... body. Logically, then, neither the mental nor the vital being can remember past lives or recognise itself in the character or mode of life of this or that person. The psychic being alone can remember; and it is by becoming conscious of our psychic being that we can have at the same time exact impressions about our past lives. The Mother Words of the Mother - III: Rebirth In ordinary lives—and... 5. The Afterlife and Rebirth The Psychic Being Memory of Past Lives The departed soul retains the memory of its past experiences only in their essence, not in their form of detail. It is only if the soul brings back some past personality or personalities as part of its present manifestation that it is likely to remember the details of the past life. Otherwise... real psychic memories, sincere, spontaneous, not fabricated by the mind or the vital, that is, purely psychic, exact, your memory is intermittent . And it is often very difficult to locate your past lives, to say: "I was this or that." It is only when the psychic experience has taken place at a very important moment of your life and a whole set of circumstances gives you, so to say, the key to the ...
... can truly say that one remembers his past lives. In rebirth it is not the external being, that which is formed by parents, environment and circumstances — the mental, the vital and the physical — that is born again: it is only the psychic being that passes from body to body. Logically then, neither the mental nor the vital being can remember past lives or recognise itself in the character... the process of the Gods Until their work in cosmic Time is done. Page 40 Only when one is consciously identified with one's divine origin, can one in truth speak of a memory of past lives. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the progressive manifestation of the Spirit in the forms in which it dwells. When one reaches the summit of this manifestation, one has a vision that plunges down upon the... have been such a baron of the Middle Ages or such a person who lived at such a place and such a time, are fanciful, they are simply victims of their own mental imagination. In fact, what remains of past lives are not beautiful pictures in which you appear as a mighty lord in a castle or a victorious general at the head of an army — that is only romance. What remains is the memory of those instants when ...
... 1958 (1) Memory of Past Lives If one were to say things truly, one would have to say everything, in full detail. For among the innumerable experiences that I have had in the course of eighty years, many were of such a variety and apparently so contradictory that one might say: after all, everything is possible. So then, if I tell you something about past lives without presenting the thread... everything is possible and not be dogmatic. I may, however, give a few general indications. Only when one is consciously identified with one's divine origin, can one in truth speak of a memory of past lives. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the progressive manifestation of the Spirit in the forms in which it dwells. When one reaches the summit of this manifestation, one has a vision that plunges down upon the... have been such a baron of the Middle Ages or such a person who lived at such a place and such a time, are fanciful, they are simply victims of their own mental imagination. In fact, what remains of past lives are not beautiful pictures in which you appear as a mighty lord in a castle or a victorious general at the head of an army—that is only romance. What remains is the memory of those instants when ...
... Undated 1957 ( On past lives ) If we are to speak of these things truly, we must speak of everything, in all details, for among the innumerable experiences I have had for nearly eighty years, many were of such variety and apparently so contradictory that in truth it can be said that all is possible. Therefore, to say something about past lives without retrieving the thread that... dogmatic. Nevertheless, I can give you a few general indications. It is only when one is consciously identified with his divine Origin that he can speak with complete truthfulness of a memory of past lives. Sri Aurobindo speaks of a progressive manifestation of the Spirit in the forms it inhabits. When one reaches the summit of this manifestation, one has a plunging view of the path already traversed... the Middle Ages or such and such a person who lived at such and such a place during such and such a time are fantasizing; they are simply victims of their own mental fancies. For what remains of past lives are not beautiful illustrated classics in which you see yourself as a great lord in a castle or a victorious general at the head of his army—all that is fiction. What remains is the memory of the ...
... insufficient either to prove or to disprove anything in the world. One argument, for instance, often put forward triumphantly in disproof is this that we have no memory of our past lives and therefore there were no past lives! One smiles to see such reasoning seriously used by those who imagine that they are something more than intellectual children. The argument proceeds on psychological grounds and... Obviously, if our past lives are to be remembered whether as fact and state or in their events and images, it can only be by a psychical memory awaking which will overcome the limits of the physical and resuscitate impressions other than those stamped on the physical being by physical cerebration. I doubt whether, even if we could have evidence of the physical memory of past lives or of such a psychical... state of infancy was, on any but a Buddhist theory, part of the same life and belonged to the same Page 260 individual,—the very one who cannot remember it just as he cannot remember his past lives. Yet we demand that this physical memory, this memory of the brute brain of man which cannot remember our infancy and has lost so much of our later years, shall recall that which was before infancy ...
... ion and experience are what the soul seeks by its birth into the body; whatever is necessary for the self-expression and experience of this life, whether it intervenes as an automatic outcome of past lives or as a free selection of results and a continuity or as a new development, whatever is a means of creation of the future, that will be formulated: for the principle is not the working out of a mechanism... as a means for the evolution of the spiritual being in Nature. It becomes at once evident that in this plan of rebirth the false importance which our mind attaches to the memory of past Page 849 lives disappears altogether. If indeed rebirth were governed by a system of rewards and punishments, if life's whole intention were to teach the embodied spirit to be good and moral,—supposing... being grows by a subliminal or intraconscient assimilation and absorption of its results of past becoming and an output of potentialities of future becoming. The law that deprives us of the memory of past lives is a law of the cosmic Wisdom and serves, not disserves its evolutionary purpose. The absence of any memory of past existences is wrongly and very ignorantly taken as a disproof of the actuality ...
... Ordinarily it is only by Yogic development or by clairvoyance that the exact memory of past lives can be brought back. Page 550 Remembering Past Lives Certainly, the subconscient is formed for this life only and is not carried with it by the soul from one life to another. The memory of past lives is not something that is active anywhere in the being—if by memory is meant the memory of... a connection in past lives, but the forms given by the mind are likely to be mistaken. It is not the ego, but the inner being that remembers the past lives—and the inner being as a rule is perfectly detached about them. The different and contrasting phases through which you pass are obviously due to the emergence of different personalities in you created by past lives. One is full of... course indispensable to know [ about past lives ]. It is sometimes a matter of interest for knowing the lines of one's past development and how one has come to what one is now. But to overpass this outward development is of course the main aim of the Yoga. We are not to be tied by our past lives. Page 552 Too much importance must not be given to past lives. For the purpose of this Yoga one ...
... that —it is LIKE THIS !' And several times the corrections I got, on certain details, about one person or another, turned out to be quite exact." Mirra was simply reliving some memories of her past lives awakened by history books. "Reading some passages, I would even say, 'How silly! It was never that: this is what was said. It never happened that way: this is how it happened.' And it was... many psychic memories. "I could narrate many such things," said Mother, "it's very interesting. I have had a lot in Italy. I travelled in Italy with my mother when I was fifteen." One of these past lives in Italy had remained extremely vivid. As soon as Mirra saw the place, images came rushing up. "This Italian experience struck me much," Mother said with a smile. "I was fifteen. I was travelling... ... It was so evident! I felt so strongly that things were controlled by the will that I answered, 'One dies after,' quite simply." Mother smiled, "In English, not in French!" Among all her past lives, each more dangerous than the other, the most acute and poignant imprints were left by her lives as a sovereign — empress and queen and suchlike. Most painful. To be a king is to be tied up in protocol ...
... within, something which is not the exterior name and form." (CWM, Vol. 3, p. 145) (Q. 8): Is it necessary to have knowledge of past lives? (A. 8): "If it is necessary you will know it." (CWM, Vol. 15, p. 137) "Knowledge of past lives is interesting for an understanding of one's nature and a mastery of one's imperfections. But to tell the truth, it is not of capital importance... detailed memory of past lives, hatreds, rancours, attachments, connections would be equally a stupendous inconvenience; for it would bind the reborn being to a useless repetition or a compulsory continuation of his surface past and stand heavily in the way of his bringing out new possibilities from the depths of the spirit.... The law that deprives us of the memory of past lives is a law of the cosmic... when the soul first entered this existence, it had no Karma." (Letters on Yoga, p. 439) (Q. 38): Sometimes people claim to have memory of their past lives. Is there any truth about such claims? Can one really remember one's past lives? (A. 38): "...if anything is certain, it is that the ...[animal] has no contact whatever with the psychic consciousness and so transmits Page ...
... partake in our external activities in order to be able to remember external things; otherwise, it is like a blind king. Then, and only then, can we begin to speak of reincarnation and memories of past lives, which will not necessarily be memories of garish or glorious deeds (how many Napoleons and Caesars there have been if we believe the scribblers of reincarnation!), but memories of soul-moments... without thinking, what is actually left of our present life? A nebulous mass with perhaps two or three outstanding images; all the rest is blotted out. This is likewise the case for the soul and its past lives. The sifting process is quite extensive. Furthermore, this mechanism of oblivion is very wise indeed, because if we were to recall our former lives prematurely, chances are we would be constantly... punctured. Evolution has nothing to do with becoming more saintly or intelligent; it has to do with becoming more conscious. It takes a great many ages for one to be able to fruitfully bear the truth of past lives. Everything, then, depends upon the degree of our development and the extent to which our psychic being has participated in our outer life; the more we have "colonized" the outside, the more ...
... could not speak about them. I had had experiences upon experiences. For years together, at night, I had experiences, but I was careful not to breathe a word about them – all sorts of memories of past lives, all sorts of things, but without any basis of intellectual knowledge. ‘The advantage was of course that my experiences were no mental fabrications, they came absolutely spontaneously. But I had... contact with somebody from India. She was evidently on the lookout for any meaningful help she could get in her quest. The inner experiences continued to come frequently, and so did the memories of past lives, as they had done even long before she had the slightest idea of reincarnation. Eager for knowledge and understanding of her experiences, she read everything she could find about spirituality ...
... Certain poets very strongly appeal to me and their minds and characters seem to have strong affinities with mine in different ways. Have you any intuition in the matter of my past lives? Mother once saw Horace (as well as Hector) behind Dilip; but she has told me nothing about myself except that she is positive I was an Athenian. "A strong... or more poets or all of them together is not sufficient to warrant a conclusion that one has been those poets or any of them in former lives. I have myself no intuition on the subject of your past lives, though from general impressions I would be inclined to wager that you were not only in Athens (that is evident) but in England during the Restoration time or thereabouts, in Renaissance Italy ...
... are concealed in our subliminal being and with the waking of the psychical consciousness can be brought to the surface. The knowledge of our past lives,—whether of past soul states or personalities or scenes, occurrences, relations with others,—of the past lives of others, of the past of the world, of the future, of present things that are beyond the range of our physical senses or the reach of any means ...
... the Mother Speaking to People about Past Lives The Mother only speaks to people about their past births when she sees definitely some scene or memory of their past in concentration; but this happens rarely nowadays. 30 June 1933 Mother does not usually look into past lives; only when things come of themselves from the past she looks. 24 July 1934 ...
... Moreover we find that it encouraged a sort of vital romanticism in the Sadhaks which made them attach more importance to these things than to the hard work of Sadhana, so we have stopped speaking of past lives and personalities. "There are two paths of Yoga, one of tapasyā (discipline) and the other of surrender." 6 Once you interpreted my vision as Agni, the fire of purification and tapasyā... "You are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of what has been done before." 22 Page 307 Does "before" mean all the past lives, beginning from the very first up to this one? That is taking things in the mass. In a metaphysical sense whatever happens is the consequence of all that has gone before up to the moment of ...
... expression it has when one has acquired a conscious organisation around this divine Centre. 67 * How is it possible to remember one's past lives ? It is through contact with the psychic that one gets fragmentary memories of past lives — the memory of events in which the psychic took part. This happens spontaneously when these same elements of the psychic become active again ...
... Our Many Selves Progress from Life to Life Mother, since in each new life the mind and vital as well as the body are new, how can the experiences of past lives be useful for them? Do we have to go through all the experiences once again? That depends on people! It is not the mind and vital which develop and progress from life to life—except in altogether... the memory of these lives. Apart from a few very rare exceptions, only when you are united with your psychic being and become fully conscious of it do you obtain, at the same time, the memory of past lives, which the psychic preserves in its consciousness. Otherwise, even in those who are most sensitive, these memories are fragmentary, uncertain and intermittent. Most often they are hardly recognisable ...
... The Signature Of Truth REINCARNATION - MEMORY OF PAST LIVES To understand rightly the problem of what is popularly called reincarnation, we must perceive that there are two factors in it which require consideration. First, there is the line of divine consciousness which seeks to manifest from above and upholds a certain series of formations, peculiar to itself... contact with them it does not retain the memory of the lives in their totality to which it supplies the background. Hence by merely contacting the psychic one cannot have the recollection of all those past lives: what commonly goes by the name of such recollection is, mostly, either deliberate imposture or a fabrication out of a few spasmodic hints received from within. Many people claim to remember their ...
... to return in a new one. But everything is possible. Blessings. 28 March 1970 Sweet Mother, How is it possible to remember one's past lives? It is through contact with the psychic that one gets fragmentary memories of past lives—the memory of events in which the psychic took part. Page 364 This happens spontaneously when these same elements of the psychic become active ...
... —that is exactly what happens. The psychic does not retain things in their totality—decants, it gradually decants the vibrations. The psychic memory is a decanted memory of events. For example, in past lives there have been moments when, for some reason or other, the psychic was present and participated; in that case it retains the memory of the circumstance. But the memory it retains is that of the... Page 352 a hope. It is not that I don't believe in reincarnation, but this idea comes back to my mind very often. Mother, is this a narrowness of vision on my part, or what? Knowledge of past lives is interesting for an understanding of one's nature and a mastery of one's imperfections. But to tell the truth, it is not of capital importance, and it is far more important to concentrate on the ...
... thrilling to know one's past lives, one's past experiences; but as soon as I came here and I understood the change that Sri Aurobindo had brought about, I found all that absolutely immaterial. It's childish curiosity. It doesn't help you in any way, it's merely either to glory in it or for fun, but it's unimportant. Some people still write to me, "Will you please tell me what my past lives were?" I answer ...
... consequence of my past misdeeds! Past misdeeds? But I have no conscious recollection of having done any serious misdeed in my present life! Then have I to believe in the queer idea of past lives? And if past lives, why not accept the possibility of future lives? But many do not subscribe to that belief. The materialist thinkers and scientists will simply scoff at that "absurd" idea. Some religionists ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 Past Lives and the Psychic Being MOST people are not at all conscious of what is happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of mental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a few, very few indeed, who are conscious – conscious of what is beyond the three, viz... fortunate moments of life. But they cannot be spoken about. There are people who say and perhaps believe too that they were such and such persons and even give a detailed description of their past lives. There are also the well-known sprit communications through a medium at spirit sitting. Someone comes and tells you he was Napoleon, another was Shakespeare and so on. How many Shakespeares and ...
... that surround the psychic being and form its earthly frame. With the physical body has to go also the subtle body, then the vital and finally the mental too. The reason why one does not remember the past lives is this that one leaves behind the instrument of memory—the brain mind—with one's death. One does not carry over with the psychic being the other parts that constitute the terrestrial life. They... expressing something of the psychic nature, can they maintain their identity, for this identity is part and parcel of the psychic identity. Page 63 I have said that the memory of past lives is effaced because of the effacement of the instrument. But there is a higher memory which is the attribute of the psychic consciousness. The psychic being is made of light and knowledge: it knows ...
... him as the child She had put on my lap and identified him as Narendra’s soul. * * * Sweet Mother, How is it possible to remember one’s past lives? It is through contact with the psychic that one gets fragmentary memories of past lives—the memory of events in which the psychic took part. This happens spontaneously when these same elements of the psychic become active again. Any ...
... General Remarks on His Life Letters on Himself and the Ashram Heredity, Past Lives, Astrology Heredity and Past Lives It is true that we bring most of ourselves from past lives. Heredity only affects the external being and all the effects of heredity are not accepted, only those that are in consonance with what we are to be or not preventive of it at... at least. I may be the son of my father or mother in certain respects, but most of me is as foreign to them as if I had been born in New York or Paraguay. 3 June 1935 Speculations about His Past Lives It is reported that you were Kalidasa and Shakespeare. I suppose it is true, at least regarding Kalidasa—isn't it? As to the report, who is the reporter? and in what "Reincarnation Review" ...
... Questions and Answers 1929 ( 28 April ) You must always distrust people who go rambling in some kind of mental or vital domain, and then tell you stories imagining that they remember their past lives. You know the classical example of that well-known lady who narrated her lives from the time she had been a monkey! I may assure you that it is pure imagination, for it is impossible to remember... real psychic memories, sincere, spontaneous, not fabricated by the mind or the vital, that is, purely psychic, exact, your memory is intermittent . And it is often very difficult to locate your past lives, to say: "I was this or that." It is only when the psychic experience has taken place at a very important moment of your life and a whole set of circumstances gives you, so to say, the key to the... not to think that to perfect oneself and to live a spiritual life one must leave the world. There are also symbolic and premonitory dreams, but very rarely do dreams consist of true memories of past lives, because for that one must dream in one's psychic consciousness and there are not many who are capable of this. One dreams in the mental or vital consciousness but rarely does one dream in the psychic ...
... Connections in Past Lives By what puṇya of ours has the Grace granted to us, mere humans, this rare privilege of coming here at the Divine's Feet? It is the call of your soul that brought you here and also some aspiration or connection with the Mother and myself in past lives. 6 May 1933 Page 87 What sort of bhakti in my past lives has brought me to the Mother's... fail to obtain it. We in the Asram don't seem to have done very much, and yet we are here with you. What has brought this about? There are many things that have brought it about—a connection in past lives with the Mother and myself, the development of your nature in former births which made it possible for you to seek the Divine, bhakti in those lives bearing its fruit now—finally, the Divine Grace ...
... Immortality of the Soul, Essential Immortality and Triple Immortality It becomes at once evident that in this plan of rebirth the false importance which our mind attaches to the memory of past lives disappears altogether. If indeed rebirth were governed by a system of rewards and punishments, if life's whole intention were to teach the embodied spirit to be good and moral, supposing that that... the old temperament, character, preoccupations, and a tremendous burden hampering the free development of the new personality and its formulation of new experience. A clear and detailed memory of past lives, hatreds, rancours, attachments, connections would be equally a stupendous inconvenience; for it would bind the reborn being to a useless repetition or a compulsory continuation of his surface past... subliminal or intraconscient assimilation and absorption of its results of past Page 96 becoming and an output of potentialities of future becoming. The law that deprives us of the memory of past lives is a law of the cosmic Wisdom and serves, not disserves its evolutionary purpose. The absence of any memory of past existences is wrongly and very ignorantly taken as a disproof of the actuality ...
... made for. ¹ The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, Part VII, by Nolini Kanta Gupta. Page 102 Memory of Past Lives Considerable romance and an extravagant play of fancy and imagination have entered into the fascinating subject of the memory of past lives. It is not unoften that we hear fantastic stories about one's recovering a knowledge of one's past life or lives. It is... and unconventional things to say about rebirth. She dispels the obscurity which surrounds this important subject, exposes the fraud or self-deception of those who retail entertaining stories of past lives, and gives a clear account of what happens to the soul after it has departed this life—through what worlds it passes, how it assimilates its past experiences and what is the process of its reincarnation... birth again, it puts on a new mind, a new vital or prana, and a new body in accordance with its past experiences and the fresh line of evolution it is going to pursue. Where then does the memory of past lives reside ? For, nothing, except the psychic, survives the dissolution of the constructed personality. If the psychic is not much developed and the life and mind it assumes are not purified and organised ...
... now that things will be done—they will be done, that is well understood, they will be done, but... How many lives have you all had? What do you remember of your past lives? What is the good of all the efforts you have made in your past lives to perfect yourselves, to try to understand yourselves, to master yourselves a little, simply to make use of the instrument which has been given to you? What ... Page 329 remains to you of all that? Will you tell me? Who here can tell me that he is consciously profiting by the experiences of his past lives—unconsciously there is something which remains but not much—but consciously?... No one will answer? No, precisely, one has the impression that after having lived so long, one is only beginning to know a very little. Yes, exactly, it is ...
... acting as a military officer on a mountain in one of my past lives. When I reported this vision at soup time, she said 'Yes, in one of your past lives you were that officer' and then added, 'You were with me in Italy and were one of the best sculptors.' She had suggested me to write poetry because I was a well-known poet in France in one of my past lives. There was night meditation after 9-30 p.m. We ...
... body. Logically, then, neither the mental nor the vital being can remember past lives or recognise itself in the character or mode of life of this or that person. The psychic being alone can remember; and it is by becoming conscious of our psychic being that we can have at the same time exact impressions about our past lives. Besides, it is much more important for us to fix our attention upon what... about these memories of small details You said: "That is absolute childishness." 2 But then how is it that in newspapers one quite often reads stories of small children who remember their past lives and that the details have been verified? And it is the study of such events that leads para-psychologists to assert the existence of reincarnation. So are they not on a completely wrong track? And ...
... memory of a past life. Just as I pestered Sri Aurobindo about his own past lives, I once put an exploratory question to him on myself. I wrote: "Certain poets very strongly appeal to me and their minds and characters seem to have strong affinities with mine in different ways. Have you any intuition in the matter of my past lives? The Mother once saw Horace (as well as Hector) behind Dilip; but she... one or more poets or all of them together is not sufficient to warrant a conclusion that one had been those poets or any of them in former lives. I have myself no intuitions on the subject of your past lives, though from general impressions I would be inclined to wager that you were not only in Athens (that is evident) but in England during the Restoration time or thereabouts, in Renaissance Italy etc ...
... Moreover we find that it encouraged a sort of vital romanticism in the sadhaks which made them attach more importance to these things than to the hard work of sadhana, so we have stopped speaking of past lives and personalities. 2 January 1937 In Conversations the Mother says: "We have all met in previous lives.... We are of one family and have worked through ages for the victory of the Divine"... is needed. "... you are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of what has been done before" [ p. 30 ]. Does "before" mean all the past lives, beginning from the very first up to this one? That is taking things in the mass. In a metaphysical sense whatever happens is the consequence of all that has gone before up to the moment of the ...
... Questions and Answers (1929-1931) Reincarnation - Memory of Past Lives To understand rightly the problem of what is popularly called reincarnation, you must perceive that there are two factors in it which require consideration. First, there is the line of divine consciousness which seeks to manifest from above and upholds a certain series of formations... contact with them it does not retain the memory of the lives in their totality to which it supplies the background. Hence by merely contacting the psychic one cannot have the recollection of all those past lives: what commonly goes by the name of such recollection is, mostly, either deliberate imposture or a fabrication out of a few spasmodic hints received from within. Many people claim to remember their ...
... body. Logically, then, neither the mental nor the vital being can remember past lives or recognise itself in the character or mode of life of this or that person. The psychic being alone can remember; and it is by becoming conscious of our psychic being that we can have at the same time exact impressions about our past lives. "Besides, it is much more important for us to fix our attention upon ...
... Page 505 There are roughly speaking three parts of the being in manifestation which come into play here—1. the psychic being in evolution which brings with it its past experience of past lives and something of the old personalities, so much as it can make helpful for the present life; 2. the present formation due to this birth and made up of many complex factors; 3. the future being, which... consciousness above the present manifestation by joining which the transformation becomes more possible and the work attempted can be done. It is the psychic being which brings in the contact through past lives or personalities, i.e. through something essential and still operative in them which it has kept. But, in addition, some psychic beings have come here who are ready to join with great lines of ...
... progress and enlightenment. The Mother On Thoughts and Aphorisms: Aphorism - 11 Mother, since in each new life the mind and vital as well as the body are new, how can the experiences of past lives be useful for them? Do we have to go through all the experience once again? That depends on people! It is not the mind and vital which develop and progress from life to life—except in altogether... of the psychic being when it takes up this kind of life. It is memories of this kind which prove the authenticity of the experience; for what generally happens when people tell you about their past lives is this: in these lives there is always a progress, naturally; so they become more and more splendid people in more and more marvellous circumstances! It is wrong, things never happen like that. ...
... character, preoccupations, and a tremendous burden hampering the free development of the new Page 66 personality and its formulation of new experience. A clear and detailed memory of past lives, hatreds, rancours, attachments, connections would be equally a stupendous inconvenience; for it would bind the reborn being to a useless repetition or a compulsory continuation of his surface past... being when it takes up this kind of life. 79 — The Mother * Mother, since in each new life the mind and vital as well as the body are new, how can the experiences of past lives be useful for them? Do we have to go through all the experiences once again? That depends on people! It is not the mind and vital which develop and progress from life to life ...
... experience—only BECAUSE OF the experience and because I wanted to understand it would I study things related to it. It was the same thing for visions of past lives. I knew NOTHING when I would have the experience, not even the possibility of past lives, and only after having had the experience would I study the question and, for example, even verify certain historical facts that had occurred in my vision ...
... Mother’s Agenda 1964 September 12, 1964 ( Satprem reads Mother an old "Talk" of February 24, 1951 , in which she refers to the memory of past lives and the unbridled imagination of certain people. ) I didn't name her, but it was Annie Besant. She recounted all her lives with all the details—right from the ape! I didn't read her books, incidentally... day I saw a whole story about that, which came back to me (it takes the form of a memory, but those things come from outside). It was about a seven-year-old child who told all his memories of his past lives. It came all at once, and I thought, "But why am I seeing this?" I watched it all and why and how it happened—a long story. And then it went away. It must have been while you were writing down the ...
... the person concerned may not remember any longer his past misdeeds. For, any particular misdeed may have been done not in the present life of the person but some time in one of his now-forgotten past lives." There is a popular Bengali saying which epitomises this Karma-hypothesis: "Śubha karmé śubha, mandé manda phal; é dharāy rodhé, nāhi kāro boll" - "A good deed engenders good consequence, and... of a Guru who was known to both of us. "One day this blind yogi addressed me and said that, while plunged in deep meditation he had been able to be acquainted with the events of one of his past lives which he had lived seven Page 111 hundred years back. In that life he was some sort of a village zemindar and was rather cruel-hearted towards his poor peasant-subjects and tormented ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7 PAST LIVES AND THE PSYCHIC BEING Most people are not at all conscious of what is happening in them. Their consciousness or being is a mixture of mental, vital and physical elements, a kind of hotchpotch. There are a few, very few indeed, who are conscious— conscious of what is beyond the three, viz. their psychic being.... fortunate moments of life. But they cannot be spoken about. There are people who say and perhaps believe too that they were such and such persons and even give a detailed description of their past lives. There are also the well-known spirit communications through a medium at spirit sittings. Someone comes and tells you he was Napoleon, another was Shakespeare and so on. How many Shakespeare ...
... that surround the psychic being and form its earthly frame. With the physical body has to go also the subtle body, then the vital and finally the mental too. The reason why one does not remember the past lives is this that one leaves behind the instrument of memory – the brain mind – with one's death. One does not carryover with the psychic being the other parts that constitute the terrestrial life. They... definite form and character expressing something of the psychic nature, can they maintain their identity, for this identity is part and parcel of the psychic identity. I have said that the memory of past lives is effaced because of the effacement of the instrument. But there is a higher memory which is the attribute of the psychic consciousness. The psychic being is made of light and knowledge: it knows ...
... didn't utter a word more, and left. But I told them, 'Listen, it was positively me! That was MY portrait. That was ME.' " And no wonder. For on several occasions when talking to Satprem about her past lives, Mother had said: "I have had many, many items of information about Joan of Arc, many. And then, of such striking accuracy! Perfectly, perfectly interesting. But I won't Page 128 ... years together, at night, I had experiences —but I was careful not to breathe a word about them!" Her mother would have shut her up and her father did not care one bit. "All sorts of memories of past lives, all sorts of things, but without any basis of intellectual knowledge." Mother hastened to point out that, "The advantage was of course that my experiences were not a mental fabrication, they came ...
... a time when the memory of past lives, the memory of night activities was so very concrete; the so-called invisible world was totally concrete—now ... now everything is like a dream—everything—everything is like a dream veiling a Reality ... an unknown Reality, and yet appreciable. 16 The “invisible” was becoming as imaginary as the material?! So where are we? Past lives, excursions out of the body ...
... statements which our experience appears to contradict or to which it gives a different interpretation. Mahatmas exist, but they are not omnipotent or infallible. Rebirth is a fact and the memory of our past lives is possible; but the rigid rules of time and of Karmic reaction laid down dogmatically by the Theosophist hierophants are certainly erroneous. Especially is the hotchpotch of Hindu and Buddhist mythology ...
... few very rare instances, a dream is the awakening of something recorded in the subconscious. There are also symbolic and premonitory dreams, but very rarely do dreams consist of true memories of past lives, because for that one must dream in one's psychic consciousness and there are not many who are capable of this. One dreams in the mental or vital consciousness but rarely does one dream in the psychic ...
... place suddenly, as in the case of Eckhart, are those in which there has necessarily been a long and sustained practice in a prior life. As Sri Aurobindo states: A few great souls prepared by past lives or otherwise lifted beyond the ordinary spiritual capacity may attain realization more swiftly; some may have uplifting experiences at an early stage, but for most the siddhi 27 of the path, whatever ...
... everybody for a long time past! But you were not inclined to regard it as feasible or at least not ready to apply it in the field of meditation, because your consciousness by tradition, owing to past lives and for other reasons, was clinging to former contrary conceptions. Something in you was harking back to the Vaishnava sadhana, and that tended to bring in it its pain-giving feeling elements of ...
... Her prayer was granted and with my blessings to your mother you were born. Since your childhood, in school and in your business I have been with you at each step. We have also been together in our past lives.’ When he took his leave Laljibhai didn’t intend to come back to India before four or five years. Yet it so happened that one of his sisters, Savita, divorced after a brief marriage and became ...
... right Yogic attitude — unlike many. It was Margaret Wilson who interested Henry Ford in the Ashram. A believer in reincarnation, he asked her whether anybody in India could show him his past lives. The Mother accepted to do so. He arranged to visit the Ashram. Unfortunately the Second World War intervened to stop his journey just as it had stopped Bosanquet's. Like Bosanquet, though in ...
... essential self above it. He has a special place in Sri Aurobindo's life and work. We also consider him to have been the greatest form Sri Page 37 Aurobindo took in his series of past lives upon earth. Sri Aurobindo has also said that Krishna's work is being done in the Ashram - not, of course, a mere repetition of this Avatar's earthly activity but a carrying forward of his multiform ...
... for special study. When I came to the Ashram, the Mother once told me that in a past life I had been an ancient Athenian. Later Sri Aurobindo, in reference to his general "impressions" about my past Lives, mentioned the time of the European Renaissance and the period in England called the Restoration. He took care to say these were only impressions, not intuitions. But he affirmed that there was ...
... with anger is now white with rage!" When I go behind surface-causes I feel from the way my own development has taken place in this life that 1 must have had a twofold contact with you in past lives. In the present life, at the beginning of my college-career, I was very much affected by Christianity. Even now I am tremendously interested in the earliest original form of this religion, the form ...
... and had begun to work upon me and I was dragged many a time in trance and came back with different types of experiences. Once I saw myself acting as a military officer on a mountain in one of my past lives." Dr. Govindbhai reported this matter to the Mother. She not only confirmed it, but added "you were with me in Italy and was one of the best sculptors". Givindbhai had thus joined the stream of ...
... In the Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna, "Many are my lives that are past" (4.5) and again, "I am born from age to age." (4.8) The correspondent asked how Krishna's past lives could be many (bahūni) if he was born only from age to age (yuge yuge). —Ed. ...
... Chitta is not near the heart—if you mean the substance of the lower consciousness, it has no particular place. All things of this life are there in this stuff of consciousness, but the memory of past lives is wrapped up and involved elsewhere. The heart is the main centre of this consciousness for most men, so of course you may feel its activities centred on that level. Chitta really means the ...
... is a progression of the nature by experience, an evolutionary growth of the soul in nature towards its self-finding. At the same time the soul preserves the impression of what was essential in its past lives and personalities and the new birth and personality are a balance between this past and the soul's need for its future. 5 A distinction has to be made between the soul in its essence and ...
... also—it is a small portion of the external being, but although small, it is sometimes very persistent and active. The rest of the being, inner and a great part too of the external, is brought from past lives. This hereditary part has to be got rid of and replaced by the true individuality spreading itself to the whole external nature. A very big stamp in most cases 1 —it is in the physical vital ...
... coherent, with only slight survivals of the old defects. Its images are more vivid & nearer to the forms of samadhi, but are still dream images. As yet they are not dreams of actuality, but scenes from past lives, sukshma experiences etc. The dreaminess has not departed out of them. All the subjective anandas, especially prema & next to it shuddha have been finally fixed in the system; none of them are ...
... however useful and true if they can be followed, are binding laws of Yoga, but because if followed they can wipe out this point of danger. A formation like this is very often the result of something in past lives—the Mother has so seen it in yours—which prolongs a karmic sanskara (as the Buddhists would say) and tries to repeat itself once again. To dissolve it ought to be possible if one sees it for what ...
... short cut to the Divine, or that like a system of "French made easy" or "French without tears", so there can be a system of "Yoga made easy" or "Yoga without tears". A few great souls prepared by past lives or otherwise lifted beyond the ordinary spiritual capacity may attain realisation more swiftly; some may have uplifting experiences at an early stage, but for most the siddhi of the path, whatever ...
... behave practically in the same manner as sadhaks who realise spiritual peace as a result of Yoga. Can it be said that in sattwic people the peace descends but in a hidden manner? Or is it due to their past lives? Of course they have gained their power to live in the mind by a past evolution. But the spiritual peace is something other and infinitely more than the mental peace and its results are different ...
... union with the psychic being, one has "the feeling of immortality, of having always been and being always, eternally" (pp. 61-62). With a definitive contact one has even the memory of one's past lives. 7. The Mother, Questions and Answers 1956, Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 8, p. 250. xxviii "When you enter into contact with the psychic you be- come conscious ...
... the earth life. This may account for some cases of immediate rebirth with full memory in human forms also. Ordinarily, it is only by yogic development or by clairvoyance that the exact memory of past lives can be brought back. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: Rebirth ...
... of which the rest existed. That is the permanent addition, it is that that helps in the growth towards the Divine. That is why there is usually no memory of the outward events and circumstances of past lives—for this memory there must be a strong development towards unbroken continuance of the mind, the vital, even the subtle physical; for though it all remains in a kind of seed memory, it does not ...
... 12 February 1958 Mother, since in each new life the mind and vital as well as the body are new, how can the experiences of past lives be useful for them? Do we have to go through all the experiences once again? That depends on people! It is not the mind and vital which develop and progress from life to life—except in altogether ...
... possibilities, you know. One cannot say that everything goes according to the same plan—every psychic being is different. The Mother Questions and Answers (1950 - 1951): 1 March 1951 For past lives, are there any general rules, broad outlines, or is everything possible? All depends on the category to which one belongs, and the degree of the psychic being's development. If the psychic being ...
... it all: I couldn't even speak of them. I was having experience after experience.... For years, I had experiences during the night (but I was very careful never to speak about them!)—memories from past lives, all sorts of things, but without any base of intellectual knowledge. (Of course, the advantage of this was that my experiences were not mentally contrived; they were Page 196 entirely ...
... cases, one has to keep a balance. Blessings. 13 October 1969 Sweet Mother, Why do we believe in rebirth? What were we before our present state? Those who have had the memory of past lives have declared the reality of rebirth. There have been—and there still are—beings whose inner consciousness is sufficiently developed for them to know for certain that this consciousness has manifested ...
... must remain like a rock until it passes. × Karma : positive (or negative) consequences of actions performed in past lives (every action is endowed with a self-perpetuating dynamism). × A temple-island in southern India ...
... 22 November 1958 Karma This sort of fatality that one sometimes feels weighing heavy on one's life, which is called Karma in India, is the result of past lives; indeed, it is something that has to be exhausted, something that weighs on one's consciousness. This is how things happen: the psychic being passes from one life to another, each life on earth ...
... clearly on the way to realization. That's all I can tell you on the subject. Page 199 I even saw rather interesting things, because there were events that were like reminiscences of your past lives, and they found a place in your book. Those things are still quite in your subliminal. (They call it "subliminal," don't they? It's something that's neither the subconscient nor the clear supraconscient; ...
... women indeed looked upon Sītā, beloved of the heart of Śrī Rāma as the foremost of those aus piciously married women (and observed): "Surely great austerity has been duly practised by Sītā in her past lives in that she has (in her present birth) attained union with Śrī Rāma (even) as Rohini (wife of the moon god, the goddess presiding over an asterism of the same name) got united with the moon god." ...
... Hostiles take a hand. Even then these can attack, but if the sadhak has established his position in the inner self, they can only attack and retire. It is true that we bring most of ourselves from past lives. Heredity only affects the external being and all the effects of heredity are not accepted, only those that are in consonance with what we are to be or not preventive of it at least. I may be the ...
... then what are we? What belongs to us? SRI AUROBINDO: In one sense nothing belongs to us. The physical is made up, you may say, of various predispositions: certain energies due to heredity, your past lives (the sum of energies of the past) and what you have acquired in this life. These are ready to act under favourable conditions, under the pressure of Nature, universal Nature which gives the sense ...
... commit mistakes in their judgment and calculation similar to what we are doing ourselves at the present time. (Laughter) SATYENDRA: People chafe at these past mistakes. If they knew of their past lives life would become a burden. SRI AUROBINDO: And yet they want to know their past. EVENING Radio news: The Germans are concentrating for an attack on the Channel ports and are embarking and ...
... all: I couldn't even speak of them. I was having experience after experience.... For years, I had experiences during the night (but I was very careful never to speak about them!)—memories from past lives, all sorts of things, but without any base of intellectual knowledge. (Of course, the advantage of this was that my experiences were not mentally contrived; they were entirely spontaneous.) But I ...
... in his past life who has been now paying for his past misdeeds. Even if he seems to be a virtuous man with sattwic temperament in this life, that cannot invalidate the assertion that in one of his past lives he must have been a sinful individual. Is not this surmise correct? Our View: No, it is not. Here too there is an obvious fallacy vitiating the line of argument. And this could not but ...
... details are given. It would have been impossible, I believe, for any writer to recreate such intricate movements of the battle, merely through imagination. This is true of His other books too. In His past lives, He has played so many roles and He has relived them now, brought them out through his works. Essays on the Gita, particularly, is one Page 93 of the most fascinating books ...
... embryo. The age of the psychic is not the same. Usually the psychic takes several lives to form completely, and it is that which goes from one body to another. That is why we are not aware of our past lives. But at times there is a moment when the psychic being participates in an event, it becomes conscious and it remembers. We have sometimes a partial recollection of a circumstance or of an event, ...
... bidding. You have only towithdraw to that state of the consciousness where it lies embedded. In this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how you remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, it is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you have learnt with this superficial instrument laboriously-only ...
... But that does not mean that the world is delivered over to them. "There is a guardian power, there are Hands that save" humanity. Man harbours all possibilities—of good and evil—within him. The past lives in him and the future is preparing in the present. Mind of man goes on working and creating its own moulds but at last it is some other will—a divine power—that works out the "intricate plan". It ...
... can get at the spirit of the singer and catch the emotion; but in appreciating art that is not enough. (After some time) In these matters of natural predilections, we have an element from our past lives; one always brings something from the past. . I got my true taste for painting in Alipore jail. I used to meditate there and I saw various pictures with colours during meditations and then the ...
... sheath falls away at the time of death. The vital and the mental get dissolved when the soul arrives at last at the psychic plane of rest where, in a trance sleep, it assimilates its experiences of past lives for a future birth. Now what happens with regard to the causal body—the supramental and bliss vehicles? Perhaps they are not dissolved, but do they detach themselves from the soul to join with it ...
... made an unsuccessful effort. What she used to write before was readable and had some power. But this is rather hopeless. Disciple : Did you read the book containing the account of so many past lives? Sri Aurobindo : I know those visions. They are just what our Chittagong people are getting, they are full of imaginations. They are not visions that come to one, but those which one creates ...
... without losing anything of its consciousness. 16 Psychic memory, the Mother was to write to a disciple years later, Page 553 is a decanted memory of events. For example, in past lives there have been moments when, for some reason or other, the psychic was present and participated.... ...I had had psychic memories.... It was as if one had, one cannot exactly say an emotion ...
... back Alsace-Lorraine. It was almost an obsession with me and when I had ceased to think about it, the thing got done. 2 Yes, Sri Aurobindo loved France, and He who never said anything about his past lives (when asked what He had been doing in his previous lives, He laconically replied, Carrying on the evolution) , 3 told Mother that He had had a French past life and that French had come to him ...
... ion is thoroughly attained by Patanjali's method. Sanyama is a mighty power. Whatever the Yogin does Page 510 sanyama upon, says Patanjali, that he masters. The knowledge of one's past lives, of the thoughts of men, of men in this world and spirits in the other, the vision of the past and the future, the knowledge of all that is in the present, the mastery of Nature, the siddhis of the ...
... But now my heart is filled with one pale girl. Exult not, archer. I will quiet thee With sudden and assured possession first, Then keep thee beating an eternal strain. I have loved her through past lives and many ages. The Parthian princess, lovely Rodogune! O name of sweetness! Renowned Phraates' daughter, A bud of kings,—my glorious prisoner With those beseeching eyes. O high Antiochus, ...
... this does not in itself imply a hereditary basis. According to the Indian theory of rebirth, which the Gita recognises, a man's inborn nature and course of life are essentially determined by his own past lives, are the self-development already effected by his past Page 513 actions and mental and spiritual evolution and cannot depend solely on the material factor of his ancestry, parentage, ...
... s again. And thus one can remember circumstances one has lived thousands of years ago, if one knows how to bring up the same state of consciousness. It is in this way that one can remember one's past lives. This never gets blotted out, while you don't have any more the memory of what you have done physically when you were very young. You would be told many things you no longer remember. That gets wiped ...
... of beings is "prepared" to do yoga, it is that. It is that there has been a beginning of realisation—a beginning is enough. With others it is perhaps an old thing, an awakening which may come from past lives. But we are speaking of those who are less ready; they are those who have had at a certain moment a flash which has passed through their whole being and created a response, but that suffices. This ...
... The individual self. jyoti: Light; the principle of spiritual light in the higher ordivine Nature. karma: Action, work: the resultant force of action done inthe past, especially in past lives. karma Yoga: The system of spiritual discipline which takeswork (dedicated to the Divine) as its basis. kevala: Absolute, sheer. krsna's j ī va (Krishna's Jiva): See jiva (Krsna's) ...
... of 61-62 Individuality 16,16-17,63.68-69 Inner mind see under Mind Intuition 18 Joy xxvii-xxviii, 52 Liberation xxxi Love 7,9 aspiration for, 37 Memories of past lives xxviii-xxix, 60, 60- 61,66-67 Mind (the mental) XVI, 6,81, 107 inner 99, 103 leader of life 80 progress from life to life 71-72 Nature 6, 106fn Overmind 22 ...
... from any mental interference or any vital interference, liberated from your personal notions and feelings and from your mind's habit of interpreting or explaining in its own way. An experience of past lives may be true, but between what you have seen and your mind's explanation or construction about it there is bound to be always a great gulf. It is only when you can rise above human feelings and get ...
... separate personality in the psychological aggregate, the lack of a true continuity in the personal consciousness. It is for this reason that, for example, in the ordinary state one cannot remember one's past lives nor have the sense of a conscious continuity through all one's lives. The first point then is to see correctly, and to see correctly is to see that pain is associated with ordinary life, that ...
... if a part of the mind is fully enlightened, if it is surrendered to the psychic light and has a sense of the truth, the mind can be of great help, it can explain things in the true way. For past lives, are there any general rules, broad outlines, or is everything possible? All depends on the category to which one belongs, and the degree of the psychic being's development. If the psychic being ...
... intelligent people, their vital consciousness may be mediocre, but they are born clairvoyant. It is not a sign of a great development—comes from something else, from a capacity of the parents, of past lives, etc. But if you are not born clairvoyant, and if you do not carry in you the other Page 125 extreme, I mean a psychic being wholly conscious and fully developed which leads its own ...
... possibility of reaching the utmost realisation, independent of the form to which he momentarily belongs. There are people—there used to be and there still are, I believe—who say they remember their past lives and recount what happened when they were dogs or elephants or monkeys, and tell you stories in great detail about what happened to them. I am not going to argue with them, but anyway this illustrates ...
... is not the same, far from it. Normally the psychic takes several lives to form itself completely, and it is that which passes from one body to another and that is why we are not conscious of our past lives: it is because we are not conscious of our psychic. But sometimes, there is a moment when the psychic has participated in an event; it has become conscious, and that makes a memory. One sometimes ...
... of which the rest existed. That is the permanent addition, it is that that helps in the growth towards the Divine. That is why there is usually no memory of the outward events and circumstances of past lives - for this memory there must be a strong development towards unbroken continuance of the mind, the vital, even the subtle physical; for though it all remains in a kind of seed memory, it does not ...
... leave... it is the end, it is tilting over to the other side. And so this other side has become at the same time altogether familiar and... absolutely unknown. I remember a time when the memory of past lives, the memory of nightly activities was so concrete, this so-called invisible world was altogether concrete. Now... now all is like a dream—dream—all is like a dream veiling a Reality... a Reality ...
... from it. Page 430 Normally the psychic takes several lives to form itself completely, and it is that which passes from one body to another and that is why we are not conscious of our past lives: it is because we are not conscious of our psychic. But sometimes, there is a moment when the psychic has participated in an event; it has become conscious, and that makes a memory. One sometimes ...
... called death is simply one result of the working of the force. Most people die before the vitality of the body is exhausted. It is due to many causes of which one is the destiny prepared by past lives; another the inner purpose or utility of the present life being completed—but these are subtle and secret reasons—others, accident, violence or other causes, are only an exterior machinery. ...
... rising of the vital forces, especially lust, egoism and wrongly directed strength and force, (3) the awakening of Page 439 concealed sanskaras of the physical nature or latent karma from past lives. Tell him it is not safe to do Pranayam without guidance by one who is expert in Rajayoga or Hathayoga. Pranayam is not a part of the sadhana here. You can write to him that it is not ...
... only partial results or often no results until there has been a sufficient psychic preparation. Even with those who begin with a flood of experiences because of some mental or vital preparation in past lives whose results happen to be near the surface, these lead to nothing definite till the psychic preparation is made; they often have all their struggle Page 211 still to go through and some ...
... position in the inner self, they can only attack and retire. It is true that we bring most of ourselves—or rather most of our predispositions, tendencies of reaction to the universal Nature—from past lives. Heredity only affects strongly the external being; besides, all the effects of heredity are not accepted even there, only those that are in consonance with what we are to be or not preventive of ...
... railwaysaloon, several figures; the rest are forgotten. Tamasic nidra could not be extruded from the swapna samadhi, which had finally to be abandoned. In the trikaldrishti knowledge of the past, of past lives, of feelings, thoughts & motives of people in the past is becoming normally active. It has been suggested that Aishwarya should be renounced in the physical siddhi except saundarya; but owing to ...
... and ill fortune are the inevitable results of the ignorance which separates us from our true consciousness and from the Divine. Only by coming back to it can we get rid of suffering. Karma from the past lives exists, much of what happens is due to it, but not all. For we can mend our karma by our own consciousness and efforts. But the suffering is simply a natural consequence of past errors, not a punishment ...
... this has been pointed out before: but you were not inclined to regard it as feasible or at least not ready to apply it in the field of meditation because your consciousness by tradition, owing to past lives and for other reasons, was clinging to former contrary conceptions. Something in you was harking back to one kind of Vaishnava sadhana, and that tended to bring in it its pain-giving feeling-elements ...
... arising from the subconscient—sometimes impressions of the day or from the waking environment, sometimes impressions from the past, sometimes things hereditary or even imprecise impressions left from past lives which come up under some obscure or secret impulsion. When one practises Yoga, the more superficial impressions, those which are in a sort accidental or occasional, outside touches, the day's memories ...
... that the physical being is a creature of habit, of formed character, that is to say of a mass of accustomed movements. As your nature has been full of rajasic egoism, not only in this but in many past lives, it is the habit of this rajas and of the accustomed movements connected with it that the physical knows and to them it almost automatically responds; it is these movements that always easily took ...
... again fall under the dominion of Avidya, unless he himself deliberately wills it; once free, always free. Even if he is reborn, he will be reborn with full knowledge of what he really is, of his past lives and of the whole future and will act as a Jivanmukta. THE STUDENT But if this statement once free, always free hold, what of the statements about great Rishis & Yogis falling again under the ...
... the universe. If this freedom is once assured, there is no further work for it in life here or elsewhere or only that which the continued existence of the body demands or the unfulfilled effects of past lives necessitate. This little, rapidly exhausted or consumed by the fire of Yoga, will cease with the departure of the released soul from the body. The aim of escape from rebirth, now long fixed in the ...
... and result of mental impurity and bondage. With the cessation of the cause, the effect ceases; but not at once. It is again like the steam and the locomotive. The habits, the results created by past lives, are expelled from the mind and precipitated Page 1392 entirely into the body. You may allow them to work themselves out there, many do that. On the other hand, you may pursue them into ...
... a help and a hope. It is not that I do not believe in reincarnation, but that thought recurs to my mind very often. Mother, is it a narrowness of vision on my part, or what?" The knowledge of past lives is interesting for a knowledge of one's nature and the mastery of one's imperfections. But to tell the truth, it has no crucial importance and it is far more important to concentrate on the future ...
... still another person... it's the end, he goes over to the other side. But then that other side has become both quite familiar to me and... totally unknown. I remember a time when the memory of past lives, the memory of night activities was so very concrete; the so-called invisible world was totally concrete—now... now everything is like a dream—everything—everything is like a dream veiling a Reality ...
... up a passage. Strange. Well, I guess I'm still hacking away at branches! ( Mother laughs ) Yes, exactly! That's right. Material life is.... I don't know why, perhaps it comes from past lives, but I find it unbearable. Oh!... In what way is it unbearable? Do you have particular difficulties? No, nothing, small difficulties, nothing to speak of, but everything Page 166 ...
... varies enormously. Normally, it takes several lives for the psychic to become completely formed, and it's the psychic that passes from one body to another; that's why we aren't conscious of our past lives—because we aren't conscious of our psychic being. But sometimes, at some MOMENT the psychic being participated in a particular event, it became conscious; and that creates a memory. Sometimes you ...
... those spheres outside. To name a few: Nolini, Pavitra, Amrita, Anilbaran, Dilip Kumar Roy, Sahana Devi, Amal Kiran, Nishikanto. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have hinted that in their past lives some of these sadhaks had been great historical figures, and now in this life they have been drawn to Yoga to fulfil the ultimate object of human life, viz. the realisation of the Divine, and ...
... intimately in the great work that has to be done. These have all a special relation with the Mother which adds to the past one.’ 19 The Mother has at times revealed to the sadhaks some of their past lives in cases where this knowledge could contribute to their spiritual growth; she also told some of them at which moment in a former life they had chosen to collaborate on the future supramental tra ...
... useful and true if they can be followed, are binding laws of Yoga, but because if followed they can wipe out this point of danger. A formation like this is very often the result of something in past lives—the Mother has so seen it in yours—which prolongs a karmic samskar (as the Buddhists would say) and tries to repeat itself once again. To dissolve it ought to be possible if one sees it for what ...
... To get release from the Wheel of Universal Nature was a herculean task, I thought. Human nature does not pause, it goes on and on: it consists of numberless elements both old and new. It draws on past lives as well as on present circumstances, situations and environments. In my childhood and girlhood I was given everything, but no true education of my physical, mental and vital parts. That was the main ...
... sweet Mother, You told me that you saw two things while I was playing: "Garuda", and the palace and river. What do they mean? The palace and river were the image of a moment from one of your past lives. The great bird "Garuda" standing immobile behind you with outspread wings is the vehicle of Vishnu, the destroyer of serpents. He seemed to be standing behind you to protect and inspire you. ...
... people, but not for her. If I hadn't seen her I might have been intrigued and tried to find out, but.... A collective karma.... Of course, there are all the links you have with people you've known in past lives; in that sense, yes, there is a collective karma! But really, people use such big words and big ideas for things that are actually quite natural. Yet I found it helpful to have some understanding ...
... the memory of these lives. Apart from a few very rare exceptions, only when you are united with your psychic being and become fully conscious of it do you obtain, at the same time, the memory of past lives, which the psychic preserves in its consciousness. Otherwise, even in those who are most sensitive, these memories are fragmentary, uncertain and intermittent. Most often they are hardly recognisable ...
... once I knew the states of being, their working and all that), so I understood that was what a psychic memory was. Before I knew anything mentally, I had had a considerable number of memories from past lives, but in that way: real psychic memories, not mental fabrications. And what comes first is emotion ("emotion": the psychic feeling), it's vivid, strong, you know, very strong; then, as a sort of ...
... work hard, I can reply to four or five! So you understand, the remainder piles up: four baskets! Soon afterwards I have made discoveries these last few days.... I have discovered that in past lives (I don't know which ones), my psychic was several times in a tortured body. And it comes back for (how should I put it?) a collective action in the world, on the earth, so that the possibility of ...
... sound reasonable. Perhaps one can speak of what the Rigveda calls "the Immortal in the mortal" standing awake in one all the time? Possibly the feeling is present that one has lived innumerable past lives and is going to have life after future life on earth securely in the transforming hands of our Gurus. I can't tell. All I know at this instant is that an all-pervading peace appears, in a faraway ...
... standing around listening, so I got a grip on myself, and left without a word. But I told my friends, "Listen, it was definitely me! It was MY portrait, it was ME!" Almost all my memories of past lives came like that; the particular being reincarnated in me rises to the surface and begins acting as if it were all on its own! Once in Italy, when I was fifteen, it happened in an extraordinary way ...
... it took for Matter to awaken—awaken to the imperious need for the Truth. It was as if I were told, "You see, there was a time when they burned you at the stake, tortured you...," memories from past lives. And those memories were associated with the recent story of a Protestant missionary who said, though not in so many words, "We worship Christ only because he DIED for men, because he was crucified ...
... it did play a certain expressive role. On the one side it mildly suggested what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother thought was quite evident — namely, that I had been an ancient Athenian in one of my past lives. On the other it conjured up, in the overall look of the face, the early Christian. The early Christians used to retire to the desert — in order to avoid the temptations of the world and wrestle ...
... Aurobindo. Yet we cannot expect that the play of 6 and 12 should hold for all the chronological aspects of their lives and labours. Sri Aurobindo wrote to me on 28 July 1937 when I was discussing his past lives and the Mother's: "Your artistic passion for symmetry may easily mislead you, for life has all sorts of irregular figures. Your reasonings are too geometrical." And we find it impossible to press ...
... his contemporary of Palestine in a different sphere, draws our attention because of a certain correspondence between Sri Aurobindo and a disciple in 1937. The latter Was discussing the subject of past lives, and Sri Aurobindo in the course of his replies distinguished between arriving at conclusions by means of "sight" (spiritual vision) and coming to them by "inference". After writing that he was never ...
... often no results until there has Page 281 been a sufficient psychic preparation. Even with those who begin with a flood of experiences because of some mental or vital preparation or past lives whose results happen to be near the surface, these lead to nothing definite till the psychic preparation is made; they often have all their struggle still to go through and some sink with their bag ...
... which the rest existed. That is the permanent addition, it is that that helps in the growth towards the Divine. That is why there is usually no memory of the outward events and circumstances of past lives—for this memory there must be a strong development towards unbroken continuance of the mind, the vital, even the subtle physical; for though it all remains in a kind of seed memory, it does not ...
... born in Paris on February 21, 1878. In her early years, spontaneous experiences took on ranges out of her body, into the earth's past, and without her understanding, led her to the discovery of "past lives". She made thorough studies in piano, painting and higher mathematics. At the age of 26, she had several dreams of Sri Aurobindo - of whom she had never heard before. She later became acquainted ...
... anybody can do the baby-cat surrender at a stroke, is it not because his "unfinished curve" in the past life has finished it in this? Sri Aurobindo: Hail, Rishi, all-knower! Tell us all about our past lives. 58 (40)NB: What is the use of your complaining, Sir? You have committed the grave blunder of coming into this sorrowful world with a mighty magical pen. Sri Krishna, I conjecture, may have ...
... refer to those portions of her Works. We give below a gist of her teaching in the barest outline. First Step: Either through the Grace of the Divine, or because of some good Karma done in past lives, or through the luminous exercise of one's power of discrimination, the sadhaka becomes convinced of the vanity and transitoriness of all that an ordinary ego-dominated life of desires can offer ...
... knowledge. If anybody can do the baby cat surrender at a stroke, it is not because his "unfinished curve" in the past life has finished it in this. Hail, Rishi, all-knower! Tell us all about our past lives. Now, if the soul instead of sleeping has to aspire etc. to call down its Lord the Grace, where do you see that aspiration in me? If you build my spiritual castle on those one or two minutes' ...
... Charu Dutt; and you've had some fresh glimpses into the life of our Master. You've also observed, I believe, how close a tie Charu Dutt had with Sri Aurobindo, not only in this life but in many past lives; and the tie was so close and intimate that he could not bear the separation for long. When Sri Aurobindo took His leave from us, Charu Dutt also passed away, after a year and a little more, all ...
... poise of meditation or completely destroys it. Difficulties of this kind one meets abundantly in home-life. Therefore it is quite natural for those who are born with an urge for yoga, derived from past lives, to turn towards asceticism. When such souls with an inborn yogic urge begin to increase in number and by contagion to spread among the youthful generation a strong movement to asceticism, the doors ...
... of their actions in their previous lives that have made them so. There's no building on the sand. But who says that there is no power dormant in you? Or that you have no virtues acquired in your past lives? Or that you have no Grace of God? Who says that you .are only sand? So I tell you, first try to know yourself. And before trying to do so bear in mind the words of St. Paul: "I know not what I ...
... generally involved in the physical. Disciple : Are the different personalities the result of one’s past life ? Sri Aurobindo : There are other elements also ; the personalities of past lives may be continued with what man creates in the present life. But it is difficult to distinguish and separate the personalities in men who are not well developed, In such cases all the elements ...
... your bidding. You have only to withdraw to that state of the consciousness where it lies imbedded. In this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how you remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, it is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you have learnt with this superficial instrument laboriously – only ...
... to know everything. You don't think Sarvajnas exist? SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know, I have never met one. DR. MANILAL: If these stories can't be believed, then Buddha's recounting of all his past lives is also not true, not correct. SRI AUROBINDO: How to know whether they were correct or not? PURANI: Besides, who reports those stories? Is it Buddha himself? DR. MANILAL: Then all that is ...
... 1940-contd Talks with Sri Aurobindo 21 DECEMBER 1940 DR. MANILAL: In the Gita Sri Krishna says that he knows all about Arjuna's past lives. SRI AUROBINDO: What about it? A past life can be known. DR. MANILAL: Then he knew all the details of his past life? SRI AUROBINDO: Who says that? Does Krishna say that? (Laughter) DR. MANILAL: He knew ...
... swell and swirl: Shrunken blackened petals are afloat, Oh, the children that came down under a curse: Fortunate are they who remember past lives; here it is a midnight trap for rats – If this were all the shelter, the other shelter would be nowhere. ...
... novelette (since lost) depicting a human love that, universalised by devotion to Beauty, conquers pain and sorrow. On a visit to the castle Blois, Beaugency, gets a sudden glimpse into one of her past lives. 1897 Oct 13 Marries Henri Morisset, a student of artist Gustave Moreau. She was introduced to him by Mira Ismalun, who had known his father, artist Henri Edouard Morisset. They live at 15 ...
... relived a scene from a past life wherein she was strangled and thrown out into the canal. "I related all this to Theon and Madame Page 155 Theon, and he too remembered one of his past lives there, during that very period. In fact, I had seen in Venice a portrait that was the spitting image of Theon! The portrait of one of the doges. Absolutely — it was a painting by Titian —it was ...
... himself the pain of the trampled grass, and shrieked out in agony. When he saw some of his foremost disciples for the first time, he at once recognised each of them and knew who they had been in their past lives, and what they had come for again to the earth. And his predictions about them proved absolutely true. If we turn to the experiences of the Mother as transcribed in her Prayers and Meditations, we ...
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