one universal Mind; they enter into and possess individual minds as receptacles, and no doubt in the process undergo particular modifications in their general character. It is a very common experience to see the same or very similar ideas ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Appendix

... purely subjective. But, in fact, Space also would appear by the Page 191 mutual relation of Mind-Space and Matter-Space to be subjective; in other words, both are the original spiritual extension, but it is rendered by mind in its purity into a subjective mind-field and by sense-mind into an objective field of sense-perception. Subjectivity and objectivity are only two sides of one con... aware of a subjective Space-extension in which Page 190 mind itself lives and moves and which is other than physical Space-Time, and yet there is an interpenetration; for our mind can move in its own space in such a way as to effectuate a movement also in space of Matter or act upon something distant in space of Matter. In a still deeper condition of consciousness we are aware of a pure... carrying forms and objects; the two would then be a dual aspect of one and the same self-extension of the cosmic Eternal. A purely physical Space might be regarded as in itself a Property of Matter; but Matter is a creation of Energy in movement. Space therefore in the material world could be Page 189 either a fundamental self-extension of material Energy or its self-formed existence field ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III  >  13: Cellular Time

... scales. If we were able to apply that to the slightest thing, life would begin to abound in miracles—because finally the Miracle is constantly there, it is only clogged by a certain habit of seeing. Matter is a miracle, it is the last miracle: The rejection of falsehood by the mind seeking utter truth is one of the chief causes why mind cannot attain to the settled, rounded and perfect truth, said... of her exhausting life while only taking two hours rest per night. She would go there as if it were home. But as She advanced in this yoga of Matter, She became well aware that that means, that sort of negation or oblivion of Matter complicated her cellular work in a strange way. It is without doubt a great relaxation and rest to escape from the stranglehold of the physical Mind, but it is the exit... scarcely speak of a Mind) this kind of mind-like activity in Matter [the physical Mind] interfering it is sordid. I haven’t yet been able to eliminate it completely. There are moments when it’s brought to a dead halt. Oh, sometimes while I walk for the japa, everything is held like this, inflexibly. 22 [And Mother made a gesture as if She were suddenly immobilized: the physical Mind stops and it is ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Mutation Of Death - III

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Inconscient

... too in the Taittiriya Upanishad Bhrigu Varuni meditating on the Brahman comes first to the conclusion that "Matter is Brahman" and only afterwards discovers Life that is Brahman,—so rising from the materialistic to the vitalistic theory of existence as European thought is now rising,—then Mind that is Brahman and then Knowledge that is Brahman,—so rising to the sensational and the idealistic realisations... see in the realm of Matter; but mankind is not yet entirely ready to recognise the same truth and follow up the same principle in the realm of Mind. It is true that psychology has made an advance and has begun to improve its method. Formerly, it was a crude, scholastic and superficial systematisation of man's ignorance of himself. The surface psychological functionings, will, mind, senses, reason, conscience... the Inconscient. Mind enters in to enlarge the field of activity, but also to multiply errors, perversities, revolts against Nature, departures from the instinctive guiding of the Inconscient Self which generate that vast element of ignorance, falsehood and suffering in human life,—that "much falsehood in us" of which the Vedic poet complains. Where then lies the hope that mind will repair its errors ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7  >  The Novel Alchemy

... something belonging to the supra-physical? But the supra-physical world too has its planes, and this new world may be the field of a spiritual realisation somewhere among these planes beyond life, mind and the above-mind. The Vedantins speak of the world of Brahman, they aim at realising the grand status of Brahman, brahma-loke mahiyate. But theirs is. something outside the created universe, beyond ma... of things darkness was enveloped in darkness, tamo asit tamasa gudham agre, when all was inconscient ocean, apraketam salilam, when the dense unconsciousness of matter ruled at the beginning of creation, the first stirrings of the life-force that burst through this solid darkness took form as a pressure of deep and acute pain. It is this forceful impact of pain that shakes and breaks the dark foundations... take one's stand on this material plane itself and transmute it into a new matter, even as the secret aim of the old alchemists had been to transmute the base metal into gold. And we know how, thanks to modern science, gross solid matter now appears before our eyes in its true form of electricity and light; but it remains matter all the same in spite of its possessing the properties of light and electricity ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

Savitri  >  Savitri Its Architectural Design

...                           ASCENT The Paradise of the Life-Gods; The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind: Mind's Loyal Serfs—Thought, Intelligence, Reason; The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind—the Overhead Powers with their increasing Truth-Consciousness; The Heavens of the Ideal; In the Self of Mind; The World-Soul; The Greater Knowledge, and the route to the Unknowable;... — The Kingdom of Subtle Matter; The World of the Vital, the Glory and the Fall; The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Life— the Powers of the Ignorance; The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life—the Hero, the Artist, the Superman.                          DESCENT Into the Abyss of the Night; Reign of Falsehood, Evil and Darkness; Life's worst Perversions; Hell's... follow, as also the first year of her married life with Satyavan), the drama outlined in the poem extends over a single day (as, for example, in a modern 'prose epic' like James Joyce's Ulysses). The scheme of the poem may be indicated accordingly as follows:          DAWN         (The 'dawn' of the fateful day in Savitri's life, and in the life of evolving humanity: Book I, Cantos 1 and ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

The Life Divine  >  The Gnostic Being

... spirit with mind and life and matter, and a new significance and perfection in the relation, there will be a reversal, a perfecting new significance also of the relations between the spirit and the body it inhabits. In our present way of living the soul expresses itself, as best it can or as badly as it must, through the mind and the vitality, or, more Page 1020 often, allows the mind and the... divine material, for a true rhythm, ordered harmony, beauty in the life of Matter, in the utilisation of Matter. As a result of this new relation between the Spirit and the body, the gnostic evolution will effectuate the spiritualisation, perfection and fulfilment of the physical being; it will do for the body as for the mind and life. Apart from the obscurity, frailties and limitations, which this... truth than the mind can reach; there will be an intuition too of the means of embodying and utilising the truth seen, an operative intuition of its dynamic processes, a direct intimate awareness guiding the life and the physical senses in every step of their action and service to the Spirit when they have to be called in as instruments for the effectuation of process in life and matter. A replacement ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Unusual Experiences and States of Consciousness

... Lamas know something of the laws of occult (mental and vital) energy and how it can be made to act on physical things. That is something which goes beyond mere magic. The direct power of mind-force or life-force upon matter can be extended to an almost illimitable degree—but that has nothing to do with the stone-throwing affair which is of a lower and more external order. In your (2) and (3) different ... other sense, (3) the handling of material objects by mind-energy or vital force, e.g. making a pencil move and write on paper. All these things are possible and have been done. It must be remembered that Energy is fundamentally one in all the planes, only taking more and more dense forms, so there is nothing a priori impossible in mind-energy or life-energy acting directly on material energy and substance;... of Agni) is the agent in producing liquid and solid forms of what is called matter. Obviously a layman can't do these things, unless he has a native "psychic" (that is, occult) faculty and even then he will have to learn the law of the thing before he can use it at will. It is al ways possible to use spiritual force or mind-power or will-power or a certain kind of vital energy to produce effects in ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Sri Aurobindo's Message  >  Next Approaching Step of the Earth's Evolution

... an ignorance of their true Self and Reality in the mind, life and body. It is possible by a certain psychological discipline to remove this veil of separative consciousness and become aware of the true Self, the Divinity within us and all. Sri Aurobindo's teaching states that this One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself;... appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards... towards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection. Sri Aurobindo Page 8 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo's Message

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  Sri Aurobindo from A to Z

... definition of "aparārdha": "Lower half of world-existence: Mind, Life, Matter." 10 This has sanction from Sri Aurobindo's pen, but strictly speaking either in early writings or in a special universe of discourse. It was valid when beyond Mind he put Supermind in a wide connotation. Afterwards it could hold when he extended the range of Mind to 4. p. 29. 5.... and the lower half. The higher half is constituted of Sat, Chit, Ananda, Mahas (the supramental) - the lower half of Mind, Life, Matter. This line is the intermediary Overmind. In certain contexts, the knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemispheres, is where Mind and Supermind meet with a veil between them. No doubt, the little lacuna we have somewhat heavily put our finger... Overmind, of which Mind is the extreme lopsided diminution. Thus The Life Divine ¹¹ says of Overmind: "It is a power, though the highest power, of the lower hemisphere." A reference to the Dictionary's own section on Overmind" can broadly clarify the point. With assistance from the omitted portion of a passage appearing in that section and from a sentence in The Life Divine, ¹² we ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Indian Culture - Past, Present and Future

... n of world and life. This conflict can be resolved only if it is discovered that Spirit is not the negation of Matter, but that Matter itself is an expression of the Spirit, and that Spirit is unfolding itself gradually in Matter so that there would be a total spiritual transformation of material life, here itself, ih eva, in this earthly Earth. There is no need to renounce Matter in order to embrace... Purano-Tantric was the second stage. 2 In the former, an attempt was made to approach the mass-mind through the physical mind of man and make it familiar with the Godhead in the universe through the symbol of the sacrificial fire (yajna). In the latter, deeper approaches of man's inner mind and life to the Divine in the universe were attempted through the development of great religious movements... affirms that deep within the heart and high above the Page 457 mind there is accessible to our consciousness a realm of truths, powers and ecstasies that we can, by methodised effort of Yoga, 1 realise in the direct experience, can even hold permanently, and express in varying degrees through our instruments the mind, life and body. This affirmation has conditioned the entire development of ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  The Ego and the Dualities

... "aware" of things. Page 64 Why is this mind not able at present to act freely ? Because mind now depends upon matter. Mind is encased in matter, therefore its dependence upon matter has become now very great, almost an established habit. Mind is not operating in its freedom and purity. There is a barrier between mind and matter and the normal waking consciousness is so much habituated... movement is from darkness to Light and life passes from the darkness of the Inconscient All to the creation of partial light and play of mind and senses, ego-centric life subject to dualities on to the superconscient All which is the realm of Light. And this higher Light can penetrate and come down into mind—the mental being of man. When it comes to man's mind, it first takes the form of intuition... they are representations of them. Man's thirst for knowledge is not confined to the knowledge of the Becoming. He wants to know the Being. He wants to know 'what' is the world, what is matter, what is life, what is man. Ideas about these do not entirely satisfy him : conceptual knowledge is incomplete without experience : man wants what may be called "concrete" experience. An illustration may ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

The Life Divine  >  The Progress to Knowledge - God, Man and Nature

... . Equally, by virtue of this unity, the knowledge of the universe must lead the mind of man to the same large revelation. For he cannot know Nature as Matter and Force and Life without being driven to scrutinise the relation of mental consciousness with these principles, and once he knows the real nature of mind, he must go inevitably beyond every surface appearance. He must discover the will and... of the outer life, and that life is not the highest or last term of our being. There is a mind in us, there is a soul and spirit, and our life has no true value if it has not in it a growing consciousness, a developing mind, and if life and mind are not an expression, an instrument, a means of liberation and fulfilment for the soul, the indwelling Spirit. But the progress of the mind, the growth... derive and to whom they are drawn,—that is the truth of Being as man's highest God-conception sees it. The same Absolute revealed in all relativities, the Spirit who embodies Himself in cosmic Mind and Life and Matter and of whom Nature is the self of energy so that all she seems to create is the Self and Spirit variously manifested in His own being to His own conscious force for the delight of His various ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Mind-Consciousness: Its Achievements and Failures

... there, loses mind and body, sheds life from it and merges itself in the supreme Purusha, is delivered from individual existence." 1 But a deeper and higher spiritual exploration reveals the fact that the above assumption is not correct after all. Mind is not the highest principle of cosmic existence, with only the pure Spirit, the Impersonal Absolute beyond itself. As a matter of fact, there... force and joy of the higher reality. We have to realise Matter as a sense-created mould of Spirit, a vehicle for all manifestation of the light, force and joy of Sachchidananda in the highest conditions of terrestrial being and activity. We have to see Life as a channel for the infinite Force divine and break the barrier of a sense-created and mind-created farness and division from it so that divine... 3 The Life Divine, pp. 162-63. Page 116 Thus we find Sri Ramakrishna declaring: "The Knowledge of Brahman cannot be attained except through the annulment of Mind. A Guru told his disciple, 'Give me your mind and I shall give you knowledge.' " 1 The Rajarshi Janaka of old declared, "Now I have awakened and discovered the thief that is Mind; I must kill it ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  26 June 1957

... subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible. It should be possible and it is believed to be possible Page 128 for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit from its subtlety into the state of gross Matter directly by the... has happened and is happening on earth, but as far as I know, this has not yet been achieved, this concrete permanence. Yet, it was of matter, for there was sight, touch, hearing. But hearing doesn't need to be very material: the sounds of the subtle physical life, its vibrations can be heard very well; and quite strangely, it is hearing and smell which seem to be the most permanent in the subtle physical... enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such a form by this method of direct transmutation without passing through birth by the sex process or undergoing any degradation or any of the heavy limitations in the growth and development of its mind and material body inevitable to our present way of existence. It might ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-3-Part-1

... "In the beginning an unknowing Force, In the middle an embodied striving soul, In its end a silent spirit denying life." This dark world of Matter is unwilling to let go its hold on spirit because it is afraid lest escaping from the prison-house of matter it should merge into the Unknowable, leaving "unfulfilled the world's miraculous fate." For, the world has a fate, a better future... experience of life in the world as it is today can give — something. But, it is too little and "cannot fill the spirit's sacred thirst." Something seems to be missing which is badly wanted to make life perfect. In the absence of that something all other things acquired by man lose their significance. To Aswapathy came that experience— "The labour to know seemed a vain strife of Mind, All knowledge... a Truth beyond the mind's appeal." All names and forms completely disappeared and all the systems of the world disappeared one by one. The whole universe appeared like a veil and behind that was seen the transcendent Divine with "his feet firm-based on Life's stupendous wings." The movement of eternal Time returned to His timeless eternity and nothing of the cosmic mind's conception remained ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  On His Published Prose Writings

... formed in the material itself. All is involved as potentiality in the earth consciousness—life, mind, supermind—but it is only when Life Force descended from the life plane into the material that active and conscious organised life was possible—so it was only when mind descended that the latent mind in Matter awoke and could be organised. The supramental descent must create the same kind of opening... what seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally... Gita. Is this a good idea? Yes. It does not matter whether it is mental, if it helps you. These things often help the mind to get into the psychic attitude. 25 June 1933 Page 102 A Note on the Terminology of The Mother (1) Falsehood and Ignorance Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flows from it and all that is natural to ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Physical Consciousness

... —as experienced by the outward sense mind and senses. But that is not the whole of Matter. There is a subtle physical also with a subtler consciousness in it which can (for instance) go to a distance from the body and yet feel and be aware of things in a not merely mental or vital way. As for mind and vital they are everywhere—there is an obscure mind and life even in the cells of the body, the stones... mechanical mind is a sort of engine—whatever comes to it it puts into the machine and goes on turning it round and round—no matter what it is. From what you describe it seems that you have got into contact with the mechanical mind whose nature is to go on turning Page 207 round in a circle on the thoughts that come into it. This sometimes happens when the thinking mind is quiet. This... mean the physical mind and the physical vital as well as the body consciousness proper. This physical mind and physical vital are concerned with the small ordinary movements of life and are governed by a very external view of things and by habitual small reactions and do not respond at once to the inner consciousness not because they are in active opposition to it, as the vital mind and vital proper ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV  >  Correspondence 1945

... seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a Spiritual Consciousness and finally... inner realisation and life did not matter or if there were no collective life or work or none that had any importance. But this is not the case here: we have undertaken a work which includes life and action and the physical world. In what I am trying to do, the spiritual realisation is the first necessity but it cannot be complete without an outer realisation also in life, in man, in this world... this and keep it in mind, Krishnaprem’s experience and the image in which he saw it should be sufficiently clear. The needle is this power in the soul and the card with its directions the guiding indications given by it to the mind and life. The ship is the psychological structure of ideas, beliefs, spiritual and psychic experiences, the whole building of the inner life in which one moves onward ...

Dilip Kumar Roy   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV

Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision  >  The Problem of Collective Life

... beautiful. But still, mind constantly feels duality, a constant opposition between two mutually contradictory elements in life : good and evil, God and Satan, Light and Darkness, Matter and Spirit, conscient and inconscicnt, form and formless, infinite and finite, these appear to the mind to be fundamental and therefore eternal antinomies. But it is the nature of Mind that is responsible for setting... of supreme Intelligence in Matter and in Life. It seems, therefore, that the Inconscient is only a mask assumed by the Spirit that is involved in it and it imposes the law of difficult emergence on the process of slow unfolding of the Spirit. It begins from Matter in which the law of fragmentation in the form of atom seems to reign; it organises Life round a cell, and a Mind round an ego, and must in... Let us take Matter, for instance. All Matter is one in its essential constitution but the objects it gives rise to are innumerable and infinitely various. Page 56 In the same way. Energy is one, yet there are many forms of it, like heat, light, electricity, etc. Life is one but there are so many types of it and each type further deploys itself in innumerable forms. Mind, as an instrument ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo - some aspects of His Vision

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  The Difficulties of Yoga

... and prejudices. One can depend on one's reason in other matters provided the mind tries to be open and impartial and free from undue passion and is prepared to concede that it is not always right and may err; but it is not safe to depend on it alone in matters which escape its jurisdiction, especially in spiritual realisation and in matters of Yoga which belong to a different order of knowledge. ... resolve to give an aim to your life and erect the higher ideal towards which you have to grow. Just as the mind can destroy the force of life and its balance, so it can do that also, it can help to restore the power on a new basis and acquire a new and greater force and true balance. But for that you must have the will to do it. To create Page 626 the will the mind must press for faith and vision... it into accordance with a higher ideal steadily held before you. The present nature of man is egoistic in motive, full of falsehoods created by the Ignorance into which he is born and which the mind and life accept in order to follow their ego's aims and desires. By introspection one comes to see that, but by itself that can only create distrust of oneself, loss of motive to action, cynicism and weakness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Karma and Freedom

... combatants get so mixed and confounded together that to distinguish them the minds of the sages even are perplexed and bewildered. And it would seem sometimes as if this distinction hardly existed except for man and the spirits who urge him, perhaps since he ate of that tree of dual knowledge in the garden; for matter knows it not and life below man troubles itself but little, if at all, with moral differences... freedom, born perhaps of something in him by which, however finite be his mind and life and body, he participates in the nature of infinity? For when we look round on the world as it is, everything seems to be by necessity and to move under a leaden constraint and compulsion. This is the aspect of the unthinking world of Force and Matter in which we live; and even in ourselves, in man the thinker, how little... them no conscious action of mind and a conscious active mental intelligence is to our notions the very basis and standing-ground, if not the whole stuff of soul-existence. If Matter is all, then we may very easily conclude that all is a Karma of material energy which is governed by some inherent incomprehensible mechanically legislating Necessity. But then we see that Life seems to be made of a different ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Essays on the Gita  >  The Lord of the Sacrifice

... on our finite parts of mind and body. But if that be all, then, first, works may well be whittled down and reduced to a minimum, may be confined to what Nature's compulsion absolutely will have from our bodies; and secondly, even if there is no reduction to a minimum,—since action does not matter and inaction also is no object,—then the nature of the works also does not matter. Arjuna, once having attained... will of the divine Soul master of her works and inhabitant of her forms. It is for his satisfaction that she descends into the absorption of the forms of things and the works of life and mind and returns again through mind and self-knowledge to the conscious possession of the Soul that dwells within her. There is first an involving of self and all it is or means in an evolution of phenomena; there... Page 126 to his desire. The egoistic soul in a world of sacrifice is as if a thief or robber who takes what these Powers bring to him and has no mind to give in return. He misses the true meaning of life and, since he does not use life and works for the enlargement and elevation of his being through sacrifice, he lives in vain. Only when the individual being begins to perceive and acknowledge ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4  >  The World is One

... the sowing of the seed of a new earth-life – significant for the whole human race, for the East and for the West, particularly for India, for Japan, for Russia and even for England. And today's world has indeed become a world of compact unity in human achievement and also alas, in human distress! Now if one goes to the very source, the very root of the matter, the cardinal fact of unity is that of... harmonious expression of the unity. Coming next to Mind, the unity here too, is quite marked, clearly discernible. There is only one Mind that rules the myriad mentalities of this world. Thoughts and ideas are not in reality personal creations, they are various formulations of the one universal Mind; they enter into and possess individual minds as receptacles, and no doubt in the process undergo... because of this vital unity that there arises the phenomenon known as contagion or pest and pestilence – that is to say, mass-movements are occasioned by one indivisible life-urge. A common suffering or a common elation is normal to human life. The fundamental unity, here too, works through discord and disunion, battle and conflict, denial and negation. Here too the drive or purpose of progress and of ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4

Teilhard de Chardin and our Time  >  The Cosmic and the Christly

... ng that instinct. But the Divine at all times in matter, through matter, even as matter, is his basic and primary religion. Teilhard begins his life with the divinity investing the visible tangible world-substance and it is at first explicitly dissociated from "the little lord Jesus". In "something that 'shone' at the heart of matter" we have already the "diaphany" of the Divine, but there... coextensive with space and time, the universe of Matter is a manifesting body. Looking on him as Super-Matter, we may even say that his cosmic soul is as a Super-body, of which an Page 19 evolving projection is the space-time universe.   If our interpretation strikes one as ending on a rather exaggerative note, we have only to bear in mind Teilhard's own observations to the same c... Christly       The core of Teilhard's spiritual life is laid bare in its primary colour by the reminiscence he has left to us of his earliest religious experience. He 1 writes:   "I was certainly no more than six or seven when I began to feel myself drawn by Matter - or more strictly by something that 'shone' at the heart of Matter. At this age when I suppose other children feel their ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Teilhard de Chardin and our Time

Essays Divine and Human  >  The Way of Yoga

... being & mutable becoming, that which is supernatural in it & that [which] is natural. Everything in existence has something in it which seeks to transcend itself; Matter moves towards becoming Life, Life moves towards becoming Mind, Mind moves towards becoming ideal Truth, ideal Truth rises to become divine & infinite Spirit. Page 335 The reason is that every symbol, being a partial expression... assured of its natural existence, it seeks the supernatural. Every nature is a step towards some supernature, something natural to itself but supernatural to what is below it. Life is supernatural to Matter, Mind supernatural to Life, ideal being supernatural to mental being, infinite being supernatural to ideal being. So too man is supernatural to the animal, God is supernatural to man. Man too as soon... living body among living bodies, though housed in life & matter yet a mental being among mental beings, being & remaining all this that we are apparently, yet to exceed all this apparent manhood and become in the body what we are really, God, spirit, supreme & infinite, pure Bliss, pure Force, pure Light, this is our fulfilment. Our whole apparent life is a becoming, but all becoming has for its goal ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Letters on Yoga - III  >  Sky, Weather, Night and Dawn

... of spirituality in the mental planes. The world of the Higher Mind is above those directly connected with the body consciousness. The higher consciousness on any of its levels is seen usually as a sky or ether, but when felt through the vital it is often perceived as a sea. Sat, Chit, Ananda, Supermind, Mind, Life, Matter are the seven [ seas of consciousness mentioned in the Veda ].... psychic) or other consciousnesses above the mind—e.g. the higher mind, intuition, overmind etc. Akasha as the ether indicates also the infinite. The sky in the heart is the chidakash. It is seen usually above the head, but when it is seen in the heart, that means the opening of the heart to the higher consciousness. The blue sky is that of the Higher Mind—the nearest of the planes between human... vision you saw of the snow is probably a symbol of the consciousness in a condition of purity, silence and peace like a snowy ground; in that a new life (psychic, spiritual as indicated by the flowers) appears in place of the old mental and vital life which has been covered by that mantle of snowy whiteness. Clouds are a symbol of obscurity. The lightning is a symbol of the dynamic force ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - III

Science, Materialism, Mysticism  >  New Trends in biological Theory

... the other way round and explain genetics and physiological events by a hidden or disguised consciousness at work - matter being veiled life, life veiled mind, mind veiled Supermind, as Sri Aurobindo would have it. After all, what we know as matter is, to make a pertinent pun, a matter of experience and of conceptual extrapolation of experience - in other words, the same awareness which is witness to... objectively exists? We have already indicated the direction in which the answer to the first question must lie: a more-than-human Consciousness relates itself to itself in the form of mind, life- force and matter which are all projected experience-moulds of that Consciousness. But, from the argumentative angle, no answer is immediately necessary. For, the alternatives to the interaction-theory pose... composite species-pattern of life. He comments on the mysteriousness which may be alleged against this experience: It is important to remember that in the concept of the individual mind we are faced with a mystery no less remarkable. The mind cannot be anchored to this or that group of cells that make up the brain. The community of cells making up the body has a mind beyond the individual cells ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Science, Materialism, Mysticism

Indian Identity and Cultural Continuity  >  Indian Culture Past,Present and Future

... n of world and life. This conflict can be resolved only if it is discovered that Spirit is not the negation of Matter, but that Matter itself is an expression of the Spirit, and that Spirit is unfolding itself gradually in Matter so that there would be a total spiritual transformation of material life, here itself, ih eva, in this earthly Earth. There is no need to renounce Matter in order to embrace... Purano-Tantric was the second stage. 2 In the former, an attempt was made to approach the mass-mind through the physical mind of man and make it familiar with the Godhead in the universe through the symbol of the sacrificial fire (yajna). In the latter, deeper approaches of man's inner mind and life to the Divine in the universe were attempted through the development of great religious movements... experience. It affirms that deep within the heart and high above the mind there is accessible to our consciousness a realm of truths, powers and ecstasies that we can, by methodised effort of Yoga, 1 realise in the direct experience, can even hold permanently, and express in varying degrees through our instruments the mind, life and body. This affirmation has conditioned the entire development of ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Indian Identity and Cultural Continuity

Isha Upanishad  >  Self-Realisation

... result. Real knowledge begins with the perception of essential oneness,—one Matter, one Life, one Mind, one Soul playing in many forms. When this Soul of things is seen to be Sachchidananda, then knowledge is perfected. For we see Matter to be only a play of Life, Life a play of Mind energising itself in substance, Mind a play of Truth or causal Idea representing truth of being variously in all... the higher Nature, parā prakṛti . Mind, life and body are the lower nature, aparā prakṛti . The state of Sachchidananda is the higher half of universal existence, parārdha , the nature of which is Immortality, Amritam. The state of mental existence in Matter is the lower half, Page 33 aparārdha , the nature of which is death, Mrityu. Mind and life in the body are in the state of... shall he have grief who sees everywhere oneness? SELF-REALISATION Brahman is, subjectively, Atman, the Self or immutable existence of all that is in the universe. Everything that changes in us, mind, life, body, character, temperament, action, is not our real and unchanging self, but becomings of the Self in the movement, jagatī . In Nature, therefore, all things that exist, animate or inanimate ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Record of Yoga  >  Automatic Writings, c. 1920

... things. The last life I was a little bit of a scientist, something of a philosopher, dabbled in politics too and in literature, but could not get much success. I was a good critic, but not a creator. In England. You would not know my name. The same thing, the curiosity of my intelligence; I had a mind that liked to inquire into the future of humanity and I had advanced views on the matter. No, you can... of the thinking mind into the life mind of the animal. How do you suppose a human couple to be suddenly born of a couple of monkeys? By stages of ascent, each involving an influx of more and more mind, the first into an original animal, not necessarily the ape, but one that has now disappeared after providing the necessary basis. Suppose, an animal that has evolved the life mind to its Page... violent pressure upon natural psychological forces to suppress some, to create others. The transformation attempted is of the nature of a scheme made in the mind and imposed on Page 1431 the life forces. This means that many of the life forces lie inert and unconverted and a constant renewal of currents [has] 4 to be made to galvanise things into effective action. If a constant struggle ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Record of Yoga

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2  >  William Blake

... declare that it is the lower, the under layer alone that matters: to one "the masses", to the other "the instincts". Their wild imperative roars: "Sweep away this pseudo-higher; let the instincts rule, let the pro-letariat dictate!" But more characteristic, Monsieur Thibon has made another discovery which gives the whole value and ¹ The Life Divine ² The Times Literary Supplement, January... place; what matters is that each Page 127 should be in his right place. For the atomized society let us substitute an organic society, one in which every man will be free to do what he alone is qualified and able to do." So far so good. For it is not far enough. The being or becoming that is demanded in fulfilment of the divine advent in humanity must go to the very roots of life and nature... into the substance and form too of the Highest. Viewed in this light, Blake's memorable mantra attains a deeper and more momentous significance. For it is not merely Earth-the senses and life and Matter that are to be uplifted and affianced to Heaven, but all that remains hidden within the bowels of the Earth, the subterranean regions of man's consciousness, the slimy viscous undergrowths, the ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2

Aspects of Sri Aurobindo  >  A Masterpice of Distortion

... spells the expression of the supreme Divine in all the evolutionary terms — mind, life-force, even matter. The Supermind holds in itself the ultimate truth, the archetypal model of these terms: a divine mentality of which our seeking mind is a half-lit image, a divine vitality whose semi-effective reflex is our struggling life-force, a divine materiality which our embodied existence shadows forth with... with its fumbling stress towards health and beauty and secure duration. Within mind, life-force and matter the Supermind itself is concealed: it is their inmost substance, with its absoluteness their implicit dharma: the concealed or involved Supermind is the urge Page 209 behind the emergence or evolution of our nature-powers. But the urge cannot be fully successful — labouring as... In the matter of "descent of the Divine" our self-appointed "Daniel-come-to-judgment" is ridiculous. He says that Sri Aurobindo talked only of the Divine descending and completely ignored the question of the human ascending. Actually what Sri Aurobindo said is that ascending is not enough: there must be the descent of what is ascended to: then alone can our nature-parts and life and the world ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Aspects of Sri Aurobindo

On The Mother  >  Mother on Education

... education may have to take precedence, but psychic discipline is truly the heart of the matter. The journey to the soul may be long and difficult, yet the goal is not impossible of attainment. Once the way is open to the psychic centre, the other disciplines will be easy of mastery. Rightly tempered and sensitized, the mind or the reasoning intellect can be a great helper when subordinated to the soul. The... deformities. A basic knowledge of the human anatomy, of food and exercise, of health and hygiene, is certainly necessary, but there are always individual variations which must also be borne in mind. In the matter of food, tastes could differ, and what is appetising to one may be repulsive to another. It would be unwise therefore to force children to eat the kind of food which they intensely dislike. In... new world." But, she cautions, "what is needed is to express it gradually in the details of practical life". 9 Wonders are many, there have been great discoveries, but nothing is more wonderful, or is a greater discovery, than the soul. It is not the super-subtle or marvelously resilient mind that can run the quarry of the psychic being to its lair, it is not vital determination or physical agility ...

K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   On The Mother

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Remarks on Spiritual Figures in India

... is with only purification, enlightenment of the mind and heart and quiescence of the vital. It means a bringing down of a Divine Consciousness static and dynamic into all these parts and the entire replacement of the present consciousness by that. This we find unveiled and unmixed above mind, life and body and not in mind, life and body. It is a matter of the undeniable experience of many that this... him to be a great power for changing the world-mind in a spiritual direction and it may be assumed that the mission came to the disciple from the Master. The details of his action are another matter. As for proceeding like a blind man, that is a feeling that easily comes when a Power greater than one's own mind is pushing one to a large action; for the mind does not realise intellectually all that it... this not be called an example of the transformed mind and vital, for he seems to have been engrossed in the Self in the waking life as well as in meditation. I think Ramatirtha's realisations were more mental than any thing else. He had opening of the higher mind and a realisation there of the cosmic Self, but I find no evidence of a transformed mind and vital; that transformation is not a result ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Sri Aurobindo And The Mother - On India  >  Sri Aurobindo - On the Present Crisis

... common general life-motives, a unification by need and the pressure of struggle with outside forces. It is such a change and such a reshaping of life for which humanity is blindly beginning to seek, now more and more with a sense that its very existence depends upon finding the way. The evolution of mind working upon life has developed an organization of the activity of mind and use of matter which can... same unchanged human ego. Nor can human mind and life be cut into perfection-even into what is thought to be perfection, a constructed substitute,-by any kind of social machinery; matter can be so cut, thought can be so cut, but in our human existence matter and thought are only instruments for the soul and the life-force. Machinery cannot form the soul and life-force into standardized shapes; it can... them, make soul and mind inert and stationary and regulate the life's outward action; but if this is to be effectively done, coercion and compression of the mind and life are indispensable and that again spells either unprogressive stability or decadence.     There is the possibility that in the swing back from a mechanistic idea of life and society the human mind may seek refuge ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo And The Mother - On India

Letters on Yoga - II  >  A Realistic Adwaita

... what seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally... manifestation. That is true even of forms other than constructed physical or constructed life-forms; they do not disintegrate but appear and disappear or at most fade out of manifestation. Mind itself as opposed to particular thoughts is something essential and permanent; it is a power of the Divine Consciousness. So is life, as opposed to constructed living bodies; so I think is what we call material energy... the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the mental, into the Supramental consciousness and the Supramental being, the Truth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally Page 396 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II

The Mother with Letters on the Mother  >  The Mother's Attitude towards Quarrels between the Sadhaks

... as you can under the circumstances without allowing yourself to be upset by these things. Any improvement in the conditions of life or work in the Asram depends on each one trying to progress and open within to the true consciousness, growing spiritually within and not minding about the faults or conduct of others. No change can come by outer means; for this reason the Mother has long ceased to intervene... change and progress matter for you and for that trust wholly in the Mother's force and her grace which is with you—do not let things or people disturb you,—for compared with the truth within and the journey to the full Light of the Mother's Consciousness these things have no importance. 6 December 1935 It is not possible for Mother to intervene personally in these matters. Formerly she used to... expression and attitude. How can it be so? Under these circumstances what clarity can come from the thinking mind or the psychic? The psychic clarity would have told you that Mother was not likely to tell a lie and that if she says she did not tell you to go and that there was nothing in her mind except to give you help and strength since she saw you were disturbed, she must be telling you the truth ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Mother with Letters on the Mother

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  9: Tlemcen 2: At the Furthermost Bounds of Evolution

... reality of a heaven cut off from Matter, and the single reality of Matter cut off from what could cure it. And, well, it was not a comfortable position to be caught between the two. Something as obscure, per­haps, as the transition from the fish to the mammal. Perilous Experiences But the passage exists; there is a connection. One does not leap from the mind's summits to the pure and formless... death once before wresting its secret from it. For Death, according to the ancient Scriptures, is the guardian of Knowledge. 24 We are in the time of the last sedition: against Mind in Matter and death in Matter. Perhaps one and the same thing. The supreme obstacle is the supreme door. × ... evolution, it is likely that the first levels of the mind would appear to him like a distant heaven, far above, which he might only touch in an utter cessation of all that makes up his ape life—but how could that mental heaven enter straight down his consciousness? There is no room for it, the place is all cluttered with the many mechanisms of his ape life; an abrupt “descent" of the mental heaven into his ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

The Life Divine  >  The Knowledge and the Ignorance

... l reality: for if even the matter of the most material universe is nothing but a status of being of Spirit made an object of sense, envisaged by the Spirit's own consciousness as the stuff of its forms, much more must the life-force that constitutes itself into form of Matter, and the mind-consciousness that throws itself out as Life, and the Supermind that develops Mind as one of its powers, be nothing... although shared by Matter and Life, has its roots in the nature of Mind whose very office it is to measure off, limit, particularise and thereby divide. But Mind also is a universal principle, is One, is Brahman, and therefore it has a tendency to a unifying and universalising knowledge as well as to that which marks off and particularises. The particularising faculty of Mind only becomes Ignorance... forms are present in their more concrete truth in some deeper depth or on some higher level of power of our consciousness. Matter and life may be the form of realities of which Mind touches only an incomplete figure; Spirit may have secret and supernal realities of which Mind is only a partial and rudimentary receiver, transcriber or transmitter. It would then be only by an examination of other supramental ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Conquest of Sleep

... with the help of the insufficient and inefficient light of mind-consciousness. It is only through the descent and concomitant emergence of the divine Gnosis, Supermind, here in the midst of the evolutionary Becoming, that Matter and material body can be rid of their inertia and inconscience and a proper equation established between the life-energy playing in an individual formation and the surges... become conscious masters of another significant phenomenon of our sleep-life: the possibility of entrance into the "su ṣ upti of Brahman or Brahmaloka." 2 (C) Attainment of Sachchidananda immobility : Once before, we have already made a passing reference to this state of luminous rest in sleep. As a matter of fact, for sleep to be at all worth the name fulfilling its role of the... fashioning Matter's frame, Dreaming the dreams of its unknowing sleep, And watched the unconscious Force that built the stars. He has learnt the Inconscient's workings and its law... Its somnolence founded the universe, Its obscure waking makes the world seem vain... He must call light into its dark abysms, Else never can Truth conquer Matter's sleep ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Life and Death in the Ashram

... of her action or a permanent change in it or in the life of the Ashram ending in a complete withdrawal from spiritual life and an apotheosis of the deity of Sport. Those Page 782 who voiced this idea or declared that sport would henceforth be obligatory on all were indulging in fantasies that have no claim to credibility. As a matter of fact the period of tension is over and after the second... more unfit for sadhana. So there is absolutely no reason why we should insist on your taking it up or why you should trouble your mind with the supposition that we want you to do it. You are surely quite free, as everybody is quite free, to take your own way in such matters. 28 April 1949 I then come to the main point, namely that the intention attributed to the Mother of concentrating permanently... serious troubles and difficulties and the settlement of matters of great importance. All this has certainly nothing to do with sports and she had little occasion to think of it at all apart from the short time in the evening. There was here no ground for the idea that she was neglecting the sadhaks or the sadhana or thinking of turning her mind solely or predominantly to sport and still less for imputing ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Letters on Yoga - II  >  The Call and the Capacity

... will within to face all difficulties and go through, no matter how long it takes, then the path can be taken. A mere restless dissatisfaction with the ordinary life is not a sufficient preparation for this Yoga. A positive inner call, a Page 27 strong will and a great steadiness are necessary for success in the spiritual life. Knowledge of the way is not enough—one must tread... Destiny When someone is destined for the Path all circumstances, Page 30 through all the deviations of mind and life, help in one way or another to lead him to it. It is his own psychic being within him and the Divine Power above that use to that end the vicissitudes both of mind and outward circumstance. A spiritual opportunity is not a thing that should be lightly thrown away with... else—power, ambition, etc.—which counterbalances the inner call that the logic is no longer applicable. Supramental realisation is another matter: I am speaking now of the realisation of the Divine, of the contact with the Divine, through whatever lever, heart or mind, or both. In your case it is likely to come through the heart, through increase of bhakti or psychic purification of the heart: that is ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  Problems in Human Relations

... common to human nature and few escape them. The human mind is not really conscious of itself—that is why in Yoga one has always to look and see what is in oneself and become more and more conscious. In ordinary life people always judge wrongly because they judge by mental standards and generally by conventional standards. The human mind is an instrument not of truth but of ignorance and error... own will, recognising that self-control and self-mastery are necessary even in the ordinary life and still more necessary—quite indispensable—in Yoga. X 's vision of Y and the spirit among you which it expresses belong to the old quarrelling egoistic movement that spoilt your sadhana. It does not matter whether the vision has some foundation or none. Neither he nor anyone else need trouble about... the sadhana. Of opinions and discussions there is no end and it is much better to remain inside and advance towards another light than the mind's—though there is more fire of a smoky kind than light in these discussions. It is not always possible in life and work to avoid friction and collision; but it can be minimised or deprived of its worst developments if one has a large understanding of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny  >  Freedom and Discipline in the Ashram

... its life can become aware of itself and develop; the free play of mind and life is essential for the growth of consciousness: for mind and life are the soul's only instrumentation until a higher instrumentation develops; they must not be inhibited in their action or rendered rigid, unplastic and unprogressive. The difficulties or disorders engendered by the growth of the individual mind and life cannot... Ashram group-life which aspires to embody his life-work in one of its important applied aspects. Here are some excerpts from that letter: "You seem to say that people should be allowed complete freedom with only such discipline as they choose to impose upon themselves; that might do if the only thing to be done were for each individual to get some inner realisation and life did not matter or if there... forced compression and imposed unanimity of mind and life and a mechanical organisation of the communal existence. A unanimity of this kind can only be maintained by a compression of all freedom of thought and life, and that Page 61 must bring about either the efficient stability of a termite civilisation or a drying up of the springs of life and a swift or slow decadence. It is through ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Its Role, Responsibility and Future Destiny

Mother or The Divine Materialism - I  >  13: And the Earth

... her to the very body of the earth ... as if one could not touch a speck of Matter without touching all of Matter: I now have a constant and PRECISE perception of the universal unity that determines the absolute interdependence of all actions, 15 She noted at the time. "Precise," that is, a material fact, not the mind's haze. A mute revolt had begun to stir in the earth, spreading its seismic waves... is an obstacle, 12 She had already noted in 1912. As a matter of fact, we can well imagine that had some higher ape wanted to let a single mental vibration pass through, he would have had to become the equivalent of “nothing" in the ape world; but what is remarkable here is that the point of junction with the new forces is not the mind but the body. The body is the bridge. Each new evo­lutionary... the fantastic, general breakdown of this symbol of the Mind. Then a child shall destroy her, 22 Sri Aurobindo said before 1914. It will be overwhelmingly simple: no one could ever have imagined it. A global heap of rust. And we will move on to the forgot­ten invention—we will be reduced to it. That great reaction of the cult of Matter, which has been very useful to knead it and make it less ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The Divine Materialism - I

Sri Aurobindo's Message  >  The Old Yoga and the New Goal

... Yogas regard this life as an illusion or a passing phase; the supramental Yoga alone regards it as a thing created by the Divine for a progressive manifestation and takes the fulfilment of the life and the body for its object. The Supramental is simply the Truth-Consciousness and what it brings in its descent is the full truth of life, the full truth of consciousness in Matter. One has indeed to... rises, the more one can bring down below. No doubt, life and body have not to remain the ignorant, imperfect, impotent things they are now; but why should a change to fuller life-power, fuller body-power be considered something aloof, cold and undesirable? The utmost Ananda the body and life are now capable of is a brief excitement of the vital mind or the nerves or the cells which is limited, imperfect... liberation, if a few devotees dance in a frenzy of love, god-intoxication and bliss, and an entire race, devoid of life and intelligence, sinks to the depths Page 13 of darkness and inertia? First one must have all sorts of partial experience on the mental level, flooding the mind with spiritual delight and illuminating it with spiritual light; afterwards one climbs upwards. Unless one ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo's Message

Essays on the Gita  >  The Field and its Knower

... transience between which the outward world moves. But once seen in the substance and light of this eternity, the world also becomes other than it seems to the mind and senses; for then we see the universe no longer as a whirl of mind and life and matter or a mass of the determinations of energy and substance, but as no other than this eternal Brahman. A spirit who immeasurably fills and surrounds all this... strong turn within towards the things that really matter, a philosophic perception of the true sense and large principles of existence, a tranquil continuity of inner spiritual knowledge and light, the Yoga of an unswerving devotion, love of God, the heart's deep and constant adoration of the universal and eternal Presence. The one object to which the mind of spiritual knowledge must be turned is... ill-lighted matters. He asks to learn of the Purusha and the Prakriti; he inquires of the Page 409 field of being and the knower of the field and of knowledge and the object of knowledge. Here is contained the sum of all the knowledge of self and the world that is still needed if the soul is to throw off its natural ignorance and staying its steps on a right use of knowledge, of life, of works ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10  >  Love and Love

... ess, even so in and through the same consciousness, the physical cell also has the privilege of establishing a contact with the Supreme Substance. What is true of man's mind and life is true also of the material cell. Even as life impulses and mental knowings can be uplifted and transfigured, these physical cells too may achieve the same transfiguration because in man all these elements share equally... infinite vitality. Thus the problem is, if one cell is essentially immortal, then how can they be made, in their collective life, to avoid conflict and decay, undergo rejuvenation and youthfulness. Science in a practical way through material means tries to prolong life as far as possible, as for us, we are not limited to that necessity. What we have to do is to clean the energy which is now... error but a power, a force and energy. Love, even human love, is not to be amputated or rooted out but like gold as ore, it has to be purified. The work is hard but it is worth the trouble. As a matter of fact, however, all the divine qualities— supernals as they have been sometimes called—are of that nature, that is to say, all are universal they are never nonexistent, they are never and can never ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4  >  Love and Love

... ess, even so in and through the same consciousness, the physical cell also has the privilege of establishing a contact with the Supreme Substance. What is true of man's mind and life is true also of the material cell. Even as life impulses and mental knowings can be uplifted and transfigured, these physical cells too may achieve the same transfiguration because in man all these elements share equally... an infinite. vitality. Thus the problem is, if one cell is essentially immortal, then how can they be made, in their collective life, to avoid conflict and decay, undergo rejuvenation and youthfulness. Science in a practical way through material means tries to prolong life as far as possible, as for us, we are not limited to that necessity. What we have to do is to clean the energy which is now obscure... error but a power, a force and energy. Love, even human love, is not to be amputated or rooted out but like gold as ore, it has to be purified. The work is hard but it is worth the trouble. As a matter of fact, however, all the divine qualities – supernals as they have been sometimes called – are of that nature, that is to say, all are universal; they are never non -existent, they are never and can ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4

Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1  >  Supermind and Sachchidananda

... everything is — it is only concealed, not manifest. The Divine is there below in the inconscience itself, mind and life are concealed in Matter, so is Supermind and Sachchidananda. The below is not something outside the Divine Existence. But as mind manifested in Matter only after the descent of Mind opened it into action, so it is with Supermind. You have not noticed the word "opening" which implies that... how can he have command of the Supermind which is far above mind? Even Overmind is far above him.         As the mind has its corresponding divine plane the vital too must have such a plane of its own. What is that plane?       Mind — Supermind       Emotional being (heart)—Ananda       Main vital — Tapas       Matter — Sat       These are the correspondences — but the ... consciousness which is immediately, inherently and directly aware of Truth in manifestation and has not to seek for it like Mind. Sachchidananda is everywhere behind the manifestation and supporting it as well as above it and can be experienced below the Supermind—even in mind and vital it can be experienced.         In the early days of my sadhana I once had an experience of great stillness ...

Nagin Doshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Human Relations and the Ashram

... nature by the sole power of Page 724 your mind and mental will, calling in at most an indefinite and impersonal divine Power to aid you. It is an old difficulty which has never been truly solved because it has never been met in the true way. In the former ways of Yoga it did not supremely matter because the aim was withdrawal from life. Either the vital was kept down by a mental and moral... above mind and life and body. The aim in most ways of Yoga is to draw back altogether from life into this greater existence. In Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, the aim is to transform mind, life and body into an expression of this divine Truth and to make the outward as well as the inward life embody it—a much more difficult endeavour. To act out of this greater consciousness becomes the only rule of life, abandoning... thoughts occupy your mind and you fall back into the weeping and not eating etc. etc. It is the reason why the Mother does not care for you and X to meet so long as these old reactions are there either in him or in you. That is the plain fact of the matter. What other people think or say about it, is of no importance. What matters is the sadhana and besides it nothing else matters. Show that you are ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Champaklal's Treasures  >  From Talks, Interviews etc.

... —ordinary life is full of ignorance but it is not impossible to live without ignorance. In fact, life with full consciousness is the meaning of evolution. There is a nescience in matter and life which offers great obstacles when we progress towards conscious life and these obstacles have to be conquered by means of the supermind. There are several curves and circles coming up and down. They have to be... previous lives. Answers to Questions from Velji 1925 An Avatār is not subject to the laws of Karma as ordinary men are. The mind, life and body of the ordinary man are formed as a result of his past Karma. The Avatar having no such past how are his mind, life and body formed? The Avatar gets it as other men do. What has that to do with his being an Avatar ? All that is only a certain movement... s in meditation. Its working presence should be felt even while doing the ordinary works of life. But supermind proper is Divine Consciousness which arranges and guides the movements of the Universe. This consciousness must be made to be our normal nature, and allowed to descend and transform our mind, life and body. Human effort is of no use. There should be complete surrender so that the higher power ...

Champaklal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Champaklal's Treasures

A Greater Psychology  >  Evolution of Mankind: Psychological and Spiritual Growth of Society

... attachment to the life of the body, the life of the vital needs and impulses and the ideal of the merely domestic and economic human animal; but essentially and commonly he is the mental barbarian, the average sensational man. That is to say, his mental life is that of the lower substratum of the mind, the life of the senses, the life of the sensations, the life of the emotions, the life of practical... and conquer and dominate Life and Matter. The scientist is Man the thinker mastering the forces of material Nature by knowing them. Life and Matter are after all our standing-ground, our lower basis and to know their processes and their own proper possibilities and the opportunities they give to the human being is part of the knowledge necessary for transcending them. Life and the body have to be... but a double and a triple, the mind material and nervous, the pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses and a divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of Page 256 the logically discriminative and imaginative reason. Mind in man is first emmeshed in the life of the body, where in the plant ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Riddle of This World  >  The Intermediate Zone

... come do.wn from it through intermediate ranges into a larger mind-plane, life-plane, subtle physical plane and come very much changed and diminished in the transmission, without anything like the full power and truth they have in the Overmind itself on its native levels. Most of the movements come not from the Overmind, but down from higher mind ranges. The ideas with which these experiences are penetratedand... imitate the guiding Voice or Image and deceive and mislead the sadhak or for himself to attribute the creations and formations of his own mind, vital or ego to the Divine.     For this intermediate zone is a region of half-truths --and that by itselfwould not matter, for there is no complete  truth below the Supermind; but the half-truth here is often so partial or else ambiguous in its application that... down in the scale, the fragmentation becomes more and more pronounced, so as to admit of positive error, falsehood, ignorance, finally inconscience like that of Matter. This world here has come out of the Inconscience and developed the Mind which is an instrument of Ignorance trying to reach out to the Truth through much limitation, conflict, confusion and error. To get back to Overmind, if one can ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Riddle of This World

The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo  >  Doubts and the Life Divine

... of an imperfect world would be: "Life is no simple scheme of events and it has many chequered passages: its intricacy cannot be explained away or its difficulty met on the cheap; the process of the One becoming the Many is hardly the entire rationale of a world emerging from the brute blindness of matter into the hungerings of life and the dreamings of mind; God's presence is indeed everywhere... Neither, for that matter, can you wholly prove to me the contrary by mere logic. This should make you see that we are in a region where more than the mind's argumentation is of genuine avail. The mystical path and the mystical illumination demand a certain deep instinct to start you off and sustain you. When this instinct is strong and takes a central place in your being, the mind's doubt about... what is incompatible with the impersonal realisation. I have tried to clear your mind. I cannot, however, be sure that you will find peace and light by my efforts. Mental aid in spiritual matters can be effective only if you want it to be so or if you are really open to conversion. There is in our minds a perpetual doubter doubting for doubt's own sake. Don't let him take possession of ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo

Mother or The New Species - II  >  6. A Veil

... power of radiation in order to ceaselessly mold a life and an environment that grow according to one's own vision. We are different from each other by virtue of the quality of our soul or let us say, the quality of our vibration, and the scope of its radiation. For the Supermind is not a milieu where all are alike. Here, in false matter ruled by mind, we constantly mistake oneness with uniformity,... representation of the next Matter, true Matter, conscious Matter—just what the Mind veils from us—there were some very interesting details that bear repeating. There was ONE SINGLE substance in all things 1 —whether for the objects aboard the ship, the ship itself, or even the tall beings on the shore. And actually, even scientifically, it is obvious that all Matter is a single substance: it is... consciousness of the reptile was awakened to a new need that a change came about in its matter. And this is also the key to this new transition. Mother said it clearly: The real transformation is the transformation of the consciousness, all the rest will follow automatically. 7 Sri Aurobindo said the same thing in The Life Divine:... The consciousness itself by its mutation will necessitate and operate ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8  >  Yama - Nachiketa

... three worlds, throughout the three divisions of time. The three worlds as we know them are mind, life and body; all endeavour and attainment here on earth are concerned with this trio. The altar of the Fire here is provided by man's inner and outer frame; the bricks of this altar are his body, life and mind with all their activities; the multiform garland spoken of by Yama is this lower nature with... real truth of the matter. But has not the mystery of what lies beyond death been already revealed by what has been said, in connection with the second question or boon, about attaining the heavenly world, enjoyment of immortality, the companionship of the gods and so on? Where then is the point in asking the same question again? As an initial clue to the problem, we must keep in mind that the heavenly... alone. You might yourself consider this. Once a mortal being dwelling here below in the grip of physical matter has felt the presence of the unaging Immortals, gained the true knowledge, has realised the true nature of beauty and passion and pleasure, what joy can he have in this transient life? Tell me, O Death, more about this end­less debate on what is or is not after the great annihilation. The ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8

Parables from the Upanishads  >  Yama - Nachiketa

... three worlds, throughout the three divisions of time. The three worlds as we know them are mind, life and body; all endeavour and attainment here on earth are concerned with this trio. The altar of the Fire here is provided by man's inner and outer frame; the bricks of this altar are his body, life and mind with all their activities; the multiform garland spoken of by Yama is this lower nature with... truth of the matter. But has not the mystery of what lies beyond death been already revealed by what has been said, in connection with the second question or boon, about attaining the heavenly world, enjoyment of immortality, the companionship of the gods and so on? Where then is the point in asking the same question again? As an initial clue to the problem, we must keep in mind that the heavenly... alone. You might yourself consider this. Once a mortal being dwelling here below in the grip of physical matter has felt the presence of the unaging Immortals, gained the true knowledge, has realised the true nature of beauty and passion and pleasure, what joy can he have in this transient life? Tell me, O Death, more about this endless debate on what is or is not after the great annihilation. The ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Parables from the Upanishads

A Greater Psychology  >  The Gunas of Prakriti: The Three Modes of Nature

... the reaction Page 110 of the effort and an after-taste of insufficiency and transience. The principle of sattwa has its strongest hold in the mind; not so much in the lower parts of the mind which are dominated by the rajasic life-power, but mostly in the intelligence and the will of the reason. Intelligence, reason, rational will are moved by the nature of their predominant principle... the embodied being but only the index of the formation he has made for this life or during his present existence and at a given moment of his evolution in Time. The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 222-23 Transcendence of the Gunas and their Transformation ...richness of life, even a sattwic harmony of mind and nature does not constitute spiritual perfection. There is a relative possible... partial height, force, beauty, some measure of nobility and greatness, some imposed and precariously sustained balance. There is a relative mastery, but it is a mastery of the body by life or of the life by mind, not a free possession of the instruments by the liberated and self-possessing spirit. The gunas have to be transcended if we would arrive at spiritual perfection. Tamas evidently has ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

My Pilgrimage to the Spirit  >  November 6, 1932

... and on which they seem to rest their claim to truth are not of the Overmind, but of the higher Mind or sometimes of the illumined Mind; but they are mixed with suggestions from the lower mind and vital regions and badly diminished in their application or misapplied in many places. All this would not matter; it is usual and normal, and one has to pass through it and come into a clearer atmosphere where... imitate the guiding Voice or Image and deceive and mislead the sadhaka or for himself to attribute the creations and formations of his own mind, vital or ego to the Divine. For this intermediate zone is a region of half-truths—and that by itself would not matter, for there is no complete truth below the Supermind; but the half-truth here is often so partial or else ambiguous in its application that... and a higher, larger and truer siddhi. At each step this has to be done. For whatever comes in this way to the sadhaka of this yoga, whether it be from Overmind or Intuition or Illumined Mind or some exalted Life Plane or from all these together, it is not definitive and final; it is not the Supreme Truth in which he can rest, but only a stage. And yet these stages have to be passed through, for the ...

Dr. Govindbhai Patel   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   My Pilgrimage to the Spirit

The Life Divine  >  The Problem of Life

... of Matter, Life and Mind, each with its own law of working. The Life is at war with the body; it attempts to force it to satisfy life's desires, impulses, satisfactions and demands from its limited capacity what could only be possible to an immortal and divine body; and the body, enslaved and tyrannised over, suffers and is in constant dumb revolt against the demands made upon it by the Life. The... movement of mastery. He seeks to know Matter in order to be master of the material environment, to know Life in order to be master of the vital existence, to know Mind in Page 221 order to be master of the great obscure movement of mentality in which he is not only a jet of light of self-consciousness like the animal, but also more and more a flame of growing knowledge. Thus he seeks to know... The Mind is at war with both: sometimes it helps the Life against the Body, sometimes Page 227 restrains the vital urge and seeks to protect the corporeal frame from life's desires, passions and over-driving energies; it also seeks to possess the Life and turn its energy to the mind's own ends, to the utmost joys of the mind's own activity, to the satisfaction of mental, aesthetic, emotional ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Psychic Being  >  7. A Lecture on the Psychic Being

... The psychic being most purely reflects the Divine in the lower triplicity of mind, life and body. There are four higher levels: Sat, Chit, Ananda and Vijnana; they are in Knowledge, while below in the three levels — mind, life and body — there is a mixture of ignorance and knowledge. The psychic being is behind the mind, life and body; it is most open to the higher Truth; that is why it is indispensable... the mind, nor the exaggeration of the vital feelings, it gives the just touch to each emotion. Disciple: Could one say that in the planes of consciousness above the mind all is the same — the psychic being and the Atman, etc.? Sri Aurobindo: If you mean "Everything is One" then it merely comes to the old Adwaitavada of Shankaracharya. Really speaking, it is not a matter for the mind to decide... decide. It is a matter of experience. In a certain experience you find that "All is One" and Shankara is right. But there are other experiences in which the Vishishtadwaita and even the Dwaita finds justification. Mind only cuts, differentiates, analyses, represents. You can't push these questions too far with the mind, otherwise you bring in the old quarrel of the philosophers. You can't say: "It is ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Psychic Being

The Practice of the Integral Yoga  >  The Ninefold Daily Sadhana

... ego. No matter what the gift and to whom it is presented by us, there must be a consciousness in the act that we are presenting it to the one divine Being in all beings." (The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 102-03) 9. "Pray and Pray and Pray" The life of a sadhaka should be a life of constant prayer. Call it a 'prayer', call it an 'aspiration', call it even a 'call'; that does not matter much.... and for spiritual life lacks in genuine commitment and sufficient intensity. It is not supported by any ardent will; it arises out of a tepid wish and an easily dispensable thirst for the attainment. The normal attitude of an average sadhaka takes this regrettable form: 'If the spiritual life comes to me, well and good; but for whatever reason if it does not come, it does not matter very much. I can... primary aim to a later old age of our life. We start living a routine existence and fail to remember for all practical purposes why we are here upon earth and what is expected of us as sadhakas of the Integral Path. As a matter of fact there are three classes of people among human beings. Most men are well content to lead an ordinary material and animal life. A few, may be ten per cent of all men ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Practice of the Integral Yoga

The Destiny of the Body  >  Mortality and Immortality: The Real Issue

... the soul through all changes of mind and life and body; this too is not mere survival, it is timelessness translated into Time manifestation." 5 1 Sri Aurobindo, The Problem of Rebirth, pp. 13-14. 2 Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, p. 106. 3 Ibid., p. 107. 4 5 The Life Divine, p. 738. Page 345 As a matter of fact, in the midst of our ... beyond the ken of our mind. As a matter of fact, in the course of the heightening and deepening of our consciousness brought about by the pursuit of spiritual Sadhana, there arises spontaneously a trans-mental knowledge of our true being which is then realised as a consciousness altogether independent of the bodily vehicle, as a spiritual entity possessed of a continuous soul-life perpetually developing... Sadhaka of the Integral Yoga. For him, death has to be transcended in order that life may be divinely fulfilled. Ihaiva, 'Here itself, is his motto. Thus, with divine detachment coupled with a spiritual mastery, he seeks to come back to the task of founding the life divine in the field of ignorance and division and matter, to complete the Being's victory in the realm of Becoming . After all, this ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Savitri  >  'The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind'

... GODHEADS OF THE GREATER MIND'         Racing beyond the "circles of mortal mind" Aswapati heads towards "the far spiritual light". It is actually a glorious escape into freedom, for mortal mind, albeit it lords over its petty realms, is after all a prison. It may be that man's book of origins is in blissful Heaven, but his embroilment in Matter has been to his utter discomfiture:... worlds, the descent leading to the Abyss and the ascent to the Heights. A segment of the ascent comprises the passage from the limited human Mind to the all-knowing and all-powerful Supermind. In the chapter entitled "The Ascent towards Supermind' in The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo writes:   ...the scrutiny of a given line of ascent may be expected to throw light on the principle of... consciousness from our mind upwards through a rising series of dynamic powers by which it can sublimate itself, the gradation can be resolved into a stairway of four main ascents, each with its high level of fulfilment. These gradations maybe summarily described as a series of sublimations of the consciousness through Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and Intuition into Overmind ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Preparing for the Miraculous  >  10: Theodicy: “Nature does not Make Mistakes”

... meaning. “Pain of mind and body is a device of Nature, that is to say, of Force in her works, meant to subserve a definite transitional end in her upward evolution. … It does not come into being in the purely physical world so long as Life does not enter into it; for till then mechanical methods are sufficient. Its office begins when life with its frailty and imperfect possession of Matter enters on the... the scene; it grows with the growth of Mind in life. … Its eventual elimination must be an essential point in the destined conquest of the soul over subjection to Matter and egoistic limitation in Mind. This elimination is possible because pain and pleasure themselves are currents, one imperfect, the other perverse, but still currents of the delight of existence. … The nature of suffering is a [provisional]... brought movement and Life into the stagnant “bottomless Zero” at the beginning of the slow climb upwards. If one talks of evil and the Asuras who are its personalized powers, one should remember that in the beginning all was Darkness and Ignorance in the most absolute sense. From that Inconscient the Subconscient and Matter have emerged. The Inconscient we cannot imagine; what “Matter” means, science ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Preparing for the Miraculous

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  A Theory of Yoga

... consciously regulated and heightened process of a habitual activity of the mind.   The recent science of Psycho-analysis has brought to light certain hidden springs and undercurrents of the mind; it has familiarised us with a mode of viewing the entire psychical life of man which will be fruitful for our present enquiry. Mind, it has been found, is a house divided, against itself, that is to say... develops a new mode of life. It is when the automatism of Nature is replaced by the power of Conscious Control. Man. is not here, a blind instrument of forces, his activities (both indulging and controlling) are not Page 38  guided according to an ignorant submission to the laws of almost subconscious impulsions. Conscious control means that. the mind does not fight shy of or... instance of control by Sublimation, but the Divina Comedia hardly bears the impress of a serene and tranquil soul, sovereignly above the turmoils of the tragedy of life and absolutely at peace with itself. In conscious control, the mind is for the first time aware of the presence of the repressed impulses, it seeks to release them from the pressure to which they are habitually and normally subjected ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)  >  chapter 023

... favourite store of quotations would say. However, I have no mind particularly to decide who should be chosen to wear the crown of a dunce's cap in the realm of irrelevance. There are more important matters to dwell upon.   The impression I get from your letter is that, according to you,' the most important matter is the prolongation of life at will. Since the final transformation cannot be done unless... friend's high estimate, but if humbly received, with an awareness of the Infinite which can never be compassed, no matter how lofty our climb, such an estimate can serve to pull one nearer   The joy that beckons from the impossible. . (18.5.1994)   I am sure you have a mind of a really good quality, with a capacity to enhance its natural talent with a golden touch from the Mother. Don't... subtle-physical layer. Could she have felt or intuited that the full individual work would not be accomplished by her in this life of hers? Your reply, in spite of all that I have already urged, will be that, for whatever reason, she was ready to give up her body and had in mind the body of Nolini or Champaklal or Dyuman or Pavitra or Amrita or Satprem to fulfil the work Sri Aurobindo had assigned to ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1  >  Savitri in World Literature

... others, Sri Aurobindo's grows out of spiritual vision. He comprehends the materialist-poet's poetic universe of matter, of the formation of world through the movement of matter, of the phenomenon of life and mind evolving out of it; but, besides, he enters deeper still into the secret of Matter and observes behind its vibration the hidden will, the mystic consciousness. With that realisation his poetry... neither the mid-summer night's dreams nor magic and fairy enchantments, is essentially the world of the vital: "the vital emotions and reactions or the thoughts that spring out in the life-mind under the pressure of life." ( Savitri, p. 802) It reeks with the human, with the scent of the soil, with the tickle-brain spilled at Mrs. Quickly's Boar Head Tavern, with the pricks and pranks of Puck, with... it is there only as implied; only as reference, or as background, nonetheless very solid and real for that. Centrally and essentially it is the world of the higher mind, of a consciousness that penetrates deep into the heart of Matter and of what may be beyond: a world in which Eternity and Infinity are playthings and you watch Nature involved in the destiny of self-discovery, yourself caught up ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1

Aspects of Sri Aurobindo  >  An Aurobindonian christian

... values of being and becoming, of Spirit and matter, of the One and the many, of the eternal and the temporal, of the universal and the individual, of the personal God and the absolute Godhead, are integrated in a vision of the whole, which has never been surpassed in depth and comprehensiveness. In the integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the values of matter and life and human consciousness and the experience... experience of a personal God are not lost in the ultimate Reality, the divine Sachchidananda. Matter and life and consciousness in man are seen to be evolving towards the divine life and the divine consciousness, in which they are not annihilated but fulfilled." (p. 137) The Supramental Physical and the Body of the Resurrection Just after these words Griffiths writes: "This is the... the goal of a Christian Yoga. Body and soul are to be transfigured by the divine life and to participate in the divine consciousness. There is a descent of the Spirit into Matter and a corresponding ascent, by which matter is transformed by the indwelling power of the Spirit and the body is transfigured..." (pp. 137-8) I can understand Griffiths's seeing a general analogue of Aurobindonianism in ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Aspects of Sri Aurobindo

Isha Upanishad  >  Brahman: Oneness of God and the World

... universal Mother of things, who appears to us, first, as Matter, called Prithivi, the Earth-Principle. Brahman in Matter or physical being represents Itself as the universal Life-Power, Matarishwan, which moves there as a dynamic energy, Prana, and presides effectively over all arrangement and formation. Universal Life establishes, involved in Matter, the septuple consciousness; and the action of Prana... divine counterpart of this lower nervous or vital energy. Ananda is Beatitude, the bliss of pure conscious existence and energy, as opposed to the life of the sensations and emotions which are at the mercy of the outward touches of Life and Matter and their positive and negative reactions, joy and grief, pleasure and pain. Ananda is the divine counterpart of the lower emotional and sensational being... Chit active in the universe. We are habitually aware of three elements in our being, Mind, Life and Body. These constitute for us a divided and mutable existence which is in a condition of unstable harmony and works by a strife of positive and negative forces between the two poles of Birth and Death. For all life is a constant birth or becoming ( sambhava, sambhūti of verses 12-14). All birth entails ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

The Sun and The Rainbow  >  Spiritual India and Sri Aurobindo

... gateway to a wonderful future. DIVINISATION OF LIFE     Sri Aurobindo holds that man's hopes and dreams can be crowned only if, with the help of the highest consciousness developed up to now, we rise beyond ourselves to a new level of being, a level above mind as mind is above animal life and animal life above mere matter in which everything lay latent and unevolved.  ... it when he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In India the concrete was not synonymous with the material, even as consciousness did not stop with the level of the elan vital and the mind. Beyond apparently unconscious Matter and the grades of organic evolution there was for the Indian a Power which was the Spirit   And this basic stuff of being, this divine substance of consciousness, could... nothing fantastic here, once it is admitted that the Spirit is the supreme underlying reality. For, if everything has come from the Spirit, Matter too must be a diminished aspect of some divine truth and can by awakening to that truth get divinised. The trouble is that life does not always bear out logic. Doubt, disbelief, denial are bound to dog the path of Sri Aurobindo's experiment, but we must Page ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Sun and The Rainbow

The Human Cycle  >  The Necessity of the Spiritual Transformation

... dominate the life-instinct, determines to use the intelligence for its service and to give it light in its own field instead of enslaving it to a higher but chimerical ideal. Page 237 Such a period was the recent materialistic age, when the intellect of man seemed decided to study thoroughly Life and Matter, to admit only that, to recognise mind only as an instrument of Life and Matter, and to... ng and a tendency to yield up the fortress of the moral law to the life-instinct, the aesthetic instinct and intelligence flourished as a rather glaring exotic ornament, a sort of rare orchid in the button-hole of the vital man, and reason became the magnificent servant of Life and Matter. The titanic development of the vital Life which followed, is ending as the Titans always end; it lit its own funeral... conduct of life, whether the individual or the social, is actually governed by the balance between two complementary powers,—first, an implicit will central to the life and inherent in the main power of its action and, secondly, whatever modifying will can come in from the Idea in mind—for man is a mental being—and operate through our as yet imperfect mental instruments to give this life force a conscious ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  Sentimentalism, Sensitiveness, Instability, Laxity

... Sensitiveness It [ sensitiveness ] is a matter of temperament. Some are psychically and vitally sensitive and responsive to all that comes from anywhere; others are solid of nerve and walled against invasion. It is not at all a question of strength or weakness. The first have a greater sense of life and answer to life; they suffer more from life and get more from it. It is the difference between... drop into fatigue. It is a matter of temperament. On the other hand the mercurial people are often capable of a quicker ardour, so that they can progress fast if they want in their own way. In any case the remedy for all that is to find one's true self above mind and vital and so not bound by temperament. Laxity The rigidity was in the obstinacy with which your mind and vital clung to their own... one's sensitiveness, but only acquire the power to rise to a higher consciousness taking such disenchantments as a sort of jumping-board. One way is not to expect even square dealings from others, no matter who the others are. And besides, it is good to have such experiences of the real nature of some people to which a generous nature is often blind, for that helps the growth of one's consciousness. The ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

In the Mother's Light  >  The Rainbow Bridge

... Force is, therefore, the crux of the mission of Sri Aurobindo's life, and it presages a future for humanity which is too glorious even for the widest and keenest mind of the modern man to conceive. This sublime ideal and a definite spiritual guidance to realise it and make it a concrete experience and an abiding base of all life's activities and achievements, are the special gift of Sri Aurobindo... decree of God that East and West must meet as Shiva and Shakti, self-manifesting Light and realising and transforming Force, to raise man from mind to supermind and convert his life of division and discord into the creative unity and blissful harmony of the Life Divine. The Prayers and Meditations of the Mother begins from November 2, 1912 and ends on October 23, 1937. Out of a total of over... of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga and philosophy know that they aim at these three signal achievements : (1) ascent of the consciousness of man from mind to Supermind, which is the Truth-consciousness, the Rita-chit, of the Veda, (2) descent of the Supermind into Matter and the conversion and transformation of the integral nature of man—physical, vital and mental,—by the Light- Force of the Supermind, and (3) ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3  >  Some Conceptions and Misconceptions

... absolutely exclusive concentration Page 52 of consciouness in Matter has given rise to Life which is a double poise: Life plays in and through Matter and has not dissolved Matter. Likewise a further release of concentration has given birth to Mind which still bases itself upon and is woven into Life and Matter. The change-over from unconsciousness to consciousness and from consciousness... direction under certain conditions. Matter exists in the absolute Consciousness, not as Matter but as its fundamental substratum, as that radical mode of being or consciousness which by the devolution of consciousness and the interaction of Knowledge and Ignorance in the end works itself out as Matter. So also with regard to Life and with regard to Mind. If things are to exist in the highest status... or becomes immanent in the the lower. Along with the vertical movement there is also a horizontal movement. In other words, even when we are sunk in the lowest stratum of Ignorance—in the domain of Matter —we have also there all the other strands behind, even the very highest, not merely as a passive or neutral entity, but as dynamic agents, exerting their living pressure to the full.Indeed the Ignorance ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3

The Human Cycle  >  Civilisation and Barbarism

... and conquer and dominate Life and Matter. The scientist is Man the thinker mastering the forces of material Nature by knowing them. Life and Matter are after all our standing-ground, our lower basis and to know their processes and their own proper possibilities and the opportunities they give to the human being is part of the knowledge necessary for transcending them. Life and the body have to be exceeded... education imposes on him the duty of imparting his knowledge to others. The idea of the necessity of general education means the recognition by the race that the mind and not the life and the body are the man and that without the development of the mind he does not possess his true manhood. The idea of education is still primarily that of intelligence and mental capacity and knowledge of the world and things... individual, therefore, we have to start; he is our index and our foundation. The Self of man is a thing hidden and occult; it is not his body, it is not his life, it is not—even though he is in the scale of evolution the mental being, the Manu,—his mind. Therefore neither the fullness of his physical, nor of his vital, nor of his mental nature can be either the last term or the true standard of his sel ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Rebirth and Karma

... existence is one existence; one spirit, one self, one mind, one life, one energy of process is at work; one will and wisdom has planned or has evolved from itself the whole business of creation. And yet in this oneness there is a persistent variety, which we see first in the form of a communal variation. There is everywhere a group energy, group life, group mind, and if soul is, then we have reason to believe... past mankind, but I, my own self. And this is the really important, crowning, central factor. What matters most in my life, is not my heredity; that only gives me my opportunity or my obstacle, my good or my bad material, and it has not by any means been shown that I draw all from that source. What matters supremely is what I make of my heredity and not what my heredity makes of me. The past of the world... taught the human being to see in life principally a condition and means of his own spiritual benefit and separate salvation. That came from the view of the universe as a movement which proceeds out of something beyond, something from which each being enters into life and returns out of it to its source, and the absorbing idea of that return as the one thing that at all matters. Our being in the world, so ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Sadhana in the Ashram

... that is the Inconscience of Matter, was the starting point, not something that came in after life had begun. If there had been a gradual descent of the supramental light in the beginning, the true life, mind and higher planes might have been released and organised. A gradual descent of the Supramental Light into what? Matter being the starting point, life and mind had to evolve first—to begin... to create a supra mental world at once without any slow evolution of matter, of life in matter, of mind in living matter or of the spiritual or supramental in spiritualised life in the material body. Without the hostile forces and the self-contradictory consciousness of an exclusive division, avidyā, the manifestation would have been self-luminous and perfect and there would have been no need of... earth-consciousness. Page 641 Avidya did not interfere with the earth evolution, it existed before the earth life was evolved in the form of Inconscience. The meaning of evolution is the evolving or slow manifestation of life, mind and conscious supermind out of matter with its original Inconscience. Avidya is one thing and the intervention of the hostile forces is another. Even if the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV  >  Correspondence 1949

... because for me the body as well as the mind and life is a part of the divine whole, a form of the spirit and therefore not to be disregarded or despised as something incurably gross and incapable of spiritual realisation or of spiritual use. Matter itself is secretly a form of the Spirit and has to reveal itself as that, can be made to wake to consciousness and evolve and realise the Spirit, the... necessary to state my own position in the matter. Page 229 My own life and my yoga have always been since my coming to India, both this-worldly and other-worldly without any exclusiveness on either side. All human interests are, I suppose, this-worldly and most of them have entered into my mental field and some, like politics, into my life, but at the same time, since I set foot... feature of her action or a permanent change in it or in the life of the Ashram ending in a complete withdrawal from spiritual life and an apotheosis of the deity of sport. Those who voiced this idea or declared that sport would henceforth be obligatory on all were indulging in fantasies that have no claim to credibility. As a matter of fact the period of tension is over and after the second December ...

Dilip Kumar Roy   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV

The Divine Collaborators  >  The Rainbow Bridge

... labouring to instil into the earth-life. To call Sri Aurobindo static is to miss the very significance and the central, distinctive truth of his life and ideal. And that there is not only dynamism, but an untrembling status of eternal peace and repose in the Mother, will be amply proved by the Prayers we shall quote in the course of this essay. The truth of the matter is that the identity of their ideal... Force is, therefore, the crux of the mission of Sri Aurobindo's life, and it presages a future for humanity which is too glorious even for the widest and keenest mind of the modern man to conceive. This sublime ideal and a definite spiritual guidance to realise it and make it a concrete experience and an abiding base of all life's activities and achievements, are the special gift of Sri Aurobindo... must meet as Shiva and Shakti, self-manifesting Light and realising and transforming Force, to raise man Page 5 from mind to supermind and convert his life of division and discord into the creative unity and blissful harmony of the Life Divine. The "Prayers and Meditations of the Mother" begins from November 2, 1912 and ends on October 23, 1937. Out of a total of over ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Divine Collaborators

Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)  >  chapter 013

... Consciousness which holds the original models of mind, life-force and body, an ideal or archetypal mentality, vitality and physicality - a Supramental Consciousness which is not only a manifested Perfection beyond the mind-level but also a hidden Perfection in the very depths of Matter, gradually releasing by an evolutionary process life-force and mind and heading towards Supermind partly by its own... live. And by them did he live; they were his life. In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request; Rapt into still communion that transcends The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the powers That made him;... music, songs and other devotional music?"Behind all Page 147 such expression, there are the Godward heart and mind of humanity, the religio-spiritual aspiration for a supreme Purity and Power and Perfection which has taken various names and forms in the life of mankind. If we pierce through the diversity and particularity to the basic Eternal and Infinite and Divine sinning through ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)

In the Mother's Light  >  The Conquest of Desire-Part-1

... lives—this is the spectacle that presents itself to our view behind the apparent birth and death of living Matter. When Life evolves Mind, this hunger becomes desire, a conscious craving, an insistent longing to seize and possess and enjoy what one feels one lacks. No individual life at this stage of evolution can progress without this propelling force of desire. It is the sole motive force... job for the spiritual seeker who has endeavoured to be "conscious" of himself, to realise that he is not a composite of mind, life and body, but an infinite and immortal self, ever free and ever pure, who has assumed the triple nature for the manifestation of the Divine in Matter. The Mother's very first instruction to a spiritual aspirant is : "Be conscious. ” "We are conscious of only an in... Time-Spirit, which insists on the discovery and realisation of unity and harmony in life and is loth to reject it out of hand as an ever-circling futility. A victorious unity of Spirit and Matter, Life and Light, Silence and Movement, One and Many, seems to be its master passion, which it cannot forswear simply because life confronts it with the lash of desire and the trail of tragic suffering. It seems ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

Essays Divine and Human  >  Partial Systems of Yoga

... behind the mind to the spirit, behind the surface emotional movements to the soul,— Page 350 behind the life to the universal force that builds these outward shapes and movements,—behind matter to the eternal Existence that puts on the robe of the body. The second secret of Yoga is to open these discovered powers to their own supreme Truth above matter, above life, above the mind. This Truth... there is an artificial shaping of the mind's surfaces, but no spiritual freedom, no satisfying perfection of the whole dynamic nature. The mind's ideals like the life's seekings are at once absolute each in its own demand and in conflict with one another; neither mind nor life knows the means either of their complete or their harmonised fulfilment. The mind labours through the centuries but human... being. The outer heart is the seat of the vital being, the life personality. That like the mind may Page 347 believe and then lose its belief, doubt comes from the mind, the vital and the physical consciousness. [The greater the intensity] of the psychic fire, the less will be the power of doubt to soil and darken the mind, the life and the consciousness of the body. 137 Three ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-1

... mind of man is itself only a "mediator divinity", it is not the final, the highest and the omnipotent instrument. Mind can release many occult forces and powers of matter and of life. It can eves develop many occult and miraculous powers of its own. For instance, it can mould events by its "bare silent will" and "Acts at a distance without hands or feet". Mind can go to the... "...gives consent to all that she can wish". Thus, it comes about that the Transcendent who rules the cosmos after taking his plunge into the Nescience evolves into Matter, then into Life and then Mind; in the Mind he evolves into an ego-centre and becomes "A luminous individual Power, alone". "The Absolute, the Perfect, the Alone" has called cut his silent power from... the heights and "Call in the Omniscient and Omnipotent". Mind can exercise its inventive faculty and .bring out all the suppressed possibilities of Matter and Life. It can also become aware of the future, and awaken faculties which appear abnormal in their operation. It is when Mind turns all its faculties to the service of the Spirit that mental movements find their proper place and justification ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Letters on Yoga - II  >  Patience and Perseverance

... is preparing a light, don't come in with a wet blanket of despondency and throw it on the poor flame. You will say it is a mere candle that is lit—nothing at all? But in these matters, when the darkness of human mind and life and body has to be dissipated, a candle is always a beginning—a lamp can follow and afterwards a sun—but the beginning must be allowed to have a sequel—not get cut off from its... patient work of detail. Page 110 One who has not the courage to face patiently and firmly life and its difficulties will never be able to go through the still greater inner difficulties of the sadhana. The very first lesson in this Yoga is to face life and its trials with a quiet mind, a firm courage and an entire reliance on the Divine Shakti. It is true that a great patience and... of firm faith and confidence. Doubts rise in all, they are natural to the human physical mind—reject them. Impatience and overeagerness for the result at once are natural to the human vital; it is by firm confidence in the Mother that they will disappear. The love, the belief in her as the Divine to whom your life is given,—oppose with that every contrary feeling and then those contrary feelings will ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II

Words of the Mother - III  >  22 January 1951

... and action, and it is in these functions that it attains its full value and real usefulness." The mind is "an instrument of formation, of organisation and action". Why? The mind gives a form to the thoughts. This power of formation forms mental entities whose life is independent of the mind that has formed them—they act as beings that are at least semi-independent. One can form a thought which... their heads as if it were something from outside. But it is their own formations returning again and again and striking the mind that has formed them. That is one aspect of the matter. Did you ever have the experience of a thought taking the form of words or a sentence in your mind and returning over and over again? But if you are clever enough to take a piece of paper and a pencil and write it down—that... all the formations made by the mind—the actual "forms" that it gives to the thoughts—return and appear to you as if they were coming from outside and give you dreams. Most dreams are like that. Some people have a Page 308 very conscious mental life and are able to enter the mental plane and move about in it with the same independence they have in physical life; these people have mentally objective ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Words of the Mother - III

The Future Poetry  >  The Sun of Poetic Truth

... first hint and steeps most subtly whatever crude matter it gives to his mind in the delightful hues of imagination and transmutes it into the unfettered beauty of her shapes. That might seem at first sight to mean or so might be interpreted that truth and art are two unconnected or little connected things, and if truth is to be made at all the subject matter of art, it yet does not become art unless it... in self or world; it is one of the high and beautiful powers of our inner and may be a power of our inmost life. All of the infinite Truth of being that can be made part of that life, all that can be made true and beautiful and living to that experience, is poetic truth and a fit subject matter of poetry. But there are always three things which we find present in the utterance and which may be taken... positive impact of the mind, the raw rough concrete and dynamic fact of experience to be transferred without any real change into rhythmic form, relieved with image and dressed in its just idea and word. And we are even told that poetry to be faithful to life must manage not only her seeing and expression, but her rhythmic movement so as to create some subjective correspondence with life, creep and trip and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Future Poetry

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Boundaries of the Ignorance

... ss to a single knot of the one indivisible Matter, a single eddy of the one indivisible Life, a single station of the one indivisible Mind, a single soul-manifestation of the one indivisible Spirit. Yet it is only by knowing the One that this individual mind, life, body, soul can know itself or its action.—Thus ignorance of self is the nature of our mind, but an ignorance full of the impulse towards... Chapter XXXI The Boundaries of the Ignorance Argument Chapter XXXI of The Life Divine as published in the Arya was extensively revised in 1939-40, becoming the present Book Two, Part I, Chapter XI . We know only a part even of our superficial life and conscious becoming, fastening only on a little of our experience of self and things, memorising less, using... existence and activity. It is only the physical and vital part of our existence which is, properly speaking, subconscient; the subliminal self is the true mental being and in relation to our waking mind it is rather secretly circumconscient; for it envelops as well as supports. Of all this larger part of our being we are ignorant.—We are ignorant also of the superconscient, that which we ordinarily ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

... be changed at once. What has to be done is to bring the Higher Consciousness down into the earth- consciousness and establish it there as a constant realised force. Just as mind and life have been established and embodied in Matter, so to establish and embody the supramental Force. It would not be possible to change all that in a moment - we have always said that the whole of humanity will not change... affirms the reality of the Spirit; it reconciles the insistent demands of Matter, Life, Mind and Supermind in an integral harmony. In the affirmation of the Reality of the One without a second, it finds the origin of the many and all. In the One Existent, sat, it finds the sound basis for Conscious-Force (Chit) and also in their union the inalienable delight (ananda). If it finds the rational assurance... escape from the general necessity either by shutting out the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and un-illumined compromise. For essentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, life and matter in their own sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its perceptions. The greater the apparent disorder of the materials offered or the apparent disparateness, even to irreconcilable opposition, of the elements ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  The Realisation of 24 November 1926

... but you are not matter, are you? Not very clear. Why not? Why can't I be matter? or represent it at least? At least you will admit that I have got some matter in me and you will hardly deny that the matter in me is connected or even continuous (in spite of the quantum theory) with matter in general? Well, if Krishna or the Overmind or something equivalent descended into my matter with an inevitable... inevitable extension into connected general Matter, what is the lack of clarity in the statement of a descent into the material? 15 September 1935 Some say November 24th is a day of victory. By that some mean that the Supermind (supramental consciousness) descended into the physical consciousness of Sri Aurobindo. Others say it was the coming down of Krishna into the physical consciousness. If it... was that? Others say that you were through and through overmentalised. Well, it is not quite the truth, but nearer to the mark. I myself understood that on that day you achieved the Super mind. There was never any mention of that from our side. If you did not achieve the Supermind at that time, how is it possible for you to talk about it or know anything about it? Page 270 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Remarks on the Current State of the Sadhana (1931-1947)

... about process in things? You are ignorant of all that is between supreme Spirit and matter, it seems. You know nothing of the occult processes of mind, life and all the rest—so you can think only of miraculous divinity or else law of matter as known to Science. But for supramental Spirit to work itself out in matter it must go through a process of transforming the immediate mental, vital and other ... of the supramental truth, you are the creator of the supramental plane. Page 349 That is another matter. The supermind plane is a plane above, its nature is not yet manifested in the material world, which has manifested matter, life and mind, and something of what is between mind and supermind, but not supermind itself. 15 September 1935 I don't think X was referring to any particular... attempt—it is we who are attempting. Unless the mind and the vital are perfectly prepared how is it possible to bring the Supermind down into the physical or into Matter itself? Page 354 And how is it possible to perfect the mind and vital unless the physical is prepared—for there is such a thing as the mental and vital physical and mind and vital cannot be said to be perfectly prepared ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Arguments for the Existence of God  >  Appendix 4

... into being in the purely physical world so long as life does not enter into it; for till then mechanical methods are sufficient. Its office begins when life with its frailty and Page 140 imperfect possession of Matter enters on the scene; it grows with the growth of Mind in life. Its office continues so long as Mind is bound in the life and body which it is using, dependent upon them for... persistence of the lower in the as yet imperfect organisation of the higher. Its eventual elimination must be an essential point in the destined conquest of the soul over subjection to Matter and egoistic limitation in Mind. This elimination is possible because pain and pleasure themselves are currents, one imperfect, the other perverse, but still currents of the delight of existence. The reason for... depths it returns them to the surface in forms of strength, character, knowledge, impulsion whose roots are mysterious to us because our mind moves and quivers on the surface and has not learned to concentrate itself and live in the depths. In our ordinary life this truth is hidden from us or only dimly glimpsed at times or imperfectly held and conceived. But if we learn to live within, we infallibly ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Arguments for the Existence of God

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1  >  Savitri as an Epic

... aspiring humanity symbolised in Aswapati, the Lord of manifested Life, first descends from his consciousness into nether regions of unconsciousness and Matter, the regions of Heavens of the Higher Vital, and then crosses over to the Heavens of the Mind. He then goes to the regions above Mind, into the Heavens of the ideal and Illumined Mind and passes beyond the borders of manifested creation to the... relation between Eternity and Time-movement: Ascending and descending twixt life's poles The seried kingdoms of the graded Law Plunged from the Everlasting into Time, Then glad of a glory of multitudinous mind And rich with life's adventure and delight And packed with the beauty of Matter's shapes and hues Climed back from Time into undying Self, Up a golden ladder... a vast scale the epic of the soul and religious and ethical mind and social and political ideals and culture and life of India. It is said popularly of it and with a certain measure of truth that whatever is in India is in the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind but of the mind of a nation." And about the Ramayana he says: "The Ramayana is ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1

Autobiographical Notes  >  To and about Durgadas Shett

... famous, finally that he is empty of vital force and the joy of life. All that, however, is exceedingly imprecise and does not help me to help him. The source of his difficulty is in his mind; it is too full of uncertainties, useless complexities and twistings upon itself and hesitations and খটকা generally, to give his inner heart and life-force and spiritual force a real chance. If he wants effective... whatever degree he wills for his purpose. It is yourself, your soul that matters. Try to understand these things in their true light so that you may be ready, when [you come], to receive completely what I have to give you. Meanwhile put yourself in spiritual relation with me, try to receive me with a passive and unobstructing mind and wait for the call to come here. As soon as I am ready, I shall call... must have the faith and the will to do so. He must not always be thinking of death or see it as the inevitable result; he must make up his mind to cure. Finally, he wrote in his first letter about making a will. What his meaning is, is not clear—in this matter, his ideas and mine differ. But all that can best be settled, when he is here. The best thing for him will be not to make farther hesitations ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Autobiographical Notes

The Human Cycle  >  The Suprarational Good

... principle and power of existence. All life is only a lavish and manifold opportunity given us to discover, realise, express the Divine. It is in our ethical being that this truest truth of practical life, its real and highest practicality becomes most readily apparent. It is true that the rational man has tried to reduce the ethical life like all the rest to a matter of reason, to determine its nature... its form, its application must vary with the individual nature, the habit of mind, the outlook on the world. Here there can be no reliable general law to which all can subscribe, no set of large governing principles such as it is sought to supply to our conduct by a true ethics. Nor can ethics at all or ever be a matter of calculation. There is only one safe rule for the ethical man, to stick to his... which we glimpse through religion, lies concealed behind all life; it is the great secret of life, that which it is in labour to discover and to make real to its self-knowledge. The seeking for God is also, subjectively, the seeking for our highest, truest, fullest, largest self. It is the seeking for a Reality which the appearances of life conceal because they only partially express it or because ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Human Cycle

Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Mind

... a question of getting a kind of balance and harmony between them. The Thinking Mind and the Vital Mind The thinking mind does not lead men, does not influence them Page 178 the most—it is the vital propensities and the vital mind that predominate. The thinking mind with most men is, in matters of life, only an instrument of the vital. Vital thought expresses vital movements... the mind consciousness which can do things at the mind's order but has to be awakened, trained, made a good and conscious instrument. It can even be so trained that a mental will or suggestion can cure the illnesses of the body. But all these things, these relations of mind and body, stand on the same footing in essence as the relation of mind to vital and it is not so easy or primary a matter as Augustine... parts—thinking Mind, dynamic Mind, externalising Mind—the former concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right, the second with the putting out of mental forces for realisation of the idea, the third with the expression of them in life (not only by speech, but by any form it can give). The word "physical mind" is rather ambiguous, because it can mean this externalising mind and the mental in ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Savitri  >  'The Gospel of Death and the Vanity of the Ideal'

... hallucination? Vain, all vain is her "longing to build heaven on earth". Matter is the only ultimate reality; soul itself is but "a brief flower by the gardener Mind" created on "Matter's terrain plot". In self-deception lies no safety. What boots it to camouflage the reality of matter with dazzling dream-fabrics of resourceful Mind? Death is the universe's sovereign ruler, and it is, thanks to him, that...       And built from chemic plasm the living man.       Then Thought came in and spoiled the harmonious world:       Matter began to hope and think and feel,       Tissue and nerve bore joy and agony. 35   Death would perhaps like Savitri to believe that Mind is an aberration, the source of much disaffection, the illusory father of lies and dreams and sighs. What presumption! "Born... replaces fire       Or an endearing habit imitates love:       An outward and uneasy union lasts       Or the routine of a life's compromise:...       Two strive, constant associates without joy,       Two egos straining in a single leash,       Two minds divided by their jarring thoughts,       Two spirits disjoined, forever separate.       Thus is the ideal falsified in man's ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Letters on Yoga - IV  >  Time and Change of the Nature

... truths are not warring enemies—they are parts of a single truth and complete each other. It is only the mind that turns them into disputants and wants one to bar out another. That is Page 730 the weakness of making something in the past the standard by which you judge the present—the mind takes advantage of its own limitations to declare that the two are incompatible. But it is not so in ... truths of the Divine there is always a reconciliation when to the limiting mind they seem opposites; as one is realised after the other, their unity appears, it is not necessary to deny the past experience in order to go forward to the new realisation. This will before long become apparent to you if you do not allow the mind to stand in the way of the heart's permanent opening. Let the doors of the... means of escape from life and entry into Nirvana or moksha or Goloka, Brahmaloka or Vaikuntha; he may seek the divine Self and its peace or Ananda behind existence and if he attains to that and is satisfied with it he can move through the world untouched by its vicissitudes and troubles; or he may seek it, as I have done, for the Page 728 base of a greater and happier life to be brought now ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Release from Subjection to the Body

... and drinking are useful to our inner progress; nor on the other hand must we continue to think that the dependence of the mind or even of the life on food and drink is anything more than a habit, a customary relation which Nature has set up between these principles. As a matter of fact the food we take can be reduced by contrary habit and new relation to a minimum without the mental or vital vigour... and commands; he believes his mind and soul to be subject to the law and working of the body; he forgets that he is so much else besides that is greater than the physical form; he forgets that the mind is really greater than Matter and ought not to submit to its obscurations, reactions, habit of inertia, habit of incapacity; he forgets that he is more even than the mind, a Power which can raise the... first step in this path of knowledge, having once determined in our intellect that what seems is not the Truth, that the self is not the body or life or mind, since these are only its forms, must be to set right our mind in its practical relation with the life and the body so that it may arrive at its own right relation with the Self. This it is easiest to do by a device with which we are already familiar ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Classical and Romantic  >  A resume and a look forward

... revelation of what is above and beyond and behind the apparent world and its external or superficial occurrences and its vital or mental depths immediately at the back of these phenomena, all of mind and life and matter itself tends to discover, as in the finest expression of the mystical by modern Romanticism, not its dissolution into figures and values alien to it but its own final beauty and truth. ... Earle Welby: 5 "Few men have been so sane or made so much of a success of life on their own terms. He chose to live chiefly in the other world, but he always knew what he was about in this; his just contempt for mere reason did not prevent him from following it in worldly matters. And as he lived a busy, purposeful, happy life so he died the happiest of deaths, making the rafters of his poor room ring... unveiling ranges of existence which the physical mind ignores, pointing man himself to capacities of godhead in being, truth, beauty, power, joy which are beyond the highest of his common or his yet realised values of existence, is the last potentiality of this creative, interpretative power of the human mind. When the eye of the poet has seen life externally or with a more vital inwardness, has risen ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Classical and Romantic

The Good Teacher and The Good Pupil  >  An Eploration

... n and transformation of that life. It is true that there was a gradual deviation from the original Vedic conception of life and education. Much of it was recovered by the seers of the Upanishads, and the integrality of spirit and matter was preserved in some of their teachings. But 1. Taittiriya Upanishad, Brahmanandavalli, chapter I. Page 36 Hermitages in Bharhut... already a kind of exclusivism had become manifest during the Upanishadic Age. Later, sharp distinctions came to be made between Spirit and Matter, and a denunciation of material life became more and more predominant. The call of the spirit and a recoil from matter characterize powerful movements of Indian thought. This affected the educational system, and the original impulse of integral education was... be created. The secret of that synthesis, as pointed out by Sri Aurobindo, is the manifestation of Spirit in Matter, leading to an unprecedented perfection and even a mutation of the human species. Sri Aurobindo's discovery of the Supermind and its possibility of full operation in physical life may be regarded as the most significant gift of renascent India to humanity's effort to overcome its crisis ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Good Teacher and The Good Pupil

A Philosophy of Education for the Contemporary Youth  >  Eternal India's message to Young India

... that thou appearest to be, and that is man as thou knowest him. The Self that thou hast to become is that self that thou art within behind the veil of mind and life and matter. It is to be the master of thy mind, thy life and thy body; it is to be a king over Nature of whom thou art now the tool, lifted above her who now has thee under her feet. It is to be free and not a slave,... humanity in the new age will not accept the theory that many must necessarily remain for ever on the lower ranges of life and only a few climb into the free air and the light, but will start from the standpoint of the great spirits who have striven to regenerate the life of the earth and hold that faith in spite of all previous failures." Page 59 "That which thou ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Philosophy of Education for the Contemporary Youth

The Destiny of the Body  >  Foreword

... a reminder to the champions of the spiritual life that the inner divinity is meant not to tear away from the outer form but to awaken that form to a natural kinship with it. It is also a reminder to the champions of the physical life that the ultimate source of this life's full flowering lies in that inner divinity and its awakening touch on matter. Mukherjee's double reminder catches... knowledge but also by the wide-ranging vitality of its insight. The theme is one of the most challenging that the mind of man has faced: the evolutionary prospects of the human body. The human body is a bundle of opposites. It combines an ingenious system of interrelated life-serving functions with a fragility of overall balance seeming to invite death through many doors. It has an in-built... it to be both subject and object at the same time and therefore the symbolic expression of some truth of physical being which is not exhausted by the present possibilities of living and conscious matter . There is here a sense of Infinite riches in a little room — riches that could transfigure the limited-looking composite of solids, liquids and gases that ordinarily ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  1 May 1957

... immense: what we call genius is part of the development of the human range of being and its achievements, especially in things of the mind and will, can carry us halfway to the divine. Even what the mind and will can do with the body in the field proper to the body and its life, in the way of physical achievement, bodily endurance, feats of prowess of all kinds, a lasting activity refusing fatigue or collapse... , a dwelling place, an instrument of a secret Consciousness or a Superconscient which has created the miracle we call the universe. Matter is the field and the creation of the Inconscient and Page 96 the perfection of the operations of inconscient Matter, their perfect adaptation of means to an aim and end, the wonders they perform and the marvels of beauty they create, testify, in spite... formation of an exceptional character. Naturally, if you do it in the ordinary way and with all the ordinary reactions and ugly movements, it doesn't help anything at all; but that holds good in no matter what one does; whether in the field of sports or the intellectual field, anywhere, if one acts in the ordinary way, well, one wastes one's time. But if when playing or taking part in tournaments and ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Savitri  >  'The Debate of Love and Death'

... inert Matter itself lay God in a self-wrought swoon:         The Timeless took its ground in emptiness       And drew the figure of a universe,       That the spirit might adventure into Time       And wrestle with adamant Necessity       And the soul pursue a cosmic pilgrimage. 37   It has been a marvellous tale of inner urge and the throwing up of life in matter, and... and of mind in life; like the plant from the seed, like the flower from the tree, like the fruit from the flower, new powers have emerged, and more are to come. From the windows of the mind can be espied the dim figure of the coming superman, the demi-god. Page 214 Shall we blame man for nurturing these visions, visions that shall certainly prove true:         Motionless... unity, the "tangle-dance of passionate contraries /Locking like lovers in a forbidden embrace", all blunder and struggle "towards the one Divine". Perversion of both mind and heart is possible:   A crooked maze they made of thinking mind, They suffered a metamorphosis of the heart, Admitting bacchant revellers from the Night Into its sanctuary of delights, As in a Dionysian masquerade ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Preparing for the Miraculous  >  3: Preparing for the Miraculous

... other principles of what constitutes reality – life, mind, spirit – to be reducible to matter, or otherwise to be outside the sphere of interest of serious science. “If we look carefully at these workings of Nature,” Sri Aurobindo writes in The Life Divine , “once we put aside the veil of familiarity and our unthinking acquiescence in the process of things as natural because so they always happen... of a supramental, i.e. divine consciousness in a material body demands, is that matter be divinized. Only then will the future species beyond the human become a possibility. What such a transformed supramental body on our material planet will be, we cannot even try to imagine, for our mind is too limited. That matter, or the material living cell, can be refined is shown by the human body in its ... be remembered that spiritual matters are not subject to scientific proof; they can only be confirmed through faith and direct experience. What Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are, what they have done, and what continues to happen as the continuation of the Work done during their lifetime, must ultimately be a matter of personal acceptance based on an open attitude in the mind, the gift of faith in the heart ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Preparing for the Miraculous

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Towards Applied Philosophy

... Page 220 the spur to arrive at a more subtle and puissant order. The entire evolutionary movement can be seen from this point of view where life has been greatly harmonised with matter, and mind has also been similarly harmonised with life. It would, therefore, be seen that the upward impulse of man towards the accordance of yet higher opposite not only rational in itself, but the only logical... cosmic and terrestrial, right up to our Material life and its subconscious and unconscious recesses. In this context, our aim should be to give the right place and justification to that tendency in materialism Page 213 which affirms matter, discovers secrets of. knowledge pertaining to matter and affirms the legitimate and right claims of matter in the totality of existence as also to the... conduct of life based on the denial of meaning. It prescribes the cultivation of qualities or states of mind and experience that would result from the philosophical denial of meaning. This is very well illustrated in the Essay written by Bertrand Russell, "A Freeman's Worship" where he describes briefly his philosophy of meaninglessness and application of that philosophy in the conduct of life. For the ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Appendix II: A Clarification

... composed of Prakriti. It is described as manomaya by the Upanishads because the psychic being is behind the veil and man being a mental being in the life and body lives in his mind and not in his psychic, so to him the manomaya purusha is the leader of the life and body,—of the psychic behind supporting the whole he is not aware or dimly aware in his best moments. The psychic is represented in man by the... to whom Prakriti refers for assent to her actions. But still the statement of the Upanishads gives only the apparent truth of the matter, valid for man and the human stage only—for in the animal it would be rather the pranamaya purusha that is the netā , leader of mind and body. It is one reason why I have not yet allowed the publication of Page 433 Rebirth and Karma because this had to... chapter, 1 I find that it is the 'mental being' which is put forth from life to life—that it is the reincarnating soul But would not the mental being be a part of the personality—the mental, nervous and physical composite—which in the popular conception is the thing that is carried over or which takes a new body in the next life? And the 'Self' here is quite different from the 'mental being'....Is the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Savitri  >  'The House of the Spirit and the New Creation'

... but a total comprehension of all matter and all life, is the way to the goal he has set before himself. From self-knowledge radiates world-knowledge, and the infinitesimal becomes the infinite:         In this tremendous universality       Not only his soul-nature and mind-sense       Included every soul and mind in his,       But even the life of flesh and nerve was changed ... Infinity".         There are the "two vast negations", of course—'the Materialist Denial' and 'the Refusal of the Ascetic', as Sri Aurobindo calls them in The Life Divine. It is these negations that hinder the total marriage of matter and spirit and the emergence here of a new creation. But the negations shall be themselves denied:         A new creation from the old shall rise,       ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

The Sun and The Rainbow  >  A Crucial Dream and the Mother's Interpretation

... state of health and mind. In 1956 or 1957 I had a dream. Some being was saying to me what my life would be like if I stayed here with you. I was shown everything. There was darkness, and big stones were thrown from all sides on my body, completely breaking it. Then the being showing me this said: "If you live with the Mother, this is what she will do to you." I replied: "Never mind. Let the body break... break." Then again the being said: "Not only your body but also your mind will break." And again I replied: "It doesn't matter. Let her do what she likes." Then I was shown the other side. If I left you, my body would be quite healthy and everything would be most pleasant. After seeing this, I still said: "I have chosen to live with the Mother." So far, my eyes were shut during the dream... quiet, and on the horizon I saw a band of light. Mother, I want to know the meaning of all this. The dream has come true in regard to my body and mind. My body is becoming weaker and weaker. All my energy is going and I can't work even to occupy my mind. I feel as if 1 were being broken to pieces. And I get ideas which are not healthy. This condition is there not only in Pondicherry but more or less ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Sun and The Rainbow

On Thoughts and Aphorisms  >  Aphorism - 77, 78

... so. ( Silence ) It may be another kind of action, but it is not another kind of knowledge. Page 142 ( Silence ) In truth, we shall only be able to speak of what transforms Matter when Matter is at least a little transformed, when there is a beginning of transformation. Then we shall be able to speak of the process. But for the moment... ( Silence ) But any transformation in... is always an effect; even things which seem to be purely intellectual certainly have some repercussion on the structure of the brain. This kind of revelation can only occur in a silent mind—at least in a mind that is at rest, completely quiet and still, otherwise they do not come. Or if they come, you do not notice them, because of all the noise you are making. And of course, they help this quiet... dynamic power! ( Mother laughs. ) Precisely when are we going to cut off the circulation and release the Force? It is difficult. ( Silence ) In ordinary life, you think things over and then you do them—it is just the opposite! In this life, first you must do the thing and then, afterwards, you understand, long afterwards. First you must do it—without thinking. If you think, you do nothing worthwhile; ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   On Thoughts and Aphorisms

Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Vital Being and Vital Consciousness

... heaven. The Life Heavens have an influence on earth and so have the Life Hells, but it does not follow that they influence each other in their own domain. Overmind can influence earth, so can the hostile Powers, but it does not follow that hostile Powers can penetrate the Overmind—they can't: they can only spoil what it sends to the earth. Each power of the Divine (life like mind and matter are powers... thinking mind proper, the discriminating reason or according to the mental intuition or a direct insight and judgment. The vital mind uses thought for the service not of reason but of life-push and life-power and when it calls in reasoning it uses that for justifying the dictates of these powers, imposes their dictates on the reason instead of governing by a discriminating will the action of the life-forces... the nature, the less the resistance there. By the higher vital parts of the nature I mean the vital mind, the emotional nature, the life-force dynamis in the being. The vital mind is that part of the vital being which builds, plans, imagines, arranges things and thoughts according to the life-pushes, desires, will to power or possession, will to action, emotions, vital ego reactions of the nature ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV  >  Correspondence 1946

... of the Puranas took it as having been actually projected on earth in the life of the incarnate Krishna and it has been always so accepted by the religious mind of India. These questions and the speculations to which they have given rise have no indispensable connection with the spiritual life. There what matters is the contact with Krishna and the growth towards the Krishna consciousness... successfully do it as both Krishnaprem and I have told you and as your own mind tells you when it is clear. A temporary absence from the Ashram for relief from the struggle is a different matter. I do not think, however, that residence in the Ramana Ashram would be eventually helpful except for bringing back some peace of mind; Ramana Maharshi is a great Yogi and his realisation very high on its own... planes of consciousness beyond the physical mind which gives room for a wider truth and experience to enter and act upon the mind. It is not the only or the most important door, but it is one which comes readiest to very many if not most and can be a very powerful help. It does not come as easily to intellectuals as it does to men with a strong life-power or the emotional and the imaginative. ...

Dilip Kumar Roy   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume IV

The Mother - Past-Present-Future  >  November 17, 1974

... wanted to build a bridge between earth and heaven, that is to say, the transformation of the bodily mind or the mind of Matter, as the Mother has called it, which was indispensable for the Supramental to manifest permanently upon earth and She announced its accomplishment in 1972. This transformed bodily mind has survived the death of Her body, and if the collectivity had been ready it would have naturally... Mother's transforming the mind of matter in her own body and added: "This transformed bodily mind has survived the death of her body." It is the last phrase which is revelatory. Not only the transformed vital being and the subtle-physical have survived her body's death and been assimilated into her new mode of existence and accompany her supramental form: even the bodily mind, by being transformed to... has not attained some degree at least of transformation? I do not believe it... The total conquest, matter's transformation, depends certainly a great deal upon a certain degree of progress in the collectivity." 1 Repeatedly and clearly the Mother has expressed the central fact to be kept in mind. As long as the collectivity, consisting of a minimum number of persons, which the Truth demands, is ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Mother - Past-Present-Future

Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine  >  Appendix

... stretched on a vast canvas moving from the Inconscient to Mind in humanity, and let us go back to the beginning,—to the Inconscient. Do we see Ignorance there ? No, we see neither Ignorance nor Knowledge. The first organised element to come out of this Inconscient is Matter. Do we find Ignorance in Matter ? No, because, to our sense and mind Matter is inert, it is neither conscient nor inconscient. It... Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine Appendix THE ORIGIN OF THE IGNORANCE It is rather difficult to make up one's mind to speak on a subject that has taken the philosophers of the world life-long efforts to arrive at what might be called even a working solution of the problem, the origin of the Ignorance. It would be daring and presumptuous to think that within... What greater miracle could there be than this, that in a world based on the Inconscient there should occur not only the phenomena of Life and Mind but that the mental being should aspire for and conceive it possible to attain the Divine and manifest Perfection in life on earth ? This great achievement, the achievement of Divine Perfection out of terms which are the very opposite of any perfection is ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

The Birth of Savitr  >  The Birth of Savitr

... throughout the night, hungered for more. At times 'neath the life-mind squirmed a trepid ray And looked at things with squinting scarlet eyes; At times some ghost of thought rushed quickly by Or the animal leaped to seize on wisdom's word. Yet from elsewhere awareness must come And bring gain to the godheads of little life. 30 April 2002 Jagat-Shakti: World-Force ... April 2002 Page 8 Canto Seven First he entered the world of exquisite matter That could beauty house and all its sweetness And bring unflawed wonder to time-made things. A quiet flame burned in the gold lamp of joy And filled room and room with the light of its truth. But then came mind and fragmented the dream; A wave dashed on the hoary rock of night And in its... s lie And nature is all, nursing the age-old grief. On life's tree time has built her nest of pain And as the eternal's guard there stands death. But her vision and work aim at heaven-fire A-kindled in this half-lit terrestrial day. An invisible presence prompts her movements Even as in the mute trance of matter Through dimness of her eyes looks out the sun. Slowly the ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Birth of Savitr

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Soul and Its Liberation

... is subject to matter and the physical senses and conceives of things only as forms, objects, external phenomena and as names which we attach to those forms. We are not aware directly of the subjective life of other beings except by analogy from our Page 441 own and by inference or derivative perception based upon their external signs of speech, action, etc., which our minds translate into... in experience and a sort of necessity or upward attraction felt by the soul when it shakes off the compelling ties of mind and matter. It is felt that these ties are inseparable from all earthly living or from all mental existence. Death is the king of the material world, for life seems to exist here only by submission to death, by a constant dying; immortality has to be conquered here with difficulty... them of which their own surface minds are not aware, then we see the real Being in them also and we see them as selves of our Self and not as mere names and forms. They become to us realities of the Eternal. Our minds are no longer subject to the delusion of trivial unworthiness or the illusion of unreality. The material life loses indeed for us its old absorbing value, but finds the greater value which ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  5: Alfred Wallace: The Other Darwin

... scientific materialists, saw everything as Nature, as a form of manifested matter in action. Matter was the fact, matter was the mystery. His rational mind would not accept anything he could not explain, and held that in Nature everything had to be mechanism in one way or other. The Chain of Being – matter, life-force, mind – was no longer taken into consideration in the second half of the nineteenth... appeared”; 2. “the introduction of sensation or consciousness”; 3. “the existence in man of a number of his most characteristic and noblest faculties,” namely those of the mind. 29 Earth is a planet whose basis is matter; therein the life forces manifested; then therein consciousness has gradually lit up. At these three points in the evolution on our Earth “the unseen universe of the Spirit” has interceded... grand law of ‘continuity’, the last outcome of modern science, which seems absolute throughout the realms of matter, force, and mind, so far as we can explore them, cannot surely fail to be true beyond the narrow sphere of our vision, and leave an infinite chasm between man and the Great Mind of the universe.” 33 Wallace did not adhere to any traditional religion and he did not believe in a personal ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

The Life Divine  >  Delight of Existence: The Solution

... into being in the purely physical world so long as life does not enter into it; for till then mechanical methods are sufficient. Its office begins when life with its frailty and imperfect possession of Page 115 Matter enters on the scene; it grows with the growth of Mind in life. Its office continues so long as Mind is bound in the life and body which it is using, dependent upon them for... persistence of the lower in the as yet imperfect organisation of the higher. Its eventual elimination must be an essential point in the destined conquest of the soul over subjection to Matter and egoistic limitation in Mind. This elimination is possible because pain and pleasure themselves are currents, one imperfect, the other perverse, but still currents of the delight of existence. The reason for... depths it returns them to the surface in forms of strength, character, knowledge, impulsion whose roots are mysterious to us because our mind moves and quivers on the surface and has not learned to concentrate itself and live in the depths. In our ordinary life this truth is hidden from us or only dimly glimpsed at times or imperfectly held and conceived. But if we learn to live within, we infallibly ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Practice of the Integral Yoga  >  Sadhana of the Body: Physical Transformation in the Integral Yoga

... shackles of phenomenal Ignorance but the establishment of a truly divine life upon earth itself, ihaiva. But since Matter is the foundation of all evolutionary efflorescence of life here upon the terrestrial plane, our physical body assumes a supreme importance in the total scheme of our spiritual achievement. A full play of divine life demands as its essential prerequisite a totally transformed physical... on 'Physical Transformation' with someprophetic lines from Sri Aurobindo' s Savitri: "The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's face.... The Spirit shall take up the human play, This earthly life become the life divine." (Bk. XI, C. 1, pp. 709, 711) Page 310 ... unconscious Matter: it is a structure of a secretly conscious Energy that has taken form in it. And consciousness that "seems to be a result is, - in its reality, though Page 305 not in its form, — the origin; the effect is in the essence pre-existent to the appparent cause, the principle of the emergent activity precedent to its present field of action." (The Life Divine, ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Practice of the Integral Yoga

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  Oneness

... perfect transfiguration of the lower nature. We may feel imperfectly by the emotional mind, we may have a sense by the sense-mind or a conception and perception by the intelligent mind of the Spirit present in Matter and all its forms, the divine Delight present in all emotion and sensation, the divine Force behind all life-activities; but the lower will still keep its own nature and limit and divide in... higher reality. We have to Page 421 realise Matter as a sense-created mould of Spirit, a vehicle for all manifestation of the light, force and joy of Sachchidananda in the highest conditions of terrestrial being and activity. We have to see Life as a channel for the infinite Force divine and break the barrier of a sense-created and mind-created farness and division from it so that that divine... Will, supramental, originative and determinative of all minds, lives and bodies; one Mind containing all mental beings and constituting all their mental activities; one Life active in all living beings and generative of their vital activities; one substance constituting all forms and objects as the visible and sensible mould in which mind and life manifest and act just as one pure existence is that ether ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

On Education  >  The Science of Living

... speak their language avoiding terms likely to shock them. But I have known in my life persons who called themselves "materialists" and yet followed a much severer discipline than those who claim to do yoga. What we want is that humanity should progress; whether it professes to lead a yogic life or not matters little, provided it makes the necessary effort for progress. The Mother... patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour. As you pursue this labour of purification and unification, you must at the same time take great care to perfect the external and instrumental part of your being. When the higher truth manifests, it must find in you a mind that is supple and rich enough to be able to give the idea... educating the mind and that of establishing control over the feelings and their consequences. For example, you must never allow your mind to judge things and people, for the mind is not an instrument of knowledge; it is incapable of finding knowledge, but it must be moved by knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a much higher domain than that of the human mind, far above the region of pure ideas. The mind has to ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   On Education

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8  >  Thought the Creator

... to learn in this matter. Men live in ignorance; they have powers of which they are thoroughly unconscious or know very little. Buddhists, I mean those who are in the more orthodox tradition, do not believe in God or an eternal Reality; they do not believe in gods either, that is to say, in beings who are truly divine. They, however, know admirably to use the mind and the mind's power. The Buddhist... formed my Mahatma so well that he has become a personality quite independent of me and comes all the while to trouble me? He comes, scolds me for this and that, advises me in this matter and that and wants to control my life altogether. I am unable to get rid of him. I find it extremely difficult and do not know how to go about it. As I say, my Mahatma has become extremely troublesome. He does not leave... made an experiment: he had formed a being with his thought, he had created something like a Mahatma. He knew and it is a proved fact that these mental formations after a time begin to have a personal life, independently of the author,—although they may be connected with him, yet they are quite independent, in the sense that they have a will of their own. But now he was facing a formidable difficulty ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4  >  Thought the Creator

... to learn in this matter. Men live in ignorance; they have powers of which they are thoroughly unconscious or know very little. Buddhists, I mean those who are in the more orthodox tradition, do not believe in God or an eternal Reality; they do not believe in gods either, that is to say, in beings who are truly divine. They, however, know admirably how to use the mind and the mind's power. The Buddhist... formed my Mahatma so well that he has become a personality quite independent of me and comes all the while to trouble me? He comes, scolds me for this and that, advises me in this matter and that and wants to control my life altogether. I am unable to get rid of him. I find it extremely difficult and do not know how to go about it. As I say, my Mahatma has become extremely troublesome. He does not leave... made an experiment: he had formed a being with his thought, he had created something like a Mahatma. He knew and it is a proved fact that these mental formations after a time begin to have a personal life, independently of the author,-although they may be connected with him, yet they are quite independent, in the Page 34 sense that they have a will of their own. But now he was ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4

Overman  >  5: Overman

... of the higher powers of our nature, soul, mind, life-force and the faculties of the subtle physical consciousness to bring about results on their own or on the material plane by some pressure of their own secret law and its potentialities, for manifestation and results in human or earthly mind and life and body or in objects and events in the world of Matter.” (Sri Aurobindo: Essays in Philosophy and... there is not only a subtle physical force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter, and to create this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible … “A soul wishing to enter into a body or form for itself a body and take part in a divine life upon earth might be assisted to do so or even provided with such... complex way. But in our daily life the physical consciousness of the cells makes itself felt only in the feeling of a vague bodily heaviness and sometimes in a mechanical repetition of some suggestions, physical impressions or elementary remembrances. But if Matter is to become divine, then it is exactly this lowest form of physical consciousness, directly in contact with Matter and supporting it, that has ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Overman

Education and the Aim of human life  >  Sri Aurobindo's Integral Education

... of a greater consciousness beyond the frame of his normal life through which he can participate in a higher and vaster life. Indeed, in all exceptional beings it is always this consciousness that governs their life, and organises both the circumstances of their life and their individual reaction these circumstances. What the human mind does not know and cannot do, this consciousness knows and... This was possible because the primary object of these place not teaching but giving shelter to those who lived their life in God.... This ideal of education through sharing a life of high aspiration with one's master took possession of my mind....Only let us have access of the life that goes beyond death and rises above all circumstances, let us find our God, let us live for that ultimate truth... Personality, character, is more than subject-matter. Not knowledge or information, but self-realisation, is the goal. To possess all the world of knowledge and lose one's own self is as awful a fate in education as in religion. Moreover, subject-matter never can be got into the child from without. Learning is active. It involves reaching out of the mind. It involves organic assimilation starting ...

Pavitra   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Education and the Aim of human life

Letters on Himself and the Ashram  >  Messages Written for Special Occasions

... Messages for Disciples For Duraiswami Let the new birth become manifest in your heart and radiate in calm and joy and take up all the parts of your being, mind and vision and will and feeling and life and body. Let each date in your life be a date of its growth and greater completeness till all in you is the child of the Mother. Let the Light and Power and Presence envelop you and protect and cherish... consciousness, more and more fading of the more vehement movements of the vital ego are among the more prominent landmarks on the road. 2 February 1947 Matter, blind to the Light, deaf to the call, the material consciousness and material life are the last and most obstinate refuge of the Inconscient and its resistance. There, the nearer the light, the higher it raises its wall of resistance. When... brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life. 21 April 1933 You must make grow in you the peace that is born of the certitude of victory. 14 June 1933 Keep firm faith in the victory of the Light and face with calm equanimity the resistances of Matter and human personality to their own transformation. 21 December 1933 Our blessings are ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Himself and the Ashram

Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body  >  What is Health

... — and even life itself — to the behaviour of our constituent molecules. Yet it is not entirely clear that this is so. David Bohm, in speaking of the living world, uses the example of a seed. Almost all of the matter and energy that emerge as the seed grows comes from the environment. "Who is to say," says Bohm, "that life was not immanent, even before the seed was planted?" And if life was immanent... each other 4. All living matter is potentially dead. Everything awaits decay. 4. All matter belongs to the implicate order, where everything is alive. "What we call dead is an abstraction" (Bohm) 5. Life is characterized by movement, and death by stasis. 5. The implicate order enfolds all, and is flux; thus, both life and death are movement. Nothing is... immanent prior to the unfolding of the seed in its growing form, then , the growing seed becomes more than the mere matter from which it; began, as it takes on life itself. The growing seed has become more ! than the behaviour of constituent molecules. This life-energy, a term Bohm uses, belongs to the implicate order, — that unseen totality that, says Bohm, underlies the external world of; things and ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body

In the Mother's Light  >  The Soul or the Psychic-1

... beyond the confines of our sense-mind, exploring immeasurable spaces and surprising truths after truths which widen and enlighten our life and culture. All this proves—and even the most confirmed materialist cannot but perceive it— that there is something in us which has a divination of its infinity and immortality, and a conscious or subconscious urge towards it in life—a being, an entity or a principle... and in front, it is the ego in us that is the leader of our life. The desires and impulses of our vital (prana) and the ideas, opinions and preferences of our mental being are all egoistic in their nature and drive. If left to them- selves, they would never turn to the Divine, but perpetually spin round the ego. Born of the obscurity of Matter and nursed by subconscient energies, they multiply division... As it evolves and awakens, it begins to radiate its influence to all the parts of our nature, and it is only because of its growing influence that our heart or mind feels an aspiration for something higher and purer than what ordinary life can give us—an unconditioned peace or bliss, an infinite existence of freedom and harmony, the Divine Reality. All that contributes to sweetness and beauty, to purity ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

The Mother (biography)  >  10: The Laboratory

... things are not only possible but have happened in many cases. The Mother knows that and her arrangements in this matter are therefore dictated by quite other reasons than those which are attributed to her.’ 42 Sometimes Sri Aurobindo was forced to put matters bluntly: ‘Your physical mind cannot understand what the Mother does, its values and standards and ideas are not hers.’ And: ‘If people want... otherwise it is through the mind that it acts, the mind or the vital. But here I touch the physical directly through the sight, through the eye contact. That’s what I do, each time.’ 70 Meanwhile, Sri Aurobindo continued his yoga in his apartment. Day after day, year after year he was battling there for the future of the world, to obtain the transformation of Matter which would radically and... Force descends in matter and radiates, it seeks for fit instruments to express and manifest it.’ 24 (Sri Aurobindo) ‘When people, born scattered over the world at great distances from one another, are driven by circumstances or by an inner urge to come and gather here,’ said the Mother, ‘it is almost always because they have met in some life or other – not all in the same life – and because their ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Mother (biography)

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6  >  EVER GREEN

... repeat too often or carry too far an experiment of this kind on the physical plane. But you can freely deal with your inner life and consciousness. You can make your mind and your vital a clean slate, as much as you like; not once in your life, but every moment of your life. And then see how the world impinges upon your consciousness, what fresh discoveries and awakenings come to you endlessly!... too wears out, for it becomes stereotyped, a matter of mere habit. The experience is no longer lived, but mechanically doled out. You are sincere only when the experience is new and fresh and living, it should be made so every moment, otherwise it is dead letter, letter that killeth. That is the secret of spiritual life and even of normal life. To keep it ever green you must know how to pour... beginning your life and your life experience. Always Page 52 you start afresh; even if you are on the same path and seem to be moving in the same direction for the hundredth time, you must feel as if it was for the first time that you undertook the journey, it was your virgin attempt towards a new discovery. Forget all past ideas, notions, experiences that crowd your mind; sweep away ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6

Sri Aurobindo's Message  >  Sri Aurobindo on Religion

... else matters. Morality is a part of the ordinary life; it is an attempt to govern the outward conduct by certain mental rules or to form the character by these rules in the image of a certain mental ideal. The spiritual life goes beyond the mind; it enters into the deeper consciousness of the Spirit and acts out of the truth of the Spirit. As for the question about the ethical life Page... spiritual life (adhyātma-jīvana) , the religious life {dharma-jīvana) and the ordinary human life of which morality is a part are three quite different things and one must know which one desires and not confuse the three together. The ordinary life is that of the average human consciousness separated from its own true self and from the Divine and led by the common habits of the mind, life and body... directly feel the spirit and obey its law. An intellectual formula is often needed by the thinking and reasoning mind, a form or ceremony by the aesthetic temperament or other parts of the infrarational being, a set moral code by man's vital nature in their turn towards the inner life. But these things are aids and supports, not the essence; precisely because they belong to the rational and inf ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo's Message

Principles and Goals of Integral Education  >  Training in the Use of the Free Progress System

... and idiosyncracies should have no say in the matter. But this is what happens mostly in practice if the student is not previously Page 76 shown what is actually meant by "exercising one's free choice". But a student may at this point raise the puzzled query: "Am I not already 'free'? Am I not acting all the time in my daily life as a free individual? And if so, what is this... one's daily life as the puppet of various urges and impulses beyond one's conscious control. To act freely one has first to "know" oneself and "master" oneself. Without having sufficient training in these two psychological operations, it is vain to expect that one can use the "Free Progress" system in the right and convenient way. To remove any possible lingering doubt in the mind of the students... ns. The vital is, by our Page 81 simplistic definition, supposed to be blind and impetuous; whereas the mind is considered to be poised, discriminatory and rational. Now these two faculties in man quite often come into conflict in the affairs of daily life and the dealings of an individual. Man's behaviour and nature and the mode of his actions and reactions are mostly governed ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Principles and Goals of Integral Education

A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo  >  The First Move

... a. Matter and life and consciousness in man are seen to be evolving towards the divine life and the divine consciousness, in which they are not annihilated but fulfilled." (p. 137) The Supramental Physical and the Body of the Resurrection Just after these words Griffiths writes: "This is the goal of a Christian Yoga. Body and soul are to be transfigured by the divine life and... values of being and becoming, of Spirit and matter, of the One and the many, of the eternal and the temporal, of the universal and the individual, of the personal God and the absolute Godhead, are integrated in a vision of the whole, which has never been surpassed in depth and comprehensiveness. In the integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the values of matter and life and human consciousness and the experience... Griffiths's next paragraph can hold true. He continues: "For a Christian this has already taken place in the resurrection of Christ. In his body matter has already been transformed, so as to become a spiritual body, which is the medium of the divine life..." {Ibid.) In the address delivered at the International Transpersonal Conference held in Bombay from the 14th till the 20th February this ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Follower of Christ and a Disciple of Sri Aurobindo

The Destiny of the Body  >  The Sleep and the Waking

... But aware or not, we cannot deny the fact of occult experience that all that we 'become and do and bear' in the physical life is prepared behind the veil within us. For it is a mistake to imagine that we live physically only, with the outer mind and life alone. As a matter of fact, "we are all the time living and acting on other planes of consciousness, meeting others there and acting upon... for, after all, is not the normal run of our waking life whose essential badge is an ignorant and externalised turn of consciousness, verily a state of sleep for the illumined (prabuddha), just as the superior planes are but planes of sleep to our ignorant physical mind which is not at all at home in these planes ? 1 As a matter of fact, our apparent waking from a physical slumber is... that is shut up in the body limitation and within the confines of the little bit of personal mind. In this part of our being, we receive consciously only the outer touches, know things in ourselves and in our surroundings only or mainly by the intellect and the outer mind and senses, and 1 The Life Divine, p. 555. Page 169 become aware of the cosmic forces and movements ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Notes on the Way  >  21 August 1965

... is that mind, this wholly material mind. The other, the physical mind, was organised long ago. Then what is the difference between this material mind and the physical mind? The physical mind is the mind of the physical personality formed by the body. It grows with the body, but it is not the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being. For example, it is this physical mind which gives... it is evident immortality. How do you define this physical mind which was made the object of the transfer of power? It is not the physical mind. It is long since the physical mind has changed.... It is the material mind—not even the material mind: it is the mind of Matter . It is the mental substance which belongs to Matter itself, to the cells. That is what was once called the "spirit of... an organised mind, you must understand. It is the most material part touching the mind.... How can one call this "mind"? You cannot even call it the bodily mind―it is the mind of the cells, it is a cellular mind. This cellular mind exists in animals, and even a little (very little, as a promise) beginning in the plants—they respond to a mental action. They do respond. As soon as Life manifests, there ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Notes on the Way

Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays  >  Yoga, Consciousness and Human Fulfilment

... after all, consciousness? In this immense universe of Matter, which is or which appears to be unconscious, how does this consciousness emerge? Is consciousness entirely alien to Matter? Are they in any way related to each other? Is that relation merely external? Or is it internal? Again, is consciousness identical with what we mean by Mind? Or, is Mind itself a certain degree or kind of consciousness?... the human body, its need of blood circulation, food and oxygen? Recent research in Yoga has raised all these important problems not merely as matters of fascinating curiosity or in pursuit of some ambition to conquer death and enjoy the round circle of life perpetually, but as something so relevant to understand Man himself, his place in the evolutionary process, his function as a species. It... a single conscious principle. Mind and body are not basically different from each other. Not only that, they also point to the phenomena which cannot ordinarily be covered under what we mean by the word Mind. Indeed in all schools of yoga, we have a distinction between consciousness and mind, in the sense that consciousness is a large complex of awareness, while mind is only a limited or a selected ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays

Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results  >  PART FIVE

... the supermind will have a decisive bearing on humanity and even on the process of the solution of the problems that human life is confronted with and of the problems that humanity is passing through at the contemporary moment. Not only that, just as the evolution of the thinking mind has led the evolutionary process to develop a human body with special characteristics and structure that distinguish it... have been led to exceed themselves and to go higher and deeper within. Their efforts indicate their call to the inner soul, inner mind and inner heart to come out into the front, and they also indicate their call to the higher forces of the spiritual mind and higher mind and overmind to come down; and we find among them the flowering, under the light and the influence that have come down from above... about the needed integration of Spirit and Matter. Then only would it be possible for the supramental consciousness not merely to dwell in the cellular consciousness of the body and widen it or universalize it but also permeate that consciousness and thus fix itself in the physical consciousness of the human body; only then the integration of Spirit and Matter can be secured. That integration would manifest ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Integral Yoga - Major Aims, Methods, Processes and Results

Essays Divine and Human  >  Integral Yoga

... Divine in all its aspects indivisibly unified together. Whatever is beyond mind and life and body is spirit. But spirit can be realised even on these lower levels, in the spiritualised mind, in the spiritualised life-force, even in the spiritualised physical consciousness and body. But if thou rise not up beyond the mind-level, then in these realisations the spirit must needs be modified by the medium... of the vital urge in man, of his life-force seeking for its fulfilment and the true soul which is a spark of the Divine Fire, a portion of the Divine. Because the soul, the psychic being uses the mind and the vital as well as the body as instruments for growth and experience it is itself looked at as if it were some amalgam or some subtle substratum of mind and life. But in Yoga if we accept all this... the mind, body and life. To bring it Page 369 out of its seclusion where it lives like a spiritual king without apparent power served and replaced by its ministers, so that it may take over the whole active government of the nature is the first great unfolding, the initial potent self-discovery of the Yoga. Mind the thinker is the prime minister in us who covers the king, but mind too is ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Ever Green

... cannot repeat too often or carry too far an experiment of this kind on the physical plane. But you can freely deal with your inner life and consciousness. You can make your mind and your vital a clean slate, as much as you like: not once in your life, but every moment of your life. And then see how the world impinges upon your consciousness, what fresh discoveries and awakenings come to you endlessly! You... wears out, for it becomes stereotyped, a matter of mere habit. The experience is no longer lived, but mechanically doled out. You are sincere only when the experience is new and fresh and living, it should be made so every moment, otherwise it is dead letter, letter that killeth. That is the secret of spiritual life and even of normal life. To keep it ever green you must know how to pour... are just beginning your life and your life experience. Always you start afresh; even if you are on the same path and seem to be moving in the same direction for the hundredth time, you must feel as if it was for the first time that you undertook the journey, it was your maiden attempt towards a new discovery. Forget all past ideas, notions, experiences that crowd upon your mind; sweep away all the a ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Isha Upanishad  >  A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad

... in front? The clue is given in the expression swifter than mind. It is the mind that runs in us but what is it that runs swifter than mind just as mind runs swifter than any material force? Something of which mind & matter are lower movements,—that which is the essence of the jagati, the essential conscious being of which mind, life & matter are particular currents. This conscious-being is That—the... a, only bliss that is conscious being. Just as the mind that has taught itself to see only matter everywhere, says even of mind & soul, even of itself, It is not mind, it is not soul, it is matter, just as it sees everywhere only the play of matter upon matter, in matter, by matter, so the liberated soul says of body & nerve & mind, It is not mind, it is not body, it is not nerve, it is Brahman, it... n & contact, valid not only in matter but in life & mind, using the other three elementary or fundamental states known to Vedic enquiry,—agni (fire), the formatory principle of intension, represented to our senses in matter as heat, light & fire, apas or jala (water), the materialising or outward flowing principle of continuation, represented to our senses in matter as sap, seed, rasa, & prithwi (earth) ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Isha Upanishad

Mother’s Agenda 1967  >  November 22, 1967

... you yourself may be thinking of something else, Tom, Dick or Harry or a book or anything, it doesn't matter. But now I understand, I understand very well! In the beginning I didn't understand, I thought I had been made supposedly very ill in order to stop the life I led downstairs 3 —the life I now lead is far busier than the one I led downstairs, therefore ... I wondered why, whether it was a... a new form will be born, which will be the form Sri Aurobindo called supramental—it will be ... no matter what, I don't know what those beings will be called. What will be their mode of expression? How will they make themselves understood and so on? ... In man, it developed very slowly. Only, mind has done a lot of kneading and, after all, has made things advance faster. How will we get there... become conscious INDEPENDENTLY of the brain—the brain may be busy elsewhere, it doesn't matter in the least. Besides, that's Page 374 what happens in those people we call "sleepwalkers": they have a consciousness belonging to their body, which makes them move about and do things quite independently of the mind and the vital. I mean that when I am shaving in front of the mirror, if, within ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1967

Preparing for the Miraculous  >  7: Bridges across the Afterlife

... chapters of The Life Divine , Sri Aurobindo wrote: “For it will be evident that essential Matter is a thing non-existent to the senses and only … a conceptual form of substance, and in fact the point is increasingly reached where only an arbitrary distinction in thought divides form of substance from form of energy.” 10 Now you find popular science books with a title such as The Matter Myth , and ... … Quantum physics undermines materialism because it reveals that matter has far less ‘substance’ than we might believe. … Even the apparent solidity of ordinary matter melts away into a frolic of insubstantial patterns of energy.” 12 Already during the First World War, when writing the instalments that would become The Life Divine , Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the terrestrial evolution... evolution contained elements which would only later enter the scientific discussion about the development of the life-forms. In those texts from the Arya we find what Eldredge and Gould would call “punctuated equilibrium” in 1972; the discussion of life in plants and a rather developed mind in higher animals; the statement that species, including the human, cannot evolve beyond themselves by their own ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Preparing for the Miraculous

Mother’s Agenda 1965  >  August 31, 1965

... August 28 on the "transfer of power": ) How do you define this physical mind, the one that underwent the transfer of power? That isn't the physical mind. The physical mind, it's a long time since... It is the material mind—not even the material mind: the mind OF MATTER. 1 It is the mental substance that belongs to Matter itself, to the cells. That's what was formerly called "the spirit of the... It grows with the body, but it isn't the mind of Matter: it is the mind of the physical being. For instance, it is the mind that makes one's character: the bodily, physical character, which is in large part formed by atavism and education. What is called “physical mind” is all that. Yes, it's the result of atavism, of education and of the formation of the body; that's what makes the physical character... in plants: they respond to a mental action. They respond. As soon as Life manifests, there is already the beginning, like a promise of mind, of mental movement. And in animals, it's very clear. Whereas that physical mind really began to exist only in man. That's what a very small child already has: it already has a physical mind; so that no two very small children are alike, with identical reactions: ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1965

Letters on Yoga - II  >  Practical Concerns in Work

... world. Physical things have a life and value of their own which does not depend upon their price. To respect physical things and make a careful and scrupulous use of them is a part of the Yoga, for without that the mastery over matter cannot come. What you feel about physical things is true—there is a consciousness in them, a life which is not the life and consciousness Page 287 ... let your mind go back on a work that is finished. It belongs to the past and all rehandling of it is a waste of power. Do not let your mind labour in anticipation on a work that has to be done. The Power that acts in you will see to it at its own time. These two habits of the mind belong to a past functioning that the transforming Force is pressing to remove and the physical mind's persistence... nature of the mind to make such mistakes. It is only a higher consciousness that can set them right—the mind can be sure only after a very long training in each particular action and even then it has only to be off-guard for something untoward to occur. Do as well as you can, and for the rest let the higher consciousness grow till it can enlighten all the movements of the physical mind. Skill ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1  >  An Evolutionary Problem

... in its imagery and terminology, that is to say, graphic in the Shavian manner, but the matter seems to us quite all right. What the critic fails to understand is that it is not the conscious idea in the mind that brings about its concrete realisation. What is there at the outset in the evolutionary urge is a life-force, blind, no doubt in the usual sense, but driving towards greater expression and ... that form – but that there is a pattern of ultimate particles – vital quanta – a rhythm and vibration of life energy, that is the origin, the formal and efficient cause, of the material form. Deeper still, behind the blind instinctive urge of life, the unconsciousness that is the inertia of matter, there is a consciousness, a vision, a supernal self-conscious energy that inspires, guides, fashions the ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  3: The Origin of Species

... of its materialism. Particles of matter, whatever their size, shape or activity, cannot miraculously produce something else than matter, for the basic premise says that there is nothing but matter. Matter cannot produce life or a conscious mind. May one, then, suppose that the materialist scientist suffers from a split brain, one part of which sees nothing than matter, mechanisms and machines in his... confessedly ignorant; nor do we know how ignorant we are.” 34 At the root of the origin of species lay the origin of life on our planet. Living things had to appear in non-living matter before they could branch out in a ‘tree of life’. Today the extremely improbable accident of life’s origin is as mysterious as ever. Darwin took the safe road and avoided the question. He wrote to a correspondent: “You... valid today. 1. Science should be about matter. This is now so self-evident that it is seldom a point of consideration. 2. Science has no grasp of wholes, but has to reduce all things to parts consisting of smaller parts consisting of still smaller parts. 3. All changes in matter are brought about by external forces. This excludes any kind of internal movement or life. 4. Science can only work with the ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

A Greater Psychology  >  Self, Ego and Individuality

... exclusions of the ego. If that were so, then by the transcendence of the ego the individual would abolish his own existence; our end would be to disappear and dissolve into some universality of matter, life, mind or spirit or else some indeterminate from which our egoistic determinations of individuality have started. But what is this strongly separative self-experience that we call ego? It is nothing... thereby a help or an impulse for its life-affirmation, its life-delight, its enrichment of its mental, vital or physical existence. The Life Divine, p. 624 The formation of a mental and vital ego tied to the body-sense was the first great labour of the cosmic Life in its progressive evolution; for this was the means it found for creating out of matter a conscious individual. The dissolution... of these he can say "my mind, life, body," regarding them as himself yet partly as not himself and something which he possesses and uses, but of the ego he says, "It is I". By detaching himself from all identification with mind, life and body, he can get back from his ego to the consciousness of the true Individual, the Jivatman, who is the real possessor of mind, life and body. Looking back from ...

Dr. A. S. Dalal   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   A Greater Psychology

The Future Poetry  >  The Ideal Spirit of Poetry

... some accents of their divine and eternal wisdom take form on the heights of his mind. And perhaps no thinking age has been so far removed from any such view of our life as the one through which we have recently passed and even now are not well out of its shadow, the age of materialism, the age of positive outward matter of fact and of scientific and utilitarian reason. And yet curiously enough—or naturally... To attempt to presage the future turn or development of mind or life in any of its fields must always be a hazardous venture. For life and mind are not like physical Nature; the processes of physical Nature run in precise mechanical grooves, but these are more mobile and freer powers. The gods of life and still more the gods of mind are so incalculably self-creative that even where we can distinguish... here in the life and the body. But the mind of today insists too and rightly insists on life, on humanity, on the dignity of our labour and action. We have no longer any ascetic quarrel with our mother earth, but rather would drink full of her bosom of beauty and power and raise her life to a more perfect greatness. Thought now dwells much on the idea of a vast creative will of life and action as ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Future Poetry

Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  Miscellaneous

... Conditions on the Moon and other planets for sustaining life are not propitious. Sri Aurobindo : Why not ? The same conditions must not be there. There can be other conditions and other forms ! Disciple : Uranus-Sirus is a double planet. The matter of one has fifty thousand times the density of water. We cannot form an idea of such matter, but it exists there in that form ! Sri Aurobindo... Aurobindo : It is one of the stupid limitations of the-human mind that nothing can exist which does not agree with its preconceived ideas of conditions. Fire-walking, it maintains, is impossible. Not only it is possible, it is done. It does not matter in what way. Disciple : The question is whether time and space exist there also. Sri Aurobindo : Whether they exist or not need not trouble... Disciple : Is there life on the Moon ? You said that the life-wave travels from planet to planet. Is this statement founded on experience ? Sri Aurobindo : No. I have no experience of other planets. I did not say "the life-wave travels" – I only said it is mere reaction that may have travelled. You don't mean to say that the earth is the only planet with life and others are only lifeless ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

The Life Divine  >  Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable

... ion. In Life it would be clearly hopeless to seek for the truth; for Life begins with a formulation in which consciousness is still submental and therefore to us as mental beings appears as inconscient or at most subconscious, and our own investigation into this stage of life studying it from outside cannot be more fruitful of the secret truth than our examination of Matter. Even when mind develops... earth and rock of many kinds and numerous minerals and metals; a life principle produces its vegetable kingdom teeming with a countless foison of quite different plants, trees, flowers; a principle of animal life produces an enormous variety of genus, species, individual variations: so it proceeds into human life and mind and its mind-types towards the still unwritten end or perhaps the yet occult sequel... instrument in motion that Page 319 the Conscious Being emerging, evolving in it can transmit its mind formations, will formations and turn them into a physical manifestation of itself in Matter. The capacity, the processes of the instrument must to a certain extent reshape the mind formations in their transition from mental shape into physical expression; its workings are necessary and must ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Mother’s Agenda 1961  >  July 28, 1961

... into Matter, without passing through all the intermediate worlds. That's the story of the first Descent. But you're speaking of the descent heralded by Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental Descent, aren't you? Not only that. For example, Sri Aurobindo says that when Life appeared there was a pressure from below, from evolution, to make Life emerge from Matter, and simultaneously a descent of Life from... plane. Then, when Mind emerged out of Life, the same thing from above happened again. Why this intervention from above each time? Why don't things emerge normally, one after another, without needing a 'descent'? You may as well ask why everything has gone wrong! No, with experience it becomes easy to understand. Page 280 Take the experience of Mind, for example: Mind, in the evolution... realization would never have been so total, if one had not passed through... all that. But these explanations are just to satisfy the mind. When you live in it, there's no need for explanations. As for hoping to make people understand!... The only thing that really matters is that they read your book with interest. Let them read it with interest; each one will imagine he has understood (and of course ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1961

The Mother (biography)  >  13: The Yoga of the Body Cells

... Sri Aurobindo. ‘It develops in the course of the evolution a psychic individual or soul individuality which grows from life to life, using the evolving mind, vital and body as its instruments. It is the soul that is immortal while the rest disintegrates; it passes from life to life carrying its experiences in essence and the continuity of the evolution of the individual.’ 31 As the Mother said:... intangible mind, and which has in addition, for the religious-minded, a soul about which it is difficult to say anything except that it is supposed to be eternal. ‘If we have a school here, it is in order that it be different from the millions of schools in the world,’ the Mother said. ‘It is to give the children a chance to distinguish between ordinary life and the divine life, the life of truth... in advance of the time in Eastern countries, in anticipation of the modern movement in dress; on the other hand, my cautious mind, or as Sri Aurobindo would say my coward mind, could not but feel the risk involved in this forward venture.’ 19 Narayan Prasad, in his Life in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, puts it this way: ‘When youthful girls of aristocratic families took to sports in shorts and shirts ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Mother (biography)

On the Way to Supermanhood

... duality which assails the whole life of mental man – a life that is only the life of death – is obviously insoluble at the level of the Duality. One might as well fight the right hand with the left. Yet, that is exactly what the human mind has done, without much success, at all levels of its existence, offsetting its heaven with hell, Page 10 matter with spirit, individualism with... super-mind poised one degree higher than the mind and possessing a more imperative power over matter, but because he is endowed with a more interior degree of power, which does not impose itself on matter or wrest violent miracles from it, but releases its own creative energy, its own creative joy, and makes it sing its own note of light the way the shepherd makes his pipe sing. And life outside... level of sex and matter. The descent is complete. But that descent has a meaning – a meaning for matter. Had we stayed forever at the forehead level of the divine truths of the mind, this earth and body would never have been changed, and we would have probably ended up escaping into some spiritual heaven or nirvana. Now, everything must be transformed, even the body and matter, since we are right ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   On the Way to Supermanhood

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1  >  Poetic Imagery in Savitri

... horses is suggested in another place, where the subject is Life: ...she has stabled her dreams in Matter's courts. 102 And another image from horse-racing is this: Our minds are starters in the race to God. 103 Next we have some images drawn from plant-life and flowers and gardening. The first one is applied to Life: 99 pp. 247-48. l00 pp. 246-47. 101 p... the child-laughter of Chance. 78 The amazing originality in the application of this image needs no comment. A spirit dreamed in the crude cosmic whirl, Mind flowed unknowing in the sap of life And Matter's breasts suckled the divine Idea. 79 This is still more daring than the above. And here is a third instance, which is quite different from the above two. A... connect Matter and Mind, The narrow isthmus of the ascending soul. 50 Here there is a fusion of three images. The first is that of a consonant and vowels. The second is a very daring and fascinating image, viz., that of a hyphen, which is followed by the third still more daring and fascinating image taken from geography, that of an isthmus. The hyphen that connects Matter and Mind ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2  >  The Mission of Buddhism

... human consciousness. Buddhism cried halt because of two omissions: it turned man's mind to two new directions. In our eagerness to reach the spiritual and the supra-sensual, we gave scant recognition to the mental and the rational; and yet mind and reason should Page 280 be the very basis of the life spiritual. And in the pursuit of God and the gods and the things divine, we became blind... that set Buddha on the Path; it was the everyday problem of the ordinary man which troubled his mind, and for which he sought a solution, a permanent radical solution. The Vedanist saw only delight and ecstasy and beatitude; for Page 282 him the dark shadow did not exist at all or did not matter; it was the product of illusion or wrong view of things; one was asked to ignore or turn away... showed it magnificently. And of course, Shankara too who followed in his footsteps. To abrogate the matter of fact, rational view of life in order to view it spiritually, to regard it wholly as an expression or embodiment or vibration of consciousness-delight was possible to the Vedic discipline which saw and adored the Immanent Godhead. It was not possible to Buddha and Buddhistic consciousness; for ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 2

Words of the Mother - II  >  The True Aim of Life

... The only important thing is the goal to be attained. The way matters little, and often it is better not to know it in advance. 15 November 1954 Whatever we do, we must always remember our aim. 7 December 1954 The aim of our life on earth is to become conscious of the Divine. The true purpose of life― To live for the Divine, or to live for the Truth, or at least... needed to learn it does not matter at all. For those who wish to live according to Truth, there is always something to learn and some progress to make. 2 October 1969 The true aim of life is to find the Divine's Presence deep inside oneself and to surrender to It so that It takes the lead of the life, all the feelings and all the actions of the body. This gives a true and luminous aim to... Page 5 There is a purpose in life―and it is the only true and lasting one―the Divine. Turn to Him and the emptiness will go. Blessings. You are here to contact your soul, and that is why you live. Aspire persistently and try to silence your mind. The aspiration must come from the heart. 11 June 1971 To be and to become more and more what the Divine wants us to be should ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Words of the Mother - II

The Destiny of the Body  >  Death at the Service of Life

... For, "to the Life-Spirit, the individual in whom its potentialities centre is pre-eminently Man, the Purusha. It is the Son of Man who is supremely capable of incarnating God. This Man is the Manu, the thinker, the Mano-maya Purusha, mental person or soul in mind of the ancient sages. No mere superior mammal is he, but a conceptive soul basing itself on the animal body in Matter. He is conscious... As a matter of fact, the remarkable truth that "the natural individual 3 is a minor term of being and exists by the universal" 4 and that "the individual life is compelled, and used, to secure permanence rather for its species than for itself" 5 is borne out by biological evidences that have been specific and manifold. The opinion has even been expressed that all living matter once possessed... change of experience the sole infinity to which the finite mind involved in living body can attain. This change of form cannot be allowed to remain merely a constant renewal of the same form-type such as constitutes Page 379 our bodily life between birth and death; for unless the form-type is changed and the experiencing mind is thrown into new forms in new circumstances of time ...

Jugal Kishore Mukherjee   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Destiny of the Body

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Yogic Initiation and Aptitude

... surge of mind and life and body consciousness. It stores up in itself and assimilates the essence of the various experiences that the mind and life and body bring to it in its unending series of incarnations; as it enriches itself thus, it increases in substance and potency, even like fire that feeds upon fuels. A time comes when the pressure of the developed inner being upon the mind and life and body... seated within your heart. Indeed, the first dawning of the spiritual life means the coming forward, the unveiling of this inner being. The ignorant and animal life of man persists so long as the inner being remains in the background, away from the dynamic life, so long as man is subject to the needs and impulses of his mind and life and body. True, through the demands and urges of this lower complex... irrevelant once we take our stand on the authentic self-competence of the soul.. The moment the inner being has taken the decision that this time, in this life, in this very body, it will manifest itself, take possession of the body and life and mind and wait no more, at that moment itself all mantra has been uttered and all ¹ Brihadaranyaka, IV. 4. 13 Page 74 initiation taken ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7  >  Lines of Tantra

... can the mind grasp It no matter how well-versed in scripture it be. The reflection of the moon in water looks fine and cool and sweet – it exists and is yet unreal. Likewise, in the inner skies of our consciousness It appears as Beauty and Delight, but It transcends all thought or image; who then can unravel Its mystery? The three elements here may well represent the body, life and mind, and the... symbolise the integrality of consciousness: four are the main levels or planes of consciousness – body, life, mind and all that is above Page 120 mind – and the number sixty is their multiple and various divisions or lines of expression. The ordinary ignorant man passes through life, plying the boat of his ignorant ordinary consciousness with its cargo of worldly cares. But the... man and this earth. Creation or the manifested worlds include the earth, the earth includes man, and man is primarily the human body and life, his mind being an obedient servant of these two. The Tantrics have sought for the Power that rules over man's body and life. Vedanta regards Brahman, the Supreme Reality, as if aloof from the created universe, above it and utterly transcending it. The result ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Some Conceptions and Misconceptions

... release of the absolutely exclusive concentration of consciousness in Matter has given rise to Life Page 87 which is a double poise: Life plays in and through Matter and has not dissolved Matter. Likewise a further release of concentration has given birth to Mind which still bases itself upon and is woven into Life and Matter. The change-over from unconsciousness to consciousness and from... direction under certain conditions. Matter exists in the absolute Consciousness, not as Matter but as its fundamental substratum, as that radical mode of being or consciousness which by the devolution of consciousness and the interaction of Knowledge and Ignorance in the end works itself out as Matter. So also with regard to Life and with regard to Mind. If things are to exist in the highest status... behind or becomes immanent in the lower. Along with the vertical movement there is also a horizontal movement. In other words, even when we are sunk in the lowest stratum of Ignorance – in the domain of Matter – we have also there all the other strands behind, even the very highest, not merely as passive or neutral entities, but as dynamic agents exerting their living pressure to the full. Indeed the Ignorance ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8  >  Ushasti Chakrayana

... Ushasti replied, "Anna – Matter – Food is that deity. All these creatures find their sustenance by gathering food. Hence Food is the presiding deity of the concluding rites. If you recite the concluding hymns without knowing what Food is, your head will certainly fall off." In this manner Ushasti gave the teaching about the Triple Principle, the Trinity represented by Life, Mind and Page 159... worship a divine image, we begin the rites with an invocation to this Life-force to enter the image; what was just an idol is awakened to life by the infusion of this Force. Life and Life-Force, this comes first. Next comes consciousness, knowledge, light, that is, the Sun-God, Aditya, and ordinarily, mind is His field. But by itself force is not enough, knowledge is not enough; this force and this... drinking your leavings." The villager said, "But you have already eaten the beans, they too were my leavings." Ushasti an­swered, "Those I took for the sake, of my life, or else I would have starved to death. The water is another matter, one can do without it yet." Page 157 Ushasti had not eaten up all the beans. He had kept some and with these he returned to his ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 8

The Hidden Forces of Life  >  Preface

... force, manifesting increasingly higher levels of its Consciousness. Having so far liberated Life and Mind out of Matter, the evolutionary impulse, says Sri Aurobindo, is already secretly at work here for ushering in the manifestation of what he terms the Supermind — the Truth-Consciousness beyond the level of Mind — thus preparing the dawn of a new world and the appearance of a new race of supramental... dynamics of existence revealed herein, 'the forces of life in their overall action tend to subserve man's gradual growth out of the ordinary consciousness into progressively higher and deeper levels of being through the evolutionary process. For evolution, says Sri Aurobindo, consists in the ascent of the Spirit which, at first involved in Matter and inconscience, progressively liberates itself by means... The Hidden Forces of Life Preface A retrospective review of the course of one's life is apt to reveal that whereas some events in the past were the outcome of one's conscious choice and deliberate effort, a good number of incidents, including perhaps some of the most significant happenings that have determined the course of one's life, were unplanned and ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   The Hidden Forces of Life

Parables from the Upanishads  >  Ushasti Chakrayana

... replied, "Anna - Matter - Food is that deity. All these creature$ find their sustenance by gathering food. Hence Food is the presiding deity of the concluding rites. If you recite the concluding hymns without knowing what Food is, your head will certainly fall off." In this manner Ushasti gave the teaching about the Triple Principle, the Trinity represented by Life, Mind and Page 45... we worship a divine image, we begin the rites with an invocation to this Life-force to enter the image; what was just an idol is awakened to life by the infusion of this Force. Life and Life-Force, this comes first. Next comes consciousness, knowledge, light, that is, the Sun-God, Aditya, and ordinarily, mind is His field. But by itself force is not enough, knowledge is not enough; this force and... mean drinking your leavings." The villager said, "But you have already eaten the beans, they too were my leavings." Ushasti answered, "Those I took for the sake of my life, or else I would have starved to death. The water is another matter, one can do without it yet." Page 43 Ushasti had not eaten up all the beans. He had kept some and with these he returned to his wife and handed ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Parables from the Upanishads

Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  Sadhana

... abandoned it. 29-5-1923 Sri Aurobindo (to a Disciple ) : Really speaking two things matter : one, the Spirit that is dynamic above and the other the Life here which is the field of expression of the Spirit. Mind, emotion and other psychological activities are only intermediate terms. Mind is more or less a channel and so is heart. The body is merely the mould. Two things are necessary... spiritual life and faith also. But mind, reason, intelligence – the dynamic mind – are very crude. That is why I hesitate sometimes to give the yoga.   In Europe the outer parts are very well developed – reason, expression, the dynamic mind etc. But then there the whole thing ends. There is a great poverty in the inner being. Some of the Europeans are, really, babies in spiritual life. To combine... it was thought that the mind could grasp the whole Truth and solve all problems that face humanity. The mind had its full play and we find that it is not able to solve the problems. Now, we find : that it is possible to go beyond Mind and there is the Supermind which is the organisation of the Infinite consciousness. There you find the Truth of all that is in mind and life. For instance, you find ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Double Soul in Man

... ascent of Life is in its nature the ascent of the divine Delight in things from its dumb conception in Matter to its luminous consummation in Spirit. Like the other original divine principles, this Delight also must be represented in us by a cosmic principle corresponding to it in the apparent existence. It is the soul or psychic being.—As there is a subliminal luminous mind behind our surface mind, a subliminal... comes into contact with practical living; for here the human mind shrinks from the application of the principle of equality.—To bring this subliminal soul to the surface is not enough; for it is open passively to the world-soul but cannot possess the world. Those who thus arrive, become close to the universal delight, but not masters of life. For there Page 478 are two principles of order... subliminal life behind our mortal life, a subliminal wider corporeality behind our gross body, so we have a double soul, the superficial desire-soul and the true psychic entity.—The superficial in us is the small and egoistic, the subliminal is in touch with the universal. So our subliminal or true psychic being is open to the universal delight of things, the superficial desire-soul is shut off from ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

The Life Divine  >  The Destiny of the Individual

... which amounts to an absolute assertion of its separate existence in Maya. We are led to regard other souls as if they were figments of our mind and their salvation unimportant, our soul alone as if it were entirely real and its salvation the one thing that matters. I come to regard my personal escape from bondage as real while other souls who are equally myself remain behind in the bondage! It is... excessive importance that the mind attaches to particular points of view at which it arrives in its more powerful expansions and transitions. The perception of the spiritualised mind that the universe is an unreal dream can have no more absolute a value to us than the perception of the materialised mind that God and the Beyond are an illusory idea. In the one case the mind, habituated only to the evidence... physical consciousness and manifested on the lowest levels in harmony with its manifestation on the highest summits. It is equally true that form and matter asserting themselves as a self-existent reality are an illusion of Ignorance. Form and matter can be valid only as shape and substance of manifestation for the incorporeal and immaterial. They are in their nature an act of divine consciousness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  Mind Nature and Law of Karma

... 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 triple strand of the law of his Karma. The first is that, primary, obvious, universal, predominant in his beginnings, in which his mind subjects and assimilates itself to the law of life in matter in order to make the most of the terrestrial existence for... chief business and the main thing that matters,—there is a colourable justification for this limited view of the human being. But the more he looks into himself and the more he goes inward and lives intimately and pre-eminently in his mind and soul, the more he discovers that he is in his essential nature a mental being encased in body and emmeshed in the life activities, manu, manomaya puruṣa . He... utilising its opportunities and of meeting its siege and dangers causes his mind to be much obsessed by life and external action and the utility of thought and will and perception for his dealings with the physical and life forces, and to this preoccupation the finer more disinterested action and subtler cast of motive of the mind nature demanding its own inner development, seeking for knowledge, mastery ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study  >  Summary of Book-11 and 12

... . But this is not the plane where Fate is fixed; for that you must rise upon a ladder to greater worlds where no world can be. The summit of Mind, greater Life-plane, or subtle Matter are only mediating links—they are not originating planes. If you want to deliver man and earth then, on the spiritual height, "discover the truth of God and man and world", "ascend... vicinity of Truths sublime". "O Savitri, thou art my spirit's Power." You will show to men my glory in their ignorant life. There are great things concealed in God's Beyond. Now Mind is all, it is the leader of the human race. But there are greater destinies and Mind is not the last summit of human ascent: "There is a fire on the apex of the worlds, There is a house of the Eternal's... Virat, who lights his camp-fires in the suns, "And the Star-entangled ether is his hold" "Expressed himself with Matter for his speech." It is he who "In the current of the blood makes flow the soul." He has Will and Intelligence which work effectively without mind. In him the Golden child shadows his form: this is Hiranya Garbha, "author of thoughts and dream," "He is the leader on ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo's Savitri - An Approach And A Study

Mother's Chronicles - Book Three  >  The Earthly Paradise

... direct r "That life was, yes, a truly superior life in a natural setting, and of such an extraordinary beauty and harmony! But I don't have the feeling that it was —how to express it?—something known. And no idea at all that there were other beings upon earth and you had to mind them, or 'demonstrate' to them; nothing of the sort, absolutely nothing of mental life, nothing. A life like . . . like... was a blossoming of force, of beauty in a spontaneous and NATURAL life, like animals Page 81 life, but with a perfection of consciousness and power greatly exceeding what we now have. In point of fact, with a power over all surrounding Nature, over animal and vegetal and mineral nature, a DIRECT handling of Matter which men don't have —they need intermediaries, material instruments... history, there was a kind of 'earthly Paradise,' in the sense that life then was perfectly harmonious and perfectly natural. I mean, the manifestation of Mind was in accord —was STILL in complete accord —and in total harmony with the ascending march of Nature, without any perversion or deformation. That was the first stage of Mind's manifestation in material forms." She unlocked the doors of the ...

Sujata Nahar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother's Chronicles - Book Three

Words of the Mother - II  >  General

... as much as a beauty of the body and its movements. Get out of your mind to have the true intelligence. Get out of your sensations to have the true feelings. Get out of your sensitiveness to have the true dynamism. For the mind—knowledge. For the heart—love and joy. For the life—power. For the matter—beauty. Page 366 ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Words of the Mother - II

The Divine Collaborators  >  The Divine Union

... Eternal with the thrilled dynamism of His self-expression in Time. All nature and all life are included in the sweep of this integral union and every fibre of our complex being is meant to find in it its perfect fulfillment. This union is the sovereign means of reproduction, in the triple term of mind, Life and body, of the triple supreme principle of the transcendent Existence, Sat, Chit and... the perfected body and mind the transcendent activities of the Spirit. As the mental life does not abrogate but works for the elevation and better utilisation of the bodily, so too the spiritual should not abrogate but transfigure our intellectual, emotional, aesthetic and vital activities." 1 The Mother does not regard an exclusive, unilateral tension of the mind or the heart or the will... objective. 1 Prayers and Meditations of the Mother —June 15,1913 2 The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo, Chapter V Page 20 Very often a partial union is so overwhelnring that it is easily taken for an integral one—the soul and mind and heart are immersed in bliss and peace, or the life parts vibrate with a mighty power; even the body reflects some-thing of its glow and ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Divine Collaborators

Autobiographical Notes  >  To Joseph Baptista

... what she will be obliged to do, if she has to start on the road in her present chaotic and unprepared condition of mind. No doubt people talk of India developing on her own lines, but nobody seems to have very clear or sufficient ideas as to what those lines are to be. In this matter I have formed ideals and certain definite ideas of my own, in which at present very few are likely to follow me, since... finish that, I must be internally armed and equipped for my work before I leave it. Next in the matter of the work itself. I do not at all look down on politics or political action or consider I have got above them. I have always laid a dominant stress and I now lay an entire stress on the spiritual life, but my idea of spirituality has nothing to do with ascetic withdrawal or contempt or disgust of... me a thing to be included in a complete spiritual life, and the importance of politics at the present time is very great. But my line and intention of political activity would differ considerably from anything now current in the field. I entered into political action and continued it from 1903 to 1910 with one aim and one alone, to get into the mind of the people a settled Page 255 will ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Autobiographical Notes

Essays Divine and Human  >  God: The One Reality

... outer space and time. It is known to our inmost being that it lives because it is part of the Divine, but it is true also of the external and phenomenal creature compounded of ignorant Mind, blind life and subconscious Matter. A secret Self is the Alpha and Omega of this manifested existence; it is also the constant term, the omnipresent x into which all things resolve separately or together and which... Time, not only the Impersonal but the Person, quality and number and that which [is] beyond quality and number; the Formless and form, the individual no less than the cosmic and supracosmic, matter and life and mind as well as the spirit, the relative and the absolute. All is that: ekam evadvitiyam . All that is is reality of the Real; there is no need to invent an eternal illusive principle of Maya... its existence, all is conscious by its consciousness, continues to be by its Ananda of being, thinks by its Mind, lives by its life, is a form of its Energy in the Cosmos. But still the existence we live, the consciousness we use, the highest joy of being which we experience, our mind, life, body, force are but a fragmentary phenomenon of or in It. That Eternal is the All, the whole, our greater Self ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo  >  The Higher Nature and the Lower

... upon which the whole conception of the Life Divine is founded: (1) the truth of the soul's evolution from the in conscience of Matter to the super- conscience of Spirit and (2) the truth of the sublimation and transmutation of the lower Nature into the higher. The unquenchable aspiration in the human- mind for a harmonious perfection in individual and corporate life points to such a consummation; for,... man, by" the sole power of his mind, has not been able to achieve any perfection in his life. "We seek to construct systems of knowledge and systems of life by which we can arrive- at some perfection of our existence, some order of right- relations, right use of mind, right use and happiness and beauty of life, right use of the body. But what we achieve is a constructed half-rightness mixed with much... truth, the theory of illusionism ( māyāvāda ) itself becomes illusory, and life is affirmed as not only real, but divinely and fruitfully real—real in its emergent values, real in its developing powers, and creatively real in the fullness of self-expression to which it leads the evolving soul. Starting from the darkness of Matter, the lower Nature justifies her existence by an eventual conversion of herself ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Status of Knowledge

... that the knowledge for which Yoga strives must be different from what men ordinarily understand by the word. For we mean ordinarily by knowledge an intellectual appreciation of the facts of life, mind and matter and the laws that govern them. This is a knowledge founded upon our sense-perception and upon reasoning from our sense-perceptions and it is undertaken partly for the pure satisfaction of the... created by ourselves or Nature in its appeal to the aesthetic mind and the senses; thus the sense is satisfied of God. We can have even the vital, nervous experience and practically the physical sense of the Self in all life and formation and in all workings of powers, forces, energies that operate through us or others or in the world: thus the life and the body are satisfied of God. All this knowledge... Knowledge The self, the Divine, the Supreme Reality, the All, the Transcendent,—the One in all these aspects is then the object of Yogic knowledge. Ordinary objects, the external appearances of life and matter, the psychology of our thoughts and actions, the perception of the forces of the apparent world can be part of this knowledge, but only in so far as it is part of the manifestation of the One. ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2  >  Sri Aurobindo and Aswapati in Savitri

... vision leads the mind, Thought trails behind it its long comet tail; The heart glows an illuminate and seer. 22 Sight in the Intuitive Mind Next in the order of ascension is the Intuitive Mind whose characteristic power is an intimate and exact Truth-perception which arises out of a revealing encounter between the subject and the object, 13 The Life Divine, SABCL... down by tradition and attained to the freedom of the spirit by cutting the cord of the mind which ties it to the earth... The entire second Book is, in fact, Aswapati's travel over worlds heaped upon worlds in a complex cosmogony mounting from the plinth of the plane of Matter right up to levels of higher Mind and the plane of the Cosmic Being leading to worlds of greater Knowledge. Aswapati represents... 96. 25 Ibid ., p.660. 26 Ibid . 27 Ibid., 28 The Life Divine, SABCL,Vol.19, p. 950. Savitri, p. 79. 30 Ibid., p.335 Page 257 All came at once into his single view. 31 It enveloped all Nature in a single glance. 32 It was sight and thought in one all-seeing Mind. 33 Mind was a single innumerable look. 34 ... the stretch and blaze ...

R. Y. Deshpande   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Perspectives of Savitri - Part 2

Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  Gods

... the higher mental plane. When the European mind leaves materialism, it takes the vital gods as the true gods. Disciple : Do the laws of Matter change ? Sri Aurobindo : Physical cells change and the same thing that gives pain gives intense ananda. Disciple : That may be possible in Life manifested in Matter but in the pure Matter, in the domain of Chemistry and Physics ? ... so because the Supermind is there in Matter. Disciple : Is the Supermind an instrument ? Sri Aurobindo : It is a consciousness and if you can bring that consciousness into mind, life and body you can perfect the instruments. Disciple : Is it not possible for man to manifest the whole of par ā ś akti ? What is the Ananda plane in life ? Sri Aurobindo : He may be able... Disciple : Flowers have souls – watches have life ! It is baffling. I have heard that motor cars have also life. Sri Aurobindo : Yes – engines and tools also. Disciple ; What is called "fatigue in metals", may it not be a sign of life ? Sri Aurobindo : Fatigue is a sign of life. There is a consciousness also in metals, as well as mind. Life is everywhere. 22-8-1926 Sri ...

A. B. Purani   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evening Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Yoga - I  >  The Jivatman in Other Indian Systems

... aspects, one may say, to different people. The Overmind presents the truth of things in all sorts of aspects and mind, even the spiritual mind, fastens on one or the other as the very truth, the one real truth of the matter. It is the mind that makes these differences, but that does not matter, because, through its own way of seeing and experiencing the soul or individualised consciousness or whatever... apart from that, one can very well, as you say, realise the Atman if one stands back from the mind and heart, detaches oneself from the parts of Prakriti, ceases to identify oneself with mind, life and body, falls Page 69 into an inner silence. One need not even explore the kingdoms of the inner mind or inner vital, still less is it compulsory to spread one's wings in ranges above. The Self... ss that has the realisation as the individual self of the Being, Jivatman. (3) One can also have the experience of oneself as not the mind but the thinker, not the heart but the self or "I" which supports the feelings, not the life but that which supports life, not the body but that which assumes a body. This self can be obviously dynamic as well as silent; or else you may say that, even though ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  13 November 1957

... of the human mind in which men tried very seriously to prove that it was the perfecting of Matter which produced the Spirit. But that is nonsense! ( Mother laughs ). The least of your activities, all that you do, is a clear proof that first you conceive and then you do, even on a very small scale. A life which is not the result of a conscious will would be a completely incoherent life. I mean that... about the first page where Sri Aurobindo says, "A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling Spirit, is then the key-note, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence." The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, p. 824 So, from the point of view of form, in what way is man superior... s. Where would your universe begin, and with what? In the case of man, did the animal man bring down the mind or was it the descent of mind... Page 221 Oh! You mean: Is it something in the intermediary being or in the higher ape which by its aspiration called down the mind? But the aspiration itself is the result of a previous descent. It is quite obvious that nothing can be manifested ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  9 October 1957

... of life mind, and a gradation of planes of Matter, Life and Mind culminating in the emergence of Supermind. The secret truth that emerges in Supermind has been there all the time, but now it manifests itself and the truth in things and the meaning of our existence." The Supramental Manifestation, SABCL, Vol. 16, pp. 73-74 In fact this was not finished. It stopped short there. There were... ignorant mind would soon drift into a chaos; it could not in fact come into existence or remain in existence unless supported by the secret Omniscience of which it is the cover; a world governed by a blind inconscient force might repeat constantly the same mechanical workings but it would mean nothing and arrive nowhere. This could not be the cause of an evolution that creates life out of Matter, out of... but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery. This Knowledge is the covert Supermind which is the support of the creation and is leading all towards itself and guides behind this multitude of minds and creatures and objects which seem each to be following its own law of nature; in this vast and apparently confused mass of existence there is a law, a one truth of being, a guiding and fulfilling ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)  >  chapter 012

... first Aurobindo the great speculative thinker, the intellect who postulated the mind; then the Overmind; and then the Super-mind. The Siddha transcends his samsiddhi; becomes completely absorbed in God or call it Divine Consciousness, and then brings it down not only in himself but through himself to mind and matter in order to elevate them. To put it concretely - I may be wrong - Arjuna surrenders...   Whether he reached a stage of Siddhi or Vasudev-hood, whether he became a transmitting agency of God or was merged in Him, are matters beyond the reach of the ordinary mind. They are more within the sphere of faith. As Buddha says about God - Page 133 Om Amitaya! Measure not with words the immeasurable; Nor sink the string of thought into the fathomless; Who asks doth... Aurobindo's life was a tremendous effort up to say 1928 for realizing the Divine. Assuming he reached 'Vasudev-hood' in 1928, and brought it down as you believe it, it is a question of faith. But this effort is scarcely consistent with the concept of Avatara. It may be stealing the thunders of Jove; but it is not the descent of Jove himself. But I am afraid I have no right to discuss this matter.   ...

Amal Kiran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 3)

Talks with Sri Aurobindo  >  17 JANUARY 1940

... doesn't mean that here. He lays stress on various sides of life as necessary parts of art. Otherwise art is like a one stringed lyre. SRI AUROBINDO: But why should a great poet write on everything—even on matters in which he is not interested? People who are leading a spiritual life naturally express the truth and experience of that life. And do the masses appreciate poetry? I think I told you the... and that he is a real artist but he complains of one thing—lack of variety: Nishikanto is like a one stringed lyre while the poetic mind demands a variety of tunes. Tagore quotes the Upanishad's "Raso vai sah" (He is verily the Delight.") and says that the poet's mind enters into everything. SRI AUROBINDO (After keeping silent for a while) : It really comes to this: "You can't be a great poet unless... If you speak of popular poets, Martin Tupper was a very popular poet at one time but nobody remembers him now. So with every popular poet. Longfellow, for instance: his poem with the line, "Life is real, life is earnest" was in everybody's mouth and in every schoolbook. Everyone understood him and got the Rasa. NIRODBARAN: It has been translated into Bengali. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes? By Hem Banerji ...

Nirodbaran   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Landmarks of Hinduism  >  Landmarks of Hinduism

... (Maharloka) 5. Mind World of light (Swar) 6. Life (nervous being) World of various becomings (Bhuvar) 7. Matter The material world (Bhur) Page 26 The Vedic interpretation of life as a movement of sacrifice and a battle continued in the Purano-Tantric tradition also. According to the Veda, the struggle of life is a warring of Gods... consists of three earths, three heavens, dyaus, and the connecting mid-region Page 25 (antariksha). In simpler terms, the triple lower world in which we live is the world of matter, life-force and pure mind. According to the Vedic idea, each principle can be modified by the subordinate manifestation of the others within it, and each world is divisible into several provinces. Into this framework... followed and completed by the discovery and uncovering of the light in the very depths of darkness of the Inconscient, tamas. Not the rejection of Matter and material life but realisation that Matter too is Spirit and that material life too can bear and manifest the spiritual light and bliss - this seems to be the basis of the Vedic teaching. " Page 33 It i s this unitive ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Landmarks of Hinduism

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  The Supreme Word

... knowledge and faculties we did not before possess, can not only produce similar results in other minds than that of the user, but can produce vibrations in the mental and vital atmosphere which result in effects, in actions and even in the production of material forms on the physical plane. As a matter of fact, even ordinarily, even daily and hourly we do produce by the word within us thought-vibrations... Kena Upanishad Kena and Other Upanishads V The Supreme Word The Upanishad, reversing the usual order of our logical thought which would put Mind and Sense first or Life first and Speech last as a subordinate function, begins its negative description of Brahman with an explanation of the very striking phrase. Speech of our speech. And we can see that it... of human speech can be only a far-off and feeble analogy. Page 29 The word used here for utterance means literally a raising up to confront the mind. Brahman, says the Upanishad, is that which cannot be so raised up before the mind by speech. Human 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 ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

Guidance on Education  >  Students - Reading

... withheld from the school children.) It is not so much a question of subject matter but of vulgarity of mind and narrowness and selfish common sense in the conception of life, expressed in a form devoid of art, greatness or refinement, which must be carefully removed from the reading matter of children both big and small. All that lowers and degrades the consciousness must be excluded... * When one reads a dirty book, an obscene novel, does not the vital enjoy it through the mind? In the mind also there are perversions. It is a rather Page 28 poor and unrefined vital which can take pleasure in such things! * In unformed minds what they read sinks in without any regard to its value and imprints itself as truth. It is advisable... your brain is still in a muddle and lacks clarity. 27 June 1963 * I want to see what will happen to me if I stop reading completely. It is difficult to keep one's mind always fixed on the same thing, and if it is not given enough work to occupy it, it begins to become restless. So I think it is better to choose one's books carefully rather than stop reading altogether ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Guidance on Education

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6  >  FATIGUE AND WORK

... or succeed. This egoistic vanity or opportunism may be necessary or unavoidable in ordinary life; but when one wishes to go beyond the ordinary life and aspires for the true life, this attachment or personal choice is more an impediment than a help to progress, towards finding the way to the true life. The Yogic attitude to work therefore is that of absolute detachment, not to have any choice... each moment, and be faithful to that and that alone. Never allow yourself to be shaken or moved by the likes and Page 35 dislikes of your mind or heart or body. Do even what goes against the grain of your body or heart or mind, if it is presented to you as the thing to be done; do it as calmly, dispassionately and as perfectly as it is possible for you to do and leave the rest to... choice, but to accept and do whatever is given to you, whatever comes to you in your normal course of life and do it with the utmost perfection possible. It is in that way and that way alone that all Page 34 work becomes supremely interesting, and all life a miracle of delight. This does not mean, however, that there is no work natural to you, for which you have a special aptitude ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  Fatigue and Work

... shine or succeed. This egoistic vanity or opportunism may be necessary or unavoidable in ordinary life; but when one wishes to go beyond the ordinary life and aspires for the true life, this attachment or personal choice is more an impediment than a help to progress, towards finding the way to the true life. The Yogic attitude to work therefore is that of absolute detachment, not to have any choice, but... light and aspiration in you each moment, and be faithful to that and that alone. Never allow yourself to be shaken or moved by the likes and dislikes of your mind or heart or body. Do even what goes against the grain of your body or heart or mind, if it is presented to you as the thing to be done; do it as calmly, dispassionately and as perfectly as it is possible for you to do and leave the rest to... but to accept and do whatever is given to you, whatever comes to you in your normal course of life and do it with the utmost perfection possible. It is in that way and that way alone that all work becomes supremely interesting, and all life a miracle of delight. This does not mean, however, that there is no work natural to you, for which you have a special aptitude, in and through Page 236 ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

On The Mother  >  Joint Adventure

... emerge!" 19 It is mainly this long Book that is packed with the experiences of the occult World Stair: the worlds of Light above, the worlds of Darkness below, the worlds of subtle Matter, the Life-Force and the Mind in between, these together comprising the whole inner structure of the cosmos. In fact, all the three Books of Part I were retouched as often as the inspiration directed, and new passages... Page 385 One strange leap of thy mystic stress breaking the barriers of mind and life, arrives at its luminous term thy flight; Invading the secret clasp of the Silence and crimson Fire thou frontest eyes in a timeless Face. 2 And he affirmed in "Trance", written on the same day: My mind is awake in stirless trance, Hushed my heart, a burden of delight; Dispelled... Traveller - who is it but Sri Aurobindo, who is it but the Mother herself? - comes out of the Abyss, and journeys through the Paradise of the Life-Gods, the Kingdoms of the Little and the Greater Mind, and so on, till at last he reaches "creation's centre" and the "still fixity and brooding passion of the world of Soul", and there is now the iridescence and ecstasy of a sheer apocalyptic experience: ...

K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   On The Mother

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11  >  Towards the Immortal Body

... the Soul, the delegated Emanation in Matter upon earth. To be immortal here upon earth one must find that which is immortal here below. To be immortal in the body one must find that which is immortal in the body, and the body must become it integrally and absolutely.         It is the soul that is immortal upon earth and in the mortal being. For the life to be immortal here this soul has to... about the prolongation of life, Page 42 even indefinitely, but immortality is assured only when the very substance of the material body is changed into its immortal essence.         Naturally however, the Supreme Grace is always there and if it chooses it can suspend or even cancel all laws and do things as it chooses, but that is a different matter. Page 43 ... to be found not only in its own domain, in its own home, the central psychic behind and within the heart; but it must be found also in each and every part of the being—the soul in the mind, the soul in the vital, the soul in the body—the immortal in the mortalities, as the rishis used to say.         This then is the first necessity, one should awake in the central psychic being and then awaken ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 11

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4  >  Towards the Immortal Body

... Immanence, of the Soul, the delegated Emanation in Matter upon earth. To be immortal here upon earth one must find that which is immortal here below. To be immortal in the body one must find that which is immortal in the body, and the body must become it integrally and absolutely. It is the soul that is immortal upon earth and in the mortal being. For the life to be immortal here this soul has to be found... and influence, bring about the prolongation of life, even indefinitely, but immortality is assured only when the very substance of the material body is changed into its immortal essence. Naturally however, the Supreme Grace is always there and if it chooses it can suspend or even cancel all laws and do things as it chooses, but that is a different matter. Page 337 ... found not only in its own domain, in its own home, the central psychic behind and within the heart; but it must be found also in each and every part of the being – the soul in the mind, the soul in the vital, the soul in the body – the immortal in the mortalities, as the rishis used to say. This then is the first necessity, one should awake in the central psychic being and then awaken the same psychic ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4

Questions and Answers (1957-1958)  >  30 October 1957

... concealed consciousness; each life becomes a step in a victory over Matter by a greater progression of consciousness in it which shall make eventually Matter itself a means for the full manifestation of the Spirit. " The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 825-26 It is difficult to understand, Sweet Mother. Ah!... If you take terrestrial history, all the forms of life have appeared one after... Questions and Answers (1957-1958) 30 October 1957 " This terrestrial evolutionary working of Nature from Matter to Mind and beyond it has a double process: there is an outward visible process of physical evolution with birth as its machinery,—for each evolved form of body housing its own evolved power of consciousness... Page 215 —has a life independent of the physical form—this is what we generally call the "soul" or the "psychic being"—and since it is organised around the divine centre it partakes of the divine nature which is immortal, eternal. The outer body falls away, and this remains throughout every experience that it has in each life, and there is a progress from life to life, and it is the progress ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   CWM   >   Questions and Answers (1957-1958)

The Life Divine  >  The Boundaries of the Ignorance

... creating us and the world by the power of His divine Knowledge-Will, spiritual, supramental, truth-conscious, infinite. That is the real Being, Lord and Creator, who, as the Cosmic Self veiled in Mind and Life and Matter, has descended into that which we call the Inconscient and constitutes and directs its subconscient existence by His supramental Page 581 will and knowledge, has ascended out of... without knowing the one Life, our own body without knowing the one Matter; for not only is their nature determined by the nature of that, but by that their activities are at every moment being influenced and determined. But, with all this sea of being flowing in on us, we do not participate in its consciousness, but know of it only so much as can be brought into the surface of our minds and co-ordinated there... enlightened by mind and observable by intelligence. This is an exaggeration and a confusion due to our identification of consciousness with mentality and mental awareness. Mind identifies itself to a certain extent with the movements proper to physical life and body and annexes them to its mentality, so that all consciousness seems to us to be mental. But if we draw back, if we separate the mind as witness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine

The Mother with Letters on the Mother  >  Relation with the Mother and with Others

... compassion, I can see that I have been childish and stupid. Is my experience true? You ought to train yourself not to mind what people say—for what they say is also childish and stupid. Your sadhana—and your life also—lies between you and the Mother; other people do not matter. 23 March 1933 I have a deep regard for X and an inner affection for him. Now when I begin to meditate by thinking... good for you, and for many days you had peace and joy and freedom from the restless mind and you had the psychic opening. Now you must go back to that and do as you were doing before. Turn to the Mother only and let her consciousness and her will work in you. Then you will recover what you had got, silence the mind and be free. 29 April 1933 X would like to have a "pure" relation with me, a... because of that. He was puzzled by your change of manner, the stiffness of your attitude towards him and your apparently diminished interest in the work. It is what the Mother says that is true and matters and not what people say; if you listen to what people say, you will lose touch with the Mother's consciousness. It is because of that that these thoughts Page 485 have come back on you ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Mother with Letters on the Mother

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3  >  Yogic Initiation And Aptitude

... surge of mind and life and body consciousness. It stores up in itself and assimilates the essence of the various experiences that the mind and life and body bring to it in its unending series of incarnations; as it enriches itself thus, it increases in substance and potency, even like fire that feeds upon fuels. A time comes when the pressure of the developed inner being upon the mind and life and body... seated within your heart. Indeed the first dawning of the spiritual life means the coming forward, the unveiling of this inner being. The ignorant and animal life of man persists so long as the inner being remains in the background, away from the dynamic life, so long as man is subject to the needs and impulses of his mind and life and body. True, through the demands and urges of this lower complex... irrelevant once we take our stand on the authentic self-competence of the soul. The moment the inner being has taken the decision that this time, in this life, in this very body, it will manifest itself, take possession of the body and life and mind and wait no more, in that moment itself all mantra has been uttered and all initiation taken. The disciple has made the final and definitive offering of ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 3

Mother’s Agenda 1965  >  November 13, 1965

... human mind has debated and solved, anyway everything that is at the basis of religions, philosophies, yogas, and so on, the great ideas on the why and the how—ideas that are universal—all of which had been settled for a very long time... now it comes back here ( Mother points to her body ). It comes back with the intensity, the acuteness of something absolutely new and absolutely unknown: Why life? Why... this struggle, this friction, this suffering, and this ignorance and this darkness and this effort and this and that (oh, it's much worse than when it takes place in the mind: it's here [ in the body ] and it's a question, yes, of life and death in the true sense of the phrase, that is to say, of existence or nonexistence, of consciousness or total unconsciousness... and then how much it costs to find... Why this creation? What's the meaning of it all? And with an intimate and painful knowledge of all the miseries of Matter, of all the stupidities of Matter, all the darknesses, all that—why all that? Why? And then, dissatisfied: what's the use of it all? It's marvelous. And the answer comes, but then with extraordinary solidity and certainty—quite extraordinary. Why the creation?... Why the creation ...

The Mother   >   Books   >   Agenda   >   Mother’s Agenda 1965

In the Mother's Light  >  Divine Union

... and a penetrating vividness :— "But the divine and unborn and formless Spirit that containeth the inward and the outward is beyond mind and life and is luminously pure, and He is higher than the highest Immutable. "And of Him is born life and the mind and all the organs of sense and of Him are Ether and Air and Light and Water and Earth that holdeth all. "Fire is the head of Him... physical self. Light has often been wooed and won, but at the expense of Life, which has gone either pale or grey with neglect. But a fusion of Light and Life, of the One and the Many, of the Transcendent, the Universal and the individual, of utter silence and the stupendous stir and hum of the cosmic movement, of the Spirit and Matter in an integrated and divinised human consciousness, is an achievement... fields of inconscience—who knows ? Matter is not only obscure but obdurate. Life is complex and convulsed with desire, and the Light invincibly insistent. What will be the issue ? Who knows? Who cares to know ? Man is enamoured of the tinsel and preoccupied with it, and has little time and less inclination to follow the labours of one whose sole object in life has been to dig "a bed for the golden ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

My Burning Heart

... summits of meditation. Then matter takes on its own meaning. The purpose of evolution is not to get out of it. The purpose of matter is not to give it up – it is to find its true secret. And its true secret has nothing to do with electronics. It has to do with a Joy in matter, a Consciousness in matter, a Power in matter that will enable us to LIVE differently, a truly divine life on earth. But we have... looking at matter.... And this is what he has the logician say: "When only matter was there and there was no life, if told that there would soon be life on earth embodied in matter, he would have cried out, 'What is that? It is impossible, it cannot be done. What? This mass of electrons, gases, chemical elements, this heap of mud and water and stones and inert metals – how are you to get life in that... habits, that "stupid goodwill," can be turned ANY WAY WE LIKE. Though, of course, it isn't in our head that we can change matter's habits – if we want to change matter's habits, we must be in touch with matter! We are NEVER really in touch with it. We are only in touch with our mind, our feelings, passions and habits. How could we possibly be in touch with the cell? We must first go through all ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   My Burning Heart

In the Mother's Light  >  The Divine Union

... the Eternal with the thrilled dynamism of His self-expression in Time. All nature and all life are included in the sweep of this integral union and every fibre of our complex being is meant to find in it its perfect fulfilment. This union is the sovereign means of reproduction, in the triple term of mind, life and body, of the triple supreme principle of the transcendent Existence, Sat, Chit and Ananda... in the perfected body and mind the transcendent activities of the Spirit. As the mental life does not abrogate but works for the elevation and better utilisation of the bodily, so too the spiritual should not abrogate but transfigure our intellectual, emotional, aesthetic and vital activities.”² The Mother does not regard an exclusive, unilateral tension of the mind or the heart or the will towards... Mother, June 15, 1913. ² The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo, Chapter V. Page 348 parts of our being and a global turning of it to the Divine, if the integral union be the supreme objective. Very often a partial union is so overwhelming that it is easily taken for an integral one—the soul and mind and heart are immersed in bliss and peace, or the life parts vibrate with a mighty power; ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

In the Mother's Light  >  The Service of the Divine

... existence, but to prepare its triple nature of mind, life, and body till it is fit to fulfil its mission: the manifestation of the Spirit in Matter. Man is not, therefore, a biological creature of a passing moment, but an immortal spark-soul, clad in mind, life, and body and charged with the mission of revealing in redeemed and purified Matter the supernal glories of the Divine he houses in... actualising Matter through the medium of the surrendered and emancipated human individual, is what the Mother means by true service. Aspiration for Service Once we are convinced that our birth here is not a fall, an aberration, or an exile, or a chance happening of mechanical Nature, but a purposive evolution and a divinely ordained mission, our whole outlook on life and its values... say, it comes from the central soul and does not originate either in the mind or the heart of man. When the soul awakes, a seeking for the Absolute or the Infinite or the Eternal awakes in us; our being instinctively feels a want, an inadequacy, an imperfection, sometimes even an illusoriness in the passing phenomena of life. Something above it, something to which it begins to respond with a growing ...

Rishabhchand   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   In the Mother's Light

Essays Divine and Human  >  Maya

... the Thing in itself and its symbols with their fixed conventional values, some of which are relative to the general consciousness & some to the individual consciousness of the symbol-being. Matter, Mind, Life for instance are general symbols with a fixed general value to God in His cosmic consciousness; but they have a different individual value, make a different impression or represent themselves... the terms, the word-values & conventional idea-values into which mind then translates this fact of unaffected transcendence; & it so translates it because these are the terms it is itself accustomed to apply to anything which is beyond it, remote from it, not practically affecting it in tangible relations. The mind engrossed in matter at first accepts only an objective reality; everything not objectivised... Nature. From this it is natural & right to come to vairagya or dissatisfaction with a life of false valuations and very easy to stride forward, again in the impatience of our imperfect human nature, to the consummation of an entire vairagya, not only dissatisfaction with a false moral life, but disgust with life of any sort & the conclusion of the vanity of world-existence. We have a mental vairagya ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays Divine and Human

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  The Delight of Works

... and an individual energy. Follow that like a widening river till it leads thee to its infinite source and origin. Know therefore thy body to be a knot in Matter and thy mind to be a whirl in universal Mind and thy life to be an eddy of Life that is for ever. Know thy force to be every other being's force and thy knowledge to be a glimmer from the light that belongs to no man and thy works to be... have learned thy human lesson. And all these things are because they are in thy unfinished nature. For Nature is the worker and what is it that she works at? She shapes out of her crude mind and life and matter a fully conscious being Know thyself next as the Worker. Understand thy nature to be the worker and thy own nature and All-Nature to be thyself. This nature-self is not proper to... the secret of works and of the delight of works. Learn thou first to be the instrument of God and to accept thy Master. The instrument is this outward thing thou callest thyself; it is a mould of mind, a driving-force of power, a machinery of form, a thing full of springs and cogs and clamps and devices. Call not this the Worker or the Master; it can never be the Worker or the Master. Accept thyself ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

Our Many Selves  >  The Psychic Being and Individual Progress

... consciousness; each life becomes a step in a victory over Matter by a greater progression of consciousness in it which shall make eventually Matter itself a means for the full manifestation of the Spirit.” Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - II: Man and the Evolution It is difficult to understand, Sweet Mother. Ah!… If you take terrestrial history, all the forms of life have appeared one... Some Answers and Explanations Our Many Selves The Psychic Being and Individual Progress “This terrestrial evolutionary working of Nature from Matter to Mind and beyond it has a double process: there is an outward visible process of physical evolution with birth as its machinery,—for each evolved form of body housing its own evolved power of consciousness... concentration of energy—has a life independent of the physical form—this is what we generally call the “soul” or the “psychic being”—and since it is organised around the divine centre it partakes of the divine nature which is immortal, eternal. The outer body falls away, and this remains throughout every experience that it has in each life, and there is a progress from life to life, and it is the progress ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Our Many Selves

Essays on the Gita  >  The Two Natures

... Becoming, a truth that supports and gives a spiritual and divine significance to all its appearances. The workings of the gunas are only the superficial unstable becomings of reason, mind, sense, ego, life and matter, sāttvikā bhāvā rājasās tāmasāś ca ; but this is rather the essential stable original intimate power of the becoming, svabhāva . It is that which determines the primary law of all becoming... subject, so long as he lives shut up within the action of the ego, to the workings of the three gunas which make up by their unstable movements the whole scope and method of the reason, the mind and the life and senses in the body. And within this circle there is no solution. Therefore the solution has to be found by an ascent out of the circle, above this nature of the gunas, to the one immutable... of their continuance too the Spirit. The fundamental nature of all is nature of the Spirit, and only in their lower differential phenomena do they seem to be something else, to be nature of body, life, mind, reason, ego and the senses. But these are phenomenal derivatives, they are not the essential truth of our nature and our existence. The supreme nature of spiritual being gives us then both an ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita

The Synthesis of Yoga  >  The Ascent of the Sacrifice - II

... world-creative purpose. The Life-Force is an indispensable intermediary, the effectuating element in Nature here; mind needs its alliance if the works of mind are not to remain shining inner formations without a body; the spirit needs it to give an outer force and form to its manifested possibilities and arrive at a complete self-expression incarnated in Matter. If Life refuses the aid of its intermediary... our own minds and active to shape the movements of Mind in the world around us. We begin to perceive the flow and surge of the universal life-forces, Page 183 detect the origin and law of our feelings, emotions, sensations, passions, are free to accept, reject, new-create, open to wider, rise to higher planes of Life-Power. We begin to perceive too the key to the enigma of Matter, follow... follow the interplay of Mind and Life and Consciousness upon it, discover more and more its instrumental and resultant function and detect ultimately the last secret of Matter as a form not merely of Energy but of involved and arrested or unstably fixed and restricted consciousness and begin to see too the possibility of its liberation and plasticity of response to higher Powers, its possibilities for the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Synthesis of Yoga

Savitri  >  Savitri and the 'Sonnets'

... ancient Force ascending... Earth was a cradle for the arriving God And man but a half-dark half-luminous sign Of the transition of the veiled Divine From Matter's sleep and the tormented load Of ignorant life and death to the Spirit's light. 148   The ascending Force is not unlike Kazantzakis Combatant, but it is also the veiled Divine, the beckoner of the arriving God... minute abode. In that small flaming chariot Shiva rides. The One devised innumerably to be; His oneness in invisible forms he hides, Time's tiny temples of eternity. 150 'Dead' matter, they said once; we now know that matter, being Page 438 made up of these flaming whirling electrons and other infinitesimal particles that are really minute bundles of energy, is not 'dead' but... the rudder and guide the bark through the threatening abysses to the safe thither shore. 154 When consciousness exceeds the cribbed average mentality and scours the oceans of the Unknown, when the mind breaks through its prison-house and engages in a cosmic task, when man's courageous soul makes "an assignation with the Night" and comes to woo "her dark and dangerous heart", man then achieves a vast ...

Dr. Prema Nandakumar   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Savitri

Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3  >  The World Serpent

... consciousness, traversing Life and Mind and Overmind and reaches the very source, the head and front of consciousness, then, curious to say, one finds oneself all on a sudden landed in the heart of matter. In the occult language this is expressed by saying that the consciousness that shines on the highest peak, is imbedded also here below in the cavern of dead matter. If one rises sufficiently... at the bottom as the basis is the physical – matter – and at the top as the acme is the most subtle, the Spiritual: in between there; are gradations whose number varies according to the mode of the outlook. Reverting to the image of the serpent, one can say that its head represents the spirit, the supreme consciousness, and the tail the other end, matter or supreme unconsciousness. The image, furthermore... exactly at the point from where one started without having to pass through all the rungs. Conversely Page 307 too if one probes sufficiently deep into the farthest corner of matter, the last limit of inconscience, one comes out into the blaze of the same infinity that covers above and below and around. One can recall here the curious conclusion reached by some modern scientists ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3

Kena and Other Upanishads  >  Sense of Our Senses

... are not mere results of the development of our physical organs in the terrestrial evolution. Mind, subconscious in all Matter and evolving in Matter, has developed these physical organs in order to apply its inherent capacities of sight, hearing, etc. on the physical plane by physical means for a physical life; but they are inherent capacities and not dependent on the circumstance of terrestrial evolution... nervous life in the body brings to his embodied mind; and even of those bringings he knows, he can retain and utilise only so much as his surface mind-sense attends to and consciously remembers; but there is a larger subliminal consciousness within him which is not thus limited. That consciousness senses what has not been sensed by the surface mind and its organs and knows what the surface mind has not... ns, functionings, instrumentations of the mind-consciousness, devices which it has formed in the course of its evolution in living Matter. Modern psychology has extended our knowledge and has admitted us to a truth which the ancients already knew but expressed in other language. We know now or we rediscover the truth that the conscious operation of mind is only a surface action. There is a much ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Kena and Other Upanishads

The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7  >  The World Serpent

... s, traversing Life and Mind and Overmind and reaches the very source, the head and front of consciousness, then, curious to Page 15 say, one finds oneself all on a sudden landed in the heart of matter. In the occult language this is expressed by saying that the consciousness that shines on the highest peak, is imbedded also here below in the cavern of dead matter. If one rises... the bottom as the basis is the physical—matter—and at the top as the acme is the most subtle, the spiritual: in between there are gradations whose number varies according to the mode of the outlook. Reverting to the image of the serpent, one can say that its head represents the spirit, the supreme consciousness, and the tail the other end, matter or supreme unconsciousness. The image, ... of the ladder, one comes round exactly at the point from where one started without having to pass through all the rungs. Conversely too if one probes sufficiently deep into the farthest comer of matter, the last limit of inconscience, one comes out into the blaze of the same infinity that covers above and below and around. One can recall here the curious conclusion reached by some modern ...

Nolini Kanta Gupta   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7

Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God  >  4: Lamarck: The First Evolutionary Theorist

... as ‘mind’ is esprit in the French language, which can mean ‘spirit’ or ‘mind’ (and even ‘wit’). In Lamarck the first significance was out of the question. From a spark of the Divine the spirit or soul had been degraded to a rational, albeit still immortal being. Now that the mind had become the epiphenomenon of a machine, it was not even taken into consideration anymore. All life was matter and mechanism... no living matter as such, nor is there a vital force. Matter is everywhere of the same nature, in the living beings as well as in the structures of the minerals. What is proper to life, is its organization . Living beings are organized beings.” (Claude Allègre 11 ) The quite pedestrian word ‘organization’ acquires here the unexplained, quasi magical power which others ascribe to ‘life’. But... descent of the animals from the infusorian to the monkey.” Another fundamental problem was the origin of life. How had life appeared on planet Earth in an entirely material environment? Those “infusorians” – Lamarck’s word for the first life forms which he also called “monads,” or “matter barely animated” – where had they come from, how had they come about? Lamarck had no idea, just like Charles ...

Georges van Vrekhem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God

Sri Aurobindo came to Me  >  Sri Aurobindo's Message

... The time-old "paradox" has its roots in the deep hiatus between Matter and Spirit in that if one denied a superconscient Spirit sustaining earth-life on the ground that nothing unattested by one's mind and senses can be accepted as 'real' then one must land plop in rank materialism and repudiate any divine purpose in life. One must, because such a purpose being beyond the mental comprehension... Nature shall live to manifest secret God, The Spirit shall take up the human play, This earthly life become the life divine." Then the gulf between Matter and Spirit shall be finally bridged, and: "The Spirit shall look out through Matter's gaze And Matter shall reveal the Spirit's Face." Page 277 ... law" and Matter's downpull (Savitri 2.4) "The life that wins its aims asks greater aims, The life that fails and dies must live again.... Till it has found itself it cannot cease." And he cannot halt or rest in a half-way house because (ibid 1.4): "We are sons of God and must be even as He: His human portion, we must grow divine, Our life is a paradox ...

Dilip Kumar Roy   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Sri Aurobindo came to Me

Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda  >  Process and Methods of the Vedic Yoga

... elixir, which has been the subject matter of the ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda, describes the lord of the divine drink as attainable only when the human body, the human life-force and the human mind are thoroughly purified. In one of the hymns of the Rig Veda, 28 the human system is imaged as the jar, and the strainer of purifying instrument is imaged in terms of the mind which is enlightened by knowledge... result of which he is able to discover a certain fourth world ( swar — the world other than the worlds of the Matter, Life, Mind), turīyam svij janayad viśwajanyah. 37 The Veda speaks of five births for man, five worlds of creations where works are done, pancajanah, panca krstih. The mind and the body, Dyauh and prithvi, rodasi, our two firmaments; the third is antariksha, the intermediate... discovered by Ayasya by means of universalisation of consciousness by the knowledge of the seven-headed thought, may be regarded as the vast world of swar, which links the lower triple world of Matter, Life and Mind with the highest triple world, the world of delight or sweetness, madhu, of conscious force, urj, and self-existent substance ( vasu ). 38 The Vedic discovery is thus the discovery of the ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda

Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body  >  Health

... to downright catastrophic. But it is equally clear that similar or identical bases can produce very different end-results. Ultimately, in most cases, the way of life is the determining factor of health. To remain healthy is not merely a matter of luck: having given due recognition to the power of genes, circumstances and accidents, fatalism about health is unwarranted. Excessive preoccupation with... people seem to have been much mesmerized by the belief that sickness is natural, that sickness occurs as part of the rhythm of human life and that one has simply to suffer illness when it grips the body. There is also the common idea that body's health and illness are matters for doctors and that only doctors, by their prescriptions and medicines, are able to maintain a person's health. People are often... its complex processes could gradually be built. Indeed. no matter what methods are found to reform national health systems, their success will probably depend a great deal on whether a new and deeper conscious ness about health can be developed in the public at large. There are reasons to believe that the traditional concepts about life and health which are still to a large extent prevalent, belong ...

Kireet Joshi   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mystery and Excellence of the Human Body

The Renaissance in India  >  A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - 2

... especially difficult range of the mind's powers and interests a remarkable and unique general development. The European journalist's capacity for discussing with some show of acumen questions of economy and politics or, for that matter, art, literature and drama, is not "necessarily" proof of a great mental capacity; but it does show a great development of the European mind in general, a wide-spread information... claimed for the Indian mind and its civilisation is a high spirituality, high on all the summits of thought and religion, permeating art and literature and religious practice and social ideas and affecting even the ordinary man's attitude to life. If the claim is conceded, as it is conceded by all sympathetic and disinterested inquirers even when they do not accept the Indian view of life, then Indian culture... real questions at issue between this Asiatic or ancient mind and the European or modern intelligence. The typical occidental mind, which prolongs still the mentality of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been almost entirely fashioned by the second view; it has grown into the mould of the vitalistic rational idea. Its attitude to life has never been governed by a philosophic conception of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Renaissance in India

Letters on Yoga - III  >  Suggestions for Dealing with Experiences

... experience have its full play—if it is something like this "new life force" or peace or Force or anything else helpful. When it is over, you can think about it—not while it is proceeding. For these experiences are spiritual and not mental and the mind has Page 47 to be quiet and not interfere. During the experience the mind should be quiet. After the experience is over it can be active... comes to know of them, should not be talked about or made a matter of gossip. It is only if there can be some spiritual profit to others and even then if they are experiences of the past that one Page 50 can speak of them. Otherwise it becomes like news of Abyssinia or Spain, something common and trivial for the vital mass-mind to chew or gobble. To show what is written about experiences... description to be an intense psychic Ananda) to be kept permanently than for peace to remain abidingly. The difficulty of keeping up these states in work or reading is more a matter of habit than anything else, because the mind is accustomed to absorb in the reading or work and forget all else for the time being. But once one gets the right poise and can keep in the inner being during work, that difficulty ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - III

Emergence of the Psychic  >  Emergence of the Psychic Being

... and our life. 85 — Sri Aurobindo * It is true again that it is difficult for man's mind to distinguish entirely the soul or self or any spiritual element in him from the mental and vital formation in which it makes its appearance; but that is only so long as the emergence is not complete. In the animal mind is not quite distinct from its own life-matrix and life-matter; its movements... sees itself in an inner silence as the spirit in mind, or separates itself from the life-movements, desires, sensations, kinetic impulses and is aware of itself as the spirit supporting life, or separates itself from the body-sense and knows itself as a spirit ensouling Matter: this is the discovery of ourselves as the Purusha, a mental being or a life-soul or a subtle self supporting the body. This... being in a life and body, but he has that impression and can take inwardly that position. So too at first soul in man does not appear as something quite distinct from mind and from mentalised life; its movements are involved in the mind-movements, its operations seem to be mental and emotional activities; the mental human being is not aware of a soul in him standing back from the mind and life and body ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Emergence of the Psychic

Mother or The New Species - II  >  14: The Mechanism of the Contagion

... for sixty years I have been doing a conscious yoga, with all that memories of an immortal life can bring—and see where I am! When Sri Aurobindo says you must have endurance, I think he is right!... The absolute certainty of the Victory is un-ques-tio-na-ble; but I am not speaking at the scale of our bounded mind. It's up to us to CHANGE TACK—this is what's expected of us, to change tack and not keep... state to another, through the thousand "stupidities" of daily life. And suddenly, Mother understood: I have a kind of certitude (not quite formulated in words: a certitude in sensation, in feeling) that once this microscopic work is completed, the result will be... almost like a thunderbolt. Because the Power's action through the mind gets diluted, qualified, adapted, altered, and so on, and how much... sandals come to her. She did this through a capacity to radiate her matter—she exercised a will over that matter—her central will acted upon Matter anywhere, since SHE WAS THERE. With her, then, I saw this Power in a methodical, organized way, not as something accidental or spasmodic (as it is with mediums), but as an ORGANIZATION OF MATTER. And so... I began to understand: "With this comes the power to ...

Satprem   >   Books   >   Other-Works   >   Mother or The New Species - II

Sri Aurobindo's Message  >  Sri Aurobindo's Message to Free India

... preoccupation of the Indian Page 26 mind; some have told us that too much religion ruined India, precisely because we made the whole of life religion or religion the whole of life, we have failed in life and gone under. I will not answer, adopting the language used by the poet in a slightly different connection, that our fall does not matter and that the dust in which India lies is sacred... which drew away the best minds who were thus lost to society instead of standing like the ancient Rishis as its spiritual support and its illuminating life-givers. But the root of the matter was the dwindling of the spiritual impulse in its generality and broadness, the decline of intellectual activity and freedom, the waning of great ideals, the loss of the gust of life. Perhaps there was... sacred. The fall, the failure does matter, and to lie in the dust is no sound position for man or nation. But the reason assigned is not the true one. If the majority of Indians had indeed made the whole of their lives religion in the true sense of the word, we should not be where we are now; it was because their public life became most irreligious, egoistic, self-seeking, materialistic that they ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   Compilations   >   Sri Aurobindo's Message

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga  >  On Ideals

... action upon the concrete phenomena of life and matter. The mastery of the fact is usually possible to the idealist mind only when its idealism is of no great depth or power and can therefore accommodate itself more easily to the actual life-environment. Until this difficulty is overcome and the Seer-Will becomes more common in man and more the master of life, the ideal works at a disadvantage, by... workings. In Life the force emerges and becomes vibrant in the very surface of its works; last, in Mind the underlying consciousness reveals itself. So too man is at first subject in his mentality to the facts which his senses envisage, cannot go behind and beyond them, knows only the impressions they make on his receptive mind. The animal is executive, not creative; a passive tool of Matter and Life he does... fulfil themselves on this lower plane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical intellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not truths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only become real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force accomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays in Philosophy and Yoga