... The difficulty of the physical nature comes inevitably in the course of the development of the sadhana. Its obstruction, its inertia, its absence of aspiration or movement have to show themselves before they can be got rid of—otherwise it will always remain undetected, hampering even the best sadhana and preventing its completeness. This coming up of the physical nature lasts longer or less according... Sadhana on the Level of the Physical Letters on Yoga - IV Chapter III Difficulties of the Physical Nature The Real Difficulty It is no doubt quite true that if you could settle the true relation [ with the Mother ] in the psychic centre—the inner heart—and all the rest could be under its influence and take part in it, the fundamental difficulty would... effect of the primal Inertia is entirely overcome. What you describe—dullness, uneasiness, weakness, feeling old and worn out or ill, are the reactions that come when the inertia of the physical Nature is resisting the Light—the others about sense of feeling, dignity, self-respect (of the ego) are the reactions of the vital. Both must be refused acceptance. There is only one aim to be followed ...
... aspiration for that and for the change and it must be a steady and patient will not tired out even by the utmost resistance of the physical nature. It is because your consciousness in the course of the sadhana has come into contact with the lower physical nature and sees it as it is in itself when it is not kept down or controlled either by the mind, the psychic or the spiritual force. This... nature of the physical mind to be obstinate. Physical nature exists by constant repetition of the same thing—only a constant presentation of different forms of itself. This obstinate recurrence is therefore part of its nature when it is in activity; otherwise it remains in a dull inertia. When therefore we want to get rid of the old movements of physical nature, they resist by this kind of obstinate recurrence... the physical is inertia, dullness, obstruction to whatever is new or not yet established. Apart from the individual difficulty there is a general difficulty in the physical earth-nature. Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. It is very difficult for even the strongest mental or vital or even psychic ...
... and physical Nature? Tell me, is your body absolutely conscious, conscious of itself, conscious of its functioning? No, then what is it? It can only be physical Nature. And if there is a physical Nature which is not conscious, it means that physical Nature and consciousness are not the same thing. Physical Nature includes everything that is physical: your body belongs to physical Nature, mountains... mountains, stones, the sky, water, fire... all this belongs to physical Nature. But your physical Nature contains a consciousness, it is animated by a consciousness, though it is not entirely conscious. And precisely because it is not entirely conscious, it can be inert, tamasic, "unconscious". Otherwise all would be conscious, stones also would be conscious (I don't know how far they are so, but it is ...
... Perfection of the Mental Being The fundamental idea of a Yoga of self-perfection must be, under these conditions, a reversal of the present relations of the soul of man to his mental, vital and physical nature. Man is at present a partly self-conscious soul subject to and limited by mind, life and body, who has to become an entirely self-conscious soul master of his mind, life and body. Not limited by... Purusha in him, which is free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature. This ego is not his real self, but an instrumentation of Nature by which it has developed a sense of limited and separate individual being in mind, life and body. By this instrumentation he acts... ,—does not look beyond the life of the body and, so far as it feels anything beyond its physical individuality, is aware only of the physical universe and at most its oneness with the soul of physical Nature. But he can have too an intuition of himself as a soul of life, self-identified with a great movement of becoming in Time, which puts forth body as a form or basic sense-image and mind as a conscious ...
... be a steady and patient will not tired out even by the utmost resistance of the physical nature. Letters on Yoga, p. 1434 Dullness and dispersion are the two sides of the physical's resistance to the peace and concentrated power. They correspond to the inertia and the chaotic activity of physical Nature, that aspect of it which makes some scientists now say that all is brought about... Letters on Yoga, p. 1433 Physical nature exists by constant repetition of the same thing — only a constant presentation of different forms of itself. This obstinate recurrence is therefore part of its nature when it is in activity; otherwise it remains in a dull inertia. When therefore we want to get rid of the old movements of physical nature, they resist by this kind of obstinate... forces) to do what it admits to be the Right and the Best. Letters on Yoga, p. 1434 Apart from the individual difficulty there is a general difficulty in the physical earth-nature. Physical nature is slow and inert and unwilling to change; its tendency is to be still and take long periods of time for a little progress. It is very difficult for even the strongest mental or vital or even ...
... physical mind to be obstinate. Physical nature exists by constant repetition of the same thing — only a constant presentation of different forms of itself. This obstinate recurrence is therefore part of its Page 4 nature when it is in activity; otherwise it remains in a dull inertia. When therefore we want to get rid of the old movements of physical nature, they resist by this kind... of mental work. But psychologically it influenced me heavily in any spiritual pursuits. This difficulty becomes more complicated when one is made to deal with the second aspect of physical Nature, namely the universal. For this recurring movement, once more let me quote a letter of Sri Aurobindo's, written to another disciple. However, it should be noted that here he speaks only of one... kind of obstinate recurrence. One has to be very persistent in rejection to get rid of it. "There are two aspects of physical Nature as of all Nature — the individual and the universal. All things come into one from the universal nature — but the individual physical keeps some of them and rejects others, and to those it keeps it gives a personal form. So these things can be said to be both ...
... has to keep it before his eye and repress any tendency towards a substantial departure from it or any motion to yield his first allegiance to a subtler spirit. His imagination submits itself to physical Nature even when he brings in conceptions which are more properly of another kingdom, the stress of the physical world is always with him, and the Seer of the subtle, the creator of mental forms, the... rūpabheda , and belong to the vision of some intermediate world of sheer fantasia. His art has discovered the rule of proportion, arrangement and perspective which preserves the illusion of physical Nature and he relates his whole design to her design in a spirit of conscientious obedience and faithful dependence. His imagination is a servant or interpreter of her imaginations, he finds in the o... imagination working on the outward sense appeal and other beauty is only brought in by association into that frame. The truth of correspondence he depends upon is a likeness to the creations of physical Nature and their intellectual, emotional and aesthetic significances, and his work of line and wave of colour are meant to embody the flow of this vision. The method of this art is always a transcript ...
... state that seemed to be the exact opposite of what we call the natural state, the state of the world of Nature, and yet which belonged to the physical world. Perhaps a new physical Nature? It is obvious that the physical Nature that controls the fish and that which controls man are very different, and yet they are the same. All the functions that worked naturally—that is, in accord with the laws of... physical way of breathing that makes for a certain death or decrepitude, and another way that makes for life without death and decrepitude? If the latter way or breathing environment settles in physical Nature (I really mean another mode of breathing, made of something other than oxygen and nitrogen), there is truly no problem of transformation anymore, it is a “secondary consequence,” as Mother says;... things, the so-called catastrophes or calamities or mishaps or difficulties or how they all come JUST at the right moment to help you—JUST when it's needed to help you. You see, everything in the physical nature that still belonged to the old world and its habit and ways of doing and being and acting, all that couldn't be handled in any other way than this: by illness. It certainly was interesting. 24 ...
... —that to physical Nature in her first power life itself with its starts and deviations and stumblings and sufferings is a sin against her law of sure physical harmony and exact measure and much Page 391 more mind with its daring, its sin of boundless adventure, its final yearnings towards the unmeasured, the above-law, the infinite. But in fact all that the godhead of physical Nature is concerned... and evil and their results, itself beyond good and evil. And what is this but to say that the universal Being escapes from our ethical limitations and is a supramoral, appearing to us here in physical Nature as an infra-moral, Infinite? Now, that a conscious Infinite is there in physicalNature, we are assured by every sign, though it is a consciousness not made or limited like ours. All her con... law or justice. No law of Karma, the moral law included, could exist, if there were not to begin with this principle as the first foundation of order. What then is the relation of man to this physical Nature, man this soul intervening in and physically born of her in a body subjected to her law of action? what his function as something that is yet more than her, a life and a mind and a spirit? what ...
... intellectual, ethical or aesthetic life or the sum of their motives upon the vital and physical nature, to be satisfied with a partial domination or a compromise, so it is possible to superimpose the spiritual life or some figure of strength or ascendency of spiritual ideas and motives on the mental, vital and physical nature and either to impoverish the latter, to impoverish the vital and physical existence... spiritual self and spiritual nature that will use the mental being which we already are, but the mental being spiritualised, and transform by a spiritual ideality the aim and action of our vital and physical nature. For this is the formula of man in his highest potentiality, and safety lies in tending towards our highest and not in resting content with an inferior potentiality. To follow after the highest... be effective it has to convert itself into a spiritual realism which shall lay its hands on the higher reality of the spirit and take up for it this lower reality of our sensational, vital and physical nature. This upward transference of our will to be and our power of life we have, then, to make the very principle of our perfection. That will, that power must choose between the domination of the ...
... to health and the refusal of assent to the suggestions that bring or prolong its opposite. Page 549 All illnesses are obviously due to the imperfect nature of the body and the physical nature. The body can be immune only when it is open to the higher consciousness and the latter can descend into it. Till then what he writes is the remedy—if he can also call in the force to throw out... has come, as something that had to be passed through in the course of experience. But to accept and enjoy it means to help it to last and that will not do; for illness is a deformation of the physical nature just as lust, anger, jealousy etc. are deformations of the vital nature and error and prejudice and indulgence of Page 565 falsehood are deformations of the mental nature. All these... and illness is the price it pays for its inertia and ignorance. It has to learn to answer to the one Force alone, but that is not easy for it to learn. It is a weakness and inertia in the physical nature which makes it undergo and acquiesce in the attacks of illness, instead of refusing and repelling them. That is the character of the material physical in all. It can only be remedied by the Force ...
... it altogether an undivine and obscure Nature. Apart from the supreme call, the natural push of the spiritual part in us to return to its own highest element and status, this aspect of vital and physical Nature as an impediment to pure spirituality is a compelling reason for asceticism, for illusionism, for the tendency to other-worldliness, the urge towards withdrawal from life, the passion for a pure... necessary intuitive, instinctive and subliminal formations are overlaid with the structures erected by a growing force of reason and mental intelligence. As man discovers the secrets and processes of physical Nature, he moves more and more away from his early recourse to occultism and magic; the presence and felt influence of gods and invisible powers recedes as more and more is explained by natural workings... and in a simple but significant ritual. At the same time the strong spiritual nucleus became mixed, diluted, alloyed; it tended to be invaded and aped by the lower elements of mind and life and physical nature. It was this mixture and alloy and invasion of the spurious, this profanation of the mysteries and the loss of their truth and significance, as well as the misuse of the occult power that comes ...
... Prakriti, Soul and Nature,—some basic poise in one or other of its own cosmic principles. Poised in the principle of Matter, it becomes the physical self of a physical universe in the reign of a physical Nature. Spirit is then absorbed in its experience of Matter; it is dominated by the ignorance and inertia of the tamasic Power proper to physical existence. In the individual it becomes a materialised... its matter-bound life and mind, with at most some limited spiritual glimpses, as the whole truth of existence. Page 466 Man is a spirit, but a spirit that lives as a mental being in physical Nature; he is to his own self-consciousness a mind in a physical body. But at first he is this mental being materialised and he takes the materialised soul, annamaya puruṣa , for his real self He is... by Prakriti, the Soul standing back from Nature. There may come Page 467 indeed some divine dynamic manifestation in him, but it cannot rise entirely above the heavy limitations of physical Nature. The peace of the silent and passive Self is more easily attainable and he can more easily and fully hold it; too difficult for him is the bliss of an infinite activity, the dynamis of an immeasurable ...
... 9 And was it not their aim to transform Matter, a process that necessarily demands a continuous attention to it and a direct knowledge of it? But: “Neither the laws nor the possibilities of physical Nature can be entirely known unless we know also the laws and possibilities of supraphysical Nature; therefore the development of new and the recovery of old mental and psychic sciences have to follow... d observer, has been the foundation of all profound thinking; more important, it has been the foundation of all spiritual realisation and knowledge. “Neither the laws nor the possibilities of physical Nature can be entirely known unless we know also the laws and possibilities of supraphysical Nature; therefore the development of new and the recovery of old mental and psychic sciences have to follow... deeper and greater things or subject them to the intelligent will as it has succeeded in explaining and canalising, though still imperfectly, yet with much show of triumphant result, the forces of physical Nature … In this limited use of the reason subjected to the rule of an immediate, an apparent vital and physical practicality man cannot rest long satisfied. For his nature pushes him towards the heights; ...
... to do is to exert a central will for the opening of the physical nature to the Mother's Light and Force. It will mean, in practice, the projection of a part of our most developed consciousness, and an infusion of its will and aspiration into the physical nature. The result may not be very encouraging at the beginning, for, the physical nature may repel the advances of the higher consciousness and refuse... The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo CHAPTER XVI THE PHYSICAL NATURE AND ITS PURIFICATION PART II No purification of the physical being can be complete unless it deals effectively and radically with the subconscient and the inconscient; for, as I have already said, the roots of our physical being lie in them, and most... strong and sustained action to progress there."¹ The next thing to do is to call down the Mother's ¹ On Yoga—II. by Sri Aurobindo. Page 277 Light and Force into the physical nature including the body and its constituent cells, and steadily direct them to its subconscient and inconscient bases below. "The light brings the consciousness of what is there; the force has ...
... of heavenly bodies & forces of physical Nature. But neither of these theories is so demonstrably right, that other hypotheses are debarred from appearing and demanding examination. Such a new hypothesis I wish to advance in the present volume. The gods of the Veda are in my view Nature Powers, but Powers at once of moral & of physical Nature, not of physical Nature only; moreover their moral aspect... of the Rigveda were indeed, as the European scholars have seen, masters of the Nature-Powers, but not, as they erroneously theorise, either exclusively or even mainly masters of the visible & physical Nature-Powers. They presided over and in their nature & movement were also & more predominantly mental Nature-Powers, vital Nature-Powers, even supra-mental Nature-Powers. The religion of the Vedic Rishis... historic or even the literary period, at an epoch therefore that might conceivably correspond with the Vedic period, many of the deities of the Greek heavens had a double character, the aspect of physical Nature-powers and the aspect of moral Nature-powers. The indications, therefore,—for they are not proofs,—even of Comparative Mythology would justify us in inquiring whether a similar double character ...
... which you complain are normal to the physical nature. It is the same thing acting in a different way which makes X rebellious to advice and full of irritation and bad temper when her mistakes are shown to her. The physical nature of almost everybody is like that, intolerant, easily irritated, lacking in patience when dealing with others. But this physical nature can be replaced and changed by the psychic... character. You should not allow yourself to be discouraged by any persistence of the movements of the lower nature. There are some that tend always to persist and return until the whole physical nature is changed by the transformation of the most material consciousness; till then their pressure recurs—sometimes with a revival of their force, sometimes more dully—as a mechanical habit. Take from... level, you let yourself go for a time, removing much of the control, hence now you find a difficulty in reestablishing it,—due to the habit of automatic repetition which is a characteristic of the physical nature. You have now to get the control in a different way by the reestablishment of the peace and building the higher consciousness upon it, the spiritual control replacing that of mental tapasya. ...
... which has been always standing in the way and is now isolated in an extreme prominence, is seated or at least is at present concentrated in the lower vital being. I mean that part of the vital-physical nature with its petty and obstinate egoism which actuates the external human personality,—that which supports its surface thoughts and dominates its habitual ways of feeling, character and action. I am... straightforward cannot profit by the Mother's help, for they themselves turn it away. Unless they change, they cannot hope for the descent of the supramental Light and Truth into the lower vital and physical nature; they remain stuck in their own self-created mud and cannot progress. Often it is not mere exaggeration or a false use of the imagination embroidering on the actual truth that is marked in the... complaint of a unity that is lacking or an empty dryness and denial of nearness. A time comes when after a long preparation of the mind and vital being, it becomes necessary to open also the physical nature. But when that happens, very often the vital exaltation which can be very great when the experience is on its own plane, falls away and the obscure, obstructive physical and material consciousness ...
... highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties." I don't understand the last part. Which words exactly don't you understand? "And opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature." Handle victoriously!... You don't know what this means? ( Pavitra re-reads the sentence which... has the English? I. Read it, read your English! "... and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical nature and annihilate its difficulties." Opening from below? ( Long silence ) This can mean allowing the force which is hidden at the core of matter to manifest itself. It gives the idea of the ...
... consciousness. For there is an inertia in the physical nature that does not easily allow the intensity natural to the higher consciousness to remain constant,—the physical is always sinking back to something more ordinary; the higher consciousness and its force have to work long and come again and again before they can become constant and normal in the physical nature. Do not be disturbed or discouraged by... human nature. Even the best sadhaks have these periods of suspension of the sadhana, of nothing happening, of the absence of the urge of the inner being. It is when some difficulty arises in the physical nature that has to be dealt with or when a pause has to be made for a veiled preparation, or for some similar reason. Even when the working of the sadhana is in the mind or vital which are more plastic ...
... Chapter VIII The Physical Consciousness The Physical Consciousness and Its Parts The physical consciousness is that part which directly responds to physical things and physical Nature, sees the outer only as real, is occupied with it—not like the thinking mind with thought and knowledge, or like the vital with emotion, passion, subtler satisfaction of desire. If this part is... subconscient processes. But the body consciousness itself is only part of the individualised physical consciousness in us which we gather and build out of the secretly conscious forces of universal physical Nature. There is the universal physical consciousness of Nature and there is our own which is a part of it, moved by it, and used by the central being for the support of its expression in the physical... the being is the greatest part of human self-development, civilisation and culture. The vital physical on the other hand is the vehicle of the Page 202 nervous responses of our physical nature; it is the field and instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of all kinds to the impacts of the outer physical and gross material life. This vital physical part (supported by the ...
... when it is thrown out from the vital physical and most physical that it is conquered. The sexual sensations do not "become" a principle of the physical consciousness—they are there in the physical nature already—wherever there is conscious life, the sex-force is there. It is physical Nature's main means of reproduction and it is there for that purpose. The sexual impulse is its own reason... force except for the more animal natures. If the physical centre also is freed, then the sex-impulse ceases. It [ sexual desire ] is the habitual mechanical response to the sexforce in the physical nature. It gets this intensity in spite of the mind's rejection because something in the vital physical (nervous) being still remembers and responds to the suggestion of the craving and the pleasure.... for Raja and Hatha yogas. It is also not demanded from Grihastha yogis. In this Yoga the position is that one must overcome sex, otherwise there can be no transformation of the lower vital and physical nature; all physical sexual connection should cease, otherwise one exposes oneself to serious dangers. The sex-push must also be overcome but it is not a fact that there can be no sadhana or no experience ...
... truth of good and evil. It might be objected that physical evil, such as pain and most bodily suffering, is independent of knowledge and ignorance, of right and wrong consciousness, inherent in physical Nature: but, fundamentally, all pain and suffering are the result of an insufficient consciousness-force in the surface being which makes it unable to deal rightly with self and Nature or unable to assimilate... Matter, it is not impossible that on their own planes they should form conscious beings whose subtler substance is invisible to us or that they should be able to act from those planes on beings in physical Nature. Whatever reality or mythical unreality we may attach to the traditional figures of past human belief or experience, they would then be representations of things that are true in principle. In... is an expedient, not a solution: man remains always what he is and has ever been, a mixture of good and evil, sin and virtue, a mental ego with an imperfect command over his mental, vital and physical nature. The endeavour to select, to retain from our consciousness and action all that seems to us good and reject all that seems to Page 648 us evil and so to re-form our being, to reconstitute ...
... the physical existence. This greater knowledge and wider hold of all existence will enormously increase the power of instrumentation of the gnostic being on his surroundings and on the world of physical Nature. In the Self-Existence of which supermind is the dynamic Truth-consciousness, there can be no aim of being except to be, no aim of consciousness except to be conscious of being, no aim Page... acceptance of material Nature. That is possible, indeed, only if there is a changed communion of the Spirit with Matter, a control, a reversal of the present balance of interaction which allows physical Nature to veil the Spirit and affirm her own dominance. In the light of a larger knowledge Matter also can be seen to be the Brahman, a self-energy put forth by the Brahman, a form and substance of Brahman;... flow into the body and inundate cell and tissue; a luminous materialisation of this higher Ananda could of itself bring about a total transformation of the deficient or adverse sensibilities of physical Nature. An aspiration, a demand for the supreme and total delight of existence is there secretly in the whole make of our being, but it is disguised by the separation of our parts of nature and their ...
... its force of dynamic effectuation Thus, whatever be the degree or status of the subjective spiritual illumination of the sadhaka, this substance of Inconscience constituting his body and physical nature cannot but circumscribe and diminish "the sovereignty and freedom and dynamism of the Spirit with its own force of adjustment by limitation, demarcation by incapacity, foundation of energy on the... our inner and higher consciousness is not sufficient for the physical transformation; for that to be made feasible there must come about a dynamic descent of the higher consciousness in to our physical nature and, at the same time or subsequent to it, a luminous awakening from with in evoked in the very bosom of the body-consciousness itself. Now, it so happens that it is only the supramental... "miraculous" or "irrational" here. Indeed, as Sri Aurobindo has pointed out: "What seems to us supernatural is in fact either a spontaneous irruption of the phenomena of other-Nature into physical Nature or... a possession of the knowledge and power of the higher orders or grades of cosmic Being and Energy and the direction of their forces and processes towards the production of effects in the ...
... Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, pp. 45-46. 3 The Life Divine, p. 261. Page 17 that the disabilities of the human body and the animal frailties of man's physical nature will not be there for all time to come. These are in no way innate to animate Matter nor are they inexorable; they are rather of the nature of passing phenomena appearing in the as yet imperfect... which would meet, assimilate or harmonise with itself all the forces of existence, that surround and press upon the body". 2 Also, "the present balance of interaction which allows physical Nature to veil the Spirit and affirm her own dominance" 3 will be reversed and in "the changed communion of the Spirit with Matter" 4 , in the new relation between the Spirit and the body it inhabits... into the body and inundate cell and tissue; a luminous materialisation of this higher Ananda [would] of itself bring about a total transformation of the deficient or adverse sensibilities of physical Nature." 2 The physical body of man will thus undergo a divine transfiguration and shine in the glories of "a pure and spiritualised physical existence". 3 And finally, as if to crown ...
... are thoroughly and permanently cleaned. There is a feeling of the Mother's Force having Page 59 entered into my physical nature and now working there. Is it correct? There is a pressure on the physical nature to admit the Force. When the tamas and rajas are driven out, one is in a sattwic state. But if the tamas enters again into this state... that feels strange when it gets the transcript of the experience. The year 1934 It is not necessary to have committed anything— the obstacles of vital and physical Nature are sufficient to bring a pause. One has to remain quiet during the pause and not allow vital disappointment and depression. The true passivity does not lead to inactivity — but the physical ...
... criticism. To say that Indian philosophy has led away from the study of nature is to state a gross unfact and to ignore the magnificent history of Indian civilisation. If by nature is meant physical Nature, the plain truth is that no nation before the modern epoch carried scientific research so far and with such signal success as India of ancient times. That is a truth which lies on the face of history... or sharing at once in the vast modern development of scientific knowledge. But this was not due to any increase or intolerance of the metaphysical tendency calling the national mind away from physical nature. It was part of a general cessation of new intellectual activity, for philosophy too ceased to develop almost at the same time. The last great original attempts at spiritual philosophy are dated... scientists. It is true also that Indian metaphysics did not attempt, as modern philosophy has attempted without success, to read the truth of existence principally by the light of the truths of physical Nature. This ancient wisdom founded itself rather upon an inner experimental psychology and a profound psychic science, India's special strength,—but study of mind too and of our inner forces is surely ...
... physical, there is a constant struggle more or less intense between the psychic being and the physical nature. Now this was exactly your condition in the last months when you were here. Then you wanted to go because the pressure was too great, because the struggle with the restless and tamasic physical nature and the Asuric influence was too hard and continuous, because you felt very tired and needed... vital plane to the physical consciousness. Always this is accompanied by a fading of the first deep experiences and a descent to the neutral obscure inertia which is the bedrock of the unredeemed physical nature. It is there that the Light, the Power, the Ananda of the Divine has to descend and transform everything, driving away for ever all obscurity and all inertia and establishing the radiant Energy... movements and reactions and your wrong speech and acts. But to profit by our help you will have to do what you have never yet really done, at least in your external being. You will have in your physical nature itself resolutely to turn from the Asura and his ways and refuse to indulge him on any pretext in any thought, feeling, speech or action which would help him still to possess your instruments and ...
... supramental Force ... that can victoriously handle the physical Nature ..." [ p. 2 ]. Is this idea to be found anywhere in the Upanishads or Vedas? What is there in this Force which can deal with Matter, and why cannot other forces do it—for example the occult vital forces that are used to produce kāya siddhi in Hathayoga? The physical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the... illumined part of the Divine in manifestation. 14 November 1933 "... it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties ..." [ p. 2 ]. "Opening from below" means this—that the supramental force descending awakes a response from below in the earth consciousness so that it is possible... the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature—not by imposing siddhis on them, but by Page 108 creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution. I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult power can only bring siddhis of the higher plane into the individual ...
... but the physical nature has been left almost unreclaimed. Its customary habits and tendencies, its crude appetites and impulses, its mechanical reactions and responses to outward impacts have always been the disgust and despair of even the greatest of spiritual men. Hathayoga, rightly practised, gives considerable control over the physical body, but not over the whole physical nature; and even... with the Divine in life, in every movement of life, in the whole being, in the entire nature and in all its thoughts and feelings and actions; and a persistence of the obscure habits of the physical nature and the subconscient scum is absolutely incompatible with it. So long as a man is on earth, the terrestrial life is his field of achievement, and all that he gains by personal effort or by divine... tangled skein of our nature and weave out of it a flawless divine Supernature, a miracle of transfiguration. But action is the indispensable means, and without it the transformation of the physical nature is out of the question. It is not only a state of passive peace and purity that is sought for in the Integral Yoga, but a free and unhampered expression of the divine Will and a fulfilment of the ...
... The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo CHAPTER XV THE PHYSICAL NATURE AND ITS PURIFICATION PART I BY physical nature Sri Aurobindo means the physical mind, the physical part of life, called the physical-vital or nervous being, and the body. Before we enter upon the process of their purification, we had better be clear about what these terms... and release of the physical being from its own grossness. "The higher consciousness and its force have to work long and come again and again before they can become constant and normal in the physical nature."¹ Another very common experience of the sâdhaka is. that the physical mind harasses him with its swarms of mechanical thoughts during the time of meditation or concentration. These thoughts... very helpful in such cases. As soon as they step back, they can breathe freely in an atmosphere which is impervious to doubt. The purification of the physical mind, as, indeed, of the whole physical nature, depends considerably on the conquest and enlightenment of the subconscient. If a passive peace were the sole objective, the physical mind could be left to spin and buzz till it fell into a wearied ...
... but the physical nature has been left almost unreclaimed. Its customary habits and tendencies, its crude appetites and impulses, its mechanical reactions and responses to outward impacts have always been the disgust and despair of even the greatest of spiritual men. Hathayoga, righty practised, gives considerable control over the physical body, but not over the whole physical nature; and even... with the Divine in life, in every movement of life, in the whole being, in the entire nature and in all its thoughts and feelings and actions; and a persistence of the obscure habits of the physical nature and the subconscient scum is absolutely incompatible with it. So long as a man is on earth, the terrestrial life is his field of achievement, and all that Page 24 he gains by... tangled skein of our nature and weave out of it a flawless divine Supernature, a miracle of transfiguration. But action is the indispensable means, and without it the transformation of the physical nature is out of the question. It is not only a state of passive peace and purity that is sought for in the Integral Yoga, but a free and unhampered expression of the divine Will and a fulfilment of ...
... any particular variations in the sense of old morbid symptom which may recur in the body. Roga is now in all but one respect a recurrent mechanical system and not either a seated element of the physical nature nor a positive recurrent force. Ananda struggles towards permanence. Karmasiddhi is once more active. 19 April 1914 Today the sense of the Ishwara is making itself felt in movements which... time the Arogyashakti has been busy dispelling one by one the old habitual & mechanical forms of roga which still survived as unreasoned recurrences. The fever seems to be a revolt of the old physical nature intended for breaking down of the results obtained & the recovery of the system by the forces of disorder. The disorder in the subjective being has once more disappeared & universal ananda,... fluctuates between coherence & incoherence. In the physical siddhi kamananda continues to recur with a brief intensity, but its continuity is discontinued, in order, it is suggested, that the physical nature may now take it up & develop spontaneously its higher permanence. In Arogya, although there is still the strong tendency of siddhi behind, the actuality presents rather acute symptoms of asiddhi ...
... purposes both a general nature, swabhava or own being of matter and particular fixed processes of inherent self-action, the vratáni of the Veda, which present themselves to us as the eternal laws of physical Nature. But since Life is involved in Matter, things cannot rest here: the Truth within things, the pure Idea at work in the world which, secret as well as mind & life in force of matter and form of... conquer matter by matter, life by life or else to get behind both of them, discover pure mind & its powers & apply them to his eternal object. His achievements in the struggle with the laws of physical Nature on the physical plane itself are even now considerable; he has been able to seize on her physical forces & harness them to processes & results which she with all her large & gigantic movements... purposes of human construction, destruction or development. All these efforts are marked, however, by one characteristic & pregnant limitation—they proceed on the assumption that we can only master physical Nature by manipulating & turning against her laws, movements & processes which she herself has originally established for very different objects & to suit a very different status of world-existence. Even ...
... electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental, on the contrary it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less evolved towards the surface. But this also, this consciousness of vital and physical Nature is, compared with Chit, a lower and therefore... consciousness are the conscious-stuff of inferior planes in one indivisible existence. In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the Page 330 basis of our physical being, another which is that of plant-life, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around ...
... in electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental, on the contrary it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less evolved towards the surface. But this also, this consciousness of vital and physical Nature is, compared with Chit, a lower and therefore a... consciousness are the conscious-stuff of inferior planes in one indivisible existence. In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the basis of our physical being, another which is that of plant-life, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around us. All these are so much dominated ...
... vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an extraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits by which it is subjected to ordinary physical Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. In the ancient tradition of Hathayoga it has always been supposed that this conquest could be pushed so far even as to conquer to a great... of the vital forces. Pranayama, for the Hathayogin, serves a double purpose. First, it completes the perfection of the body. The vitality is liberated from many of the ordinary necessities of physical Nature; robust health, prolonged youth, often an extraordinary longevity are attained. On the other hand, Pranayama awakens the coiled-up serpent of the Pranic dynamism in the vital sheath and opens to... Hathayoga are thus striking to the eye and impose easily on the vulgar or physical mind. And yet at the end we may ask what we have gained at the end of all this stupendous labour. The object of physical Nature, the preservation of the mere physical life, its highest perfection, even in a certain sense the capacity of a greater enjoyment of physical living have been carried out on an abnormal scale. But ...
... , experiences point to, if they do not exactly denote, the physical transformation. The physical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature—not by imposing siddhis on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution. I am not aware that this... is what should happen. It [ death ] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already—it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness Page 310 and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force ...
... atom, in electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental, on the contrary it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less evolved towards the surface. But this also, this consciousness of vital and physical Nature is, compared with Chit, a lower and therefore a limited... consciousness are the conscious-stuff of inferior planes in one indivisible existence. In ourselves also there is in our subconscious being an action which is precisely that of the "inanimate" physical Nature whence has been constituted the basis of our physical being, another which is that of plant-life, and another which is that of the lower animal creation around us. All these are so much dominated ...
... on its original nature and exercised under subjection to the law and action of the physical existence and its instruments. It is this dominance of our mental and vital parts by the body and the physical nature which seems at first sight to justify the theory of the materialists that mind and life are only circumstances and results of physical force and all their operations explicable by the activities... behind the veil of our ordinary consciousness. It is only at a high stage of development that we become aware of them and even then, ordinarily, only at the back of the action of our mentalised physical nature; we do not actually live on those planes, for if we did we could very soon arrive at the conscious control of the body by the life-power and of both by the sovereign mind; we should then be able... be acquired through a heightened and widened self-consciousness and self-mastery. This may be done, on the side of Purusha, by drawing back from the physical self and its preoccupation with physical nature and through concentration of thought and will raising oneself into the vital and then into the mental self. By doing so we can become the vital being and draw up the physical self into that new ...
... soul, the Purusha, imposes its dictates on the nature. The soul, the psychic being, is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature ( manas, prāṇa, anna of the Taittiriya Upanishad). One may practise Yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the... it. But this must not be strained after or forced; it will come of itself. The psychic being not only helps openly, when it is strong and in front, but can govern the mind and vital and physical nature, give it the clear intimation of what is true and false, divine or undivine, right or wrong and repel all invasion of the hostile forces. Page 339 It is true that if the consciousness... one feels and also this Page 341 sense of the Mother being there not far away or very near. So it is a very good development of the sadhana. The Psychic and the Mental, Vital and Physical Nature The mind, life and body are the instruments for manifestation. Of course the psychic can manifest things by itself inwardly or in its own plane, but for manifestation in the physical plane the ...
... in and its force of dynamic effectuation. Thus whatever the degree or status of the subjective spiritual illumination of the sadhaka, this substance of Inconscience constituting his body and physical nature continues to circumscribe and diminish "the sovereignty and freedom and dynamism of the spirit with its own force of adjustment by limitation, demarcation by 9. Sri Aurobindo, The Life... the spirit in our inner consciousness is not sufficient for the physical transformation; for that to be possible there must come about a dynamic descent of the higher consciousness into our physical nature and a luminous awakening evoked in the very bosom of body-consciousness itself. Now, it is only the supramental Force, the 'original and final self-determining Truth-Force of the sel... powers of our being. And there is nothing "miraculous" or "irrational" here. Indeed,"what seems to us supernatural is in fact either a spontaneous irruption of the phenomena of other-Nature into physical Nature or... a possession of the knowledge and power of the higher orders or grades of cosmic Being and Energy and the direction of their forces and processes towards the production of effects in the ...
... gods, and behind it was the one Spirit or Being of which the gods were various names and personalities and powers, ekam sad viprā bahudhā vadanti.¹ These godheads were not only masters of the physical Nature but were at the same time inward divine powers. Simultaneously, they were states and energies born in our psychic being. Godheads, devas, are declared to be the guardians of truth and immortality... an. authority or seed or indication in those ancient and antique writings. It has also been claimed that the larger generalisations of Science are constantly found to apply to the truth of the physical Nature those formulas which were discovered by the Upanishadic sages in their original, and largest meaning in the deeper truth of the Spirit. The Upanishads are Vedanta, a book of knowledge, but... had a priority of discovery. It is true that the harmony that was established between philosophical truth and truth of psychology and religion was not extended in the same degree to the truth of physical Nature. But from the beginning, starting from the thought of the Veda, the Indian mind has recognised that the same general laws and powers hold in the spiritual, the psychological and the physical existence ...
... and Page 80 behind was the one Spirit or Being of which the gods were names and personalities and powers, ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti? These godheads were not only masters of physical Nature but they were at the same time inward divine powers. Simultaneously, they were also states and energies born in our psychic being. Godheads, devas, are declared to be the guardians of truth and... cannot find an authority or a seed or indication in those ancient and antique writings. It has also been claimed that the larger generalisations of Science are found to apply to the truth of the physical Nature; formulas which were discovered by the Upanishadic sages. The Upanishads are Vedanta, a book of knowledge, but knowledge understood not as a mere thinking but as a seeing with the soul and... had a priority of discovery. It is true that the harmony that was established between philosophical truth and truth of psychology and religion was not extended in the same degree to the truth of physical Nature. But from the beginning, starting from the thought of the Veda, the Indian mind had recognised that the same general laws and powers hold in the spiritual, the psychological and the physical existence ...
... be or ought to be at the very root of our education and the one thing that will give it its truly national character. Man has not been seen by the thought of India as a living body developed by physical Nature which has evolved certain vital propensities, an ego, a mind and a reason, Page 425 an animal of the genus homo and in our case of the species homo indicus , whose whole life and education... either the turn of her mind to regard man pre-eminently as a reasoning animal, or let us say, widening the familiar definition, a thinking, feeling and willing natural existence, a mental son of physical Nature, and his education as a culture of the mental capacities, or to define him as a political, social and economic being and his education as a training that will fit him to be an efficient, productive ...
... is self-aware without end or beginning. He is here the Inhabitant of all bodies, but as the unborn in every body, not limited in his consciousness by that manifestation, not identified with the physical nature which he assumes; for that is only a minor circumstance of his universal activised play of existence. Liberation, immortality is to live in this unchangeably conscious eternal being of the Purushottama... if it were not in its secret essence imperishably one with the Divine and part and parcel of his divinity: it could not be or become immortal if it were merely a creature of mental, vital and physical Nature. All existence is a manifestation of the divine Existence and that which is within us is spirit of the eternal Spirit. We have come indeed into the lower material nature and are under its influence ...
... Force, the Mother's Force and Light and openness to it that is the real capacity. This you had for a time, but as with many others it got Page 749 clouded over by the coming up of the physical nature in its full force. This clouding happens to almost everybody at that stage, but it need not be lasting. If the physical consciousness resolves to open itself, then nothing more is needed for progress... mainly bent on spiritual progress and self-perfection, then also he can take interest in the work and both feel its utility for the discovery and purification of his egoistic mental and vital and physical nature and take joy in it as a service of the Divine. 11 August 1932 Recover yourself now and proceed on your way with a deeper and truer aim in you. Your efforts at sadhana up till now have been ...
... the vital nature of man come out from his true vital being? Come out? What do you call coming out? You mean that first there was the true vital being and that this expresses itself in the physical nature, the earth nature, by the vital which we see? Yes! Mother, why is it so contradictory? Why is the external world so total a contradiction of the divine world? It is exactly the same thing... is why everything is like this. All the disorder in the universe is due to that. Sweet Mother, here it is written: "there is... a true physical being." What does this mean? There is a physical Nature which is perfectly harmonious, which has an absolutely... how to put it... yes, harmonious working, without any disorder, without disequilibrium, without any rupture of harmony, which would be ...
... being gets free, the outer follows still its fixed nature. Our Yoga can succeed only if the external man too changes, but that is the most difficult of all things. It is only by a change of the physical nature that it can be done, by a descent of the highest light into this lowest part of Nature. It is here that the struggle is going on. The internal being of most of the sadhaks Page 455 ... process because you must change your ordinary nature. This is the first condition. To break all the limits of one's mind, break all the desires of one's vital, break all the preferences of one's physical nature. After that one may hope to be in contact with the divine Will; and then, later, one must not only be in contact with it, but live integrally this Will, that is, be unified in all one's being: ...
... because the ground for contagion is there. You said that because we are here and have everything, it seems very natural to us. Why doesn't effort also come naturally? It is because the physical nature in ordinary men is, as Sri Aurobindo writes, rather tamasic. Naturally it does not make any effort. But the vital makes an effort. Only, it makes the effort usually for its own satisfaction. Yet... for yoga There are even people who have come here for yoga or at least thinking that they came for yoga and who don't make much effort, who take things easy, as they come. I don't think that the physical nature, left to itself, is spontaneously pushed into any effort. It needs a certain amount of activity, but it is very little. You see, the great thing here is that Page 430 the principle ...
... acts in this knowledge, while the psychic being supports this action and helps to transform the physical and vital plane. Mirra acts directly on the psychic being and on the emotional, vital and physical nature through the illumined psychic consciousness, while the illumined intuitions from the supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force... for the perfection of the nature and for the Yoga. Often it is those who because of the strong vital force in them are most capable of the supramental transformation of Page 330 the physical nature that have the strongest sexual impulses. All lust, the sexual act and the outward dragging impulse have to be thrown away by the sadhaka, but the power itself has to be kept and transformed into ...
... being gets free, the outer follows still its fixed nature. Our Yoga can succeed only if the external man too changes, but that is the most difficult of all things. It is only by a change of the physical nature that it can be done, by a descent of the highest light into this lowest part of Nature. It is here that the struggle is going on. The internal being of most of the sadhaks here, however imperfect... suppresses because they don't suit her. It does not greatly matter what brought you here—the important thing is to go on till the psychic truth behind all that becomes manifest. The inertia of your physical nature is only a thick crust on the surface which gives way slowly, but under the pressure it will give way. If you had some big object in the ordinary life and nothing to hope for here it might be different ...
... forces and a dynamo for their propagation; there passes from each to each a constant stream of mental and vital energies, and these run too in cosmic waves and currents no less than the forces of physical Nature. All this action is veiled from our surface mind’s direct sense and knowledge, but it is known and felt by the inner being, though only through a direct contact; when the being enters into the... Matter, it is not impossible that on their own planes they should form conscious beings whose subtler substance is invisible to us or that they should be able to act from those planes on beings in physical Nature. Whatever reality or mythical unreality we may attach to the traditional figures of past human belief or experience, they would then be representations of things that are true in principle. In ...
... sinking of continents, are the consequence of a discordant and sinful humanity and with the progress and development of the Page 37 human race a corresponding change will come about in physical Nature. How far is this true? Perhaps the truth is rather that it is one and the same movement of consciousness that expresses itself in a Nature ridden with calamities and catastrophes and in a d... level. Above them there is a consciousness which is seeking for manifestation and embodiment upon earth, and in its descent towards matter it meets everywhere the same resistance, in man and in physical Nature. All the disorder and disharmony that we see upon earth is the result of this resistance. Calamity and catastrophe, conflict and violence, obscurity and ignorance—all ills come from the same source ...
... new acts of will—everywhere. But still, as one does not see how it happens, one thinks it "quite natural", as they say. It is quite natural, but with another naturalness than that of ordinary physical Nature. Indeed, it is quite logical to say that one must be conscious of the Spirit to be able to perceive the work of the Spirit. If you are not conscious of the Spirit, how will you be able to see... the material world; and as it is material, you find it quite natural. What do you know of what Nature does, and what do you know of what the Spirit does? All that Nature does—I am speaking of physical Nature—we know very little about it, almost nothing, since we have to constantly learn things which upset all that we thought we knew before. And so, how to distinguish between what is purely the work ...
... disgusting," or even "It was wicked." And don't think that there are people to whom this rule does not apply, for you cannot live in the physical world without having a share in the physical nature, and physical nature is essentially a mixture. You will see, when you become absolutely sincere, that there is nothing in yourself that is absolutely unmixed. But it is only when you look yourself in the ...
... indispensable instrument for all action of the Divine Power on the material world and the physical nature. It is therefore only when this vital is transformed and made a pure and strong instrument of the Divine Shakti, that there can be a divine life. Then only can there be-a successful transformation of the physical nature or a free perfected divine action on the external world; for with our present means ...
... be or ought to be at the very root of our education and the one thing that will give it its truly national character. Man has not been seen by the thought of India as a living body developed by physical Nature which has evolved certain vital propensities, an ego, a mind and a reason, an animal of the genus homo and in our case of the species homo indicus, whose whole life and education must be turned... either the turn of her mind to regard man preeminently as a reasoning animal, or let us say, widening the familiar definition, a thinking, feeling and willing natural existence, a mental son of physical Nature, and his education as a culture of the mental capacities, or to define him as a political, social and economic being and his education as a training that will fit him to be an efficient, productive ...
... of the inner being in you standing back from the external nature and turned to the Light and Truth. The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealt with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration... as your very self, the abiding stuff of your consciousness—unchangeably there. Peace in the Mind, Vital and Physical Yes, certainly, there is a mental peace, a vital peace, a peace of the physical Nature. It is the peace of a higher consciousness that descends from above. Page 151 The silence and peace are there waiting to manifest. Let the mind and vital give all themselves and ...
... Spirit of Poetry To attempt to presage the future turn or development of mind or life in any of its fields must always be a hazardous venture. For life and mind are not like physical Nature; the processes of physical Nature run in precise mechanical grooves, but these are more mobile and freer powers. The gods of life and still more the gods of mind are so incalculably self-creative that even where ...
... political, economic organisation of mankind in aggregates of smaller or greater size is a work which belongs at its basis to the same order of phenomena as the creation of vital organisms in physical Nature. It uses, that is to say, primarily external and physical methods governed by the principles of physical life-energy intent on the creation of living forms, although its inner object is to deliver... life-interdependence and commercial close-connection of mankind, and the attendant problem of the unification of mankind already overshadows the unfulfilled dream of the unification of Europe. In physical Nature vital organisms cannot live entirely on themselves; they live either by interchange with other vital organisms or partly by that interchange and partly by devouring others; for these are the processes ...
... succeeded in explaining and canalising, though still imperfectly, yet with much show of triumphant result, the forces of physical Nature. But these other powers are much larger, subtler, deeper down, Page 109 more hidden, elusive and variable than those of physical Nature. The whole difficulty of the reason in trying to govern our existence is that because of its own inherent limitations ...
... the human existence will come not through material efficiency alone or the complex play of his vital and dynamic powers, not solely by mastering through the aid of the intellect the energies of physical Nature for the satisfaction of the life-instincts, which can only be an intensification of his present mode of existence, but through the greatening of his mental and psychic being and a discovery, bringing... for discovery within us. It would see in life an opportunity for the joy and power of knowledge, for the joy and power of beauty, for the joy and power of the human will mastering not only physical Nature, but vital and mental Nature. It might discover her secret yet undreamed-of mind-powers and life-powers and use them for a freer liberation of man from the limitations of his shackled bodily life ...
... not only in the tradition of the past but maintained by the witness of the present. But there is here still the necessity of a resort to the normal means of propagation and the gross method of physical Nature. A purely occult method, a resort to supraphysical processes acting by supraphysical means for a physical result would have to be possible if we are to avoid this necessity: the resort to the sex... Tantrics, meets the Brahman and is liberated into the Divine Being. These centres are closed or half-closed within us and have to be opened before their full potentiality can be manifested in our physical nature: but once they are opened and completely active, no limit can easily be set to the development of their potencies and the total transformation to be possible. But what would be the result of ...
... portion of the Page 56 Divine. When there is the full consciousness, the Jivatman and the psychic being join together. The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also. The base of the material consciousness here is not only the Ignorance, but the Inconscience—that is, the... its evolution; its growth marks the stage which the spiritual evolution of the individual has reached and its immediate possibilities for the future. It stands behind the mental, the vital, the physical nature, grows by their experiences, carries the consciousness from life to life. It is the psychic Person, caitya puruṣa . At first it is veiled by the mental, vital and physical parts, limited by them ...
... indispensable instrument for all action of the Divine Power on the material world and the physical nature. It is therefore only when this vital is transformed and made a pure and strong instrument of the Divine Shakti, that there can be a divine life. Then only can there be a successful transformation of the physical nature or a free perfected divine action on the external world; for with our present means ...
... feelings of men are controlled by their Prakriti, and mostly by the vital and physical nature. The body is the instrument of the Prakriti or Nature—it obeys its own nature or it obeys the vital forces of desire, passion, etc. But man has also a mind and, as he develops, he learns to control his vital and physical nature by his reason and by his will. This control is very partial: for the reason is ...
... endure for ever. MAHASARASWATI is the Mother's Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature. Maheshwari lays down the large lines of the worldforces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail... and personalities and follows that she may transform them the way of the seeking mind, the way of the aspiring psychic, the way of the battling vital, the way of the imprisoned and suffering physical nature. There are conditions that have been laid down by a Supreme Will, there are many tangled knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura and Rakshasa hold this evolving ...
... human nature, Agni stands in two relations. Divine force in us is purity & to the soul that is pure both mental & physical nature become harmonious, amical, like two friends and helpful playfellows. Divine force in us is also mastery & enjoyment; to the strong soul mental & physical nature become like wives submitted to its command for action and demand on their delight. They are his common wives, common ...
... rabble of their Olympus. Hence the charm and versatility of Greek civilisation; hence also its impermanence as a separate culture. The Romans also confused the Eternal with His manifestations in physical Nature, but they read Him on the side not of beauty but of force governed by law; the stern and orderly restraint which governs the Universe, was the feature in Nature's economy which ruled their thought... light and temporary superstructure. To all this Hindu thought gives a direct denial. It claims to have discovered means of investigating psychical life as thoroughly as Science can investigate physical nature and in the light of its investigations it declares that soul exists before body and outlasts it. It is physical life that is an evolution from psychical, and no more than a later and temporary ...
... sacrifice she creates expression for the thought of the soul" and gives us the universal birth in all that is born. The Vedic Rishis, inspired poets penetrated with the beauty and glory of physical Nature, could not fail to make the most of the figures given to them by this splendid and attractive symbol of the earthly dawning, so that if we read carelessly or with too much attachment to the poetical... have committed against their vast oneness, purity, harmony so that he can hope to enjoy the wide and fearless Light and the long nights shall not come upon him. That the Vedic gods are no mere physical Nature-powers, but the psychic conscious forces behind and within all cosmic things, is made clear enough by the connection between their cosmic character and this deliverance from sin and falsehood, ...
... ego-building is only a provisional device of the Consciousness-Force in things so that the secret individual, the spirit within, may establish a representative and instrumental formation of itself in physical nature, a provisional individualisation in the nature of the Ignorance, which is all that can at first be done in a world emerging out of a universal Inconscience. Our self-ignorance and our world-ignorance... forces and a dynamo for their propagation; there passes from each to each a constant stream of mental and vital energies, and these run too in cosmic waves and currents no less than the forces of physical Nature. All this action is veiled from our surface mind's direct sense and knowledge, but it is known and felt by the inner being, though only through a direct contact; when the being enters into the ...
... Aurobindonian yoga has never been plenarily envisaged. On 11.9.1936 he wrote to a disciple: "The physical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature - not by imposing Siddhis on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the Supramental being in a new evolution. I am not aware that ...
... even in the cells of my body? The physical nature is obscure and recalcitrant everywhere; it is very difficult for it to become conscious of the divine Presence. That is why we must be patient and keep on aspiring with the certitude of Victory. My blessings are always with you. 25 June 1935 Each victory we win over the obscure physical Nature is the promise of a greater one to come ...
... the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to the man, starts in the latter from the subhuman; he has to take up into him the animal and even the mineral and vegetable: they constitute his physical nature, they dominate his vitality, they have their hold upon his mentality. His proneness to many kinds of inertia, his readiness to vegetate, his attachment to the soil and clinging to his roots,... being is part of the knowledge necessary for transcending them. Life and the body have to be exceeded, but they have also to be utilised and perfected. Neither the laws nor the possibilities of physical Nature can be entirely known unless we know also the laws and possibilities of supraphysical Nature; therefore the development of new and the recovery of old mental and psychic sciences have to follow ...
... the past and has been acquired by some of them, but our own Yoga is not satisfied by mere vision. We must have power to control those forces. It is possible to know the physical nature of outside things by means of our physical nature, their vital nature by our vital nature, and their mental nature by our mental nature and their supramental nature by our supramental nature. It is possible also to know ...
... as something permanent and insuperable? The Seer-Vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother assures us on the contrary that the disabilities of the body and the animal frailties of physical nature need not and will not be there for all time to come. For, the terrestrial manifestation being progressive and evolutionary, the present spectacle of earth-life afflicted with its heavy load... t of consciousness in which its transfiguration by a perfect self-discovery becomes possible. The real sense of man's progress does not lie in a mere restatement in different terms of what physical Nature has already accomplished. Nor can the ideal of human life be simply the animal repeated on a higher scale of mentality. Indeed, "Man has seen that there can be a higher status of consciousness ...
... that man is not just a living body somehow developed by physical nature which has evolved in him certain vital propensities, an ego, a mind and a reason. Man is not pre-eminently just a reasoning animal of the genus homo, nothing more than a thinking, feeling and willing natural existence, a mere mental product of inconscient physical Nature. For if such is the view we take of man — and this view ...
... progress come always spontaneously, especially for us who are here in the Ashram? It is because the physical nature in man is usually tamasic. Effort is natural to the vital. But the vital generally makes the effort for its own satisfaction. I do not think that the physical nature left to itself moves spontaneously in the direction of effort; it needs some activity but of a subdued kind ...
... we progress and awaken to the soul in us and things, we shall realize that there is a consciousness also in the plant, in the metal, in the atom, in electricity, in everything that belongs to physical nature; we shall find even that it is not really in all respects a lower or more limited mode than the mental; on the contrary, it is in many "inanimate" forms more intense, rapid, poignant, though less... patiently, gradually colonize and adjoin the outer kingdom to it. If we are interested in a realization here on earth, all our mental and vital activities, and, as we will see, even our entire physical nature, must be integrated around the new center. It is on this condition that they will survive: only those activities that are "psychicized" will participate in the psychic immortality. Anything ...
... be or ought to be at the very root of our education and the one thing that will give it its truly national character. Man has not been seen by the thought of India as a living body developed by physical Nature which has evolved certain vital propensities, an ego, a mind and a reason, an animal of the genus and in our case of the species homo indicus, whose whole life and education must be turned towards... either the turn of her mind to regard man pre-eminently as a reasoning animal, or let us say, widening the familiar definition, a thinking, feeling and willing natural existence, a mental son of physical Nature, and his education as a culture of the mental capacities, or to define him as a political, social and economic being and his education as a training that will fit him to be an efficient, productive ...
... and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which are waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. 4 The whole push to Yoga commences because... In one of her talks, the Mother showed the flower - Aspiration in the Physical for the Divine's Love - and explained that such aspiration should exclude all the lower forms of love. In itself, physical nature is but a darkness, and without the light of the psychic its education cannot start. The Mother's clear guideline is that the sadhak should first tackle this native darkness of the physical: ...
... inner being in you standing back from the external nature and turned to the Light and Truth." "The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealth with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration... with the integral Divine and the manifestation of the Divine in Matter. So far as I know, no Yoga, Eastern and Western, ancient and modern, has ever had this goal in view. Transformation of the physical nature of man; integral, dynamic union with the Divine in earthly life ; creation of a new humanity and the establishment of the Life Divine are some of the new revolutionary realisations, hardly ever ...
... guide and the goal; and the solemn words of Sri Aurobindo rang in their hearts : "A day may come when she must stand unhelped * "Mother has taken the body because a work of a physical nature (i.e. including a change in the physical world) has to be done.."—Sri Aurobindo. Page 379 On a dangerous brink of the world's doom and hers, Carrying the world’s future on... at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; ...
... securely established on earth, it is essential, as a pre-condition, that Matter should be transmuted into the luminous substance of the divine existence from which it is derived, and that the physical nature of man should, in consequence, be definitively freed from the dark density, inertia and insensibility which are its heritage from its inconscient origin. Physical transformation by means of... bearing on the life of the subsequent Western mystics. Besides, the question of the manifestation of God in Matter has hardly ever seriously exercised the thought of Western mysticism. That the physical nature of man, which has its roots in the murky depths of the Inconscient and most of its motive forces in the obscure welter of the Subconscient, can be, not only purified, but completely converted ...
... securely established on earth, it is essential, as a pre-condition, that Matter should be transmuted into the luminous substance of the divine existence from which it is derived, and that the physical nature of man should, in consequence, be definitively freed from the dark density, inertia and insensibility which are its heritage from its inconscient origin. Physical transformation by means of the... subsequent Western mystics. Besides, the question of the manifestation of God in Matter has hardly ever seriously exercised the Page 337 thought of Western mysticism. That the physical nature of man, which has its roots in the murky depths of the Inconscient and most of its motive forces in the obscure welter of the Subconscient, can be, not only purified, but completely converted ...
... of the common day, leaving but a memory of a splendour and a sublimity never to be achieved on this petty planet of our brief habitation? * Mother has taken the body because a work of a physical nature (i.e. including a change in the physical world) has to be done..." —Sri Aurobindo Page 62 What reply did the inmates of the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo give to these eager ... at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; ...
... certain of nothing;—all the rest is appearance, asseveration or opinion. We can know things as they seem to be in the order of the physical Nature in which they live; by the reason we cannot be sure what anything is, in itself, in that order of realities of which physical Nature is only the external seeming. Therefore the last refuge of reason, when it becomes conscious of its blunder, is to deny that such ...
... introscopic instruments. Even if these are found, the most dangerous, intricate, difficult & varied experiments will be necessary; for mind is infinitely more elusive & elastic than matter. Where physical Nature confines herself rigidly & stubbornly to a single process, psychical Nature uses, versatilely & intricately, a hundred. To have sufficient experience, to be sure of one's results, one must take... as our present scientific knowledge & control of the forces of Nature. But how much shall we have gained? A knowledge of constituents, processes, functions we shall have, not, any more than in physical nature, a knowledge of things in themselves. The reality & spirit of objects & forces will still escape us, leaving us only their forms & phenomena. Reason will once more find herself baffled; with regard ...
... oneself, to a Divine Person." This statement may be elaborated and set forth step by step as follows. Even when the Atman is realised in a universal poise free from the mental-vital-physical nature and there is no sense left of the ego in the inner consciousness, the ego still keeps colouring one's thoughts and impulses and activities. To erase that colour there must be in wake of the... movement of love for the Personal Divine takes charge of one, the dynamic freedom from the ego occurs. Even if the Atman is not realised, the Psychic Being in full play in the mental-vital-physical nature can remove the twisting and turning ego by its spontaneous self-surrender to the Supreme Lord, the Eternal Mother. And this self-surrender will be most genuine, complete and effective — that ...
... sness itself. In one of the Vedic Riks we have the description of Agastya digging into the darkness of the Night, khanan as it says. But the Rishi found it difficult to deal with the physical nature. He could not bring light to it. His body was afflicted with a triple poison and could not bear the sunlight. It was like an unbaked clay-pot, atapta tanu. Similarly, Vamadeva could live here... recognise the deities of the Tantra to embody their powers in us, to experience their living presence in us, to grow in them, the world of Savitri also needs to be seen as an experiential truth. If physical nature, with the character of ignorance housing death, has to be tackled then surely the powers of this New Tantra Shastra are available to the desirous soul. 9: If Savitri abounds in the ancient ...
... upon the free expression of their impulsions based on the power of force. As usual, the mind, when it is not sufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and the slave of the physical nature whose crushing laws it does not know well through their half-conscious mechanism. When the mind awakens to the consciousness of the first psychic movements, it deforms them in its ignorance and... on the little pebbles on the road because they do not draw attention. Endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and intrepedity are the qualities more specially required for the examinations of physical Nature. Aspiration, confidence, idealism, enthusiasm and generosity in self- giving for the spiritual examinations. Vigilance, sincerity and humanity for the examinations set by the adverse forces ...
... sensations, desires, external life-activities of our vital nature, a physical being, a being of the body which expresses something of itself in the instincts, habits, formulated activities of our physical nature. These beings or part selves of the self in us are powers of the Spirit and therefore not limited by their temporary expression, for what is thus formulated is only a fragment of its possibilities;... At a higher stage of the evolution of personality the being of mind may rule; there is then created the mental man who lives predominantly in the mind as the others live in the vital or the physical nature. The mental man tends to subordinate to his mental self-expression, mental aims, mental interests or to a mental idea or ideal the rest of his being: because of the difficulty of this subordination ...
... questioned. But all that cannot be for the sadhak as it is for the materialistic sceptic founded on a fixed pre-judgment that only what is normal, in consonance with the known (so-called) laws of physical nature is true and that all which is abnormal or supernormal must a priori be condemned as false. The abnormal abounds in this physical world; the supernormal is there also. In these matters, apart... consequence a division in the being; the sadhak feels within him the growth of a calm silent separate consciousness which feels itself quite apart from the surface play of the mind and the vital and physical Nature Usually when this takes place, it is possible very rapidly to bring down the peace of the higher consciousness and the action of the higher Force and the full march of the Yoga. But often the Force ...
... governing impulse. The characteristic energy of bodily Life is not so much in progress as in persistence, not so much in individual self-enlargement as in self-repetition. There is, indeed, in physical Nature a progression from type to type, from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to man; for even in inanimate Matter Mind is at work. But once a type is marked off physically, the chief immediate... of conscious change, the fixed idea of progression as a law of life. The creation by this means of progressive societies in Europe is one of the greatest triumphs of Mind over Matter. But the physical nature has its revenge; for the progress made tends to be of the grosser and more outward kind and its attempts at a higher or a more rapid movement bring about great wearinesses, swift exhaustions, startling ...
... preparatory purification of the mental, vital and physical nature, a liberation from the knots of the lower Prakriti, a consequent replacement of the egoistic state always subject to the ignorant and troubled action of the desire soul by a large and luminous static equality which quiets the reason, the emotional mind, the life mind and the physical nature and brings into us the peace and freedom of the ...
... from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to the man, starts in the latter from the subhuman; he has to take up into him the animal and even the mineral and vegetable: they constitute his physical nature, they dominate his vitality, they have their hold upon his mentality. His proneness to many kinds of inertia, his readiness to vegetate, his attachment to the soil and clinging to his roots, to... being is part of the knowledge necessary for transcending them. Life and the body have to be exceeded, but they have also to be utilised and perfected. Neither the laws nor the possibilities of physical Nature can be entirely known unless we know also the laws and possibilities of supraphysical Nature; therefore the development of new and the recovery of old mental and psychic sciences have to follow ...
... sensations, desires, external life activities of our vital nature, a physical being, a being of the body which expresses something of itself in the instincts, habits, formulated activities of our physical nature. These beings or part selves of the self in us are powers of the Spirit and therefore not limited by their temporary expression, for what is thus formulated is only a fragment of its possibilities;... of the evolution of personality the being of mind may rule; there is then created the mental man who lives predominantly in the mind as the others live in the vital Page 932 or the physical nature. The mental man tends to subordinate to his mental self-expression, mental aims, mental interests or to a mental idea or ideal the rest of his being: because of the difficulty of this subordination ...
... the Vedic Rishis were not mere naturalistic barbarians, but had their psychological ideas and were capable of creating mythological symbols which represent not only those obvious operations of physical Nature that interested their agricultural, pastoral and open-air life, but also the inner operations of the mind and soul. If we have to conceive the history of ancient religious thought as a progression... of the vital and nervous energy, and is constantly coupled with other images that symbolise the consciousness. Adri , the hill or rock, is a symbol of formal existence and especially of the physical nature and it is out of this hill or rock that the herds of the Sun are released and the waters flow. The streams of the madhu , the honey, the Soma, are said also to be milked out of this Hill or Rock ...
... [these] 8 physical beings are in their own domain and exercising their strongest right which is to prevent any violent change in the organised habits of physical Nature. It needs Page 1443 either an exceptional action of the physical Nature itself or an action of the suggestive mental powers in abnormal circumstances liberated from the usual obstacles or a powerful influx from the supramental ...
... subjective and objective relations of our consciousness with its objects. These are the necessary powers of the field; all these are common and universal powers at once of the mental, vital and physical Nature. Pleasure and pain, liking and disliking are the principal deformations of the kshetra. From the Vedantic point of view we may say that pleasure and pain are the vital or sensational deformations... In the light of that sun of knowledge the eye of knowledge opens in us and we live in that truth and no longer in this ignorance. Then we perceive that our limitation to our present mental and physical nature was an error of the darkness, then we are liberated from the law of the lower Prakriti, the law of the mind and body, then we attain to the supreme nature of the spirit. That splendid and lofty ...
... Divine Reality is its consequence. There is too implied in it a radical change and transformation of the whole being and of every part of the nature. Our being is a nexus of the human mental-vital-physical nature of Ignorance, it is transmuted into a spiritual and supramental consciousness: it becomes a divine unity in a harmony of the infinite and universal and integrated will, love, bliss and knowledge... mind too is dominated and led by the vital powers, the strong and violent of the realm, who force it to serve their purpose and these too can only act with the means given them by the body and physical nature, the inert hardly conscious subject existence whose passive assent and docile instrumentation is yet indispensable to its rulers. This is our present constitution and it amounts to no more than ...
... the form of any woman known or unknown. These vital dreams are not interpretable unless there is an evident clue. Aunt or mother usually indicates the ordinary physical nature, a closed room would be some part of the physical nature that was not open to the light, bats would mean forces of the night, i.e. ignorant movements finding a lodging in the obscurity of the unenlightened nature. ...
... happening to you. It is the rising of old habitual thoughts, feelings, impulses in a confused way from the subconscient in a mechanical repetition. The subconscient is the basis of the ordinary physical nature and the light has to come into it also. Moreover even if the progress gained has been covered over by these things, what is once gained is not lost; it always reemerges after obscuration and one... from the lower vital downwards. But it does send up good things also though more rarely. It has in the course of the sadhana to be illumined and made a support of the higher consciousness in the physical nature instead of a basis of the instinctive lower movements. The work [ going on in the subconscient ] is of a general nature, not individual, but necessarily everyone here is to some extent affected ...
... the sole conditions under which the highest Force will descend; and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties ... There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of the... mechanical tool. Page 4 An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real surrender, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple ...
... you cannot express your emotion, but you can express it in a beautiful harmonious way. To weep or scream or dance about is always a proof of weakness, either of the vital or the mental or the physical nature; for on all these levels the activity is for self-satisfaction. One who dances and jumps and screams has the feeling that he is somehow very unusual in his excitement; and his vital nature takes... reality, and the differences belong to the superficial parts. As soon as you go deep enough, you meet something that is one in all. All meet in the Divine. The sun is the symbol of the Divine in the physical nature. Clouds may modify its appearance, but when they are no longer there, you see it is the same sun always and everywhere. If you cannot feel one with somebody, it means you have not gone deep ...
... there is a connection between the two. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Physical Consciousness The vital physical on the other hand is the vehicle of the nervous responses of our physical nature; it is the field and instrument of the smaller sensations, desires, reactions of all kinds to the impacts of the outer physical and gross material life. This vital physical part (supported by the... subconscient processes. But the body consciousness itself is only part of the individualised physical consciousness in us which we gather and build out of the secretly conscious forces of universal physical Nature. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Physical Consciousness … the body obeys the mind automatically in those things in which it is formed or trained to obey it, but the relation of ...
... activities of the Ignorance. * Page 30 The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practise Yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical... consequence a division in the being; the Sadhak feels within him the growth of a calm silent separate consciousness which feels itself quite apart from the surface play of the mind and the vital and physical Nature. Usually when this takes place, it is possible very rapidly to bring down the peace of the higher consciousness and the action of the higher Force and the full march of the Yoga. But often the ...
... the Divine. When there is the full consciousness, the Jivatman and the psychic being join together. The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation Page 16 of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also. The base of the material consciousness here is not only the Ignorance, but the Inconscience-that is... feels all that as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self. There is the universal mental, the universal vital, the universal physical Nature and it is out of a selection of their forces and movements that the individual mind, vital and physical are made. The soul comes from beyond this nature of mind, life and body. It belongs to the ...
... the sole conditions under which the highest Force will descend; and it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties.... There must be a total and sincere surrender; there must be an exclusive self-opening to the divine Power; there must be a constant and integral choice of... automaton or mechanical tool. An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real surrender, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple ...
... she has a long, tranquil face.... Ageless, neither young nor old; I don't know, ageless. And an extraordinary power in the face. ( silence ) It's the MATERIAL Nature, the physical Nature, the material physical Nature, and she said, "I've put on the dress, I've put on YOUR dress—I've put on your dress to tell you that I've adopted it." It means that material Nature has adopted the new creation ...
... about the difference between occult powers and the supramental realization. ) "The physical Nature does not mean the body alone but the phrase includes the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature—not by imposing Siddhis [occult powers] on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution. I am not aware ...
... disparity between the consciousness that comes in and the force of dynamic effectuation. Thus whatever the degree or status of the subjective spiritual illumination of the Sadhaka, his body and physical nature continue to circumscribe and diminish "the sovereignty and freedom and dynamism of the spirit with [their] own force of adjustment by limitation, demarcation by incapacity, foundation of energy... domains of the spirit in our inner consciousness is not sufficient for the physical transformation; for this to be possible there must occur a dynamic descent of the higher consciousness into our physical nature and a luminous awakening evoked therein in the very body-consciousness itself. Now, it is only the supramental Force, the original and final self-determining Truth-Force of the self-existent ...
... progress come always spontaneously, especially for us who are here in the Ashram ? It is because the physical nature in man is usually tamasic. Effort is natural to the vital. But the vital generally makes the effort for its own satisfaction. I do not think that the physical nature left to itself moves spontaneously in the direction of effort; it needs some activity but of a subdued kind. ...
... but this surrender is not to be confused with an inert passivity. As Sri Aurobindo points out: "...out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force, the obedience of the illumined disciple... highest supramental Force can descend, and as Sri Aurobindo states: "... it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties____" 61 Integral Yoga: Aspiration from Below and Grace from Above In the path of the integral yoga at the beginning and long after, the development ...
... not only in the tradition of the past but maintained by the witness of the present. But there is here still the necessity of a resort to the normal means of propagation and the gross method of physical Nature. A purely occult method, a resort 'to supraphysical processes acting by supraphysical means for a physical result would have to be possible if we are to avoid this necessity: the resort to the... Tantrics, meets the Brahman and is liberated into the Divine Being. These centres are closed or half-closed within us and have to be opened before their full potentiality can be manifested in our physical nature: but once they are opened and completely active, no limit can easily be set to the development of their potencies and the total transformation to be possible. But what would be the result of ...
... as a mental being or physical being or whatever it may be. The consciousness in me can dispose its stress in this way or the other way; it may go down into the physical and work there in the physical nature keeping all the rest behind or above for the time or it may go up into the overhead level and stand above mind, life and body seeing them as instrumental lower forms of itself or act seeing them... Page 153 human being, its divine part.'¹ " The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch yyj, the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind H vital being and the physical nature. "² "The psychic being has always been valid, consenting to the play of mind, physical and vital, experiencing everything through them in the ignorant mental, vital and physical way." ³ ...
... what is pointed out by Aswapathy in the first five cantos of the first book. The first five cantos deal with the development of Aswapathy releasing himself from the bondage of mental, vital and physical nature, realizing his true self, and then finding out the nature and function of the true spirit or true self which man is; he finds that he is not confined to the individual formula of his being. You... rational terms and also gave a process: you do the transformation of your own nature in three stages. You don't do the transformation in one stage. Human nature is mental nature, vital nature, physical nature. When it first changes, the first stage that it reaches is psychicization. The second stage it reaches is universalization or spiritualization. And the third stage it reaches is supramentalization ...
... "The scientist then found, among things left, a big book on geology – half as big as the room! – and he found the girl just behind the cover and the pages! "Thus the secret of earth, the physical nature, was symbolically given.” ² 1 June. Talk about being on the vital plane and about the visit of the Prince of Wales to India. Sri Aurobindo's remarks on Britain's offer to the Congress. 5... from Mirjapur. He saw the .¹ This means that by blind faith difficulties of the physical have been removed; but what is needed is to make this a conscious conquest and transformation of the physical nature by the power of the Spirit. . ² Cf. A.B. Purani, Evening Talks , Third Series, (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966), p. 4 Page 202 Mother for diagnosis. Sri Aurobindo ...
... the Asana is to conquer the body,—for the body must be conquered before it can become divine,—to be able to lay any command upon it and never be commanded by it. The second object was to conquer physical nature, by developing the four physical siddhis, laghima, anima, garima, mahima. By perfect laghima man can rise into the air and tread the winds as his natural element; by perfect anima he can bring ...
... Saraswati Powers of subjectiveNature, Indra not the god of rain, but a mental deity, the Aswins not twin stars, or, if stars, then lights of a sublimer heaven, the Visvadevas, gods not of general physical Nature, but supraphysical and in charge of our general subjective or subjective-objective activity. The supposition is inadmissible that the hymn is purely ritual in its body and only in-grafted with ...
... on of Karmayoga as a practical means of the higher self-realisation. We start from this foundation that the present inner life of man, almost entirely dependent as it is upon his vital and physical nature, only lifted beyond it by a limited play of mental energy, is not the whole of his possible existence, not even the whole of his present real existence. There is within him a hidden Self, of which ...
... ought logically not to touch at all; for they belong to the realm of the finite and can only be founded on the intellectual reason and the practical environment and the truths and suggestions of physical Nature. There in its native form is the apparent gulf between the two mentalities and it looks unbridgeable. Or rather the Indian mind can understand well enough, even when it does not share, the positivist ...
... to make the form and all else significant of his vision, and if that can only be done or can best be done by some modification, some pose, some touch or symbolic variation which is not found in physical Nature, he is at perfect liberty to use it, since truth to his vision, the unity of the thing he is seeing and expressing is his only business. The line, colour and the rest are not his first, but his ...
... better past or background to their thought than a crude, barbaric, naturalistic and animistic ignorance. And even the larger generalisations of Science are constantly found to apply to the truth of physical Nature formulas already discovered by the Indian sages in their original, their largest meaning in the deeper truth of the spirit. And yet these works are not philosophical speculations of the intellectual ...
... civilisation consist in man's endeavour to find that light and support in a rationalised knowledge and a rationalised way of life? An ordered knowledge of the powers, forces, possibilities of physical Nature and of the psychology of man as a mental and physical being is then the only true science. An ordered use of that knowledge for a progressive social efficiency and well-being, which will make his ...
... make a complete surrender. 10 August 1936 Conversion, Realisation and Transformation Today the Mother spoke to me of "conversion of consciousness" as distinct from "transformation of physical nature". Page 663 Pointing to me she said, as for "the conversion of consciousness, it is there". Did she mean, by implication, that all those who have gathered round Sri Aurobindo and the ...
... can say that for the majority of those who wrote, there has been a real progress. No doubt also it was not the correspondence in itself but the Force that was increasing in its pressure on the physical nature which was able to do all this, but a canalisation was needed, and this served the purpose. There were many for whom it was not necessary, others for whom it was not suitable. If it had been a mere ...
... doors open, then She rushes in immediately, the unconsciousness disappears and consciousness comes—without needing any tricks or any intermediaries. She becomes conscious. But material Nature, physical Nature is not like that, she is full of tricks; she makes you move all the time, she pulls the puppet strings; for her you are so many little dolls: she pulls the strings and makes them move. She puts ...
... of the blow on the cells, and if at the same time you have the knowledge of what these cells ought to be and how they ought to react to the blow they receive, instead of a process like that of physical nature, which takes hours or days or months to mend something that is damaged, you can do it immediately. And, in fact, this is what happens! ( After a silence ) It is all a... it is a description ...
... not so marvellous as November and I thought that during the interval I had not made much progress. The period since November has been a general period of difficulty and the resistance of the physical Nature to the change demanded of it. That is the reason why there was not the same movement as before November in you,—it is not due to any cause personal to you. 11 March 1935 Why so many illnesses ...
... why then has the Mother taken a body and why are we in Pondicherry? One can have an inner relation anywhere; there is no need of coming here. Mother has taken the body because a work of a physical nature (i.e. including a change in the physical world) had to be done. She has not come to establish a "physical relation" with people. Some have come with her to share in the work, others she has called ...
... When people practising Yoga suffer in this way, it is more often than not because there is a disharmony between the Force that is working in them and some parts of the mind and the vital and physical nature, some resistance or some unwillingness or inability to open up to it. Part of the nature opens, but part shuts itself Page 411 up and follows its own impulses and ideas; a disequilibrium ...
... the Mother organises the inner parts of the being; then she begins to work on the outer being. Does this mean that when the inner parts are brought under control, then she begins to work on the physical nature? It is the usual course, but some work is always being done in the inner parts at all times, because they are interdependent. ...
... the free expression of their impulses, which are based on the power of strength. As always, the mind, when insufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and the slave of the physical nature, whose laws, so overpowering in their half-conscious mechanism, it does not fully understand. When the mind awakens to the awareness of the first psychic movements, it distorts them in its ignorance ...
... prophetic vision. 24 October 1934 The Stone-Throwing Incident These stone-throwing or stone-producing incidents and similar extraordinary occurrences which go outside the ordinary course of physical Nature happen frequently in India and are not un known elsewhere; they are akin to what are called poltergeist phenomena in Europe. Scientists don't say or think anything of such supernormal happenings ...
... the vital the same can hardly be said. Napoleon had a strong vital, but not one organised round the psychic being. * "The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the Page 54 body. There is a mental and vital ego also." (Pp. 16-17) Does this mean that the ego is carried by the psychic as a ...
... evolves much greater motives and significances. The moral energy is in itself a distinct power, has its own plane of karma, moves me even, and that characteristically, to override my vital and physical nature. Forms of one universal Force at bottom—or at top—these may be, but in practice they are different energies and have to be so dealt with—until we can find what that universal Force may be in its ...
... they prefer to remain in their own world, powerful and mischievous, and to control earthly beings from there. For, if they do not want to be born on earth, they do want to be in contact with the physical nature, but without being bound by it. Their method is to try first to cast their influence upon a man; then they enter slowly into his atmosphere and in the end may get complete possession of him, driving ...
... and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which arc waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards ...
... only a part of the Shakti. "An inert passivity is constantly confused with the real surrender, but out of an inert passivity nothing true and powerful can come. It is the inert passivity of physical Nature that leaves it at the mercy of every obscure or undivine influence. A glad and strong and helpful submission is demanded to the working of the Divine Force...." Sri Aurobindo, The Mother ...
... Tantrics, meets the Brahman and is liberated into the Divine Being. These centres are closed or half closed within us and have to be opened before their full potentiality can be manifested in our physical nature: but once they are opened and completely active, no limit can easily be set to the development of their potencies and the total transformation to be possible.... But even these changes would still ...
... was ill, as ill as could be, it rolled under the table with all kinds of pains and was really in a very bad way, that is, it gave the men an example of the spontaneous effect of alcohol when the physical nature is not already perverted. It nearly died of poisoning. It recovered. And some time later it was again allowed to come for dinner as it was all right, and somebody placed a glass of wine in front ...
... and elsewhere the attempt to reach it by rising to it; but what was missed was the way to make it integral for the life and to bring it down for transformation of the whole nature, even of the physical nature. Page 22 ...
... Aphorism - 127 127—Law is a process or a formula; but the soul is the user of processes and exceeds formulas. The laws of Nature are imperative for the physical nature only so long as this nature is not under the influence of the psychic being (the soul); for the psychic being is in possession of the Page 241 divine power which can, for its own ends ...
... transitory and incomplete. I have looked at this very, very often. There was even a time when I thought that if one could have a total, complete and perfect knowledge of the entire working of physical Nature as we perceive it in the world of Ignorance, that might be a way to rediscover or to re-attain the truth of things. After my latest experience 1 I cannot think this any more. I do not know ...
... rung at the summit of the ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in this ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result; ...
... lifts him into her lap, he is not speaking of any outer vital or physical contact, but of an inner psychic experience; precisely, he is protesting against her keeping him in the external vital and physical nature and insists on her taking him on the psychospiritual plane into spiritual union with her. All that is very good and very beautiful, but it is not enough; the union has indeed to be realised in ...
... by mistakes in the method, (2) 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. ...
... but catches only their light and influence upon the earth life; but it is caught with a truth and intensity which makes magical the scenes and movements of the earth life and transforms light of physical nature into light of supernature. This is to say that for the first time, except for rare intimations, the middle worlds and their beings have been seen and described with something of reality and no ...
... may fail if there is a flaw in the nature or a failure to pass through all the ordeals and satisfy all the hard conditions of the perfect spiritual success. Not only the whole mental, vital and physical nature of the ignorant human being has to be overcome and transformed, but also the three states of mental consciousness which intervene between the human and the supramental and like all mind are capable ...
... The Mother is there in your heart but sleeping—i.e. her power has not become conscious in your inner consciousness because she is surrounded by the thin curtain of skin (the obscurity of the physical nature). It is this (it is not thick any longer but still effective to veil her from you) which has to go so that she may awake. It is a matter of persistence in the will and the endeavour—the response ...
... it begins to order life according to its own fashion and not according to the more instinctively supple and flexible principle of organic order inherent in life, aims necessarily at imitating physical Nature in the fixity of her uniform fundamental principles of arrangement, but tries also to give to them, as much as may be, a uniform application. It drives at the suppression of all important variations ...
... knowledge and a deeper self awareness; the utilitarian standard gives way to the aspiration towards self-consciousness and self-realisation; the rule of living according to the manifest laws of physical Nature is replaced by the effort towards living according to the veiled Law and Will and Power active in the life of the world and in the inner and outer life of humanity. All these tendencies, though ...
... divine guest. We may give the full psychological sense by translating, "Let him come, a divine power with the divine powers." For in the external sense of the Veda the Gods are universal powers of physical Nature personified; in any inner sense they must be universal powers of Nature in her subjective activities, Will, Mind, etc. But in the Veda there is always a distinction between the ordinary human or ...
... higher consciousness is superconscient to us and supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature, so the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature. Men are not ordinarily conscious of either of these planes of their own being, but by sadhana they can become aware. The subconscient retains the impressions of all our past experiences ...
... resisted by adverse powers, baulked of its perfect result by the unwillingness of the lower workings to cease, limited either in its scope or in its efficacy by the want of a complete consent in the physical nature. Probably what X calls overmind is the first "above-mind" layers of consciousness. Or it may be experiences from the larger Mind or Vital ranges. To the human mind all these are so big ...
... be. The consciousness in me can be utterly free of any sense of an individual "I" and yet dispose its stress in this way or the other way—it may go down into the physical and work there in the physical nature keeping all the rest behind or above for the time or it may go up into the overhead level and stand above mind, life and body seeing them as instrumental lower forms of itself; or it may not see ...
... spiritual impersonality, then you grow in equality, purity, peace, detachment, you get the power of living in an inner freedom not touched by the surface movement or struggle of the mental, vital and physical nature, and this becomes a great help when you have to go beyond the impersonal and to change the troubled nature also into something divine. The Divine and the Atman The Divine is more than the ...
... effectivity of the Will on the body in respect of Roga. In Utthapana & Saundarya the Will is depressed, held down and sometimes overcome. There is a general repression of the Siddhi by the physical nature, but through it all the Siddhi progresses. 24 June 1915 General intensity of premananda with occasional high intensity. The shuddhananda increases. Intense revelational-ins ...
... ignorant nature; it wants the higher consciousness to come down and occupy and transform it so that complete union may be possible. The Shakti going up from the Muladhara must be the Shakti of the physical nature. It wants transformation also, I suppose, but it has not the quiet and luminous but ardent aspiration of the psychic being—its aspiration is more troubled and tinged with unease. In your ...
... material parts) open to the Power, then to make it accustomed to respond and obey and to each physical difficulty as it arises, apply or call in the divine Power to throw out the attacking force. The physical nature is a thing of habits; it is out of habit that it responds to the forces of illness; one has to get into it the contrary habit of responding to the Divine Force only. This of course so long as a ...
... Only in the right consciousness one does not regard the weaknesses even in a too personal way so as to get discouraged. One has to see them as the play of nature, mental nature, vital nature, physical nature, common to all human beings—to see them so and remain calm and detached, calling in the Mother's force and light for transformation of this defective play into the true nature—not getting impatient ...
... things and in the same spirit. It is this constant action from the lower human motives of the ordinary consciousness which keeps people from living within and prevents the transformation of the physical nature. 22 February 1934 Today something deeper than curiosity has awakened in me. I long to know the year of the Mother's birth in order to keep it as a loving memory in my heart. Everything about ...
... allowed to approach me. The infant in the Mother's arms is the symbol of the psychic being. The soul in direct touch with the divine Truth is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature ( manas, prāṇa, anna of the Taittiriya Upanishad); one may practise Yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason, power and all kinds of experiences in the vital, even physical siddhis ...
... The intention of Nature, the spiritual justification of her ways appears at last in this turn of her energies leading the conscious soul along the lines of truth and knowledge. At first she is physical Nature building her firm field according to a base of settled truth and law but determined by a subconscient knowledge she does not yet share with her creatures. Next she is Life growing slowly self-conscious ...
... subconscient ocean below and seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends downward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension. That ascension has already been effected by the Ancients, the human forefathers, and the spirits of these great Ancestors still assist ...
... everything happens in him by the plastic conscious or subconscious or sometimes superconscious automatism of his mental and bodily instruments moved by the forces of spiritual, mental, vital and physical Nature. There is a personality on his surface that chooses and wills, submits and struggles, tries to make good in Nature or prevail over Nature, but this personality is itself a construction of Nature ...
... rejection, but by this assumption and domination, this taking up of its unfulfilled values, this restatement and transformation,—a spiritualising and supramentalising of the mental, vital and physical nature. The terrestrial ideal, which has been so powerful in the modern mind, restored man and his life on earth and the collective hope of the race to a prominent position and created an insistent demand ...
... Matter, we who are not yet liberated from the conditions and effects of that involution of spirit in form, that plunge of Light into its own shadow by which the darkened material consciousness of physical Nature was created. The type of all perfection towards which we grow, the terms of our highest evolution must already be held in the divine Real-Idea; they must be there formed and conscious for us to ...
... consciousness embracing, utilising and transforming into harmony with the Divine all individual determinations. We have then the manifestation of the divine Conscious Being in the totality of physical Nature as the foundation of human existence in the material universe. We have the emergence of that Conscious Being in an involved and inevitably evolving Life, Mind and Supermind as the condition of ...
... which he has to disengage some supreme order and some yet unrealised harmony. This is after all the real sense of man's progress. It is not merely a restatement in slightly different terms of what physical Nature has already accomplished. Nor can the ideal of human life be simply the animal repeated on a higher scale of mentality. Otherwise, any system or order which assured a tolerable well-being and a ...
... feeling,—all mentality, since we are embodied minds, must produce, even thought produces, some kind of life effect and some response in the stuff of body, but they need not for that reason be of a physical nature,—but the heart's love allies itself readily with a vital desire in the body. This physical element may be purified of that subjection to physical desire which is called lust, it may become love ...
... separate personal will or individual energy trying to conduct our actions, no sense of a little personal self as the doer, nor will it be the lower energy of the three gunas, the mental, vital and physical nature. The divine Shakti will fill Page 760 us and preside over and take up all our inner activities, our outer life, our Yoga. She will take up the mental energy, her own lower formation ...
... so founded, it will be merely the normal human society with a difference. An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their whole being, transforming their mental, vital and physical nature-self, is needed for the new life to appear; only such a transformation of the general mind, life, body nature can bring into being a new worthwhile collective existence. The evolutionary nisus ...
... s in man, the annamaya puruṣa , can without this supreme ascent and integral descent yet reflect and enter into the self of Sachchidananda. It can do it either by a reflection of the Soul in physical Nature, its bliss, power and infinity secret but still present here, or by losing its separate sense of substance and existence in the Self within or without it. The result is a glorified sleep of the ...
... which in its turn escapes out of the restrictions of the mental formula of his nature and discloses the supramental form, the ideal power of a spiritual being. In Yoga we have to travel beyond the physical nature and the superficial man and to discover the workings of the whole nature of the real man. In other words we must arrive at and use a psycho-physical knowledge with a spiritual foundation. Man ...
... we may indeed be engines of the Divine Work, but we shall be imperfect tools and deflect or impair the working by our mental errors, our vital distortions or the obstinate incapacities of our physical nature. If this ego disappears, then we can truly become, not only pure instruments consciously consenting to every turn of the divine Hand that moves us, but aware of our true nature, conscious portions ...
... By consciously uniting with the Divine Force, all is possible in principle. But a procedure has to be found, depending on the case and the individual. The first condition is to have a physical nature that gives energy rather than draws energy from others. The second indispensable condition is to know how to draw energy from above, from the one impersonal and inexhaustible source. January ...
... missed the "minute particulars" of both the heart and the art of the passage, I wonder why you have said nothing about the two other passages I had quoted - one with a detailed observation of physical Nature, the next with a vehement articulation of a noble sentiment. Both deal with earthly life of which the Tagorean sparrow by which you set great store would be an organic element. Here as well as ...
... quanta in which we are asked by Bohr to choose between non-causality in space and time or causality without them! Even the fact that no mechanical model can represent now the ultimate processes of physical Nature strains the understanding immensely. All this is really as it should be, for when we get down to the Page 152 infinitesimal or stretch our minds towards the infinite "we ...
... concordant or apparently divided. We have thus in the realm of evolutionary existence a mental being facing mental Nature, a vital being fronting vital Nature, a physical being opposite physical Nature: these beings are experienced by us according as our consciousness assumes a mental or vital or physical poise. And all of them are representative of the true psychic Purusha. When the m ...
... impressionism which in its finest subtleties seems to be coming back by a detour to a sensuously mystical treatment, it goes within through the outward and now not so much presents as recreates physical Nature for us through the imaginative vision" . 21 Sri Aurobindo 22 continues: "But the direct subjective ap-proach to Nature is the most distinctly striking characteristic turn of the modern mentality ...
... thought, his religious idea, and, if he arrives at some vision of an inner spiritual truth, he puts even that into forms and figures of the physical life and physical Nature". 20 "A primitive epic bard like Homer," Sri Aurobindo has said, "thinks only by the way and seems to be carried constantly forward in the stream of his strenuous ...
... remnants of the old illnesses and pains and bad habits of the body will disappear altogether and no new ones will be possible. Page 1245 There is nothing complete yet done in the material physical Nature, and yet till that is done, there will be nothing complete in finality anywhere. Many things are established, but even the most advanced need the last touches or even many last touches. ...
... They refuse to be so cavalierly treated. They say "You have given us rights in this adhar, and we persist". Still more hard to deal with are those dharmas of the body which men call the laws of physical nature. But the Will is omnipotent and if patiently, calmly and heroically exercised, will prevail. For the Will, I repeat, is—Kali herself. Therefore in the end it establishes by its action new rules ...
... motions are more elusive, its processes harder to fix; but when once grasped and ascertained, its laws and activities are found to be quite as regular, manageable and utilisable as the processes of physical Nature. They give room to even more wonderful and momentous results. There is no difference of essential law in the physical & psychical, but a great difference of instrumentation and exact process. For ...
... surpasses the mental understanding and is beyond any merely mental experience. The ideals created by the mind are constructions in the air that have no sufficient foundation in our vital and physical nature; therefore they can change a side of our mind and colour a part of our actions, but they cannot transform our lives, cannot find here their physical body. Ideals touch and pass, mankind remains ...
... for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital 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 ...
... her key ... vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that ... at the same time, everything vanished! So... to help you understand this enigma, let me tell you that the mother is physical Nature as she is, and the daughter is the new creation. The manageress is the world's organizing mental consciousness as Nature has developed it thus far, that is, the most advanced organizing sense to ...
... Tantrics, meets the Brahman and is liberated into the Divine Being. These centres are closed or half closed within us and have to be opened before their full potentiality can be manifested in our physical nature: but once they are opened and completely active, no limit can easily be set to the development of their potencies and the total transformation to be possible. At the same time, Sri Aurobindo ...
... but as a result of Page 121 Sri Aurobindo's sacrifice of his own body. The whole resistance of what he had named the Inconscient, the root and support of all incapacity of the physical nature, including death, was, as it were, swallowed up into Sri-Aurobindo's body and nullified and exhausted there. Hence this body, semi-divinised and marked for total transformation, had to be given ...
... causes, not transcendent needs, of organic appetites, not spiritual purpose. Freud's conviction was that the quest for the self must take us down and back - into the juice and tissue of our physical nature, into its infantile fantasies and passions. The way to sanity lay through history of the body and its many thwarted gratifications.” 14 Sri Aurobindo in one of his letters refers ...
... Evolution, Religion and the Unknown God 15: Intelligence that is Consciousness that is Being Neither the laws nor the possibilities of physical Nature can be entirely known unless we know also the laws and possibilities of supraphysical Nature. This is what we call evolution which is an evolution of Consciousness and an evolution of the Spirit ...
... secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge.” 45 Alfred Wallace seems to have had an intuition ...
... far past the boundaries of matter into an occultism where the intellect feels lost. Of this the paradoxes of quantum mechanics are a telling example. “Neither the laws or the possibilities of physical Nature can be entirely known unless we know also the laws and possibilities of supraphysical Nature,” wrote Sri Aurobindo in The Human Cycle . 33 And elsewhere: “Having examined and explained Matter ...
... thinking. In science there were the material, vegetable and animal realms, the foundation of all natural classifications. Even materialistic Cartesians like La Mettrie wrote about a continuation in physical nature “from the human, down to the higher animals, down to the animals preceding these” (which shows that a descending evolution, from the most complex to the most elementary, was still a common belief ...
... so-called catastrophes, or calamities, or misfortunes, or difficulties – how all that comes just at the right time to help you, just as it’s needed to help you. Indeed, all that which in the physical nature still belonged to the old world, to its habits, its ways of doing and being, its ways of acting, all that couldn’t be handled, it couldn’t be manipulated in any other way than through illness. ...
... its evolution; its growth marks the stage which the spiritual evolution of the individual has reached and its immediate possibilities for the future. It stands behind the mental, the vital, the physical nature, grows by their experiences, carries the consciousness from life to life.” 46 The realisation of the psychic being, i.e. the state of becoming concretely aware of it and living in it, is ...
... the life of humanity is a necessary part of its evolution … It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge. 4 — Sri Aurobindo The fact that there is ...
... He recounted many incidents in which he had done daring acts at the risk of death to himself to prove that the yogi by virtue of this superconscient knowledge is not bound by the laws of physical nature. For example, he had on more than one occasion swallowed big lumps of opium and held deadly cobras captive in his hand only to let them off unscathed afterwards. There were also nocturnal encounters ...
... it is best to. follow one you prefer as we have done in choosing the integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and find out the truth by your own personal experience. Science deals with laws of physical nature. But we have a vital nature, a mental nature. Psychology is an effort at the study of our vital and mental nature, but this is a very imperfect and perfunctory way to learn because it studies only ...
... so emphatically asserted, "it [death] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already — it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable." 4 No doubt, life as it is lived at present upon earth has ...
... phenomenon of yogic trance or Samadhi; for, this latter is considered to be a potent means — an almost unavoidable one, many would insist — of escape from the shackles and the obscuring glow of the physical nature and consciousness. But sleep too like trance (and "trance [itself]...can be regarded 1 The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 498-99. 2 Ibid., p. 499. Page 195 ...
... xvii in which its transfiguration by a perfect self-discovery becomes possible. The real sense of man's progress does not lie in a mere restatement in slightly different terms of what physical Nature has already accomplished. Nor can the ideal of human life be simply the animal repeated on a higher scale of mentality. Indeed, "Man has seen that there can be a higher status of consciousness ...
... s. But for her to be able to settle and act down here, she needed to meet with a minimum of receptivity, to find at least one human being possessing the requisite qualities in the vital and physical nature, a kind of super-Parsifal endowed with a spontaneous and integral purity, but at the same time having a body strong and balanced enough to be able to bear without giving way the intensity of the ...
... straightforward cannot profit by the Mother 's help, for they themselves turn it away. Unless they change, they cannot hope for the descent of the Supramental Light and Truth into the lower vital and physical nature; they remain stuck in their own self-created mud and cannot progress. ...
... of purity & Truth" Sri Aurobindo, The Mother with Letters on The Mother: Seeing the Mother in Visions and Dreams Even if there is much darkness — and this world is full of it and physical nature of man also — yet a ray of the true Light can prevail eventually against a tenfold darkness. Believe that and cleave to it always. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - II: Faith Keep ...
... love goes always to you to help and comfort you. Gradually I was becoming more conscious, and beginning to scan my imperfections and their causes; but it is not an easy thing to convert the physical nature. 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 ...
... beings, with their own ideas and laws, their own volition, and when vexed they can do unpleasant things. Yet they are not hostile beings, nor are they vital beings: they are personified forces of physical Nature, in the subtle physical. A world of things could be said.... ( silence ) No, I don't know if it's wise to publish this Talk; if too incomplete, it looks like ignorant chatter. And I have ...
... that I am not making an absolute assertion) 'it is by REDESCENDING through the levels of the being with a supramentalized consciousness that one can accomplish the permanent transformation of physical nature.' (This can be experienced in all sorts of ways, but what WE want and what Sri Aurobindo spoke of is a change that will never be revoked, that will persist, that will be as durable as the present ...
... there is neither high nor low. But GENERALLY it is by REDESCENDING through the levels of the being with a supramentalized consciousness that one can accomplish the permanent transformation of physical nature. There is no proof that the Rishis used another method, although, to effect this transformation (if they ever did), they must necessarily have fought their way through the powers of inconscience ...
... not to speak of "mastery", which is truly something exceptional on earth. 28 November 1959 Sweet Mother, What is Supernature? Supernature is the Nature superior to material or physical Nature—what we usually call "Nature". But this Nature that we see, feel and study, this Nature that has been our familiar environment since our birth upon earth, is not the only one. There is a vital ...
... principle, everything is possible by uniting consciously with the Divine Force. But a method has to be found, and this depends on the case and the individual. The first condition is to have a physical nature that gives energy rather than draws energy from others. The second indispensable condition is to know how to draw energy from above, from the inexhaustible impersonal source. 12 January 1972 ...
... little stones in your path, because they attract no attention. Page 42 Endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and fearlessness are the qualities specially needed for the examinations of physical nature. Aspiration, trust, idealism, enthusiasm and generous self-giving, for spiritual examinations. Vigilance, sincerity and humility for the examinations from hostile forces. And do not imagine ...
... But she never made any secret of certain defects in her health. They were inevitable, for "la condition humaine” had been accepted by her in right earnest: the aim was to cope with actual physical nature in both its strength and its weakness in order to take Mr. Everyman to the status of Superman. The "human condition" could be seen clearly from a remark she made in my presence. Navajata had ...
... arise from the state of the observer's mind and occur because he is making use of his consciousness. On this point there is a consensus of scientific authorities. Sullivan, in his article The Physical Nature of the Universe in An Outline of Modern Knowledge (page 99), writes: "It is hardly necessary to say that by referring to an 'observer' we do not imply that there is anything 'subjective' or ...
... Einstein's relativities in the simplest form possible and best explains the facts of scientific observation and experiment. The operations are a brilliant act of analytic insight into the truth of physical nature and, together with the original formula of subtracting the time-measurement from the space-measurement, constitute one of the peak performances of mathematical genius in our day. But they do not ...
... million forms of God those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. Our quotation from Teilhard is Meynellian through and through, though the "organic" and "physical" nature Teilhard's Evolutionism would discern in Christ's cosmicity was beyond the imaginative ken of the Victorian poet. A little clarification, however, of the two adjectives -"polymorphous" ...
... complete in him except that the Supermind had not yet permeated his body-substance - if the Truth- Consciousness had already descended into his inner mind, inner vital being and even subtle-physical nature - why could it not emerge into the gross-physical from within instead of being glimpsed up to the end above his head with its tail dangling just beyond? The query is hardly illegitimate ...
... distinction Page 7 between the individual and universal which Sri Aurobindo applies to all parts of an individual's nature as in the following statements: "There are two aspects of physical Nature as of all Nature - the individual and the universal." 7 "The subconscient is universal as well as individual like all the other main parts of the Nature." 8 A further distinction, however ...
... that he would disclose in the epic some other occult aspects connected with the role of death in this creation. These aspects could possibly indicate the difficulties of transformation of the physical nature governed by decay, disintegration and death, difficulties at the 79 Ibid. 80 Nirodbaran, Twelve Years with Sri Aurobindo (1988), p. 266. cellular level itself. 81 ...
... fields of reality, and of phenomena of psychological being. But there are pure abstract reflections which, because they come as experiences, become living. Nevertheless, whether he is describing physical Nature, or an occult event, he is supremely at ease. The description of Nature is one of the main assets of a poet. Here is one of Milton's: Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks ...
... in him, which is free and master in its own inalienable power. He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature. This ego is not his real self, but an instrumentation of Nature by which it has developed a sense of limited and separate individual being in mind, life and body. By this instrumentation he ...
... the force of inconscience and inertia and translates in quality as obscurity and incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used for psychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. Each thing and every existence in the lower Prakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form are the result of the interaction of these qualitative powers. The Synthesis of Yoga ...
... that it comes. But nothing like the full descent of the peace, bliss etc. can come so long as the being is not ready. Very usually the first preparation is to work on the mind and vital and physical nature in such a way that the soul, the psychic being can have a chance Page 210 of manifesting itself and influencing the rest of the nature; for that purpose all the main darknesses ...
... normal mind, and from these higher ranges, things descend into the lower parts of the being. Whereas the subconscient is the basis of our material being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature, the superconscient supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature. "The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal." 40 ...
... a division in the being; the sadhak 5 feels within him the growth of a calm silent separate consciousness which feels itself quite apart from the surface play of the mind and the vital and physical Nature. 6 Implied in the passage just quoted is the yogic psychological concept of two centers or parts of consciousness at each level of our being— physical, vital, mental. One part, the Purusha ...
... seen as well as heard. And Milton, at the end of his famous invocation to "Holy Light" at the beginning of Book III, speaks of the compensation open to him from that Light for his blindness to physical Nature: So much the rather thou, Celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that ...
... on the little pebbles on the road because they do not draw attention. Endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and intrepedity are the qualities more specially required for the examinations of physical Nature. Aspiration, confidence, idealism, enthusiasm and generosity in self-giving for the spiritual examinations. Vigilance, sincerity and humility for the examinations set by the adverse forces ...
... —generally a human form — for a definite purpose. They have a disastrous atmosphere. They are pessimistic, dissatisfied, shrivelled up — out of tune with both sides at once, with the soul and with physical nature, which makes their life very miserable. Am I truly Yesterday morning I distributed petals of "Divine's Love". The previous night was, here, the darkest of the year and in India it is a great ...
... form—generally a human form—for a definite purpose. They have a disastrous atmosphere. They are pessimistic, dissatisfied. shrivelled up—out of tune with both sides at once, with the soul and with physical nature, which makes their life very miserable. Yesterday morning I distributed petals of “Divine's Love”. The previous night was, here, the darkest of the year and in India it is a great festival. ...
... upon the free expression of their impulsions based on the power of force. As usual, the mind, when it is not sufficiently educated, is the accomplice of the vital being and the slave of the physical nature whose crushing laws it does not know well through their half-conscious mechanism. When the mind awakens to the consciousness of the first psychic movements, it deforms them in its ignorance and ...
... not yet found Bidayotsabi. January 17, 1935 Why does the illusion of sex not disappear? Too many roots in the human vital. Sex has a terrible tenacity. Besides, universal physical nature has such a need of it that even when man pushes it away, she throws it upon him as long as possible. January 18, 1935 (From Mother) Quelle belle couverture vous m´avez envoyée ...
... can say that for the majority of those who wrote, there has been a real progress. No doubt also it was not the correspondence in itself but the Force that was increasing in its pressure on the physical nature which was able to do all this, but a canalisation was needed, and this served the purpose. There were many for whom it was not necessary, others for whom it was not suitable. If it had been a ...
... Tantrics, meets the Brahman and is liberated into the Divine Being. These centres are closed or half closed within us and have to be opened before their full potentiality can be manifested in our physical nature: but once they are opened and completely active, no limit can easily be set to the development of their potencies and the total transformation to be possible. Page 58 At the same ...
... Bhaga, and it is only by an integral mastery of these powers and by their combined help that one can gain entrance into the all-comprehending truth- consciousness. The Vedic gods are not mere physical Nature-powers, but the psychological conscious forces behind and within all cosmic things, is made clear enough in various Vedic texts. This clarity is also seen by the connection that is described between ...
... is neither high nor low. But GENERALLY, it is by REDESCENDING through the levels of the being with a supramentalized consciousness that one can accomplish the permanent transformation of physical nature. (This can be experienced in all sorts of ways, but what WE want and what Sri Aurobindo spoke of is a change that will never be revoked, that will persist, that will be as durable as the present ...
... Subconscient Ocean upwards and they seek the Superconscient Ocean above. That upper ocean sends downwards its rivers of the light, truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus, in the ocean of physical Nature, the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension. The science and practice of that spiritual ascension is the secret science of the Veda or of the Vedic Yoga, the aim of which is ...
... experiences of love, joy, power, peace, knowledge and Page 81 ineffable Presence and Being was the special aim of this Yoga. This esoteric Yoga did not look upon godheads as mere powers of Physical Nature, even though their descriptions, which were meant for outer religious rituals, appear to give that impression. The gods were, to the Vedic initiates, psychological and spiritual powers, and their ...
... vividness and suggestiveness of the line are bolder and more decisive. Form in the Indian paintings emerges from the deeper source of the soul and the spirit rather than from the external and physical nature. Page 481 Pramana, proportion, harmony and perspective follow the same inner law of formulation of the inner form, of the inner atmosphere, of the inner dimensions. Bhava in ...
... less obscure paths cut into it rather than through it; but all this difficulty and entanglement arises from the single fact that man lives imprisoned in the ignorance of his mental, vital and physical nature. He is compelled by its qualities and yet afflicted with responsibility in his will because something in him feels that he is a soul who ought to be what now he is not at all or very little, master ...
... quotation presents a whole thesis. For instance one reads on pages 51-52: "An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their whole being, transforming their mental, vital and physical nature-self, is needed for the new life to appear; only such a transformation of the general mind, life, body-nature can bring into being a new worthwhile collective existence." (The Life Divine, p ...
... in the East and in the West. Here are two statements, one each from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother: "The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mind, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds." (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 635) "... there are all the difficulties of ignorance of ...
... should never lose sight of the following words of Sri Aurobindo: "An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their whole being, transforming their mental, vital and physical nature-self, is needed for the new life to Page 51 appear; only such a transformation of the general mind, life, body nature can bring into being a new worthwhile collective existence." ...
... rejection, but by this assumption and domination, this taking up of its unfulfilled values, this restatement and transformation, — a spiritualising and supramentalising of the mental, vital and physical nature." 3 The terrestrial ideal on one side, the supracosmic urge on the other, and the supraterrestrial aspiration in between, all err through the overstress and exclusiveness of their separate ...
... there is neither high nor low. But GENERALLY... it is by REDESCENDING through the levels of the being with a supramentalized consciousness that one can accomplish the permanent transformation of physical nature.' (This can be experienced in all sorts of ways, but what WE want and what Sri Aurobindo spoke of is a change that will never be revoked, that will persist, that will be as durable as the present ...
... freed by itself It then began to fly as easily as before. All that took place in a moment, before our elder brother could make out anything. The elder brother is some part of the physical Nature and the kite is Shanti's aspiration that got stuck. How to understand that dream about helping Shanti? In reality we do not even discuss each other's sadhana. It ...
... Christians were jeering at you. Then you made a statement by which the court could fine them. It is a purely vital dream. Of course one can take the Christians as forces of the vital physical nature, which can be converted. Page 223 In a dream I saw the Mother walking with some of us. She asked me, "What is this tree?" I replied, "Peace in the vital." Amongst us ...
... on earth. You have said in your book The Mother: "It is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below that can victoriously handle the physical nature." What do you imply by "opening from below"? Is not "below" still unconscious of the Divine? Wherever the Divine is, everything is — it is only concealed, not manifest. The Divine is ...
... In such circumstances, is it better to sleep or meditate? It depends on the nature of the sleep. The day before yesterday there was a prolonged tussle with the lower physical nature. I could not control the obscure forces which invaded, so I left the outer being. Then to my utter surprise I was pulled into an experience of stillness where I saw myself as a huge globe which ...
... suppresses because they don't suit her. It does not greatly matter what brought you here—the important thing is to go on till the psychic truth behind all that becomes manifest. The inertia of your physical nature is only a thick crust on the surface which goes away slowly, but under the pressure it will give way. If you had some big object in the ordinary life and nothing to hope for here it might be different ...
... February 2, 1937 I don't quite understand about "the physical consciousness" being obscure. The physical consciousness is that part which directly responds to physical things and physical Nature, sees the outer only as real, is occupied with it—not like the thinking mind with thought and knowledge, or like the vital with emotion, passion, subtler satisfaction of desire. If this part is ...
... physical was this: is sex as much a principle of the physical as inertia? The sexual sensations do not 'become' a principle of the physical consciousness — they are there in the physical nature already — wherever there is conscious life, the sex force is there. It is physical Nature's conscious means of reproduction and it is there for that purpose. I was sitting on ...
... stands unique? For to my thinking, plenty of people have lived in the Divine Consciousness, but none could "divinise the body", which means that none of them had a complete mastery over the laws of physical nature, e.g. age, decay, illness, etc. You are mistaken in two respects. First, the endeavour towards this achievement is not new and some Yogis have achieved it, I believe—but not in the way I want ...
... and the travail more painful. A grim toll will be demanded, a violent eruption instead of a happy flowering. That is exactly how revolutions occur in human society and geological cataclysms in physical Nature. The hardening and contraction of the outer crust of earth increases in proportion to the inner heat and pressure. Likewise on the human level, the red seed of the French Revolution was planted ...
... with humanity. This new body of hers, prepared behind the material curtain, she sought to infuse into the material form, even press or force into it this new element; but Matter and man's physical nature were not yet ready: Earth still considered it as an intrusion, as something foreign. The material casing broke down in consequence—perhaps not broke down, rather broke Page 4 through; ...
... on the face resting on my elbows (among the grass). Suddenly the whole life of this nature, the whole life of the intermediate region I am speaking of, which is most living in the plant and in physical nature, all this domain became all on a sudden, unexpectedly, without any transition, absolutely living, intense, conscious, wonderful. This was the result of the continuous activity of six months that ...
... upon the mind, including the vital consciousness. This is translated in the consciousness as an attachment to the past, to what man has been familiar with. Conservation is the term in respect of physical Nature and atavism is its expression in human nature. It is so difficult for man to leave the beaten track, for that means risk and danger; our thoughts and movements are all shaped in ...
... man's aspirations away from the traditions and ideals of the past to the promises of a better future. For hundreds of years progress then meant primarily the application of mind to the mastery of physical nature to benefit society, and education was meant to serve that end. The modern age faces an evolutionary crisis in the apparent failure of scientific and industrial progress to bring perfection and ...
... divine power and knowledge. * Man is the net that Divine Fowler has spread to capture the wide and fleet universal physical Nature, so that through him it may be brought under control, tamed and transfigured. * If you think for yourself or feel for yourself or act for yourself ...
... we want to succeed. If you give room to hostile suggestions you retard your own progress and also the general advancement. Disciple : What should be done to reduce the resistance of the physical nature ? Sri Aurobindo : You must have an integral aspiration for the truth. It is true, of course, that there come times in Page 318 the Sadhana when the mind gets depressed ...
... wounded. The scientist then found a big book on geology, – half as big as this room – and among things left he found the girl just between the cover and the pages. The secret of the earth, the physical nature, was thus symbolically given. 5-4-1924 A letter from an American lady who is a preacher of Bahaism was read out. Sri Aurobindo : Do you know about the man who started Bahaism ...
... were possible only by a physical impact embodying Page 53 and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical Nature to a new and higher status. The occult seers declare that we are today on the earth at such a crisis of evolution. Earth and Man and man's earthly life need to be radically transfigured. The ...
... victory only when hard fought and won. That is how we meet not unoften a considerable discrepancy between the inner being of a man and his earthly tenement, his soul and his external character and physical nature. There is a Page 205 meaning in the choice, a significance in the utilisation of unfavourable conditions: there is a method in the madness. This grouping will appear natural ...
... urge is not towards rationalisation, but rather towards irrationalisation. Orthodox science itself is taking greater and greater cognisance today of the irrational movements of nature, even of physical nature. Intuition and instinct are now welcomed as surer and truer instruments of knowledge and action than reason. Page 140 Another special feature of the modern consciousness is its ...
... emphasis in two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the ...
... the true individual but the individual in Nature, what may be called the individual personality. The personality, of course, is not the Person: it is something formed in the mental, vital and physical nature. NIRODBARAN: Well, if the Cosmic Spirit doesn't act through the Person, it acts through the personality or nature. If it is acting through my nature, where is my responsibility? SRI AUROBINDO: ...
... nature were to be thrown away and new things brought in. PURANI: I was surprised to hear that later he turned to jainism, SRI AUROBINDO: Well, such changes often happen. In one's vital and physical nature there remains a stamp of one's ancestral religion and it comes out after some time. The Christians usually turn towards Roman Catholicism. A Frenchman—I forget his name—tried all sorts of things ...
... effects. Also at the same time there should be the knowledge of what the cells should be like, how they ought to react to the blow. And the procedure adopted too is quite different from that of physical Nature which takes hours, days, months to repair a damage; the inner knowledge can do the thing immediately. This inner knowledge can be brought down from its highest source. Instead of the mere psychological ...
... way the artist, a painter, for example, trains his eyes so that he can know how to appraise the beauty of form and colour, line and design, composition and harmony that is found in physical Page 68 nature. It is not mere desire or hunger that drives them, it is taste, culture, development of the sense of sight, appreciation of beauty that is his preoccupation. Generally, artists who ...
... the face resting on my elbows (among the grass). Suddenly the whole life of this nature, the whole life of the intermediate region I am speaking of, which is most living in the plant and in physical nature, all this domain became all on a sudden, unexpectedly, without any transition, absolutely living, intense, conscious, wonderful. This was the result of the continuous activity of six months that ...
... Page 748 Mahasaraswati is the Mother's Power of work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature. Maheshwari lays down the large lines of the world-forces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail ...
... level. Above them there is a consciousness which is seeking for manifestation and embodiment upon earth, and in its descent towards matter it meets everywhere the same resistance, in man and in physical Nature. 30 Page 13 ...
... 32 No law of Nature. And indeed a whole series of physical, physiological consequences—incredible for our physical mind—begin to get through the mesh, as if we were dealing with another physical Nature—or perhaps the true one. We are completely misled, not only by false matter but by the false God that has ruled over this false matter. Reality is altogether different: an altogether different ...
... ego into the larger freedom of union with the universal Divine: He must cease to be the mental, vital, physical ego; for that is always the creation, instrument and subject of mental, vital, physical Nature... While the identification lasts, there is a self-imprisonment in this habitual round and narrow action.... The liberation from an externalised ego sense is the first step towards the soul's ...
... power-charged world of the Gods? It was necessary, therefore, to lay the foundations properly through sadhana in the psychic being which is the hidden centre of the physical complex. Thus the physical nature itself could be made the conscious habitation of the spiritual, and even the supramental in course of time. Indeed, there could be no short-cut to the goal of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga of integral ...
... ministrations: Mahasaraswati is the Mother's Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature. Maheshwari lays down the large lines of the world-forces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail ...
... set an example to the world. "There is an ascending evolution in nature," says the Mother, "which goes from the stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man." In his physical nature, man is still largely an animal, though a thinking and speaking animal. Nature now tries to bring out a being "who will be to man what man is to the animal", endowed with a consciousness that will ...
... the organic unity of all being and its inner harmony with all universal existence. The most outstanding feature of the action of the Supermind is its masterfully radical dealing with our physical nature. It will annul the sway of the Inconscience and the Ignorance under which our physical being labours at present, saturate the nerves, tissues and cells of our body with its own light, and quicken ...
... importance of the material mould, the indispensability of action, a proper care of the body, a regulated exercise of the life-energies, and a vigilant and sacrificial harnessing of the whole vital-physical nature to the Light that contemplation bestows upon us. Any want of balance between contemplation and action, between the inspiring and directing Light and the expressive and actualising Life will result ...
... it would therefore help one spiritually. Complete removal of the ego takes place when one identifies oneself with the Spirit and realizes the same Spirit in all. Also when the mental, vital and physical nature is known to be derivative from the Universal Mind, universal vital and the universal physical then the same result ensues. The individual must realize his divinity i.e. his identity with the T ...
... he turned to Jainism. I don't know if it is true. Sri Aurobindo : Was he a Jain by birth? Disciple : Yes. Sri Aurobindo : Well, that often happens. In one's vital and physical nature there remains a stamp of one's ancestral religion and it comes out at some time. The Christians usually turn towards Catholicism. A Frenchman – I forgot his name – tried all sorts of things, mysticism ...
... combinations, and give it its distinctive stamp. The ego can be predominantly tamasic, rajasic or sattwic. The tamasic Page 133 ego is burdened with the inertia and incapacity of the physical nature. It is obsessed with its weakness and insignificance, and is averse to any sustained effort and high ambition. The rajasic ego is drunk with its own. importance, and proud of its power and possessions ...
... consciousness of the Supermind, and bring the Light and Force of the latter for the transformation and divinisation of the whole nature of man, including even his surface Page 66 physical nature and its movements. I shall consider the conditions of this ascent and its implications and results when I come to dwell upon the details of the Integral Yoga. THE DESCENT OF THE S ...
... no special feature of the Integral Yoga. But what is actually realised in the other yogas does not necessarily lead to the discovery of the mission of the psychic or the transformation of the physical nature. One usually stops short at one phase of the psychic realisation, the phase of passive peace and silence, as do Sankhya and Jainism; or, one may proceed through it, by a deepening and widening ...
... not familiar to them. If the ancients expressed in their art an inner experience of an aspect of the cosmic Reality the modernists think it unreal —at any rate, less real than representation of physical nature or an action in life, or of nature remoulded according to the idea of the artist. Q. It may be said in their defence that they try to paint what they actually see. A. Yes, but ...
... it is because it was an effective instrument towards my central purpose . . . . No doubt also it was not the correspondence in itself but the Force that was increasing in its pressure on the physical nature which was able to do all this, but a canalisation was needed, and this served the purpose."4 In the published portion of Sri Aurobindo's correspondence, which runs to over 2000 printed pages ...
... human gnome remains none the less a gnome, wretched and powerless. We send rockets to the moon but we know nothing of our own hearts. "It is a question," says Sri Aurobindo, "of creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the Supramental being in a new evolution." 2 For, indeed, he says, "the imperfection of Man is not the last word of Nature, but his perfection too is not the ...
... shedding its native light on the mental; otherwise the mental being would not be so sure in its observation and judgement but might make mistakes and be misled by the outer vital or clouded by the physical nature. I have already told you that while the psychic is the inmost part of the being, there is also standing between it and the external surface nature a triple inner being, the inner mental, the ...
... philosophical idea which cannot find an authority or a seed or indication in these antique writings.... and even the larger generalisations of Science are constantly found to apply to the truth of physical Nature formulas already discovered by the Indian sages in their original, their largest meaning in the deeper truth of the spirit. 41 The Upanishads. it must be admitted, are not all of a piece; ...
... utterance of a mystical joy in God and Nature, sometimes of the direct God-union,—but this is not quite so successful—more characteristically of God through Nature. Yet this is not usually the physical Nature that we feel with the outward bodily sense; it is a mystic life of light and ecstasy behind her, hidden in sun and moon and star, morning and noon and dusk and night, sea and sky and earth. It ...
... confirm the ideas about Indra we have derived from the third Sukta? Indra, whether god of the sky or of the mind, is the most considerable of the Vedic deities and the most prominent presence in physical nature or in human psychology; it is right and fitting that his subjective physiognomy should be the decisive starting point for any theory of the Veda. Page 364 Fortunately, the very first ...
... slow and progressive liberation of some latent indwelling Spirit. The heart of its mystery is the difficult appearance, the tardy becoming of a divine Something or Someone already involved in physical Nature. The Spirit is there with all its potential forces in a first formal basis of its own supporting, yet resistant substance. Its greater subsequent and deliberately emerging movements, life and mind ...
... immediate interests and utilities. In accordance with the general method of Nature much is used as waste material and only a small portion selected for definite and abiding formations. And as in physical Nature, so here the whole process is governed by laws which we rather suffer than use or control. The concentration of thought is used by the Rajayogins to gain freedom and control over the workings ...
... is now being used for primary utthapana & the nature & laws of primary utthapana are being developed in the thought and initially brought in the body, though constantly borne down by the normal physical nature. The nature of it is liberation from exhaustion, weariness, strain and all their results. The laws are (1) Standing, however long, shall be effectively as much a rest from motion as [sitting] ...
... cannot be the highest term. He is the highest realised here and now; he is not the highest realisable. As there is something below him, so there is something, if even only a possibility, above. As physical Nature concealed a secret beyond herself which in him she has released into creation, so he too conceals a secret beyond himself which he in turn must deliver to the light. That is his destiny. This ...
... remains true that humanity persists in its claim and that only those discoveries of the physicist, the zoologist and the chemist have been really fruitful which have helped man practically to master physical nature or to understand the laws of his own life and progress. Whatever moralist or philosopher may say, Yajnavalkya's great dictum remains true that whatever man thinks or feels or does he thinks, feels ...
... continuity of personality in a material form, is the effect, past action is the cause; it is a law of Nature, Page 502 on a par in the psychological field with the law of gravitation in physical Nature, that the soul which acts shall be subjected to rebirth as the ineluctable result of its actions. So stated, and given the necessary premise that individual personality is itself no eternal ...
... form of the one and infinite Godhead. All the Vedic godheads have this outer and this inner and inmost function, their known and their secret Names. All are in their external character powers of physical Nature; all have in their inner meaning a psychic function and psychological ascriptions; all too are various powers of some one Page 201 highest Reality, ekaṁ sat , the one infinite Existence ...
... the closeness or at least saw the sign of something beyond his natural life, beyond the moment in time, beyond his individual ego, something other than the needs and interests of his vital and physical nature. That insistence gave its tone and turn to his thought and action and feeling; it produced that subtler sensitiveness to the spiritual appeal, that greater readiness to turn to the spiritual effort ...
... Matter is the body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit. Man himself is not a life and mind born of Matter and eternally subject to physical Nature, but a spirit that uses life and body. It is an understanding faith in this conception of existence, it is the attempt to live it out, it is the science and practice of this high endeavour, and ...
... whatever superstition or externalism their misuse may lead, are not necessarily a degradation. The Vedic religion had no need of images, for the physical signs of its godheads were the forms of physical Nature and the outward universe was their visible house. The Puranic religion worshipped the psychical forms of the Godhead within us and had to express it outwardly in symbolic figures and house it in ...
... and outer life of man a divine commerce with the gods, and behind was the one spirit or being of which the gods were names and personalities and powers. These godheads were at once masters of physical Nature and its principles and forms their godheads and their bodies and inward divine powers with their corresponding states and energies born in our psychic being because they are the soul powers of ...
... e not otherwise to be represented with an equal power and force and, secondly, whether it is capable of artistic representation, a rhythm of artistic truth and unity which need not be that of physical nature. If not, then it is an ugliness and violence, but if these conditions are satisfied, the means are justified and I do not see that we have any right, faced with the perfection of the work, to raise ...
... A feeling of its illusion and unreality because that which is greatest in man and raises him beyond himself had been neglected, would oppress them at every step. The discovery of the laws of physical Nature would not compensate in their eyes for the comparative decline—for a long time it was the almost absolute cessation—of a greater seeking and finding, the discovery of the freedom of the spirit ...
... take the necessary means and apply the only possible tests. The Indian mind does not admit that the only possible test of values or of reality is the outward scientific, the test of a scrutiny of physical Nature or the everyday normal facts of our surface psychology, which is only a small movement upon vast hidden subconscious and superconscious heights, depths and ranges. What are the tests of these more ...
... civilisation or the old-European intellectual or the new-European materialistic motive is to lead human culture. Is the harmony of the spirit, mind and body to found itself on the gross law of our physical nature, rationalised only or touched at the most by an ineffective spiritual glimmer, or is the dominant power of spirit to take the lead and force the lesser powers of the intellect, mind and body to ...
... consciousness of mind, life and body there are many dharmas, many rules, many standards and laws because there are many varying determinations and types Page 405 of the mental, vital and physical nature. The immortal Dharma is one; it is that of the highest spiritual divine consciousness and its powers, parā prakṛtiḥ . It is beyond the three gunas, and to reach it all these lower dharmas have ...
... conceive the opulent management of those riches; an ignorant half-knowledge cannot follow the motions of an All-Knowledge. Our reasoning is based upon our experience of the finite operations of physical Nature, on an incomplete observation and uncertain understanding of something that acts within limits; it has organised on that basis certain conceptions which it seeks to make general and universal, ...
... slips again and again from the Godward-turning tapasya of the mystic. And even when it has been set free from its habitual mould and wholly re-orientated, it has not been put to any service of physical nature which might help out the secret behind sex. In consequence, the body has come to be regarded as baulked forever of a divine destiny. This implies that God cannot dwell in man from top to toe and ...
... is precisely because he was subject since his birth to the same dictates as we. Had he been born different from us, had he been born enlightened, consciously united with God, something in his physical nature, in the nerve transmission of his being, in the cells of his brain, would have been inevitably different, according him the supreme detachment which, on our behalf, he patiently conquered in the ...
... Aspiration is a call of the mind, the heart, and the physical being for Peace, Light, Force, and spiritual realization. Rejection is a refusal of the ignorant movements of one's mental, vital, and physical nature that stand in the way of spiritual realization, being contrary to or incompatible with the truth of one's being. It lies in ... rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits ...
... a division in the being; the sadhak 78 feels within him the growth of a calm silent separate consciousness which feels itself quite apart from the surface play of the mind and the vital and physical Nature. 79 Similarly, Jnana Yoga, based on the Advaita (nondualist) school of Vedanta, arrives by the same means at the right discrimination of the true nature of the Self and of the imposition ...
... not know why Power and not Force. They want to achieve something definite. It has come to the physical. Then, you see, I was told that my physical Purusha was detached from Prakriti, the physical Nature. He is now free, this physical Purusha. 18:06:1994 Last time I told you about the descent of Power in the physical. But it was not quite that. I was told later that the descent was ...
... ..this constant outer ego-building is only a provisional device... so that the secret individual, the spirit within, may establish a representative and instrumental formation of itself in physical nature, a provisional individualisation in the nature of the Ignorance, which is all that can at first be done in a world emerging out of a universal Inconscience. 36 The individual ego ...
... in its turn escapes out of the restrictions of the mental formula of his nature and discloses the supramental form, the ideal power of a spiritual being. In Yoga we have to travel beyond the physical nature and the superficial man and to discover the workings of the whole nature of the real man. In other words we must arrive at and use a psychophysical knowledge with a spiritual foundation. ...
... secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge. All insistence on the sole or the fundamental ...
... the physical consciousness does not disturb and itself create the danger. But unfortunately Kanai's physical and nervous being seems to be weak and not on a level with the powers of his mind and physical nature. It may be better for him to concentrate first on the preparation of his physical consciousness, I have already said that what he must do is to bring down the basis of calm light and strength into ...
... If the irritability were the result of an illness (nervous or other), it might be treated by homeopathy, but this is not that. It is one of the folds taken from the beginning by the vital-physical nature; these are extremely difficult to eradicate and usually the last things to go. But they can be cured only from within and not by any medical treatment. 7.7.1936 Sri Aurobindo ...
... The Illusion of Sex Why does the illusion of sex not disappear? Too many roots in the human vital. Sex has a terrible tenacity. Besides, universal physical nature has such a need of it that even when man pushes it away, she throws it upon him as long as possible. 17 January 1935 The Mother ...
... vital plane to the physical consciousness. Always this is accompanied by a fading of the first deep experiences and a descent to the neutral obscure inertia which is the bed-rock of the unredeemed physical nature. It is there that the Light, the Power, the Ananda of the Divine has to descend and transform everything, driving away for ever all obscurity and all inertia and establishing the radiant Energy ...
... secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge.” 953 Mirra approached occultism with the same scientific ...
... the physical existence. This greater knowledge and wider hold of all existence will enormously increase the power of instrumentation of the gnostic being on his surroundings and on the world of physical Nature.” 22 “At the same time the involved principle of the gnosis, acting now as an overt, arisen and constantly dynamic force and no longer only as a concealed power with a secret origination ...
... Mother, Our sadhana is passing through a stage when unshakeable steadfastness is necessary. May we remain calm and quiet in this period and cross over the obstacles of the dark and ignorant physical nature. Indeed it is only the calm and luminous peace of a higher consciousness that can conquer these difficulties. 15 June 1936 ...
... secret truths of being, secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge.’ 3 The Mother would approach the subject in ...
... lifts him into her lap, he is not speaking of any outer vital or physical contact, but of an inner psychic experience; precisely; he is protesting against her keeping him in the external vital and physical nature and insists on her taking him on the psycho-spiritual plane into spiritual union with her. All that is very good and very beautiful, but it is not enough: the union has indeed to be realised in ...
... we can say that for the majority of those who wrote there has been a real progress. No doubt also it was not the correspondence in itself but the Force that was increasing its pressure on the physical nature which was able to do all this, but a canalization was needed, and this served the purpose.’ 76 It is because of this incredible effort of Sri Aurobindo’s that we have so much information ...
... one would be eternally bound to one physical frame: one could leave the body if one wanted but one would not be obliged to do so by any defect in it, any subjection to the so-called "laws of physical nature" which have obtained up till now. The death of the old Frenchman was not taken to Page 85 contradict this expectation. It was important as a fact simply because no member ...
... staid Wordsworth found a new source of profound poetry in the humble creatures of fell and waterside, in leach-gatherers and old huntsmen, small girls and idiot boys. Even so devoted a lover of physical nature as Keats came to see that the poet must not detach himself from mankind, but live in compas-sionate understanding of it. And this understanding was in many ways new. It has a new tenderness which ...
... compartments which though entirely different were vitally complementary: he was religious in the very act of being scientific and not in his extra- scientific hours, much less in spite of his science. Physical Nature as a vast yet closely-knit and basically single- patterned scheme of infinite developmental variety was Newton's world-vision as a scientist. He did not succeed in reducing all material phenomena ...
... humanity. ‘This new body of hers, prepared behind the material curtain, she sought to infuse into the material form, even press into it or force into it this new element; but Matter and man’s physical nature were not ready: Earth still considered it as an intrusion, as something foreign. The material casing broke down in consequence — perhaps not broke down, rather broke through; but that must be another ...
... material parts) open to the Power, then to make it accustomed to respond and obey and to each physical difficulty as it arises apply or call in the Divine Power to throw out the attacking force. The physical nature is a thing of habits; it is out of habit that it responds to the forces of illness; one has to get into it the contrary habit of responding to the Divine Force only. This of course so long as a ...
... secret powers and processes of Nature. It may even be found that a supraphysical knowledge is necessary for the completion of physical knowledge, because the Page 678 processes of physical Nature have behind them a supraphysical factor, a power and action mental, vital or spiritual which is not tangible to any outer means of knowledge. All insistence on the sole or the fundamental validity ...
... and the biological law of life of which human reason was to be the faithful exponent and human science the productive utiliser and profiteer. But to apply the mechanical blindness of the rule of physical Nature as the sole guide of thinking and seeing man is to go against the diviner law of his being and maim his higher potentiality. Material and vital Nature is only a first form of our being and to overcome ...
... impressionism which in its finest subtleties seems to be coming back by a detour to a sensuously mystical treatment, it goes within through the outward and now not so much presents as recreates physical Nature for us through the imaginative vision. 1 By that new creation it penetrates through the form nearer to the inner truth of her being. But the direct subjective approach to Nature is the most ...
... to turn the balance in its favour as against the old classical and mediaeval literature. The vision of the worlds beyond which it is gaining is nearer, less grossly human, more supernatural to physical Nature; the symbols it is beginning to create and its reinterpretation of the old symbols are more adequate and more revealing; rid of the old insufficient forms and limiting creeds, it is admitting a ...
... and elsewhere the attempt to reach it by rising to it; but what was missed was the way to make it integral for the life and to bring it down for transformation of the whole nature, even of the physical nature. × A small book of letters by Sri Aurobindo in which he discusses various questions of philosophy ...
... being is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not "free" because it is not strong enough to be free, it is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. In the case of Socrates the will is so far free that it stands above the play of these forces and he determines by his mental idea and resolve what he shall or shall not do. The question remains ...
... that and these mental forms too can vary—there can be many forms expressing an idea in different ways or on different sides of the idea. Form exists but it is more plastic and variable than in physical nature. As to the Gods, man can build forms which they will accept; but these forms too are inspired into man's mind from the planes to which the God belongs. All creation has the two sides, the formed ...
... thing you are concerned with is that you have a soul, a psychic being, which stands for your centre of existence, a part of the Divine. Become aware of that and put all your mental, vital and physical nature in relation to it, in order that they may become purified, harmonised, divinised, and the supramental being and nature may descend and be manifested in you—for until this is done, this conscious ...
... śama —the dynamic de scent helps it by dispersing the element of rajasic disturbance and changing rajas into tapas . Transformation of Tamas into Śama The tamas is part of the general physical Nature and so long as that is not fully changed and illumined, something of it remains; but one has only to go on opening oneself to the Mother's consciousness and in time the tamas too will change into ...
... the Light and face with calm equanimity the resistances of Matter and human personality to their own transformation. Even if there is much darkness—and this world is full of it and the physical nature of man also—yet a ray of the true Light can prevail eventually against a tenfold darkness. Believe that and cleave to it always. Page 102 ...
... firm through all difficulties, delays and apparent failures. Determination is needed and a firm patience, not to be discouraged by this or that failure. It is a change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long patient work of detail. Page 110 One who has not the courage to face patiently and firmly life and its difficulties will never be able to go through the still ...
... inferior vital centres to occupy and change the whole vital and kinetic and sensational nature, and, finally, into the physical centres so as to occupy and change the whole Page 993 physical nature. But even this finality is not final, for there are still left the subconscient parts and the inconscient foundation. The intricacy, the interwoven action of these powers and parts of the being ...
... basis of a science of general lines and assured results the past and the future. A certain measure of limited but sufficiently striking success has been gained by this method in the province of physical Nature and it might seem that the same process might eventually be applied to the movements of mind and life and that at any rate this alone is man's one reliable means in any field of looking with precision ...
... inconscience and inertia and translates in quality Page 232 as obscurity and incapacity and inaction. Ordinarily used for psychological self-analysis, these distinctions are valid also in physical Nature. Each thing and every existence in the lower Prakriti contains them and its process and dynamic form are the result of the interaction of these qualitative powers. Every form of things, whether ...
... seal," where he describes himself as become one in his being with earth, "rolled round in its diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees." Exalt this realisation to a profounder Self than physical Nature and we have the elements of the Yogic knowledge. But all this experience is only the vestibule to that suprasensuous, supramental realisation of the Transcendent who is beyond all His aspects, ...
... show of false images and happenings. This solution is logically untenable. The other solution, the idea of a purely subjective unreal reality, starts from the distinction made by the mind in physical Nature between its subjective and objective experiences; for it is Page 460 the objective alone of which it is sure as entirely and solidly real. But such a distinction could hardly exist ...
... with him and in him. Manana and darśana , a constant thinking of him in all things and seeing of him always and everywhere is essential to this way of devotion. When we look on the things of physical Nature, in them we have to see the divine object of our love; when we look upon men and beings, we have to see him in them and in our relation with them to see that we are entering into relations with ...
... effort or upon divine influence, on works and knowledge or upon grace, is not like the mundane a development, but rather a conversion; but in the end the aim is not a conversion of our mental and physical nature, but the putting on of a pure spiritual nature and being, and since that is not possible here on earth, it looks for its consummation by a transference to another world or a shuffling off of all ...
... embodied consciousnesses and of universal being. It is here that we must look for the secret of the apparent ignorance of the embodied mental being as well as of the great apparent inconscience of physical Nature. We have to ask ourselves what is the nature of this absorbing, this separating, this self-forgetful concentration which is the obscure miracle of the universe. Page 601 ...
... on, self-deception and insanity. Needless to say, this conservative principle is entirely ignored by Science itself when it so diligently and successfully improves on the normal operations of physical Nature for the greater mastery of Nature by man. Suffice it to say here once for all that a change of mental and physical state and of relations between the mind and body which increases the Page ...
... mean that it creates them and that they had no previous existence. On the contrary, what it does is to manifest these principles of its spiritual entity under the conditions imposed by a world of physical Nature; this manifestation takes the form of a structure of frontal personality which is a translation of the inner self into the terms and possibilities of the physical existence. In fact we must accept ...
... the body, we are subject to the life energy; it is only in a very limited degree that we can, though souls, though mental beings, at all pose as their masters. We are bound by a poor and limited physical nature, we are bound consequently by a poor and limited life-power which is all that Page 530 the body can bear or to which it can give scope. Moreover, the action of each and both in us is ...
... and Page 214 practice amid the fluidity of things; but while mechanism is a sufficient principle in dealing with physical forces, because it is in harmony with the law or dharma of physical Nature, it can never truly succeed in dealing with conscious life, because there it is contrary to the law of life, its highest dharma. While, then, the attempt at a rational ordering of society is an ...
... repeated with greater insistence; they are to arrive swiftly, tūrṇayaḥ , to the Soma-offering or, it may mean, making their way through all the planes of consciousness, "waters", which divide the physical nature of man from their godhead and are full of obstacles to communication between earth and heaven; apturaḥ sutam ā ganta tūrṇayaḥ . They are to come like cattle hastening to the stalls of their rest ...
... ancient Mystics overcame the difficulty of their task. Agni for the ordinary worshipper may have meant simply the god of the Vedic fire, or it may have meant the principle of Heat and Light in physical Nature, or to the most ignorant it may have meant simply a superhuman personage, one of the many "givers of wealth", satisfiers of human desire. How suggest to those capable of a deeper conception the ...
... forces and the same Page 288 processes, one in the physical worlds and the supraphysical, that our inner life and its development are governed, the Rishis adopted the phenomena of physical Nature as just symbols for those functionings of the inner life which it was their difficult task to indicate in the concrete language of a sacred poetry that must at the same time serve for the external ...
... second than the fourth [chatusthaya]. 1 22 April 1927 First experience of entire gnostic intuition and supramental reason with supramental observation and a supramental recipient in the physical nature. Intuition and supramental reason (all the grades except supreme supermind) are being steadily founded in a first integral movement. Supreme supermind has also commenced its integral ...
... impossible in antique times or any more impossible or improbable in India, the country of the Upanishads, than in Egypt and Greece. The history of ancient religion does show a transmutation of physical Nature-gods into representatives of psychical powers or rather an addition of psychical to physical functions; but the latter in some instances gave place to the less external significance. I have given ...
... ess in the human being. 6 They are all coexistent in the universe eternally and inseparably, but capable of being involved and remanifested in each other. They are actually involved in physical Nature and must necessarily evolve out of it. They can be withdrawn into pure infinite Being and can again be manifested out of it. The infolding and unfolding of the One in the Many and the Many in ...
... and their eternal resting-place in their non-manifestation. It is he that burns in the heat of the sun and the flame; it is he who is the plenty of the rain and its withholding; he is all this physical Nature and her workings. Death is his mask and immortality is his self-revelation. All that we call existent is he and all that we look upon as non-existent still is there secret in the Infinite and is ...
... It rests on the common experience of all seekers of self-knowledge that there are two different natures and as it were two selves in us. There is the lower self of the obscure mental, vital and physical nature subject to ignorance and inertia in the very stuff of its consciousness and especially in its basis of material substance, kinetic and vital indeed by the power of life but without inherent se ...
... nature to be its expressive power, the gamut of its music, and the action of his thought, perception, will, emotions the notation of its Page 398 harmonies. The apparent inconscience of physical Nature, the beautiful and terrible, kindly and cruel conscious but amoral Life Force that is the first thing we see before us, are not the whole self-expression of the universal Being here and therefore ...
... need to develop firmly in all his earthly parts, to fortify and perfect his body, his life, his outward-going mind, to take full possession of the earth his dwelling-place, to know and utilise physical Nature, enrich his environment and satisfy by the aid of a generalised intelligence his evolving mental, vital and physical being. That is not all his need, but it is a great and initial part of it and ...
... its mould his life-suggestions, his thought, his religious idea, and, if he arrives at some vision of an inner spiritual truth, he puts even that into forms and figures of the physical life and physical Nature. 1 Poetry at a certain stage or of a certain kind expresses this turn of the human mentality in word and in form of beauty. It can reach great heights in this kind of mental mould, can see the ...
... as he now feels physical things and impacts. He finds it all to be one with his larger or universal self. Page 269 There is the universal mental, the universal vital, the universal physical nature, and it is out of a selection of their forces and movements that the individual mind, vital and physical are made. The soul comes from beyond this nature of mind, life and body. It belongs to the ...
... is there that the Divine Light and Power come down to be transmitted to the human consciousness and from there they work and prepare the transformation of the human consciousness and even the physical nature. The two first [ bright white and whitish blue ] are the Mother's Page 125 light and mine—the golden red is the touch of the Truth in the physical. Whitish Blue Light The ...
... instinctive only. There is no reason why ego should not be conquered in the end—although it is difficult—even in the external nature. The fight with the ego is part of the fight with the physical nature, for it is the superficial ego in the physical consciousness, irrational and instinctive, that refuses to go. No, it need not. 1 It is so thought because the old Yogas did not care about ...
... life. For the spiritual life does not at all rest on the external physical relations; it is the Divine alone with whom one has then to do. The attachment to parents belongs to the ordinary physical nature—it has nothing to do with Divine Love. Old Relations We are sorry to hear that she is suffering from such serious difficulties and certainly we are prepared to give her what inner help we ...
... neglect either of the material part of our nature. In this Yoga the aim is not only the union with the higher consciousness but the transformation (by its power) of the lower including the physical nature. It is not necessary to have desire or greed of food in order to eat. The Yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body. That [ disgust for eating ] is rather an excessive feeling ...
... long as the power is not entirely there, some aid of physical means need not be altogether rejected. Illness marks some imperfection or weakness or else opening to adverse touches in the physical nature and is often connected also with some obscurity or disharmony in the lower vital or the physical mind or elsewhere. It is very good if one can get rid of illness entirely by faith and Yoga-power ...
... Divine only without thought of self and keeping the idea of consecration to the Mother always in the heart. But this is not easy to do perfectly. Sir, is the Presence [ of the Divine ] of a physical nature or a spiritual fact? And is the physical sense accustomed or able to see or feel spiritual things—a spiritual Presence, a non-material Form? To see the Brahman everywhere is not possible unless ...
... consequence a division in the being; the sadhak feels within him the growth of a calm silent separate consciousness which feels itself quite apart from the surface play of the mind and the vital and physical Nature. Usually when this takes place, it is possible very rapidly to bring down the peace of the higher consciousness and the action of the higher Force and the full march of the Yoga. But often the ...
... there that it comes. But nothing like the full descent of the peace, bliss etc. can come so long as the being is not ready. Very usually the first preparation is to work on the mind and vital and physical nature in such a way that the soul, the psychic being can have a chance of manifesting itself and influencing the rest of the nature; for that purpose all the main darknesses in the mind and vital have ...
... it is not a test. The difficulties come because the mind, vital and physical or some part is open to the movements which bring the difficulties. The difficulties are there in vital and physical nature because they are full of obscurity, falsehood, inertia and ignorance. They have to be got rid of by opening the vital and physical wholly to the power of the psychic and the power of the Truth ...
... the environmental consciousness, but even this is liberation, not transformation. Spiritual liberation means to be free from ego and from the imprisonment in the mind and vital and physical nature and to be conscious of the spiritual Self and live in that consciousness. Spiritual perfection and fulfilment means that the nature should be spiritualised, new-formed in the consciousness of ...
... the danger of which you speak, the slacking of the vigilance. Only the more it can be a quiet and unmixed, not an anxious vigilance, the better. The habits of the physical or the vital-physical nature are always the most difficult to change, because their action is automatic and not governed by the mental will and it is therefore difficult for the mental will to control or transform them. You ...
... it more just now because it is in the physical consciousness that the opposition is now centred. It will pass as soon as the Force can descend through the mind and vital and act directly on the physical nature. But that is a common experience—it is extraordinary how long it takes for the simple and right thing to do to dawn on the physical mind. 1 It is the nature of the physical mind ...
... difficult—and the chief cause of these reactions is the readiness with which your outer mind listens to the suggestions and accepts the reasonings and obeys the movements of the obscure ignorant physical Nature. That is why I want you to get rid of this habit of the outer mind and to recognise that it is the inner being which is the real truth of yourself and not this outer consciousness with its confusions ...
... meaning of this? That is the work of Mahasaraswati to move between the higher consciousness and the heart and through them establish the rule of the Truth in all details of the mind and life and physical nature. 7 December 1933 ...
... peace and silence. What is necessary is to bring down peace and silence and a strong equanimity within into the external nature and the very cells of the body. But the difficulty is that the physical nature has little tendency to aspiration, its habit is to wait for the higher forces to do their work and remain passive. I think it is this difficulty that you are feeling. I felt it myself very often ...
... process. All went on well enough so long as the work was on the mental, psychic and higher vital levels. But as soon as it began in the lower vital, it appeared at once that the lower vital and physical nature of human beings (at least of those here) was too small, obscure and full of rebellious impurities to admit of so great a working. One after another failed in the test and you were among the first ...
... and corner, facing all those anarchic elements in you which are waiting for their psychological moment to come up. And it is only when you have made the entire round of your mental, vital and physical nature, persuaded everything to give itself to the Divine and thus achieved an absolute unified consecration that you put an end to your difficulties. Then indeed yours is a glorious walk towards tra ...
... almost the same thing. Your body, for instance, has certain reactions to cold, heat, hunger, and you are in the habit of having these reactions, and this habit has made a kind of formation in your physical nature, that is, a crease, a fixed crease of the body, and that's how it is. Formations are the result of habits. Similarly, there are "formations" of character; for instance, if you are in the habit ...
... is in some liquid, in water or the sap of trees—or it may be, as described here ( laughing ), in the clouds. But they may also remain active and continue to act on the more material elements of physical Nature. I have given you here a certain number of examples; I tell Page 337 you, I could talk to you for hours and there would always be new examples to give! But this covers the subject ...
... 26 June 1957 " But there is here still the necessity of a resort to the normal means of propagation and the gross method of physical Nature. A purely occult method, a resort to supraphysical processes acting by supraphysical means for a physical result would have to be possible if we are to avoid this necessity: the resort to the sex ...
... disappeared! And this feeling of disappearance was so acute that... everything disappeared at the same time. If... To help you to understand this riddle, I could tell you that the mother is physical Nature as it is and the daughter is the new creation. The manager is the mental consciousness, organiser of the world as Nature has made it until now, that is, the highest sense of organisation manifested ...
... "Mahasaraswati is the Mother's Power of Work and her Page 402 spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature.... Always she holds in her nature and can give to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and ...
... of their senses, which is a very different thing. It is like the artist, you know, who trains his eyes to appreciate forms and colours, lines, the composition of things, the harmony found in physical nature; it is not at all through desire that he does this, it is through taste, culture, the development of the sense of sight and the appreciation of beauty. And usually artists who are real artists ...
... contact), you must have the yogic force, that is, the force given by the practice of yoga; whereas if your body were supramentalised, if it had the supramental nature instead of the ordinary physical nature, there would be no need of the intervention of any yogic knowledge or any yogic force to protect you, because you would be quite Page 146 naturally protected by the very fact of this ...
... "But for her to be able to settle and act down here, she needed to meet with at least a minimum of receptivity, to find at least one human being having the requisite qualities in the vital and physical nature, a kind of super-Parsifal endowed with a spontaneous and integral purity, but at the same time having a strong and balanced body in order to bear the intensity of the Ananda she had brought without ...
... Chapter 1. The book is comprised of extracts from letters written in reply to the queries of disciples. "The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealt with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration ...
... ascetic who goes away into solitude, for he tries to cut himself off from the world. Only... there is an "only". One can do that physically to a certain extent, up to a point, cut oneself off from physical nature—not totally. It has been noticed, for instance, that ascetics who went away to sit under a tree in the forest, in a very short while became extraordinarily interested in all the animals living ...
... according to their ignorant nature. But the inevitable evolutionary destiny of the human being, says Sri Aurobindo, is to go beyond liberation and achieve a transformation of the mental, vital and physical nature by bringing down the divine consciousness into the lower ignorant nature so as "to transform the Prakriti of Ignorance into a Prakriti of Knowledge." (p. 4) Sri Aurobindo speaks of three ...
... right dynamisation of that knowledge. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - II: The Evolution of the Spiritual Man These extraordinary occurrences which go outside the ordinary course of physical Nature happen frequently in India and are not un known elsewhere; they are akin to what are called poltergeist phenomena in Europe. Scientists don’t say or think anything of such supernormal happenings ...
... Psychic Change—First Necessity The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practise yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate in all kinds of experiences in the vital; one may establish even surprising physical ...
... Jivatman, the eternal portion of the Divine. When there is the full consciousness, the Jivatman and the psychic being join together. The ego is a formation of Nature; but it is not a formation of physical nature alone, therefore it does not cease with the body. There is a mental and vital ego also. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Jivatman in the Integral Yoga In a certain sense the various ...
... this. 2. If you study science deeply enough, it will teach you the unreality of appearances and thus lead you to the spiritual reality. 3. The study of all the aspects and movements of physical Nature will bring you into contact with the universal Mother, and so you will be closer to me. 17 December 1966 * As for arithmetic, I am much more in favour of practical than of written ...
... achieve this. 2) If you study science deeply enough, it will teach you the unreality of appearances and thus lead you to the spiritual reality. 3) The study of all the aspects and movements of physical Nature will bring you into contact with the universal Mother, and so you will be closer to me. 17 December 1966 As for arithmetic, I am much more in favour of practical than of written arithmetic ...
... so-called catastrophes or calamities or misfortunes or difficulties, how all that comes just in the nick of time to help you— just as it is needed to help you.... Indeed, all that which in the physical nature belonged still to the old world, to its habits, its ways of doing and being, its ways of acting, all that could not be "handled" in any other way than this: through illness. I cannot say that ...
... faith also lack endurance and courage. Sri Aurobindo tells us that for human beings the degree of success in physical life depends on the degree of harmony between the individual and universal physical Nature. Some people have a will which is spontaneously in tune with the will of Nature, and they succeed in everything they undertake; others, on the contrary, have a will which is more or less totally ...
... realm—only within its own realm. I have looked at this very, very often. There was even a time when I thought that if one could get a total, complete and perfect knowledge of the whole working of physical Nature as we perceive it in the world of Ignorance, then this might be a means to rediscover or reattain the Truth of things. After my last experience [of April 13 ] I can no longer think this way. ...
... prepared and on your guard. One stumbles more easily over the little pebbles on the path, for they attract no attention. Page 114 The qualities more particularly required for the tests of physical Nature are endurance and plasticity, cheerfulness and fearlessness. For the spiritual tests: aspiration, confidence, idealism, enthusiasm and generosity in self-giving. For the tests stemming from ...
... Let the physical offer itself sincerely to the Divine and it will be transformed. This is proof of the resolution to liberate oneself from the ego. Humility before the Divine in the physical nature: first attitude needed for transformation. Psychic light in the physical movements: the first step towards the transformation of the physical. Psychic light in the material movements: ...
... whirls, and hup!... And you can see—you can see with extreme precision—the three possibilities, and if you aren't constantly attentive ( gesture of a closed fist, of authority and control ), the physical nature, with such repulsive spinelessness, you know, absolutely disgusting, lets itself go. This repeats itself hundreds upon hundreds of times a day.... So if this isn't called "sadhana," I don't ...
... (2) Sciences, if you study them deeply enough, will teach you the unreality of appearances and will thus lead you to the spiritual reality. (3) The study of all aspects and movements of physical Nature will bring you into contact with the universal Mother, and you will thus be nearer to me." I still remember my impression when I was quite small and was told that everything is "atoms" (that ...
... similarity may be discerned. He 22 speaks of "the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature — not by imposing siddhis [= abnormal faculties] on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supramental being in a new evolution." And he continues: "I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult ...
... your nights, are they good? Yes, Mother, not very conscious, but it's all right. Page 425 Good. I have an impression that there's a pressure for things to move fast. And the physical nature has been accustomed to regard discomforts as something to beware of, otherwise... Through observation, I've noticed that many discomforts have a precise purpose, in order to act on a particular ...
... big ( gesture, about fifteen centimetres ), the first flower was yesterday. And that was VISIBLY (it expressed itself, you know) the Victory of Love, the Power of Love.... It's as if all this physical Nature were, oh, like this ( gesture of intense aspiration ), trying—she tries, and there is a Response. They are blessed not to have a mind. It was beautiful. It doesn't keep, otherwise I would have ...
... Page 22 catastrophes or calamities or mishaps or difficulties or... how they all come JUST at the right moment to help you—JUST when it's needed to help you.... You see, everything in the physical nature that still belonged to the old world and its habit and ways of doing and being and acting, all that couldn't be ( handled 3 is the word), it couldn't be handled in any other way than this: ...
... Page 327 gnome remains a gnome, pain-ridden and helpless. We send rockets to the moon, but we know nothing of our own hearts. It is a question, says Sri Aurobindo, "of creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the Supramental being in a new evolution." 3 For, in actuality, he says, "the imperfection of Man is not the last word of Nature, but his perfection too is not ...
... being. The very fact that Rama-krishna's chosen instrument for world-work was Vivekananda, a complex passionate analytic mind, a highly cultured master of system and organisation, a richly endowed physical nature, shows that India moves instinctively to grip earth no less than heaven. At least the intention of Ramakrishna was to reshape through Vivekananda the whole of the country's life in the light of ...
... similarity may be discerned. He 22 speaks of "the transformation of the whole physical mind, vital, material nature - not by imposing siddhis [=abnormal faculties] on them, but by creating a new physical nature which is to be the habitation of the supra-mental being in a new evolution". And he continues: "I am not aware that this has been done by any Hathayogic or other process. Mental or vital occult ...
... is something to be surpassed. Lo, I teach you the Superman!" Nietzsche's idea of the Superman was much coloured by the science of his day and it was at best a titanic heroism aggrandising man's physical nature by means of an iron will laughing at natural obstacles and subduing both the ordinary self and the common world in order to intensify the life-gusto and fit it for extraordinary exertions. Now ...
... other evils such as jealousy, ill-will, fear and hatred etc. are inherent in human nature. Education and mental enlightenment have not been able to eliminate these ingrained evils of vital and physical nature. On the other hand, the more clever and intelligent one is, the less scrupulous he becomes in his dealings with his fellowmen. Whatever might have been the case before, the exceptions are rare ...
... of our being. And there is nothing "miraculous" or "irrational" here. Indeed, "what seems to us supernatural is in fact either a spontaneous irruption of the phenomena of other-Nature into physical Nature or...a possession of the knowledge and power of the higher orders or grades of cosmic Being and Energy and the direction of their forces and processes towards the production of effects in the ...
... proper to that particular plane. Thus, in man, there is a mental being corresponding to the mental nature, a vital being corresponding to the vital nature and a physical being answering to the physical nature. Now in the evolutionary emergence so far effectuated here upon earth, the dual aspect of Chit-Shakti — the aspect of consciousness and the aspect of force — have not quite marched in ...
... been attempted for the most part as individual personal achievements, imperfect and precariously maintained by the help of Yogasiddhis, and not as a dharma, natural law, of the transformed physical nature. But "mental or vital occult power", warns Sri Aurobindo, "can only bring Siddhis of the higher plane into the individual life — like the Sannyasi who could take any poison without harm, but ...
... with him and in him. Mariana and darsana, a constant thinking of him in all things and seeing of him always and everywhere is essential to this way of devotion. When we look on the things of physical Nature, in them we have to see the divine object of our love; when we look upon men and beings, we have to see him in them and in our relation with them to see that we are entering into relations with ...
... factors influencing the personality, which are to be taken into consideration before one begins to take physical exercise, such as strength, diet, as well as the season of the year and the physical nature of the country. One important outcome of a regular practice of appropriate physical exercise is the symmetrical development of body parts. The concept of such development was highly elaborated ...
... that and these mental forms too can vary—there can be many forms expressing an idea in different ways or on different sides of the idea. Form exists but it is more plastic and variable than in physical nature. As to the Gods, men can build forms which they will accept; but these forms too are inspired into men's mind from the planes to which the God belongs. All creation has the two sides, the formed ...
... the Presence? By its very nature the Presence should at once make you see that it is there as if it were an object before you, without making you imagine things." Sir, is the Presence of a physical nature or a spiritual fact? And is the physical sense accustomed or able to see or feel spiritual things—a spiritual Presence, a non-material Form? To see the Brahman everywhere is not possible unless ...
... becomes harmless. It may help one spiritually. Complete removal of ego is possible when one identifies oneself with the Atman and realises the same Spirit in all. Also when the mental, vital and physical nature is known to be a derivation from the universal mental, vital and physical. The individual must realise also his identity with the transcendental or the cosmic Divine, whatever you may call it. ...
... But miss the luminous answer of the soul. The soul, the psychic being is in direct touch with the divine Truth, but it is hidden in man by the mind, the vital being and the physical nature. One may practice yoga and get illuminations in the mind and the reason; one may conquer power and luxuriate Page 9 in all kinds of experiences in the vital: one may establish even ...
... There is nothing to be made clear. These things were there before but to some extent controlled by the will or not sufficiently recognised by the consciousness. They now come up in the physical nature separated from the rest in their true appearance and force. They are able to persist because of the tamas in your nature which is unwilling to make a sustained and constant reaction of a quiet ...
... more and more towards their divine equivalents, but it is only when the supramental comes that there is the full change. I encounter so much resistance, revolt and attack from my physical nature while trying only to enlighten it. How much resistance you and the Mother must be facing while supramen-talising the whole material Nature! How do you manage it? The attacks must be coming on your ...
... the Cosmic Death-Ray. In one sense certainly there has been a progress. This march of machinery, this evolution of tools means man's increasing mastery over Nature, even though physical nature. The primitive Page 77 man like the animal is a slave, a puppet driven helplessly by Nature's forces. Both lead more or less a life of reflex action: there is here no free, ...
... laws and they differ from the laws of optics which govern the physical sight; but there is no reason why it should be called unnatural. It is unnatural only in the sense that it does not copy physical Nature; it is quite natural in the 1 sense that it is a faithful reproduction of another, a psychological Nature. Indian art is pre-eminently and par excellence the art of this inner re-formation ...
... alone win the Victory. Victory can be sure and certain only when it is a total Victory. The Mother, Words of the Mother - III: New Year Messages Every victory we win over the obscure physical Nature is the promise of a greater one to come. The Mother, Words of the Mother - II: The Body (the Physical) ...
... consciousness in which its transfiguration by a perfect self-discovery becomes possible. The real sense of man's progress does not lie in a mere restatement in slightly different terms of what physical Nature has already accomplished. Nor can the ideal of human life be simply the animal repeated on a higher scale of mentality. Indeed, "Man has seen that there can be a higher status of consciousness ...
... the worth of the achievements of Science in its own domain: it does not deny the reality of the rich harvest that men of science have gleaned from an elaborate investigation and exploration of physical Nature. But Science too, on its part, should not hesitate to admit that "the material universe 35. The Life Divine, p. 650. Page 75 is only the faÇade of an immense building ...
... being is not dynamic enough to make its will prevail over them. His will is not 'free' because it is not strong enough to be 'free', it is the slave of the forces that act on or in his vital and physical nature. Page 240 "[In the strong-willed person] the will is so far free that it stands above the play of these forces and he determines by his mental idea and resolve what he shall ...
... reposeful quiet which may deceitfully take the appearance of 'equality'. These phoney samat ā s may be recognised by the following signs: (i) Tamasic samat ā : The blind torpor of the physical nature and the heavy inertia of the vital being may lead to a temporary numbness of the reacting consciousness, which, in its turn, may create in the sadhaka a distaste for the joys of life and an ossified ...
... where he described himself as become one in his being with earth, "rolled round in its diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.” If we exalt this realisation to a profounder Self than physical Nature, we shall have the elements of the yogic knowledge. It is true that a mere sense of the Presence can only be a beginning, but by entering into the superconscious and by merging all other experience ...
... vividness and suggestiveness of the line are bolder and more decisive. Form in the Indian paintings emerges from the deeper source of the soul and the spirit rather than from the external and physical nature. Pramdna, proportion, harmony and perspective follow the same inner law of formulation ef the inner form, of the inner atmosphere, of the inner dimensions. Bhdva in Indian painting is ...
... in our body; and these impurities can be burnt away by the spark action of the soul. Mind, life and body are evolutes of Prakriti, Nature. But the soul is superior to the mental, vital and physical nature, which is also characterised by three gunas, Sattwa, Rajas sand Tamas. But the Page 114 action of the soul is free from these three gunas and from the limitations of the mind, life and ...
... flow into the body and inundate cell and tissue; a luminous materialization of this higher Ananda could of itself bring about a total transformation of the deficient or adverse sensibilities of physical Nature." 70 Personality of the Gnostic Being : Perfection of Fourfold Personality There is, indeed, a question of the nature of the personality of the Gnostic being. According to Sri ...
... [The Mother comments:] I have looked at this very, very often. There was even a time when I thought that if one could get a total, complete and perfect knowledge of the whole working of physical Nature as we perceive it in the world of Ignorance, then this might be a means to rediscover or reattain the Truth of things. After my last experience [of April 13] I can no longer think Page 127 ...
... his choice saying that he was fortunate in getting a foreign-qualified man for the post. I could not but be struck by the swift turn of events as if some force had been driving me. But, my crass physical nature realised much later that it was the Mother’s Force that had achieved that miracle. "A Force worked, but none knew from where it came." A fixed income and some private practice made life smooth ...
... strong part of the higher light that fights the ego? There necessarily must be if there is a strong struggle. The fight with the ego is part of the fight with the physical nature, for it is the superficial ego in the physical consciousness, irrational and instinctive, that refuses to go. After a long introspection I discovered that the ego or the vital ...
... come down; the suggestions from the outer nature proved too strong for you and between these suggestions and the inertia they interrupted the sadhana. Regarding the change of the physical nature, I never thought of doing it myself My impression was that such a herculean task could only be performed by the Mother's Force, while I maintained my station above. I always had a will for it but ...
... which is stationed in the higher self has to come down to work for the change of the human nature. It says, "Oh, now I am a part of the Divine and yet I have to descend and dwell with the lower physical nature." I suppose, you would agree that in my previous birth I must have been a sannyasin, seeking for Nirvana. Maybe — but it is a natural reluctance even if one is not after Nirvana. ...
... rule over me. You have some faith as well as doubts, I suppose. Refuse to let your mind dwell on the doubts and think always of the faith. They come from the ignorance of physical Nature. You have to reject them and replace them by faith. When one reads pages and pages of a novel one does not get tired. But studying lessons even for an hour exhausts one. Why so? ...
... physical sensation only touches and passes. The sex thoughts do not seem to come really from within us. Most of them have even no connection with us. They are merely a play of the physical nature without any individuality in them. They pass simply from men to women or the other way round—often without our knowledge. Yes, that is what happens — but sometimes people, if they receive ...
... love are man's and by love and devotion you can enter into divine power and knowledge. * * * Man is the net that the Divine Fowler has spread to capture the wide and fleet universal physical Nature, so that through him it may be brought under control, tamed and transfigured. * * * If you think for yourself or feel for yourself or act for yourself, you become a misap ...
... the same way the artist, a painter for example, trains his eyes so that he can know how to appraise the beauty of form and colour, line and design, composition and harmony that is found in physical nature. It is not mere desire or hunger that drives them, it is taste, culture, development of the sense of sight, appreciation of beauty that is his preoccupation. Generally, artists who are truly ...
... possible only by a physical impact embodying Page 52 and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical Nature to a new and higher status. The occult seers declare that we are today on the earth at such a crisis of evolution. Earth and Man and man's earthly life need to be radically transfigured. ...
... the evolutionary gradient were possible only by a physical impact embodying and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine Incarnation seems to push and lift up physical Nature to a new and higher status. The occult seers declare that we are today on the earth at such a crisis of evolution. Earth and Man and man's earthly life need to be radically transfigured ...
... emphasis in -two directions. First of all with regard to the subject-matter: the old-world poets took things as they were, as they were obvious to the eye, things of human nature and things of physical Nature, and without questioning dealt with them in the beauty of their normal form and function. The modern mentality has turned away from the normal and the obvious: it does not accept and admit the ...
... upon the mind, including the vital consciousness. This is translated in the consciousness as an attachment to the past, to what man has been familiar with. Conservation is the term in respect of physical Nature and atavism is its expression in human nature. It is so difficult for man to leave the beaten track, for that means risk and danger; our thoughts and movements are all shaped in the mould of ...
... Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education – August 1972 (Notes on 25-3-72 ). Page 88 force into it this new element; but Matter and man's physical nature were not yet ready: Earth still considered it as an intrusion, as something foreign. The material casing broke down in consequence – perhaps not broke down, rather broke through: but that must ...
... But we have arrived today at a stage when this old-world view has perforce to be discarded. We can no longer take Laplace seriously: for scientists themselves have established as a fact in physical Nature the indeterminacy of her movements, the impossibility of foretelling a la Laplace, not because of any deficiency in the human instrument but because of the very nature of things. Science is of ...
... absolutely beyond can be and has to be brought out and down upon and into earth, established here below in the fullness of its own glory. That is the material epiphany, the transformation of the physical nature, the ultimate and inevitable destiny of earth and mankind. Such is the full cycle of human life – in the beginning the birth in mortality and in ignorance, then a process of developing and ...
... delineation to make you choose the one or the other. The question is whether you have been able to get at the truth of the thing. Subtle is the penetrating influence of art. We, who live in the physical nature, are unable to feel it readily. We require a massive influence. If it is not clearly pointed out to us we fail to grasp it; we need a baton-charge to be aroused from our slumber. That is why religious ...
... history, and classical literature with a deliberate effort to provide education of the inner soul through poetry, art, and music, — all set in the atmosphere of the harmony between the human and physical nature that uplifted the aspiration of the individual to attain states of universality, oneness and transcendence. 36. Knowledge about gold and silver coins, and jewels and gems; 37. Chemistry ...
... inner experience. It began with the Vedas and developed various facets of spiritual experience, philosophical thought and systems responding to emotional and vital needs as also demands of the physical nature. It maintained a continuous thread uninterruptedly right up to the present day, and this religion succeeded in providing an example of a rich nursery of spiritual growth and flowering in a vast ...
... his commentary. However, he did not consider the Vedic seers to be mere children or men at their primitive stage. Nor did he lay any stress on the explanation based on the sights and scenes of physical Nature. He observed and understood the Veda from the standpoint of sacrificial rites. He endeavoured to discover from the Veda the nature of sacrifice and a full account of the ceremonies to be performed ...
... and won. That is how we meet not unoften a considerable discrepancy between the inner being of a man and his earthly tenement, his soul and his external Page 71 character and physical nature. There is a meaning in the choice, a significance in the utilisation of unfavourable conditions: there is a method in the madness. This grouping will appear natural and inevitable when we ...
... falsehood comes. of an attempt to express and maintain the fact of our youth that is still effective in our life and inner consciousness in spite of our years. But the inexorable law of the external physical nature is still in operation; It invades our mind and' afflicts it at times. Moreover, in addition to this resistance in our own individual consciousness 01.' frame of mind, there is pressing upon us ...
... effects. Also at the same time there should be the knowledge of what the cells should be like, how they ought to react to the blow. And the procedure adopted too is quite different from that of physical Nature which takes hours, days, months to repair a damage; the inner knowledge can do the thing immediately. This inner knowledge can be Page 58 brought down from its highest source ...
... advent of the Cosmic Death-Ray. In one sense certainly there has been a progress. This march of machinery, this evolution of tools means man's increasing mastery over Nature, even though physical nature. The primitive man like the animal is a slave, a puppet driven helplessly by Nature's forces. Both lead more or less a life of reflex action: there is here no free, original initiation of action ...
... Sri Ramakrishna could see the soul of a man and predict his destiny. Page 189 logical factors beyond the range of human vision, and also on the degree of the resistance of the physical nature itself. And it is this length of time taken for manifestation or materialisation that gives an apparent plausibility to the facile verdict of the sceptic and the materialist that the words of ...
... falsehood comes of an attempt to express and maintain the fact of our youth that is still effective in our life and inner consciousness in spite of our years. But the inexorable law of the external physical nature is still in operation. It invades our mind and pains it at times. Moreover, in addition to this resistance in our own individual consciousness or frame of mind, there is pressing upon us from ...
... plundering, squeezing or exploiting others. It is then easy to understand that a general enrichment could not be visualized. What was missing was the application of the mind to the mastery of physical nature and the deliberate an concerted effort to apply knowledge to the economic and social uplift of the whole society. It is with the seventeenth century that the notion of progress dawned upon ...
... perceived in the contemporary events was their intensity, their violence, not their evolutionary trend, which was invisible to them. 2. And a period when the human mind turned to the mastery of physical nature and applied its discoveries and inventions in a deliberate and concerted effort to the economic and social betterment of the whole society. This possibility dawned upon man with the seventeenth ...
... Matter is body or field of a consciousness hidden within it, the material universe a form and movement of the Spirit. Man himself is not a life and mind born of Matter and eternally subject to physical Nature, but a Spirit that uses life and body. It is an understanding faith in this conception of existence... and it is the aspiration to break out in the end from this mind bound to life and matter into ...
... mental Purusha. The nature force operating in mind has another way of operating, very different. There is mental, vital, and physical Page 212 being—mental nature, vital nature, physical nature, and the purusha in each,—mental purusha, vital purusha, and the physical purusha means the subjective self. There is always a division in mind, life and body. All this is reconciled on the level ...
... empirical science of psychology. Hormism of McDugall making purposiveness of the mind its pivot belongs to the same class. Hormism believes that the difference between the mechanical operations of physical nature and those of mental nature is that all mental operations work towards some purpose, en conscious or unconscious. This " purposiveness " explains the manifold activities of human mind and its behaviour ...
... even in the West, that asceticism has gone to rabid extremes and delighted in the mortification of the flesh for its own sake. Most often the ethical mind exerts its will upon the erring vital-physical nature and represses those of its movements which it disapproves or deems detrimental to its self-improvement. Sometimes it is the vital will that turns a red eye upon some of its own movements and takes ...
... vital forces poured into it from the universal Life-Ocean, gives to it an extraordinary health, force and suppleness and seeks to liberate it from the habits by which it is subjected to ordinary physical Nature and kept within the narrow bounds of her normal operations. ...By various subsidiary but elaborate processes the Hathayogin next contrives to keep the body free from all impurities and the nervous ...
... not through the true individuality but through the individual in Nature. It acts through personality and personality is not the person. Personality is something formed of the mental vital and physical nature. This personality is responsible because it accepts the Gunas – the modes through ego and Nature. As I said, the Cosmic Spirit works through Nature and not direct. Disciple : But the Cosmic ...
... people who would come to the yoga would have no experience of the mental and the vital planes? Sri Aurobindo : They can have, if they hold aloof. Only, they can't help the pressure on the physical nature as it is in the atmosphere. There are cases that differ : there is some one X who made very good progress in the mind. In another case the Sadhak became aloof and progressed; but the moment ...
... a question of exceeding the limited human nature and growing into the Truth, the Right, the Vast. Man is at the meeting point of the physical and the metaphysical, and sums up in himself all physical nature and all the possibilities of angelic or divine nature. Page 322 The spiritual problem is to realise these possibilities. The mystic Jan Van Ruysbroeck says: ...
... Tome 2, P. 334 ( 4 ) " It ( death ) has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is then already—it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into whole of the material ...
... with colour and ultimately he wanted to be independent of all bondage to Nature; his "Self", he asserted, was free to express itself. He claimed the right to create forms that did not exist in physical nature, in life. He accepted in the beginning the forms of nature as raw materials—as repertoire for his new creation. But he distorted, twisted and dislocated the forms of Nature in his new creation ...
... wonder at the amount of tangles in which our nature is caught. To change them will be a Herculean job. One gets lost even to think of it. SRI AUROBINDO: The habits of the physical or the vital physical nature are always the most difficult to change, because their action is automatic and not governed by the mental will and it is therefore difficult for the mental will to control or transform them. You ...
... of the mantra, and the large aim is to accomplish the body's purification and self-mastery Page 553 and also to awaken the reserves of power in the inconscient depths of the physical nature: The whole energy of the soul is not at play in the physical body and life, the secret powers of mind are not awake in it, the bodily and nervous energies predominate. But all the while ...
... for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti... but the liberation and transformation of the human being." (SABCL, Vol. 16, p. 411. See also Vol. 23, p. 503.) Page 187 ...
... "all sorts of routes, but so complicated, so bizarre"! The daughter followed patiently, but just when they reached the room, the manager disappeared! As the Mother saw it, ...the mother is physical Nature as it is and the daughter is the new creation. The manager is the mental consciousness, organiser of the world as Nature has made it until now.... The disappearance of the manager and her key was ...
... and personalities and follows that she may transform them the way of the seeking mind, the way of .the aspiring psychic, the way of the battling vital, the way of the imprisoned and suffering physical nature....There are conditions that have been laid down by a Supreme Will, there are many tangled knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder.... The Divine Consciousness and Force ...
... endowed with miraculous and luminous powers, to impose on this body a law superior to its own, or even to push the physical substance to its supreme degree of refinement, but “to create a new physical nature,” 38 and yet out of this body, this poor, frail animal body, since it is our very base, our instrument of evolution. The new being will not come out of the clear blue sky, ready-made. We ...
... within but the outer has not yet begun to follow. SRI AUROBINDO: Determination is needed and a firm patience, not to be discouraged by this or that failure. It is a change in the habit of the physical nature and that needs a long patient work of detail. (19.11.33) ...
... occupied by ‘better’ sadhaks. For a good sadhak there will always be a place in one way or another. The incapacity which you discover in yourself is simply the resistance of the habitual external and physical nature, which everyone has and which none, however good a sadhak, has yet been able to transform radically, because it is the last thing to change and its resistance is acute just now because it is against ...
... like a fist blow, by stretching it like a rubber band, is not a power—a power that does not change Matter itself is not a power. It is Matter itself that must be changed. We must create a new physical nature, 31 Sri Aurobindo would soon say. The true change of consciousness, Mother emphasized, is one that will change the physical conditions of the world and turn it into an entirely new creation ...
... fulfilling, freeing the physical of the attachment to this kind of vital self-expenditure, is the best way. As for the feeling of being driven, compelled, that is quite usual when it is the physical nature that is being dealt with; there is no need to be upset or think it can not be got over. The physical is the slave of certain forces which create a habit and drive it through the mechanical force ...
... woke up, gave himself a shake and trotted off." She added musingly, "It was an interesting life." And how! "Extraordinary occurrences which go outside the ordinary course of physical Nature," as Sri Aurobindo puts it, became everyday occurrences at Zarif. When the eight-legged table flung itself upon the unfortunate Arab merchant with nobody within touching distance, one could have ...
... suspended in the air unmindful of the law of gravitation. What a delightful feeling of rest and lightness that gives! even if it occurs in our dreams. But Sri Aurobindo was out to conquer all laws of physical nature. He therefore went about it in his own way. He would keep an arm or a leg suspended in the air for more than two hours sometimes. "Utthapana, in spite of resistance, in left arm, legs neck," he ...
... life properly, not to speak of “mastery”, which is truly something exceptional on earth. * * * Sweet Mother, What is Supernature? Supernature is the Nature superior to material or physical Nature—what we usually call “Nature”. But this Nature that we see, feel and study, this Nature that has been our familiar environment since our birth upon earth, is not the only one. There is a vital ...
... principle everything is possible by uniting consciously with the Divine Force. But a method has to be found, and this depends on the case and the individual. The first condition is to have a physical nature that gives energy rather than draws energy from others. The second indispensable condition is to know how to draw energy from above, from the inexhaustible impersonal source. In this way ...
... “Love from the Divine”. 30 June 1970 * * * "The balance of nature in love for the divine" (double color roses) Mother, does "nature" represent here the material mother? or is it the physical nature of each person? Balance of the nature in the love for the Divine. 1 July 1970 * * * Mother, Yesterday you explained to me the difference between “Love from the Divine” and “Divine ...
... seeking, the assent of the vital being, the will to open and make plastic the physical consciousness and nature; rejection of the movements of the lower nature—rejection of the mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions, so that the true knowledge may find free room in a silent mind,—rejection of the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance... arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being,—rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always... works through the ego of the Jiva in the lower nature. In Yoga also it is the Divine who is the Sadhaka and the Sadhana; it is his Shakti with her light, power, knowledge, consciousness, Ananda, acting upon the adhara and, when it is opened to her, pouring into it with these divine forces that makes the Sadhana possible. But so long as the lower nature is active the personal effort of the Sadhaka ...
... All division in the being is insincerity. The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being. When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt. Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being— ...
... truth of one's being. 10) When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature immediately fills it with all the hostile suggestions, of which the most deadly is fear and the most pernicious, doubt. I wrote that before reading Sri Aurobindo's aphorism on 'the Page 212 sentinels of Nature.' 1 I found it very interesting and I said to myself, 'Well! That's exactly... yet conquered, they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust and scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature to forbid the turning away of our feet from less ordinary pastures.' Cent. Ed. Vol. XVII, p. 79 ...
... Integral Yoga has to renounce all the habitual movements of the lower nature. These include 'the Mind's ideas, opinions, preferences, habits, constructions'; 'the vital nature's desires, demands, cravings, sensations, passions, selfishness, pride, arrogance, lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the Truth'; and 'the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness... envy, hostility to the Truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, — rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, Tamas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda may establish itself in a body growing always more divine..." (The... can be split up into two distinct phases. The first phase concerns the progress of the individual, registered in the course of a single life-time limited between the two pillar-posts of physical birth and physical death. But the second phase extends over many successive lives of the individual, separated by a series of births, deaths, rebirths, and re-deaths. This forward journey of the con ...
... All division in the being is an insincerity. The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being. When an abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it up immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt. Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being―this... necessary to wait for the others to become sincere in order to become sincere yourself. 9 March 1968 The greatest enemies of a perfect sincerity are preferences (either mental, vital or physical) and preconceived ideas. It is these obstacles that must be overcome. Page 71 ...
... indicates a pacifying force bringing down calm or release. Knee to toe = the field of physical material consciousness. If the coolness passed into dullness, it may well have been only physical. But perhaps there was an inflow, only afterwards came a reaction of the lower inertia which is the physical Nature's characteristic retort to peace and quietude. When the inertia comes up the old movements... the thinking mind where it communicates with the higher consciousness; the neck or throat is the seat of the physical, externalising or expressive mind; the ear is the place of communication with the inner mind centre by which thoughts etc. enter into the personal being from the general Nature. The sternum at the point indicated 1 holds the psychic and emotional centre, with its apex on the spinal... but it also brings all other possibilities of the higher Consciousness too and, as you Page 475 felt, the seeds of transformation of the physical consciousness—by the coming in it of the seeds of the powers and qualities of the higher Nature. I am very glad that the experience we have been working to bring to you has come with such force and is increasing. It is the concrete descent ...
... to Page 23 face difficulties, sufferings, reverses of all sorts in a calm and unflinching spirit." 45 When one dares into the occult or hidden regions of Nature, the forces of the subtle physical and supraphysical planes are seen to be active—sometimes to help, sometimes to hinder; and hence the need for faith, calm, patience and fearlessness. Yoga, after all, is the razor's... lust, greed, jealousy, envy, hostility to the truth, so that the true power and joy may pour from above into a calm, large, strong and consecrated vital being, rejection of the physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, tamas, so that the true stability of light, power, ananda may establish itself... certain great powers of Nature, itself specialised, divided and variously formulated, is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity." 35 Yoga, then, is the technique of bringing out the fullest possibilities of powers already inherent in Nature. It is really a multiform technique, because one or another of the many powers of Nature could be isolated and ...
... accordance with this experience that it will approach the Divine. Then, in addition, it is the product of the union of two physical natures, you know, and sometimes of two vital natures. Page 369 The result of this is more or less a kind of mixture of these natures; but it brings about a tendency, what is called a character. Well, this character will make it fit for a certain field, a certain... Sweet Mother, in the individual do the past evolution and the present nature always decide the final intervention of a higher plane which brings about a change? What kind of question is this, I don't understand it very well. Past evolution?... Page 368 And the present nature... And the present nature? It is not the same thing, they are two different things. No, Mother,... written: "The mind's door of entry to the conception of him must necessarily vary according to the past evolution and the present nature." Yes, these two things are completely different. That is, the evolution in former lives and the present nature, that is, the nature of the present body, determine one's approach to the Divine. We can take a very... an over-simple example. If one is born in any ...
... it is in accordance with this experience that it will approach the Divine. Then, in addition, it is the product of the union of two physical natures, you know, and sometimes of two vital natures. The result of this is more or less a kind of mixture of these natures; but it brings about a tendency, what is called a character. Well, this character will make it fit for a certain field, a certain category... another, another part, and so on; so it chooses the place which offers it easy possibilities of development: the country, the conditions of living, the approximate nature of the parents, and also the condition of the body itself, its physical structure and the qualities it needs for its experiences. It takes rest, then at the required moment, wakes up and projects its consciousness upon earth centralising... But now, with the general collective human progress, there is behind the physical progress a vital progress and a mental progress, so that the mental progress can go on for a very long time, even after the physical progress has come to a stop, and through this mental progress one keeps up a kind of ascent long after the physical has ceased to progress. And then there are those who do yoga, who become ...
... life is taken up, an integral transformation is gradually realised in you."¹ But along with this aspiring surrender of the body and its actions, there must go a thorough rejection of the "physical nature's stupidity, doubt, disbelief, obscurity, obstinacy, pettiness, laziness, unwillingness to change, t mas, so that the true stability of Light, Power, Ananda ¹. The Words of the Mother.... Page 116 So long as the soul does not come to the front of our consciousness, it is always the ego that is the organiser and ruler of our nature. It may be a tamasic ego, wallowing in inertia and indolence and sheer physical amenities; or it be rajasic, drunk with desires and revelling in strife d struggle for power and possession; or it may be sattwic, stationing itself in the growing... action of our life, if it is dispassionately scrutinised, will be found to be shot through with the threads of desire, whether it assumes physical forms, vital forms or mental. In the body it manifests as hunger and thirst, which engross and enslave our physical consciousness; and in the vital it manifests as turbulent lusts and passions, clamorous cravings and insatiate ambitions, that toss and torment ...
... understand another interesting psychological phenomenon. Let us clarify the point. To simplify matters, let us point out that an individual human being, a mental creature but inheriting his physical-vital nature and evolutionary animal propensities, is always pulled by two contrary urges: (i) an urge towards pleasures, happinesses and satisfactions of all sorts, a felicific tendency; and (ii) an elan... make him act out the resultant. The Upanishads have declared that the manomayapurusah prana-sa-rira-neta, "mind is the leader of the vital and the physical". But in fact, it is not so. Instead of being the leader, it is most often led by the physical and vital pushes and passions. And as the function of the mind is to justify and give reasons, it seeks to side with the promptings of the body and the... The Mother favoured the "Free Progress" System of education for the outstanding students for the full flowering of all their potential and for the development of their true swadharma, self-nature. But it is not very easy on the part of an untrained average student to utilise the methodology of free progress in the right way. For example, in the Higher Course of SAICE, where the free progress ...
... and that vital and physical love were their necessary complements and were both a part of that complete expression. At any rate, if that was not clear in my letter, I want to make it clear now,—as also that physical darshan etc. are quite legitimate means of expression of the psychic love itself and, a fortiori , of the complete love which embraces all the parts of the nature. Therefore, you were... has to be built up in which no further sanction will ever seem to be given to the past mistaken movements of the sadhaks which were standing in the way of the descent of the Truth into the physical (material) nature. The basis cannot be built in a day, but the Mother had to stand back, otherwise to build it at all would be impossible. 7 December 1931 If it is the same part of the vital that was... It is quite out of the question for her to begin seeing everybody and receiving them meanwhile—a single morning of that kind of thing would exhaust her altogether. You must remember that for her a physical contact of this kind with others is not a mere social or domestic meeting with a few superficial movements which make no great difference one way or the other. It means for her an interchange, a pouring ...
... must have tried, because when she returned this morning, there was really a difference, especially a difference in the understanding, and she explained it to me. Then I spoke to her about the physical human nature and its infirmity, and she told me, "There is in this body something we—all of us up above—do not have and cannot have: the possibility of a constant Presence and of a constant contact with... was the artistic construction—mental, artistic—which was "more beautiful than reality." That's it, the guiding idea of the person in question. That's it you see; "Isn't this more beautiful than real nature?" There. It was very beautiful, a beautiful thing, but ... it's the mental fossilization of the Thing. It was very interesting—unexpected, I didn't expect to see that: a shape of a coiled snake ...
... takes a piece of paper and starts drawing ) Here we have (naturally in Nature it's not like this: we'll have to adapt—it's like this up there, in the ideal), here, a central point. This central point is a park I had seen when I was a little girl (perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world with regard to physical, material Nature), a park with water and trees like all parks, and flowers, but not too... with a road around it and someone to stop people from entering—one can be really in peace—but if I am there, that's an end to it! There will be collective meditations and so on. So if I have signs (physical signs, first), then the inner command to go out, I will go there in a car and spend an hour in the afternoon—I can do it from time to time.... We still have time, because it will take years before ...
... takes a piece of paper and starts drawing) Here we have (naturally in Nature it's not like this: we'll have to adapt — it's like this up there, in the ideal), here, a central point. This central point is a park I had seen when I was a little girl (perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world with regard to physical, material Nature), a park with water and trees like all parks, and flowers, but not too... a road around it and someone to stop people from entering — one can be really in peace - but if I am there, that's an end to it! There will be collective meditations and so on. So if I have signs (physical signs, first), then the inner command to go out, I will go there in a car and spend an hour in the afternoon - I can do it from time to time.... We still have time, because it will take years before ...
... draw.) We have here—naturally,it is not like that in Nature, we shall have to adapt ourselves; it is like Page 57 that up there on the ideal plane—here, a central point. This central point is a park which I saw when I was very young—perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world from the point of view of physical, material Nature—a park with water and trees, like all parks, and flowers... someone to stop people from coming in; one can stay very quiet—but if I am there, that is the end of it! There would be collective meditations, etc. That is to say that if I get a sign, first the physical sign, then the inner command to go out, I shall drive there and spend an hour, in the afternoon—I can do that now and then. We still have time because, before everything is ready, it will take years... Last School The future belongs to those who want to progress. Blessings to those whose motto is: "Always better". 6.10.1971 * Another message for the Last School In the physical the Divine manifests as Beauty. 6.10.1971 Laying of Aurofood foundation stone We shall work for a better tomorrow. 14.8.1968* * Page 68 To ...
... necessary for success in the spiritual life. Knowledge of the way is not enough—one must tread it, or if one cannot do that, allow oneself to be carried along it. The human vital and physical external nature resist to the very end, but if the soul has once heard the call, it arrives, sooner or later. What you write [ about the urge of the soul ] is quite accurate about the true soul, the... All can pass who are drawn to that Truth, whether they are from India or elsewhere, from the East or from the West. All may find great difficulties in their personal or common human nature; but it is not their physical origin or their racial temperament that can be an insuperable obstacle to their deliverance. I am not sure about the last matter. 1 After all India with her mentality and method... is also probably necessary that this should be faced and overcome before any supramental realisation is possible in the earth-consciousness—for it is the attitude of the physical mind to spiritual things and as it is in the physical that the resistance has to be overcome before the mind can be overpassed in the way required for this Yoga, the strongest possible representation of its difficulties was ...
... begins to draw. ) We have here―naturally, it is not like that in Nature, we shall have to adapt ourselves; it is like that up there on the ideal plane―here, a central point. This central point is a park which I saw when I was very young―perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world from the point of view of physical, material Nature―a park with water and trees, like all parks, and flowers, but not... someone to stop people from coming in; one can stay very quiet―but if I am there, that is the end of it! There would be collective meditations, etc. That is to say that if I get a sign, first the physical sign, then the inner command to go out, I shall drive there and spend an hour, in the afternoon―I can do that now and then. We still have time because, before everything is ready, it will take years... people are not honest enough. The work can be an occult, completely inner work; but for that, it must be absolutely sincere and true, and with the capacity for it: no pretension. But not necessarily a physical work. "Sections like industries which participate actively will contribute part of their income towards the development of the township; or if they produce something (like foodstuffs) that is ...
... sure ground, supra-physical and supra-conscient knowledge must satisfy the criteria of verifiability, repeatability, abiding realisation, although one need not succumb to the demand that the supra-physical must necessarily be proved physically, a demand which is irrational, — since supra-physical by Page 20 nature is supra-physical and except when it has physical consequences, its... its proof must lie in the supra-physical and it must be ascertainable through supra-physical means. And Yogic science tells us that the supra-physical can be tested supra-physically but with such rigour that just as in physical sciences errors can be eliminated by relevant methods, errors in the field of supra-physical can also be eliminated by applying its own appropriate methods. Educational im... development, and these thrusts are far from being homogenous or harmonious with one another. The physical being is often in conflict with the vital pursuits, and when the vital ambitions and attractions impose upon the physical body their own burden, the physical often revolts or collapses. The demands of physical health are often in clash with the demands of the vital being. Again, the demands of the vital ...
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