... Connected with this triple mode of the Self is that distinction which Indian philosophy has drawn between the Qualitied and the Qualitiless Brahman and European thought has made between the Personal and the Impersonal God. The Upanishad indicates clearly enough the relative nature of this opposition, when it speaks of the Supreme as the "Qualitied who is without qualities". 3 We have again two essential... its own highest Page 380 Self and the greater and more absolute is that subjection, the greater becomes its sense of absolute force and freedom. The distinction between the Personal and the Impersonal is substantially the same as the Indian distinction, but the associations of the English words carry within them a certain limitation which is foreign to Indian thought. The personal God... the ultimate source of all idea and fact of personality in that which the Upanishad indicates by the single word He without fixing any attributes. It is there that our realisations of the personal and the impersonal Divine meet and become one in the utter Godhead. For the impersonal Divine is not ultimately an abstraction or a mere principle or a mere state or power and degree of being any more than ...
... e Person, the lover in the supreme Beloved, or else the personal in the Impersonal,—the lover feels himself immersed, losing himself in the transcendental reality of Love or Ananda. The personal and the impersonal are themselves posited and experienced by mind as separate realities—and one or other is declared and seen as supreme, so that the personal can have laya in the Impersonal or on the contrary... spiritual experience passing beyond mind one begins to feel the fusion of all these things into one. Consciousness, Existence, Ananda return to their indivisible unity, Sachchidananda. The personal and the impersonal become irrevocably one, so that to posit one as against the other appears as an act of ignorance. This tendency of unification is the basis of the supramental consciousness and experience; ...
... themselves their own right relation and reconciling agreement,—if indeed any reconciliation were needed, for the harmony of these apparent opposites is complete. The mind tends to put the personal and the impersonal in face of each other as if they were two contraries, but the Supermind sees and realises them as, at the lowest, complements and mutually fulfilling powers of the single Reality and, more ...
... be based on the view of Reality as impersonal Being, self-giving calls for a faith in Reality that is described in the Gita as Purushottama, the Supreme divine Person (who is beyond the personal and the impersonal) to whom self-offering is to be made. Therefore, Krishna asks Arjuna "to see all things in the self and then in 'Me' 'the Ishwara, to renounce all action into the Self, Spirit, Brahman ...
... the Divine who is the Person himself; and we must go through the Impersonal to reach the Supreme Divine who is beyond. 8 The view of God as the Supreme Divine, who is beyond the personal and the impersonal, resonated with my deepest intuitions. Eckhart speaks of God primarily as an impersonal Divine and, like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, does not use the word "God" very often for similar ...
... divine Page 14 speech strikes me as a partial experience — an experience due to our inability to reconcile or hold together seeming opposites of the divine Existence. The Personal and the Impersonal, the Multiple and the Unitary, the Active and the Passive, the Voiceful and the Silent — these are some of the contraries in which God has been conceived and realised — and the tendency is ...
... mind which is a creator of differential contradictions there is supposed to be a perpetual incompatibility between the transcendent and the cosmic states of the Divine—as also between the Personal and the Impersonal, the One and the Many. The supramental consciousness, on the other hand, does not raise these problems, for there the way of experience of the mental Ignorance is abolished and the basis ...
... individual existence. But the highest secret of all, uttamāṁ rahasyam , is the Purushottama. This is the supreme Divine, God, who possesses both the infinite and the finite and in whom the personal and the impersonal, the one Self and the many existences, being and becoming, the world-action and the supracosmic peace, pravṛtti and nivṛtti , meet, are united, are possessed together and in each other ...
... of arriving at the Brahmic status, brahmabhūyāya ,—one taking the form of quietistic sannyāsa , the other a form of divine love and divine action,—the Gita proceeds now to unite the personal and the impersonal in the Purushottama and to define their relations. For the object of the Gita is to get rid of exclusions and separative exaggerations and fuse these two sides of knowledge and spiritual ...
... eyes and see nothing but Him I want nothing more of the outer world.' And they forget there's Love! That is the great Secret, that which is behind the Existent and the Non-Existent, the Personal and the Impersonal—Love. Not a love between two things, two beings... A love containing everything. In the early part of the century, I wrote Prayers and Meditations , and I too spoke of 'Him'; but I wrote ...
... personal God, one thinks that only the personal God exists. When one goes beyond that, one comes to the Impersonal realisation. When one transcends both, one comes to Absolute, of which the Personal and the Impersonal are aspects. NIRODBARAN: But then X will go on contradicting himself all the time. Today he praises Yoga and monasticism; tomorrow he damns Yoga and finds no truth in Sannyasa. SRI ...
... and declares the others to be false, For instance, if it speaks of the Truth as impersonal, the Truth for it is solely impersonal and can never be personal; or vice versa. Really, both the personal and the impersonal are true; wherever there is the personal there is also the impersonal, and this holds too the other way round. When you transcend both you arrive at the Absolute. SATYENDRA: Of which the ...
... attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane phraseology. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Reality – some choose (or are chosen by) the one and others choose (or are chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan ...
... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6 THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL As you go up in your consciousness towards the origin of things you come finally at the end of things: you are beyond the names and forms that make up the universe, beyond even the subtle names and forms at the topmost. You arrive at something formless, impersonal, unthinkable, unique, infinite ...
... the inner dimensions. ( Silence ) It can be put like this (you see, it's one way of saying it) that you carry within yourself both existence and non-existence at the same time, the personal and the impersonal, and... yes... the manifest and unmanifest... the finite and the infinite... time and eternity. And all that is in this tiny little body. There are people who go beyond—even mentally, ...
... present manifestation. Of course the absolutely transcendent would be beyond all planes altogether. Page 10 Personal and Impersonal Sides of the Divine There is always the personal and the impersonal side of the Divine and the Truth and it is a mistake to think the impersonal alone true or important—for that leads to a void incomplete ness in part of the being while only one side is given ...
... and always very evidently carrying each the powers of the other in its essence and its dynamic nature. At the same time by the fact that the two great elements of the divine Mystery, the Personal and the Impersonal, are here fused together, the seeker of the integral Truth feels in the duality of Ishwara-Shakti his closeness to a more intimate and ultimate secret of the divine Transcendence and the ...
... the Divine, the Supreme Being. But whereas Eckhart speaks of Being as an impersonal Unmanifest, Sri Aurobindo's experience of the Divine is that of the Supreme Being who is beyond both the personal and the impersonal. As he states: "beyond the avyaktam [the Unmanifest] ... is the Supreme, the Purushottama [Supreme divine Person] of the Gita, the Para Purusha [Supreme Person] of the Upanishads." 4 ...
... Here is Sri Aurobindo's reply.) I have, of late, been engrossed in Jawaharla's beautiful Autobiography. It is a moving book, truly Guru! ... There is always the personal and the impersonal side of the Divine and the Truth and it is a mistake to think the impersonal alone true or important—for that leads to a void incompleteness in part of the being while only one side is ...
... attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane phraseology. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Reality—some choose (or are chosen by) the one and others choose (or are chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan ...
... is a human Guru then his personal vital or mental preferences may play a part and often they falsify the purpose of grace. The less they interfere the better. But what did you mean by the personal and the impersonal ? Do you mean to say that if you gave me a lot of fruits and other things every day there would be a lot of spiritual things going from me to you ? ( Laughter ) Disciple : It will ...
... attained a higher status of being. We may consider it more human, but it is not necessarily a superior realisation. It is a matter of choice of vocation only, to use a mundane figure. The Personal and the Impersonal are two co-ordinates of the same supreme Reality – some choose (or are chosen by) one and others choose (or chosen by) the other, perhaps as the integral Play or the inscrutable Plan demands ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 The Personal and the Impersonal As you go up in your consciousness towards the origin of things you come finally at the end of things: you are beyond the names and forms that make up the universe, beyond even the subtle names and forms at the topmost. You arrive at something formless, impersonal,' unthinkable ...
... darkness. As the consciousness grows, that is to say, manifests itself, as it rises and widens, the obscurity too recedes more and more and slowly fades away. This consciousness is not personal, but something impersonal. In other words, it holds within itself the universe including especially the earth. And earth is a dark object; it is made of ignorance and unconsciousness. The light envelops it and ...
... speaks of this Secret almost everywhere, especially in his Essays on the Gita . He tells us that in the Gita itself one gets glimpses of this thing which is beyond the Impersonal, beyond even the Personal behind the Impersonal, beyond the Transcendent. Well, I saw this Secret—I saw that the Supreme only becomes perfect in terrestrial matter, on earth. 'Becomes' is just a way of speaking, of ...
... it is impossible. And if you go still higher and approach the Absolute it is still more impossible. Disciple : Is reason a personal faculty or impersonal? Sri Aurobindo : If you go beyond you find wherever there is a personal, there is the impersonal and vice versa. Disciple : How to find that kind of reconciliation? Sri Aurobindo : Throw reason aside, then you ...
... greater but much more than the form, NIRODBARAN: In feeling the personal Presence, is it like feeling the Presence of Krishna everywhere? SRI AUROBINDO: As I said, the Presence maybe personal or impersonal. It may be the dynamic Divine with a personal appearance or the still, immutable Brahmic Consciousness which is impersonal and universal. Form is only a certain manifestation of the Presence... perceive the Presence without the form? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. NIRODBARAN: In using the flower and smell analogy I meant whether the Presence, when one feels it, is impersonal like smell. SRI AUROBINDO: Personal or impersonal is not the question here. The smell belongs to the flower-that is, to the form, while the Presence may have no form. It may manifest itself as form or it may not. You may... Presence. You can see Krishna everywhere as a Person and feel His Presence in all, while in the experience of the Impersonal you will perceive the one Self in all or the silent Brahman present everywhere. LATE EVENING While Sri Aurobindo was lying in bed after his walk, there was some conversation. PURANI: Dara has written a poem on The Life Divine to celebrate its publication. SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... EXPLANATIONS "The difference or contrast between the Personal and Impersonal is a truth of the Overmind _ there is no separate truth of them in the Supermind, they are inseparably one." (P.5) If this refers to the Personal and Impersonal Divine, the question of the difference can hardly arise, because the Personal Divine (i.e. the Avatar) is not always there. It is only very rarely... into each other, so inseparably one that they are a single undivided reality. It is the same with the Personal and Impersonal, the Saguna and Nirguna, the Silent and the Active Brahman. In the Reality they are not contrasted and incompatible aspects; what we call Personality and what we call Impersonality are inseparably fused together into a single Truth. In fact * A sadhak had put some questions... sadhak. Page 50 "fused together" even is a wrong phrase, because there they were never separated so that they have to be fused. All the quarrels about either the Impersonal being the only true truth or the Personal being the only highest truth are mind created quarrels derivative from this dividing aspect of the Overmind. The Overmind does not deny any in the aspects as the Mind does, it ...
... s increases in it and extends till it reaches unity; unity broken cannot stop short of numberlessness. It is neither personal nor impersonal and yet at once personal and impersonal. Personality is a fiction of the impersonal; impersonality the mask of a Person. That impersonal Brahman was all the time a world-transcendent Personality and universal Person, is the truth of things as it is represented ...
... haven't yet understood the meaning of "Personal" and "Impersonal": "The two great elements of the divine Mystery, the Personal and Impersonal, are here fused together." The Synthesis of Yoga, p. 116 Yes. You, you are personal, aren't you? You feel you are a person. And then there's the air, you don't feel the air is a person―so the air is impersonal. This is not altogether correct,... something of a personal character. But air or steam gives you the impression of something which is not a person; well, that's it. When a force or a quality manifests in a definite body like yours or someone else's, it becomes personal. But when it is everywhere at the same time and without particular characteristics, expressed in an indefinite way, it is called "impersonal". So, the personal God is the... For example, the inner God of each one is a personal God, for Page 110 He has a personal relation with each one, He is the God who belongs to this person, who is his very own. But something which has neither form nor characteristics nor any definite outline of any kind, and with which one cannot have a personal relation―that is the impersonal Divine. And so Sri Aurobindo says that there ...
... of always having some, they hoard it. But if people understood that one should be like a receiving and transmitting station and that the wider the range (just the opposite of personal), the more impersonal, comprehensive and wide it is, the more force it can hold ("force" that is translated materially: notes and coins). This power to hold is proportional to the capacity to use the money... everything. Money should not be a "possession": like power it is a means of action which is given to you, but you must use it according to... what we can call the "will of the Giver", that is, in an impersonal and enlightened way. If you are a good instrument for diffusing and utilising money, then it comes to you, and it comes to you in proportion to your capacity to use it as it is meant to be used. ...
... into each other, so inseparably one that they are a single undivided reality. It is the same with the Personal and Impersonal, the Saguna and Nirguna, the Silent and the Active Brahman. In the Reality they are not contrasted and incompatible aspects; what we call Personality and what we call Impersonality are inseparably fused together in a single Truth. In fact "fused together" even is a wrong phrase... of the Truth, not the integral knowledge. As such it can be misused and turned into falsehood by the Mind. What I said was that the scission between the two aspects of the Divine [ Personal and Impersonal ] is a creation of the Overmind which takes various aspects of the Divine and separates them into separate entities. Thus it divides Sat, Chit and Ananda, so that they become three separate... phrase, because there they were never separated so that they have to be fused. All the quarrels about either the Impersonal being the only true truth or the Personal being the only highest truth are mind-created quarrels derivative from this dividing aspect of the Overmind. The Overmind does not deny any of the aspects as the Mind does, it admits them all as aspects of the One Truth, but by separating them ...
... the souls that are part of itself and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage to the vital and physical instincts. 5) As a definition can it be said that the personal sense is that which affects the little human egocentric 'I' and all the consequence of its self-will, habits... . 3) What is universal love? Is it based upon the sense of oneness in all? Universal love is the spiritual, founded on the sense of the one and the Divine everywhere and the change of the personal into a wide universal consciousness, free from attachment and ignorance. What is the nature of the Divine Love? Can you say that it is in its nature free from all lower bondage, vast, pure and ...
... Disciple : It is so perhaps because reason is obliged to consider the infinite. Sri Aurobindo : It takes up one standpoint and says the others are wrong. If it takes up the Impersonal, it says the personal cannot be true and vice versa. Reason would not be right if it did not differ. It would be as if the descriptions of all the countries were the same – then they won't be true. Disciple... Sri Aurobindo : If you describe Switzerland and U. S. A. in the same way, how can it be true? (After sometime) And yet the earth is One and mankind is One. There is the Personal and also the Impersonal. When Page 240 you transcend both of you arrive at the Absolute. Disciple : So they are aspects of the Absolute. Sri Aurobindo : Yes, but it does ...
... sness, the Divine's own transcendental existence. Man is the figure of the Divine Person. The Impersonal become or viewed as the Personal takes up the human aspect, the human, that is to say, as its original prototype in the superconscience. The conception of a personal immortality —the impersonal is naturally always immortal, there is no problem there—of a physical immortality even attains... of human life on earth. Page 44 The spirit, the pure self in man is formless; but his soul—the spirit cast into the evolutionary mould in manifestation—has a form: it possesses a personal identity of its own. Each soul or Psyche is a contoured consciousness, as it were: it is not a vague indefinite charge of consciousness, but consciousness having magnitude and dimensions. And the ...
... ousness, the Divine's own transcendental existence. Man is the figure of the Divine Person. The Impersonal become or viewed as the Personal takes up the human aspect, the human, that is to say, as its original prototype in the superconscience. The conception of a personal immortality – the impersonal Page 83 is naturally always immortal, there is no problem there – of a physical... consummation demanded of human life on earth. The spirit, the pure self in man is formless; but his soul – the spirit cast into the evolutionary mould in manifestation – has a form: it possesses a personal identity of its own. Each soul or Psyche is a contoured consciousness, as it were: it is not a vague indefinite charge of consciousness, but consciousness having magnitude and dimensions. And the ...
... identity with the Supreme Goal, effort merging into the spontaneous execution of the Divine Will, the personal melting into the impersonal Person—that is the consummation brought about by Grace. Page 164 ... for a permanent dwelling. It must be noted however, in the last account the personal effort for self-purification and self-preparation is not altogether personal and mere effort; it is, as I have said, always supported and inspired by the secret presence and pressure of the higher Influence. Still, personal effort on our part has a unique value in this sense that it means collaboration and... as Sri Aurobindo says, two powers which in their conjunction bring about the great consummation we aim at. It is personal effort from below and Divine Grace from above. The one prepares the field, the other fructifies and fulfils. It has, however, always been declared that personal effort is not absolute in its effectivity, it is limited, relative and conditional: it does not by itself lead you ...
... identity with the Supreme Goal, effort merging into the spontaneous execution of the Divine Will, the personal melting into the impersonal Person – that is the consummation brought about by Grace. 4 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, Book 11, Canto I Page 286 ... utility of personal effort, the service it can render,– to do the dredging, salvaging work. Personal effort with the egosense has been put there to find out and note the barriers and pitfalls, the faults and fissures in the human system, to overcome, remedy and correct them as far as possible. The human receptacle is normally impure and obscure, resistant and recalcitrant: the personal will and endeavour... home for a permanent dwelling. It must be noted however, in the last account the personal effort for self-purification and self-preparation is not altogether personal and mere effort; it is, as I have said, always supported and inspired by the secret presence and pressure of the higher Influence. Still, personal effort on our part has a unique value in this sense that it means collaboration and ...
... sure of always having Page 102 money, they heap it up. But if people understood that one must be like a receiver-transmitter set; that the vaster the set (just the contrary of personal), the more impersonal and generous and vast the set is, and the more forces it can contain ("forces," that is, to translate materially, banknotes or money). And that power to contain is in proportion to the... everything. Money shouldn't be a "possession": it's a means of action, which is given to you just like a power, but you have to use it according to... what we might call "the Donor's will," that is, impersonally and with foresight. If you are a good instrument in the spread and use of money, then it comes to you, and it does so in proportion to your capacity of using it in the right way. That's the true... the visit of a young man (quite young) with his mother and grandmother: they have a jute factory... in Pakistan. It's worth about twenty crores of rupees, of which half is theirs personally, their personal money. The Pakistani government took everything. But there was a trial (the court was in Pakistan), and the court decided that the factory should go back to its owner. So the Pakistani government ...
... y in a vast equal impersonality, possessing the infinite phenomenon of the universe without attachment but without any inseparable aloofness, with a divine mastery and an innumerable radiation of his eternal luminous self-delight—as a manifestation which he holds, but by which he is not held, which he governs freely and by which therefore he is not bound. This is not the personal God of the religious... religious or the qualified Brahman of the philosophers, but that in which personal and impersonal, quality and non-quality are reconciled. It is the Transcendent possessing them both in His being and employing them both as modes for His manifestation. This then is the object of realisation for the sadhaka of the integral Yoga. Page 391 We see at once that from this point of view the realisation... conception or realisation. Or it sees it as a supreme Being other than itself or at least other than its own present self, and then it calls it God under one name or another, and views it as personal or impersonal, qualitied or without qualities, silent and indifferent Power or active Lord and Helper, again according to its own conception or realisation, its vision or understanding of some side or some ...
... the other from within. The one from above which can come by the impersonal Path or by the personal and impersonal together, seems to have come to you. Your feeling about the Personal probably comes from the push from within for the psychic to emerge fully. It is this aspiration therefore that should be the beginning of the personal path and a reliance on the Inner Power to guide and do what is needed... receptivity to the Mother's Power and Presence. A Fire in the heart is usually the psychic fire and that should rather grow and be fed by the tendency or aspiration to the personal sadhana. The main principle of the personal sadhana is the surrender, the aspiration to the Divine touch, presence, control in the heart—the opening of the psychic being from within and its coming in front to govern and ...
... Reject nothing essential in yourself; only transform or rather allow to be transform[ed] No—There are reasons why I will not—It is a consciousness that formulates itself What is impersonal? All is personal, yet impersonal. Everywhere—Not even that. I can, but I do not. No, surely not—That is different, from above. It is difficult to conduct this writing if one descends into a mixture of forces. That ...
... realization. Or it sees it as page - 93 a supreme Being other than itself or at least other than its own present self, and then it calls it God under one name or another, and views it as personal or impersonal, qualitied or without qualities, silent and indifferent Power or active Lord and Helper, again according to its own conception or realization, its vision or understanding of some side or some... enter and take hold of the brain and in three days I was free. From that moment, in principle, the mental being in me became a free Intelligence, a universal Mind, not limited to the narrow circle of personal thought as a labourer in a thought factory, but a receiver of knowledge from all the hundred realms of being and free to choose what it willed in this vast sight- empire and thought-empire." 53 ...
... less and less of a truth and in the supermind it has no truth at all. Other truths remain but change their character, importance, place in the whole. The difference or contrast between the Personal and Impersonal is a truth of the Overmind- there is no separate truth of them in the Supermind, they are inseparably one. But one who has not mastered and lived the truths of Overmind cannot reach the supramental... own conditions, but the work of the Divine which he has to do according to the conditions laid down by the Divine. Our Yoga is not for our own sake but for the sake of the Divine. It is not our own personal manifestation that we are to seek, the manifestation of the individual ego freed from all bounds and from all bonds, but the manifestation of the Divine. Of that manifestation our own spiritual liberation ...
... from the impersonal to the personal aspect of the realisation. But at present I have both the aspects. The personal was there from the beginning and the impersonal came by itself. So what is the truth of the matter? There is no truth of the matter. One can pass from personal to impersonal or from impersonal to the personal or get the impersonal upon the personal or the personal upon the... integral Yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral Yoga. Impersonal realisation is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the Self and of the impersonal Sachchidananda is only a step though... obviously the impersonal is not enough -for surrender to that may be limited in result to the inner experience without any transformation of the outer being." I do not understand. It is rather surprising that you should be unable to understand such a simple and familiar statement; for that has been always the whole reason of this Yoga that to follow after the Impersonal only brings inner ...
... 5 in that year, we must understand this Vedic phrase. While the Rishis saw an absolute and perfect Spirit that is all and more than all, a transcendent and a universal Godhead, at once personal and impersonal, while they saw also within all a divine dweller ever developing forms higher and higher, they did not fail to see that this development (which we now recognise as evolution) is often... responsibility so that the hope of an entire transformed mankind might result from its achievement. In a Yoga thus representative and responsible the greatest apparent advantages, the most striking personal benefits can be thrown away in a dire strategy of losing the immediate all to gain the ultimate all for the race. Understanding this, we have to view the events that occurred in the first week ...
... AUROBINDO: It is the Brahmic Consciousness. You see .the one Consciousness in all and you see all contained in the one Self and then you rise above to the realisation of the One that is both personal and impersonal and beyond either. DR. BECHARLAL: Is it true that men with a spiritual bent are born with Adhikara, fitness? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. DR. BECHARLAL: Can one acquire Adhikara? SRI AUROBINDO:... the Transcendent? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes; that is to say, instead of being an instrument of ignorant Nature, you become the instrument of the Divine. PURANI: Do you mean by the Cosmic Spirit the Impersonal Consciousness? SRI AUROBINDO: No, the Cosmic Spirit is a personality but not in our narrow sense. It is both dynamic and static, Saguna and Nirguna, the Nirguna supporting the Saguna. PURANI:You ...
... 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 arbiter of truth, His personal vision as impersonal fact. 19 17 Sri Aurobindo, Letters. 18 Savitri, p. 130. 19 Ibid., p. 155. Page 133 There will be time to hold up the mirror and see ourselves... Only were safe who kept God in their hearts: Courage their armour, faith their sword... The hostile powers are terrible when their attack takes an outward form and tragedy strikes on a personal or collective level. They are even more dangerous when they strike unseen from within. Fear, doubt and depression or despair are their chosen weapons; the seeker is Captured and trailed in ...
... Yoga. His intellect was indeed keyed to a different note of controversy than was mine: I was argumentative about problems like unity and multiplicity, free-will and determinism, the personal God and the impersonal Absolute, and wanted the supra-sensible to be logically of a piece, amenable to analytic systematisation, while he had the sceptic's hesitation to accept what he could not personally verify... the delight of publishing it for the first time in serial form. I am also a friend of the author: I have known him for the last twenty three years and have valued his friendship from not only the personal standpoint but also the literary and the spiritual. Next, our friendship has resulted in a special relation on my part to his book: I actually figure in some vivid pages of it that are a most generous... recipient had been much greater than the latter's call and cry for his help. Forgiveness and forbearance without end in the midst of a Page xviii ceaseless holding up of the Ideal, genuine personal respect for the frequently recalcitrant disciple, patient intellectual explanation to him again and again of spiritual motives and truths, assurance of a steady unconditional love for him at all moments ...
... the Many as in his self-absorbed delight. If to thought the Impersonal seems the wider and higher truth, the Personal a narrower experience, the spirit finds both of them to be aspects of a Reality which figures itself in both, and if there is a knowledge of that Reality to which thought arrives by insistence on the infinite Impersonality, there is also a knowledge of it to which love arrives by insistence... its very principle is love and love means always two, the lover and the beloved, a dualism therefore, while oneness is the highest spiritual experience, and because it seeks after the personal God while the Impersonal is the highest and the eternal truth, if not even the sole Reality. But worship is only the first step on the path of devotion. Where external worship changes into the inner adoration... truth in the delight of the One in itself, a lesser truth or even a falsehood in the delight of the One in the Many and of the Many in the One, a greater truth in the impersonal and the Nirguna, a lesser truth or a falsehood in the personal and the Saguna. But the Divine is beyond our oppositions of ideas, beyond the logical contradictions we make between his aspects. He is not, we have seen, bound and ...
... concrete. 2 Sri Aurobindo said that when you go beyond the Impersonal, you find the Personal: THE Person. I am sure he had the experience.... My own sensation is a sort of fusion—a fusion of all sense of personality into... I don't mean into an impersonality, that's not true, but it's something limitless, yet you get a sense, not personal at all in the narrow meaning of the word, but with all the concrete... All-Consciousness (the body does feel it's much more than that, it's only one aspect and is much more than that). But it's the constant, constant experience. Page 209 This idea of Personal or Impersonal has no meaning. It doesn't correspond to anything. The body has completely lost the sense of its personality, completely, and strangely—it's strange. For instance... (for the moment, everything... s recommendation to go through You in order to attain Realization?... Page 205 Did he say one had to go through the Mother? Yes. He said that if one turned exclusively to the Impersonal, one would tend towards an immobile, static realization, whereas going through you would lead to the dynamic realization. Oh, that's it.... Then? "...And in my case, what does it imply ...
... makes possible the predominance of avidyā . It is by this primitive divisional principle that the Mind is enabled to regard for example the Impersonal as the Truth and the Personal as only a mask or the personal Divine as the greatest Truth and impersonality as only an aspect; it is so too that all the conflicting philosophies and religions arise, each exalting one aspect or potentiality of Truth... often contented with it as the sole Truth and dismisses all else as part of the grand Illusion, but there is also a dynamic experience of the Divine or of Existence (e.g. as One and Many, Personal and Impersonal, the Infinite and Finite etc.) which is essential for the integral knowledge. The dynamic experience is not the same in the lower planes as in the higher, in the intermediate spiritual planes... less and less of a truth and in the supermind it has no truth at all. Other truths remain but change their character, importance, place in the whole. The difference or contrast between the Personal and Impersonal is a truth of the Overmind—there is no separate truth of them in the supermind, they are inseparably one. But one who has not mastered and lived the truths of Overmind cannot reach the supramental ...
... cosmos, appeared to be a vast electric ocean full of strange wave-particles, "Constructing by their dance this solid scheme". Man was the witness of this material cosmos who saw "His personal vision as impersonal fact". He saw that gradually in the midst of this great multiplicity of material objects, the original force changed its pose,—the spirit's sleep was stirred and "The Force concealed ...
... Sense and emotion do not die in it, vista and vision are not lost in it: the Divine is not a remote inanity, the Divine is both personal and impersonal, coming to us in various ways, meeting us as the indefinable yet most living Vast at one time and at another as a personal centre of that vastness, the Lord, the Lover, the Avatar, the Guru. Mysticism is not "morbid" or "neurotic" or "erotic" if ...
... Sat-Chit-Ananda was out to play. —Victory to Sri Aurobindo There was a great astonishment by the touch Of waves of Joy and Bliss And there was a realization of the Descent of Grace of the Personal and Impersonal Divine. —Victory to Sri Aurobindo I launched on the dedication pilgrimage with the object of learning to live for the Divine, to do every little work as best as I can for the Divine ...
... with a desireless but effective action without. This possibility of an entire motionless impersonality and void Calm within doing outwardly the works of the eternal verities, Love, Truth and Righteousness, was perhaps the real gist of the Buddha's teaching, — this superiority to ego and to the chain of personal workings and to the identification with mutable form and idea, not the petty ideal of an... One." " rtena rtam apihitam dhruvam...das'a s'atdsaha tasthus tad ekam." 44 Integral and Supramental Realisation of the Infinite Sri Aurobindo points out that the impersonal is a truth; the personal too, is a truth; they are the same truth seen from Page 54 two sides of our psychological activity; neither by itself gives a total account of its reality, and yet by either... wholly the Inconscience. It is true that the descent of the overmental consciousness would be able to transform in each man it touched the whole conscious being, the inner and outer, personal and universally impersonal, into its own stuff and impose That upon the Ignorance illumining it into cosmic truth and knowledge. But this transformation would not be able to provide security against the downward ...
... Aurobindo : It is the Brahmic Consciousness. That is to say, you see one Consciousness in all and all contained in the One Self and then you rise above to the realization of One that is both personal and impersonal and is above both. Disciple : Is it true that men with spiritual bent are born with "Adhikara – qualification – for it? Sri Aurobindo : Yes. Disciple : Can one acquire... so? Sri Aurobindo : Yes, that is to say, instead of being an instrument of ignorant nature you become the instrument of the Divine. Disciple : Do you mean by the Cosmic Spirit the Impersonal Consciousness? Sri Aurobindo : No, The Cosmic Spirit is a Personality – not in the narrow sense of personality; it is both static and dynamic. Saguna and nirguna, – the Nirguna supporting ...
... Modern man protests against all forms of monism or totalitarian philosophy that threaten the dignity, independence and individual value of the human person. His is the protest of the personal against the impersonal. He protests against the naturalist's assertion: 6. Joseph Wood Krutch, "The Mode View of Man", in Man's Right to Knowledge, p. 28. Page 187 "You are a transitory... and uniqueness of the human person are overlooked. Man Looks to Philosophy Now in this background of the anguished protest of the 'free' individual against totalitarianism and impersonal functionalisation, to whom or to what should modern man turn for a way of 7. Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy of Existence, p. 1. Page 188 salvation? Who can offer a message... Modern man opposes the Hegelian doctrine that human personality vanishes into the Family, the Community, the Absolute. He detests this 'rarefication of existence', this 'auto-destruction of his personal self. And in modern times when the absolute supremacy of the State has considerably reduced individual liberty and, in certain countries, the individual citizen has been reduced to serfdom, he protests ...
... overmind descent would not be able to transform wholly the Inconscience; all that it could do would be to transform in each man it touched the whole conscious being, inner and outer, personal and universally impersonal, into its own stuff and impose that upon the Ignorance illumining it into cosmic truth and knowledge. But a basis of Nescience would remain; it would be as if a sun and its system were ...
... be sure of always having some, they hoard it. But if people understood that one should be like a receiving and transmitting station and that the wider the range (just the opposite of personal), the more impersonal, comprehensive and wide it is, the most force it can hold ("force" that is translated materially: notes and coins). This power to hold is proportional to the capacity to use the money in... everything. Money should not be a "possession": like power it is a means of action which is given to you, but you must use it according to... what we can call the "will of the Giver", that is, in an impersonal and enlightened way. If you are a good instrument for diffusing and utilising money, then it comes to you, and it comes to you in proportion to your capacity to use it as it is meant to be used.... one―"one" is not enough either, "one" would necessarily have to choose a group. Those who have this consciousness may belong to any social class: it is not a privilege of birth, but the outcome of personal effort and development. In fact, that is an outward sign, the obvious sign of a change from the political point of view―it is no longer a matter of classes and categories nor of birth―all that is ...
... y, our true person. God is at once impersonal and personal. His impersonality is to our psychological realisation an infinite of timeless being, consciousness, bliss of existence; his personality represents itself here as a conscious power of being, a conscious centre of knowledge and will and the joy of multiple self-manifestation. We are that one impersonality in the static essence of our being;... harmony of his integral Truth. That note was the idea of a supreme Godhead which dwells within man and Nature, Page 305 but is greater than man and Nature, is found by impersonality of the self, but of which impersonal self is not the whole significance. We now see the meaning of that strong recurring insistence. It was this one Godhead, the same in universal self and man and Nature who through... distinction is only for the purposes of self-manifestation; the divine impersonality is, when one goes behind it, at the same time infinite He, a supreme soul and spirit. It is the great "I"— so aham , I am He, from which all personality and nature proceed and disport themselves here diversely in the appearance of an impersonal world. Brahman is all this that is, says the Upanishad, for Brahman is ...
... First, he must acquire that equal assent and understanding which will respond to the law of the divine action without trying to impose on it a partial will and the violent claim of a personal aspiration. A wise impersonality, a quiescent equality, a universality which sees all things as the manifestations of the Divine, the one Existence, is not angry, troubled, impatient with the way of things or on the... to their inner significances and forward to the unrolling of their divine possibilities, is the first thing demanded of those who would do works as the perfect instruments of the Divine. But this impersonal acquiescence is only the basis. Man is the instrument of an evolution which wears at first the mask of a struggle, but grows more and more into its truer and deeper sense of a constant wise adjustment... will in it must be in whatever degree present in the nature. But to be accomplished and permanent, steadfast in action, truly divine, it has to proceed on the basis of a spiritual equality, a calm, impersonal and equal self-identification with all beings, an understanding of all energies. The Divine acts with a mighty power in the myriad workings of the universe, but with the supporting light and force ...
... prakṛti . Vedanta of the philosophers has been admitted for the self-effacement of the natural separative personality built round the ego. Its method has been used to replace the little personal by the large impersonal being, to annul the separative illusion in the unity of the Brahman and to substitute for the blind seeing of the ego the truer vision of all things in one Self and one Self in all things... things as the Lord in the light of a perfect spiritual oneness. There results an integral vision of the Divine Existent at once as the transcendent Reality, supracosmic origin of cosmos, as the impersonal Self of all things, calm continent of the cosmos, and as the immanent Divinity in all beings, personalities, objects, powers and qualities, the Immanent who is the constituent self, the effective... partial becoming to its source, paraṁ brahma, paraṁ dhāma . He accepts him as the supreme purity of the ever free Existence to which one arrives through the effacement of ego in the self's immutable impersonality calm and still for ever, pavitraṁ paramam . He accepts him next as the one Permanent, the eternal Soul, the divine Purusha, puruṣaṁ śāśvataṁ divyam . He acclaims in him the original Godhead, adores ...
... once opposing it to its complementary truth which is as valid as itself. The Supreme is at once the One and the Many; He is simultaneously immanent and transcendent; He is at once personal and impersonal; and yet He is beyond all the formulations. The Jivatma, the individual self, is a reality the same time distinct from, related to and one with the Supreme. Nothing exists but the Supreme ...
... governance of the immense movement, but a free play of universal Nature to which what was the personal being responds with a passive acceptance or a dynamic identity, while yet the spirit remains free and undisturbed by any bondage to the reactions of this passivity or this universal and impersonal identification and sympathy. But with a strong Page 154 influence or full action... overmind descent would not be able to transform wholly the Inconscience; all that it could do would be to transform in each man it touched the whole conscious being, inner and outer, personal and universally impersonal, into its own stuff and impose that upon the Ignorance illumining it into cosmic truth and knowledge. But a basis of Nescience would remain; it would be as if a sun and its system... cosmic Self or the Ishwara can come in and become normal; or a special centre may be revealed or created overtopping and dominating the physical instrument, individual in fact of existence, but impersonal in feeling and recognised by a free cognition as something instrumental to the action of a Transcendent and Universal Being. In the transition towards the Supermind this centralising action tends ...
... It may modify, but does not radically contradict any religious experience or aspiration,—for it is not inconsistent either with a union with Superconscience or bliss in heavens beyond or any personal or impersonal relation with the Divine, since these may well be heights of the spiritual unfolding. Its truth will depend on spiritual experience and effectuation; but chiefly on this momentous issue, whether ...
... that. July 8, 1935 J says he has no personal difficulties; he has to suffer for the sake of the Asram. Rubbish! His own vital has always been vehement and unstable. You say his depression is personal, mine impersonal, while all the time I was cursing myself for my neuro-vital mechanism. The form it has taken is not personal to you, it has all the sign of the "regulation lathi"... letter on the emanation, do you mean by a "persona relation" the impersonal person that is the psychic? The psychic is not impersonal. You must be thinking of the universal Atman. The psychic is always personal and individual. One may not be conscious of the Presence, but the relation? Unfortunately, I don't feel any personal relation with the Mother. There lies the whole difficulty of the... of all depression. But why? But why accept a depression which has no reason for its existence? Is it, as our friend Jaswant says, the Asram vital that affects me, or a personal one? In Jaswant's case it is personal—in yours it looks like surrender to the "Asram" or rather to the "anti-Asram" vital. But I have suffered enough, enough, more than my share. One can't go on, you know, with ...
... sure of always having some, they hoard it. But if it were understood that one has to be like a receiving and transmitting station, and that the wider the range (just the opposite of personal), the more impersonal, comprehensive and wide it is, the more force it can hold ("force", translates materially into notes or coins). This power to hold is proportional to the capacity to use the money in... everything. Money should not be a " possession": like power it is a means of action given to us , but we have to use it according to... you could call it the "will of the Giver," that is, in an impersonal and clear-sighted manner. If you are a good instrument for diffusing a n d utilizing money, then it co mes to you, and it comes to you in proportion to your capacity to use it as it is meant to... (The following passage was added by Mother later.) And those who possess this consciousness may belong to any class of society: it is not a privilege of birth but the result of personal effort and development. In fact, that is an outer sign, an obvious sign of a change from the political viewpoint; it is no longer a matter of classes or categories or of birth (all that is obsolete) ...
... meditate - "Mother, You don't love me; for that matter, You don't love anybody except a few persons: x, y, z (I named them in my mind). Yes, You have some sort of love for us, which is an impersonal love, not personal." Then my inner, better self tried to argue with my outer nature or ego: "Don't be foolish," etc. etc. But the abhimaan wouldn't be consoled so easily. Then I went to bed at night ... which I won't tell you today. Perhaps you would have been very much thrilled to hear it as it is a love story, but I'll tell you the next time we meet. I know you are fond of love stories, personal or impersonal, but I'll tell you later on, for you are surely curious or eager to pursue the subject of the Lord. Let me go back a little in time - back to our flashback! So when Sri Aurobindo had... Laughter) But as I have said, there was very, very little to do at the beginning. He was lying flat and his manner was like Lord Shiva's through the whole day: calm, quiet, composed, and most impersonal. Dr. Manilal, looking well-shaved and well-dressed, would come in the morning, after his breakfast, and, before doing anything else, he would bow down and put his head on the left side of Sri ...
... that earth, coin of that gold, colour inherent in that transcendent whiteness. All is the divine Eternal and Infinite. Impersonal and Personal are not contrary appearances or Page 184 even dual aspects nor is the Person our convenient imagination of an ever impersonal Entity, but rather both are for ever the One. All is the Divine, even that which is undivine. There is no not self; all... existence of the One, but the existence of the Many, not only the existence of the Unmanifest, but the existence of the manifested universe and of all actual or possible universes, not only the Impersonal, but the Personal, not only the Pure Existence, Consciousness, Bliss of Sachchidananda but all forms of existence or consciousness blissful or unblissful, not only the existence of the Absolute but the existence... Divine, the Ineffable—existence in Time no less than existence in Eternity, existence in the finite no less than existence in the Infinite, of the Many no less than of the One, of the Personal no less than of the Impersonal, of the individual and the cosmos no less than of the supercosmic, of the relative no less than of the Absolute. Ekam evadvitiyam Brahma . The Eternal is in his very truth of being ...
... Person and an impersonal pure Existence; it can then cut itself away from the one and plunge itself into the other as the sole abiding Truth of existence. It can regard the Person as the sole Reality or the Impersonal as alone true; it can regard the Lover as only a means of expression of eternal Love or love as only the self-expression of the Lover; it can see beings as only personal powers of an ... really exhaust the possibilities of the problem. It is possible by bringing the real soul to the surface to replace the egoistic standards of pleasure and pain by an equal, an all-embracing personal-impersonal delight. The lover of Nature does this when he takes joy in all the things of Nature universally without admitting repulsion or fear or mere liking and disliking, perceiving beauty in that which... to many impossible or even monstrous and repellent. Here the ignorance of the ego shrinks from the principle of impersonality which it yet applies without too much difficulty in Science, in Art and even in a certain kind of imperfect spiritual living because there the rule of impersonality does not attack those desires cherished by the surface soul and those values of desire fixed by the surface mind ...
... is given to us something yet higher than the Impersonal,—here there is the supreme Self who is the supreme Ishwara, here there is the supreme Soul and its supreme nature, here there is the Purushottama who is beyond the personal and impersonal and reconciles them on his eternal heights. The ego personality still disappears in the silence of the Impersonal, but Page 535 at the same time there... beings, then one gets the supreme love and devotion to Me." But in the narrow path of knowledge bhakti, devotion to the personal Godhead, can be only an inferior and preliminary movement; the end, the climax is the disappearance of personality in a featureless oneness with the impersonal Brahman in which there can be no place for bhakti: for there is none to be adored and none to adore; all else is lost... the cosmos we must become at first impersonal and free from our ego and its claims and from the ego's way of seeing ourselves and the world and others. And we cannot do this if there is not something in our being other than the personality, other than the ego, an impersonal self one with all existences. To lose ego and be this impersonal self, to become this impersonal Brahman in our consciousness is ...
... these outward appearances. This truth Arjuna must be brought to see; he must learn to act impersonally, imperturbably as the instrument not of his little personal desires and weak human shrinkings, but of a vaster and more luminous Power, a greater all-wise divine and universal Will. He must act impersonally and universally in a high union of his soul with the inner and outer Godhead, yukta , in a... not fulfilled and united with God; the ecstasy of the spirit's calm needs to be transformed by the ecstasy of the soul's Ananda. Beyond the personal Jiva and the impersonal Brahman or Atman he reaches the supracosmic Purushottama who is immutable in impersonality and fulfils himself in personality and draws us to Page 460 him through these two different attractions. The liberated seeker rises... Kurukshetra. To live inwardly calm, detached, silent in the silence of the impersonal and universal Self and yet do dynamically the works of dynamic Nature, and more largely, to be one with the Eternal within us and to do all the will of the Eternal in the world expressed through a sublimated force, a divine height of the personal nature uplifted, liberated, universalised, made one with God-nature,—this ...
... and the Divine everywhere and the change of the personal into a wide universal consciousness, free from attachment and ignorance. Divine love is of two kinds—the Divine love for the creation and the souls that are part of itself and the love of the seeker and love for the Divine Beloved; it has both a personal and impersonal element, but the personal is free here from all lower elements or bondage... the higher consciousness. Page 336 The love that belongs to the spiritual planes is of a different kind—the psychic has its own more personal love, bhakti, surrender. Love in the higher or spiritual mind is more universal and impersonal. The two must join together to make the highest divine love. The psychic realisation is one of diversity in unity (the portion and the whole);... of fuel, but is steady and all-embracing Page 344 and self-existent like the light of the sun. There is also a divine love that is personal, but it is not like the ordinary personal human love dependent on any return from the person—it is personal but not egoistic,—it goes from the real being in the one to the real being in the other. But to find that, liberation from the ordinary human ...
... 1935 Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo May 1935 "Trust in God"? Personal or Impersonal? Tell me instead, "Trust in Me", that would be comforting, tangible and practical. All right. It comes to the same thing in the upshot. May 1, 1935 I took J to hospital for her ear, but the E.N.T. doctor found instead vasomotor rhinitis... willingly শুদ্ধা ভক্তি." 94 Meaning? But what is শুদ্ধা ভক্তি, then? But even if you are serious, I don't know why I can't take it calmly and in the right spirit. Quite so! You have no personal interest to be serious. It is for my good alone. Not at all. It is simply the vital's imagination that the Mother is serious because of its tamas. There is not the least truth in it. I understand ...
... confuse the picture. The aim the Yoga puts before itself is in essence the same as the object of other Yogas—the realisation of the Divine. But it is not the Divine in one of its aspects, personal or impersonal, cosmic or transcendent, Self or Lord or [ sentence not completed ] 153 That Yoga is full or perfect which enables us to fulfil entirely God's purpose in us in this universe. ... either the All of the Pantheist, a cosmic Spirit, an individual Deity, a supracosmic Creator; or all of these together. A Personal Godhead may be the spiritual Form in which He presents Himself to us or rather He may reject forms from his being [and] resolve Himself into an impersonal Existence. Moreover each of these aspects of the Reality can be variously experienced; for each suits itself to the grasp ...
... It did not exist before that point was reached; when another point has been reached it may go out of existence. Or again the world is a creation of an extracosmic or immanent conscious Being personal or impersonal who has either put his consciousness or a consciousness resembling his into his mechanical creation to be an element there or else has infused it from within into the mechanical self-expression ...
... truly is, the right, the highest or best or real good; it is not the truth and law of his or of all being. The Shastra is something impersonal to the individual, and that gives it its authority over the narrow personal law of his members; but at the same time it is personal to the collectivity and is the outcome of its experience, its culture or its nature. It is not in all its form and spirit the ideal... be done as a true sacrifice imposed on us by the divine law that governs our life and therefore performed out of a high inner obligation or imperative truth and without desire for the personal fruit,—the more impersonal the motive of the action and the temperament of the force put out in it, the more sattwic is its nature. And finally it is offered to the gods without any reservation; it is acceptable... or with the vision of Vasudeva in all that Page 487 is, the action done impersonally, universally, for the good of the world, for the fulfilment of the divine will in the universe. That culmination leads to its own transcending, to the immortal Dharma. For then comes a freedom in which there is no personal action at all, no sattwic rule of dharma, no limitation of Shastra; the inferior reason ...
... 20 October 1934 "The difference or contrast between the Personal and Impersonal is a truth of the Overmind—there is no separate truth Page 123 of them in the Supermind, they are inseparably one" [p. 5]. If this refers to the Personal and Impersonal Divine, the question of the difference can hardly arise, because the Personal Divine (i.e. the Avatar) is not always there. It is only very... into each other, so inseparably one that they are a single undivided reality. It is the same with the Personal and Impersonal, the Saguna and Nirguna, the Silent and the Active Brahman. In the Reality they are not contrasted and incompatible aspects; what we call Personality and what we call Impersonality are inseparably fused together in a single Truth. In fact "fused together" even is a wrong phrase... first there should be the union in the heart of the personal being with the Divine. Or it may mean that it does not take priority or importance over all others. For both personality and impersonality have their claims and join together in the final realisation of what transcends and unites them both in one. What has to disappear is the personal separative ego—the dualities of course also. The quickest ...
... through which all can meet and become one. This Eternal will be at once personal and impersonal in his self-revelation and touch upon the soul. He is personal because he is the conscious Divine, the infinite Person who casts some broken reflection of himself in the myriad divine and undivine personalities of the universe. He is impersonal because he appears to us Page 82 as an infinite Existence... is drawing all things by their own path towards his happy oneness. On him the Will can unalterably fix as the invisible Power that guides and fulfils it and as the source of its strength. In the impersonality this actuating Power is a self-illumined Force that contains all results and calmly works until it accomplishes, in the personality an all-wise and omnipotent Master of the Yoga whom nothing can... nature. This will be done, not for the personal satisfaction of the ego, but that the whole may constitute a fit Page 84 temple for the Divine Presence, a faultless instrument for the divine work. For that work can be truly performed only when the instrument, consecrated and perfected, has grown fit for a selfless action,—and that will be when personal desire and egoism are abolished, but ...
... had already covered this path by the beginning of the century and had established a constant relationship with the Supreme—That which is beyond the Personal and the gods and all the outward expressions of the Divine, but also beyond the Absolute Impersonal. It's something you cannot describe; you must experience it. And this is what must be brought down into Matter. Such is the descending path, the one... overmind descent would not be able to transform wholly the Inconscience; all that it could do would be to transform in each man it touched the whole conscious being, inner and outer, personal and universally impersonal, into its own stuff and impose that upon the Ignorance illumining it into cosmic truth and knowledge. But a basis of Nescience would remain; it would be as if a sun and its system were... trying to transform the Mind. 'It's strange', he said to me, 'it's an endless work! Nothing seems to get done— everything is done and then constantly has to be done all over again.' Then I gave him my personal impression, which went back to the old days with Theon: 'It will be like that until we touch bottom.' So instead of continuing to work in the Mind, both of us (I was the one who went through the ...
... with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act with a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged frame of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it would be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no personal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but only of an impersonal cosmic or... or governance of the immense movement, but a free play of universal Nature to which what was the personal being responds with a passive acceptance or a dynamic identity, while yet the spirit remains free and undisturbed by any bondage to the reactions of this passivity or this universal and impersonal identification and sympathy. But with a strong influence or full action of the overmind a very integral... overmind descent would not be able to transform wholly the Inconscience; all that it could do would be to transform in each man it touched the whole conscious being, inner and outer, personal and universally impersonal, into its own stuff and impose that upon the Ignorance illumining it into cosmic truth and knowledge. But a basis of Nescience would remain; it would be as if a sun and its system were ...
... titans, angels,—as one divine Brahman, and in action and attitude, an absolute self-surrender to the Paratpara Purusha, the transcendent, infinite and universal Personality who is at once personal and impersonal, finite and infinite, self-limiting and illimitable, one and many, and informs with his being not only the Gods above, but man and the worm and the clod below. The surrender must be complete... divine impersonal Existence, Sad Atman, without movement, distinction or feature, śāntam alakṣaṇam , in which all names and forms seem to stand with a very doubtful or a very minor reality. In this realisation the One may seem to be the only reality and everything else Maya, a purposeless and inexplicable illusion. But afterwards, if you do not stop short and limit yourself by the impersonal realisation... and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal Ananda, but the bringing down of the divine Ananda—Christ's kingdom of heaven, our Satyayuga—upon the earth. Of mokṣa we have no personal need; for the soul is nityamukta and bondage is an illusion ...
... the knowledge of One who is for ever, beyond Time and Space and name and form and world, high beyond his own personal and impersonal levels and yet from whom all this proceeds, One whom all manifests in manifold Nature and her multitude of figures. It is the knowledge of him as an impersonal eternal immutable Spirit, the calm and limitless thing we call Self, infinite, equal and always the same, unaffected... Brahman, he is impersonal self, he is all personal existences. Spirit here and life and matter, soul and Nature and the works of Nature are aspects and movements of his infinite and eternal existence. He is the supreme transcendent Spirit and all comes into manifestation from him and are his forms and his self-powers. As the one self he is here all-pervasive and equal and impersonal in man and animal... neutral and indifferent, opponent and enemy, lover and hater. These things touch the ego and you are called to be free from ego. These are personal relations and you have to observe all with the deep regard of the impersonal spirit. These are temporal and personal differences which you have to see but not be influenced by them; for you must fix not on these differences but on that which is the same in ...
... intimate Spirit of our life, an indwelling and overdwelling Lord of all our personal and impersonal self and nature who alone can utter to us this near and moving message. And yet this is not the common relation established by the religions between man living in his sattwic or Page 541 other ego-mind and some personal form and aspect of the Deity, iṣṭa-deva , constructed by that mind or offered... insistence; the pursuit of a disinterested impersonal action is converted into a greater authority and apparent high sanction for our personal will's interested selections and blind arbitrary persistences. On the other hand an absolute impersonality would seem to impose an equally absolute quietism, and this would mean that all action is bound to the machinery of the ego and the three gunas and to recede... phrases used and the spiritual emotion with which they vibrate seem to give the most intense prominence possible and an utmost importance to the personal truth and presence of the Godhead. It is no abstract Absolute of the philosopher, no indifferent impersonal Presence or ineffable Silence intolerant of all relations to whom this complete surrender of all our works can be made and this closeness and ...
... world manifestation is called the Paratpara Brahman, & is not knowable either to the knowledge that analyses or the knowledge that synthetically conceives. We can neither say of Him that He is personal or impersonal, existence or non-existence, pure or impure, Atman or unAtman. We can only say to every attempt to define Him positively or negatively, neti neti, Not this, not this. We can pass into the Paratpara... we might have a just definition of God in the universe. What is the Impersonality of God? It is the fact of the Is Not, the Is & the Becoming. And what is the personality of God? It is the fact that all this, the Is like the Becoming, the Is not like the Is, is aware of itself in Time & Space & beyond them. The Impersonality of Love is a self-existent Delight which embraces, possesses & makes one... one in being all that manifests in Brahman. The Personality of Love is One who is aware of self-Delight & extends His Love in all creatures. Personality & Impersonality are the same reality differently conceived by Knowledge. Ego is the consciousness of the One Infinite Personality reflected in a limiting form of consciousness & distorted by the limitation. The form itself is a face of the All which ...
... that he did, all that came from him, his ease, reserve, calm, unhurried action, even certain aspects of his humour, gave me that impression. Sri Aurobindo has said that the Supreme is both personal and impersonal at the same time. His own life is a luminous example of this truth and has given us a small insight into the working of the Divine in the world. As soon as Sri Aurobindo had recovered s... that is all one can say except to add that impersonality was the essence of his nature. In everything he kept his tranquil spirit, his impersonal way. He never raised his voice, did not insist on his point and when he criticised men or countries, there was no contempt in his expression. He saw the Forces of which men are unconscious instruments and the Impersonal in him looked at everything with an equal... business needed his attention. During this period we were strangers to him: we might have been in his room many times but we had no apparent existence. If he needed something, it was an impersonal voice calling somebody impersonal, as it were, for he would use no name, and the voice would come from afar, the tone was grave, the look elsewhere; the noise, our chatter, fell into a vacancy. Even the explosion ...
... particular pig was a vegetable. Personal and Impersonal are two aspects of the Divine, aren't they? How is it possible for one who realises the Impersonal to be in darkness about the existence of the Divine from which his truth is coming? And why do you say that Impersonal does not guide or help, that one has to rely on oneself absolutely? Whatever impersonal Truth or Light there is, you have... unknowable that was Permanent and Unmanifested. Adwaita does the same. Buddha never said he was an Avatar of a Personal God, but that he was the Buddha. It is the Hindus who made him an Avatar. If Buddha had looked upon himself as an Avatar at all, it would have been as an Avatar of the impersonal Truth. You say Buddha achieved Illumined Mind and Ramakrishna the Intuitive. According to your explanation... Since it is the Truth one is seeking and the Impersonal also is one aspect of the Divine why should the Divine keep himself aloof from the seeker? Is it simply because one is guilty of seeking his impersonal aspect? You speak of the Impersonal as if it were a Person. The Impersonal is not He, it is It. How can an It guide or help? The Impersonal Brahman is inactive, aloof, indifferent, not concerned ...
... other paths of sadhana are calling Mother and Sri Aurobindo and getting their help and Force. In that case wouldn't all of them, except the worshippers of the Impersonal, be their disciples? The Divine is neither personal nor impersonal, formless nor formed. He is the Divine. You talk of these distinctions as if they separated the Divine into so many separate Divines which have nothing to do with... the universe belong to you and emanate from you. In that case, I asked him—"Does Raman Maharshi who is an aspirant of the Impersonal Brahman get a response from Mother and Sri Aurobindo?" Who is the Mother and who is Sri Aurobindo? And who is this fellow you call the Impersonal Brahman? K says, "Yes, because they are identified with the Supreme and the Supreme is static and dynamic at the same... about my being the Supreme; the question was whether there was one Divine Mother or 20,000 Divine Mothers. At the same time I don't see why it should stupefy one (you?), in spite of your absence of personal objections to think of me as such (the Supreme). Why, you are yourself the Supreme, aren't you? Soaham, tattwam asi Nirada, ঈশ্বর কোন বেটা, আমিই ঈশ্বর (Vivekananda) 151 আমি in this formula means ...
... toast. Pardon my vagaries. SRI AUROBINDO: All this simply means that you have, metaphorically speaking, the hump. Trust in God and throw the hump off. 1-5-35 N: 'Trust in God'? Personal or Impersonal? Tell me instead, 'Trust in Me', that would be comforting, tangible and practical. SRI AUROBINDO: All right. It comes to the same thing in the upshot. 5-9-36 N: Again I have a blessed... Avatar like Krishna had not attempted to bring down the Supermind, was it not somewhat presumptuous of Sri Aurobindo to try and do so? These questions brought forth a magnificent reply: 'It is not for personal greatness that I am seeking to bring down the Supermind. I care nothing for greatness or littleness in the human sense. I am seeking to bring some principle of inner Truth, Light, Harmony, Peace into... and blue There shall move on the earth embodied and fair The living truth of you. I think I have said enough for you to realise that Sri Aurobindo did not go into seclusion for attaining his personal salvation in solitude, indifferent to the fate of the world. This misconception still persists but, as you have seen, it is far from the truth. His daily routine included reading newspapers and journals ...
... who is for Page 78 ever, beyond Time and Space and name and form and world, high beyond his own personal and impersonal levels and yet from whom all this proceeds, One whom all manifests in manifold Nature and her multitude of figures. It is the knowledge of him as an impersonal eternal immutable Spirit, the calm and limitless thing we call Self, infinite, equal and always the same, unaffected... Brahman, he is impersonal self, he is all personal existences. Spirit here and life and matter, soul and Nature and the works of Nature are aspects and movements of his infinite and eternal existence. He is the supreme transcendent Spirit and all comes into manifestation from him and are his forms and his self-powers. As the one self he is here all-pervasive and equal and impersonal in man and animal... neutral and indifferent, opponent and enemy, lover and hater. These things touch the ego and you are called to be free from ego. These are personal relations and you have to observe all with the deep regard of the impersonal spirit. These are temporal and personal differences which you have to see but not be influenced by them; for you must fix not on these differences but on that which is the same in ...
... preparation of finality in the Anandamaya Ishwara-darshana. Formerly the Brahmadarshan was of the impersonal Sarvam Anantam Jnanam Anandam, centred either in the Sarvam or Anantam or Jnanam or at the highest in the Anandam. Now this is a past state that recurs; it is the Personal in & embracing the Impersonal that is now the more normal, but this is most often in the Jnanam. From yesterday it begins to... stress of will-thought. Aishwarya traya today is working more evenly, though with less precise force. Ishita is becoming more prominent. The shadow of personal will is steadily losing force of insistence & giving place to the Master-will. The personal relation with the Master manifests, not again to be suspended; it brings the madhura dasya, the delight in all things & the understanding of all experience... Prakriti to pull it back to the mere Saguna Brahma or Narayanadarshana. The Ishwara is now manifest in the Vani & as the master of all the thought & action; the dasyam is becoming entirely complete & personal. As yet it is the Balarama-Aniruddha Bhava with Aniruddha prominent. Rupa revived, but not in full force. Kamananda in spite of adverse circumstances. Gandha frequent & varied. 18 May ...
... Disciple : Can it be said that personal actions and other personal things have an importance in so far as through them an impersonal consciousness, or a divine purpose, works itself out? Sri Aurobindo : Yes; in the impersonal aspect even a small personal action may have significance. Personal actions have an importance in the evolution of the individual. But it is difficult to persuade... from Above. Is it not true that the Power becomes more and more impersonal ? Sri Aurobindo : There is no question of Personal or Impersonal in the action of the Truth. It may act through the individual, that is, use him as the channel. Then it may seem Personal. It may even seem to work for what to others would appear personal ends, or for the benefit of an individual. It does not matter so... big cities, impoverishment of the countryside, capitalism etc. He says that to classify history as Primitive, Mediaeval and Modern is not correct. We must study universal history and that too impersonally. The mathematical discoveries that are seen in a particular culture are organically connected with that culture. The Greek for instance, could never have arrived at the conception of the "series" ...
... is a personal designation and the activities predicated of the Paraclete are all personal. Both the words "teach" and "speak" link up most suggestively with the functions of the Paraclete listed by R. Birch Hoyle: 95 "teaching, reminding, witnessing, convincing, leading, speaking, hearing, glorifying (John 14:46; 15:26; 16:8-15)." Not that the NT never figures the Holy Spirit as impersonal, but... Page 138 tapas, by this varied concentration of self-knowledge that Divine Existence creates and supports the world and is at once the same God and Nature and world, Personal and Impersonal, Pure and Varied, Qualified and without qualities, Krishna and Kali, and Shiva and Brahma and Vishnu, man and animal and vegetable and stone, all aspects of Himself and all symbols. We need... in just as much. Scanning Acts, Hoyle 96 concludes about the Spirit in the communal life of the Ecclesia (Church): "It is described impersonally as a gift, which God gives or the Son outpours (Acts 11:17; 15:8; 2:33, 35), more usually as power (1:8), yet personal actions are attributed to the Spirit: it 'speaks', 'bears witness', 'separates' for service, 'approves' a counciliar decision, 'forbids' ...
... exteriorization, we see two sorts of things: impersonal currents of force, which can be more or less luminous, and personal beings. But they are two forms of the same thing: The wall between consciousness and force, impersonality and personality becomes much thinner when one goes behind the veil of matter. If one looks at a working from the side of impersonal force one sees a force or energy at work acting... illumination in a thousand different ways. Those who have exceeded, or think they have exceeded, the stage of religious forms will jump to the conclusion that all personal forms are deceptive, or of a lower order, and that only impersonal forces are true, but this is an error of our human logic, which always tries to reduce everything to a uniform concept. The vision of Durga is no more false and imaginary... Knowledge; with that blue, a self-sustaining power; with that whiteness, an ineffable Presence. Some forces can sweep upon us like a smile. Then one truly understands that the opposition between personal and impersonal, consciousness and force, is a practical distinction created by human logic, without much relation to reality, and that one need not see any person to be in the presence of the Person. ...
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