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English [83]
A Centenary Tribute [1]
A Greater Psychology [3]
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At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo [1]
Essays on the Gita [5]
Finding the Psychic Being [1]
Guidance from Sri Aurobindo - Volume 1 [1]
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Integral Yoga of Transformation [1]
Kena and Other Upanishads [1]
Letters on Himself and the Ashram [3]
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Letters on Yoga - I [1]
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On Sri Aurobindo's Savitri [1]
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Our Light and Delight [2]
Perspectives of Savitri - Part 1 [1]
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Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays [1]
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Questions and Answers (1954) [1]
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Sri Aurobindo - The Poet [1]
Sri Aurobindo - The Smiling Master [1]
Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history [1]
Sri Aurobindo for All Ages [1]
Sri Aurobindo to Dilip - Volume II [1]
Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine [1]
Talks with Sri Aurobindo [1]
The Birth of Savitr [1]
The Destiny of the Body [4]
The Life Divine [5]
The Mother with Letters on the Mother [1]
The Secret Splendour [1]
The Synthesis of Yoga [11]
The Vision and Work of Sri Aurobindo [2]
Tribute to Amrita on his Birth Centenary [1]
Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation [1]
83 result/s found for Silent self

... or else brings forward at the moment. It depends on the play of your natural personality and that formation of Nature is not your true person. Draw back from this external formation to your inner silent self; you will see that you the Purusha are inactive, but Nature continues to do always her works according to her gunas. Fix yourself in this inner inactivity and stillness: no longer regard yourself... y the self-sufficient delight of a calm and eternal spirit. Then you will have ceased to be a mental creature and will have become spirit illimitable, the Brahman. And into this eternity of the silent self, rejecting from your mind all seed of thought and all root of desire, rejecting the figure of birth in the body, you can pass at your end by concentration in Page 584 the pure Eternal... an indispensable means and an intimate part of spiritual perfection. "Therefore now to the experience of a high impersonality add too this knowledge that the Supreme whom one meets as the pure silent Self can be met also as a vast dynamic Spirit who originates all works and is Lord of the worlds and the Master of man's action and endeavour and sacrifice. This apparently self-acting mechanism of Nature ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita
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... Intelligence which thus acts through the calm, indifferent and inwardly silent Yogin who offers no obstacle of limited and ignorant personal will and intelligence to its operations. He dwells in the silent Self; he allows the active Brahman to work through his natural instruments, accepting impartially, without participation, the formations of its universal force and knowledge. This status of an inner... still a gulf, an unrealised unity or a cleft of consciousness between the passive and the active Brahman. We have still to possess consciously the active Brahman without losing the possession of the silent Self. We have to preserve the inner silence, tranquillity, Page 405 passivity as a foundation; but in place of an aloof indifference to the works of the active Brahman we have to arrive at... or an inertia of mechanically active non-possession of self if not altogether an unreality. But the sadhaka who has once seen firmly the essence of things and tasted thoroughly the peace of the silent Self, is not likely to be content with any state which involves loss of self-knowledge or a sacrifice of the peace of the soul. He will not precipitate himself back into the mere individual movement of ...

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... in the One, or else from above by realising the pure Self or absolute Existence in its outgoing, immanent, all-embracing, all-constituting self-knowledge and self-creative power. The immanent, silent Self in all is the foundation of this cosmic consciousness for the experience of the mental being. It Page 409 is the Witness pure and omnipresent who as the silent Conscious Soul of the cosmos... this moves and acts; within all this it is stable and immutable. Having this, we possess our eternal self-existence at rest in its eternal consciousness and bliss. Next we have to realise this silent Self as the Lord of all the action of universal Nature; we have to see that it is this same Self-existent who is displayed in the creative force of His eternal consciousness. All this action is only His... the laya , dissolution, or mokṣa , liberation, at which the Yoga of Knowledge aims. This may extend itself, as in the traditional Yoga, to the dissolution of mind, life and body itself into the silent Self or absolute Existence; but the essence of the liberation is the merging of the individual in the Infinite. When the Yogin no longer feels himself to be a consciousness situated in the body or limited ...

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... aspects of the Divine: the Silent Self, for example, is certainly an aspect of the Divine, but it is as certainly not omniscient or omnipotent in itself — it is too absorbed in peaceful bliss and light to have either the dynamic ecstasy or the dynamic knowledge — it is omnipresent, but God's omnipresence is multiple, He is everywhere in all His aspects while the Silent Self is ubiquitous in Page... arising from the One that is differently realised. You are quite right in thinking that what is called the Supermind is Sri Aurobindo's speciality and that it is not compassed by Masters of the Silent Self like Raman Maharshi or even by the more catholic Vivekananda: the synthetic genius of Rama-krishna himself has not embraced its basic implications. Krishna Prem seems to me mistaken in saying that ...

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... experience too Sri Aurobindo gives us a hint. Apropos of the silent Self he says: "It is when we arrive at something of this silence, stability, immobility that we can base on it a force and energy which in our superficial restless state would be inconceivable." 9 Here we may note that the greatness and importance of Shankara's silent Self is never denied by Sri Aurobindo. He has even called... not unique here. And this leaves little room for saying that other experiences are liable to fall away while the Shankarite experience cannot. One can have glimpses and snatches of the silent Self, brief attainments from which one drops back, just as one can have temporary reachings of other aspects of the Supreme Reality. Nor is this realisation the only one deserving to be called ...

... or else brings forward at the moment. It depends on the play of your natural personality and that formation of Nature is not your true person. Draw back from this external formation to your inner silent self; you will see that you the Purusha are inactive, but Nature continues to do always her works according to her gunas. Fix yourself in this inner inactivity and stillness: no longer regard yourself... y the self-sufficient delight of a calm and eternal spirit. Then you will have ceased to be a mental creature and will have become spirit illimitable, the Brahman. And into this eternity of the silent self, rejecting from your mind Page 89 all seed of thought and all root of desire, rejecting the figure of birth in the body, you can pass at your end by concentration in the pure Eternal... and an intimate part of spiritual perfection. "Therefore now to the experience of a high impersodality Page 90 add too this knowledge that the Supreme whom one meets as the pure silent Self can be met also as a vast dynamic Spirit who originates all works and is Lord of the worlds and the Master of man's action and endeavour and sacrifice. This apparently self-acting mechanism of Nature ...

... than the Maya or all-knowledge of Brahman; it is the Power of the Self; Prakriti is the working of the Purusha, Conscious Being active by its own Nature: the duality then of Soul and World-Energy, silent Self and the creative Power of the Spirit, is not really something dual and separate, it is biune. As we cannot separate Fire and the power of Fire, it has been said, so we cannot separate the Divine... aspects, we can get a complete view of the relation between the eternal Self-Existence and the dynamics of the Consciousness-Force by which it manifests the universe. If we place ourselves in a silent Self-existence immobile, static, inactive, it will appear that a conceptive Consciousness-Force, Page 369 Maya, able to effectuate all its conceptions, a dynamic consort of the Self of silence ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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... renunciation and the way of the Gita are both agreed that it must first of all renounce this Page 528 absorption, must cast from it the external solicitation of outward things and separate silent self from active nature; it must identify itself with the immobile Spirit and live in the silence. It must arrive at an inner inactivity, naiṣkarmya . It is therefore this saving inner passivity that... not share or initiate the action of the universe. The soul when it throws itself out into active Nature is the Gita's Kshara, its mobile or mutable Purusha; the same soul gathered back into pure silent self and essential spirit is the Gita's Akshara, immobile or immutable Purusha. Then evidently the straight and simplest way to get out of the close bondage of the active nature and back to spiritual ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita
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... itself, to become free and to open to the higher consciousness above. When this happens, several other things can happen at the Page 322 same time. First, one becomes aware of the silent Self above—free, wide, without limits, pure, untroubled by the mental, vital and physical movements, empty of ego and limited personality,—this is what you have described in your letter. Secondly, the... called the subtle body, sūkṣma śarīra . This Self has two aspects and the results of realising it correspond to these two aspects. One is static, a condition of wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent Self is unaffected by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned, udāsīna . The other aspect is dynamic ...

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... Laughter ) ( To another ) So, you have a question? What does "the experience of the silent Self" mean? Everyone has in himself a being which he calls the "Self", and which is completely silent and immobile. So, if one becomes conscious of this being in himself, one has the experience of the silent Self. It is an immobile and silent being which is within, which is like an aspect of the true ...

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... the body. It then experiences itself as wider Page 152 and in absolute peace - as if it were nothing but Shanti.       That is how one feels when one is living in the silent Self.       Kindly tell me where the source of peace, silence etc. is?      As I told you it is a thing for you to feel not for me to tell. The centre of silence, peace etc. as you feel them... Consciousness. I wrote simply thinking that to dwell in the Self-consciousness is only the first step towards living in the Mother's Consciousness.       Yes, it is the first step. Afterwards the silent self gets filled up with the Mother's active consciousness, the true consciousness, without the fundamental silence being disturbed — then all the action can become more and more the true action. ...

... Nature. He is himself then Nature, so to speak, but with a spirit within her workings which foresees and forewills, understands and enforces, compels the action, overrules in the result. As the one silent self of all he is the non-doer, and Nature alone is the doer. He leaves all these works to be done by her according to the law of our being, svabhāvas tu pravartate , and yet he is still the lord, prabhu... he infinitely exceeds them and precedes them, is the same before, during and after all their procession in the cycles of Time. All their mutations make no difference to his immutable being. The silent self that pervades and supports the cosmos is not affected by its changes because, though supporting, it does not participate in them. This greatest supreme supracosmic Self also is not affected because ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita
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... questioner and question in its divine stillness." 5 What do you think, from this, the Overself of the Maharshi is? Is it the Antaratman leading to or widening into the Cosmic Self or is it the silent Self of the Jnanis, the traditional Atman, realised directly? [ Sri Aurobindo did not immediately answer this question, posed on 4 March 1937. The correspondent sent two reminders, to which Sri Aurobindo... Divine, first above the body, life, mind and not only within the heart supporting them—above and free and unattached as the static Self but also extended in wideness through the world as the silent Self in all and dynamic too as the active cosmic Divine Being and Power, Ishwara-Shakti, containing the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects. But, what is ...

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... ascent upwards into things beyond our present mental level; that is the second spiritual possibility in us. The first most ordinary result is Page 290 a discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel to be our real or our basic existence, the foundation of all else that we are. There may be even an extinction, a Nirvana both of our active being and of the sense of self into a Reality... of cosmic existence. It is possible to remain in a Nirvana of all individuality, to stop at a static realisation or, regarding the cosmic movement as a superficial play or illusion imposed on the silent Self, to pass into some supreme immobile and immutable status beyond the universe. But another less negative line of supernormal experience also offers itself; for there takes place a large dynamic descent ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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... Prayer is one of the first signs of the typical Aurobindonian Yoga, all the more notable because of the associations of the word "Vedantin". The traditional Vedantin who merges in the infinite silent Self of selves has no call for prayer: prayer can be directed only to some supreme Lord and Lover. Here the usual pressing towards the "hidden door of Knowledge" is mixed with a response to "the eternal... itself into the higher realms and even in disappearing into the supramental and Ananda levels is transformed Page 364 into something that will bring down their powers into the silent self which its cessation leaves behind it. "Gold-red is the colour of the Supramental in the physical— the poem describes Thought in the stage when it is undergoing transformation and is about ...

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... awaited her, for she confronted giant head of vast and tumultuous life, uncontrolled by mind or soul. Released by the physical mind, a torrent of the blind life-force denuded the stillness of her silent self. It cried to her listening spirit as it ran, Demanding God's submission to chainless Force. 11 It brought about surgings of the opposite movements of the Life-force — flame-ascensions... Through it all she moved not, plunged not in the vain waves, 9 Ibid., p. 479. 10 Ibid., p. 490. 11 Ibid, p. 492. Page 431 Out of the vastness of the silent self Life's clamour fled; her spirit was mute and free. 12 Then, journeying further through the wide hush, Savitri came to a world where the Life-force was ordered or rather chained to an ...

... World-Soul 70 Aswapati sees a luminous tunnel in the glowing background of the Mind-Space. It promises to lead him from the unsatisfying world of external consciousness into the depths of the silent Self. Aswapati finds himself in the hidden depths of the world's deep soul. He passes through this tunnel led by a mysterious sound. The sound seemed first like the yearning conveyed by a lonely flute... movements. This widening can extend itself so as to bring us in union with the consciousness of the cosmic mind and universal life. After this, the next step is the discovery of the static and silent Self which we feel to be our real existence. This may even lead to an extinction, a Nirvana both of our active being and of the sense of self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible. Aswapati ...

... the Para Shakti." 1 Confronted with this inability to participate actively in the dynamic manifestation without at the same time losing the possession of the freedom and peace of the silent Self, the mental being gets tempted to adopt the attitude of an indifferent and inactive witness of the world-play and at the best allow his organs of sense and motor-action a free play of their own... gulf, an unrealised unity or a cleft of consciousness between the passive and the active Brahman. We have still to possess consciously the active Brahman without losing the possession of the silent Self. We have to preserve the inner silence, tranquillity, passivity as a foundation; but in place of an aloof indifference to the works of the active Brahman we have to arrive at an equal and impartial ...

... Thus, our mind-consciousness is tempted to effectuate a short-cut and take a straight jump to the Transcendent. On this line, "the first most ordinary result is a discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel to be our real or our basic existence....There may be even an extinction, a Nirvana both of our active being and of the sense of self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible... inexpressible....It is possible to remain in a Nirvana of all individuality, to stop at a static realisation or, regarding all the cosmic movement as a superficial play or illusion imposed on the silent Self, to pass into some supreme immobile and immutable status beyond the universe." 2 But fortunately this is not the only possible line of supernormal spiritual experience: the withdrawal ...

... and the mobile Brahman are both the same Reality. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 459) We have...to possess consciously the active Brahman without losing possession of the silent Self. We have to preserve the inner silence, tranquillity, passivity as a foundation; but in place of an aloof indifference to the works of the active Brahman we have to arrive at an equal and impartial... end? Did not Sri Ramakrishna give the image of a pregnant woman whose work-load diminishes day by day? But the difficulty experienced by a spiritual seeker in guarding the peace of the silent Self while engaged in dynamic activity is more incidental than intrinsic . It arises out of the mental being's exclusive concentration on its "plane of pure existence in which consciousness is at rest ...

... realise its own existence in cognition, in dynamic self-presentation, in substantiating experience. In Overmind, in all the higher ranges of the mind, we find recurring the dichotomy of a pure silent self without feature or qualities or relations, self-existent, self-poised, self-sufficient, Page 324 and the mighty dynamis of a determinative knowledge-power, of a creative consciousness ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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... aspect which gives credibility to this world. Aswapati found love and sweetness of the Mother-force absent here. This would not satisfy him and he is prompted to go beyond the realization of this silent self. II: 14 The World-Soul In search of the active power who shapes the course of events, Aswapati is led by a mysterious sound and he comes to a wonderful realm. There ...

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... Self, Sri Aurobindo writes: This Self has two aspects and the results of realising it correspond to these two aspects. One is static, a condition of wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent Self is unaffected by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned, udāsīna. The other aspect is ...

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... called the subtle body, sūksma śarira. This Self has two aspects and the results of realising it correspond to these two aspects. One is static, a condition of wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent Self is unaffected by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned, udūsina. The other aspect is dynamic ...

... nce to which the Supermind belongs and so it alone can serve as the dynamic basis of the supramental action in its full purity in our world. Its role is complementary to that of the infinite Silent Self (Atman) which is needed to serve as the static basis, the medium through which the Supermind can descend without distortion into our world. Once the psychic being has taken charge of our whole ...

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... all circumstances.   The way to this realisation is, according to me, twofold: "Equanimity, immune to hurt and mishap, which tends to carry one towards a reflection within us of the vast silent Self which is ever free - and the persistent undisturbed remembrance of the Personal Divine (who, for me, is Sri Aurobindo and the Mother) and the sincere offering of all our movements and all happenings ...

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... need of the soul. Page 164 The mystic mood is always the same but the mode of its experience varies with the time of the day. In the morning its response is a happy crescendo. A silent self-dedication keeps rising from the eyes as they resume their intimacy with the surrounding scene and then grow into a pair of exploring wings on which the soul lifts itself up into the wide disclosure ...

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... Self into which the Jiva has cast its being is the actionless, the fathomlessly still. The path of works leads to the realisation of the Lord, but here even the Lord is not known; there is only the silent Self and Prakriti doing her works, even, as it seems at first, not with truly living entities but with names and forms existing in the Self but which the Self does not admit as real. The soul may go even ...

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... these various disciplines and concentrations, but harmonise and if possible fuse them by a synthesis which removes their mutual exclusions. Not realising the Lord and the All only to reject them for silent Self or unknowable Absolute as would an exclusively transcendental, nor living for the Lord alone or in the All alone as would an exclusively theistic or an exclusively pantheistic Yoga, the seeker ...

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... descent of the higher silence, the silence of the Self or Atman. In this silence one perceives, but the mind is not active,—things are sensed, but without any responsive connection or vibration. The silent Self is there as a separate reality, not bound or involved in the activity of Nature, aloof, detached and self-existent. Even if thoughts come across this Page 453 silence, they do not disturb ...

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... silent, to be free from thoughts and still—for it is oftenest when the mind falls silent that there is the full descent of a wide peace from above and in that wide tranquillity the realisation of the silent Self above the mind spread out in its vastnesses everywhere. Only, when there is the peace and the mental silence, the vital mind tries to rush in and occupy the place or else the mechanical mind tries ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II
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... here to receive it. It rises itself into the higher realms and even in disappearing into the supramental and Ananda levels is transformed into something that will bring down their powers into the silent Self which its cessation leaves behind it. Knowledge and Ignorance Knowledge is always better than ignorance. It makes things possible hereafter if not at the moment, while ignorance actively obstructs ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - IV
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... significance. As to the triple condition it indicates the proper direction of the realisation of the sadhana in three parts of the being. The mind has to merge in the one infinite consciousness of the silent self which will then envelop the whole being; the heart has by adoration and love and surrender to live in the dynamic Divine and be its dwelling place; the vital and physical (below the navel) have to ...

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... called the subtle body, s ū ksma ś arira. This Self has two aspects and the results of realising it correspond to these two aspects. One is static, a condition of wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent Self is unaffected by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned, ud ā sina. The other aspect is ...

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... that they acquired from the witness soul within him what seemed a spiritual value and significance. But now he has withdrawn that ascription or mirroring identification; he is conscious only of his silent self and aloof from all that is in motion around it; all activities are outside him and at once they cease to be intimately real; they appear now mechanical, detachable, endable. " Sri Aurobindo, ...

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... suddenly and summarily. An Aurobindonian does not run down any Yogi; he refuses, however, to be single-tracked. Ramana Maharshi, for instance, has a wonderfully luminous realisation of the Silent Self and all that he says is charged with its truth. Just because a man follows Sri Aurobindo, he does not reject Ramana Maharshi as a false guide: the latter has caught hold of spiritual Reality ...

... or preparation of the real thing, an integral union of the soul and its instruments in a dual life. But even some imperfect appearance of that is rare.       So she fared on across her silent self.       To a road she came thronged with an ardent crowd       Who sped brilliant, fire-footed, sunlight-eyed,       Pressing to reach the world's mysterious wall,       And pass through ...

... the chief obstacles. If the vital were quiet (not either inert or restless) one would feel peace itself as a great realisation as all great Yogis do, and into it would come the sense of the free silent Self unperturbed for ever and tranquil and in that condition the Force also could descend. A vital attached and demanding results and refusing to go on with the sadhana without them is a great hindrance ...

... here to receive it. It rises itself into the higher realms and even in disappearing into the Supramental and Ananda levels is transformed into something that will bring down their powers into the silent self which its cessation leaves behind it. Gold-red is the colour of the Supramental in the physical — the poem describes Thought in the stage when it is undergoing transformation and is about to ascend ...

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... period of expansiveness every day could not become a permanent feature all along. It went on decreasing in its duration till, in the closing years of Sri Aurobindo's earthly existence, he became his silent self again. In Nirodbaran's words, "As the years passed, the original stream of abundance began to get thinner and thinner till in the last years there was practically a silent attendance on a silent ...

... realise its own existence in cognition, in dynamic self-presentation, in substantiating experience. In Overmind, in all the higher ranges of the mind, we find recurring the dichotomy of a pure silent self without feature or qualities or relations, self-existent, self-poised, self-sufficient, and the mighty dynamis of a determinative knowledge-power, of a creative consciousness and force which precipitates ...

... personality of Knowledge, Power, Love and Skill Integral Personality Fundamental Experiences of the Yogi Experiences of the Witness Self, Cosmic Consciousness, Silent Self, Nirvana, Personal Divine, Supramental Consciousness and Power Yoga in the Veda, Upanishads, the Bhagavadgita, the Yoga Sutra, Yoga and Yogic Research; New Paths of Yoga Yoga ...

... for months thereafter. This young man was Aurobindo Ghose and he had this profound spiritual experience the moment he reached India. He told us later that it was the experience of the calm and silent Self, a realisation attained by yogis after years of sadhana. Yet it came to Sri Aurobindo, unbidden and without his seeking it. He was not a yogi at the time; in fact, he knew nothing about yoga then ...

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... turns inward. When it turns inward, it goes into the subliminal, and the veil between the external and internal is rent. When the veil is rent, then the consciousness opens out into a vast static silent Self and begins to communicate with the Oneself which is in all. The Second movement is that of a dynamic descent of light, knowledge, power etc. The Higher Consciousness descends after rending ...

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... ignorance binding the soul to continual birth by the impulse of desire and action until at last that is exhausted or cast away? Not only desire, but action also must be flung away; seated in the silent self the soul will then pass away into the motionless, actionless, imperturbable, absolute Brahman. To this objection of the impersonalising quietist the Gita is at more pains to answer than to that of ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita
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... Rocks = the physical (most material) being. An opening in the material making room for the formation of the spiritual consciousness there. Stone image of Shiva = the realisation of the silent Self or Brahman there (peace, silence, wideness of the Infinite, purity of the witness Purusha). Out of this silence emerges the Divine Shakti concentrated for the transformation of the material. ...

... above the body, life, mind and not only within the heart supporting them—above Page 497 and free and unattached as the static Self but also extended in wideness through the world as the silent Self in all and dynamic too as the active Divine Being and Power, Ishwara-Shakti, containing the world and pervading it as well as transcending it, manifesting all cosmic aspects. But, what is most important ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II
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... here to receive it. It rises itself into the higher realms and even in disappearing into the supramental and Ananda levels is transformed into something that will bring down their powers into the silent Self which its cessation leaves behind it. Gold-red is the colour of the supramental in the physical—the poem describes Thought in the stage when it is undergoing transformation and about to ascend ...

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... consciousness between the human mind and the Supermind. The silence opens the mind and the rest of the being to greater things, sometimes to the cosmic consciousness, sometimes to the experience of the silent Self, sometimes to the presence or power of the Divine, sometimes to a higher consciousness than that of the human mind; the mind's silence is the most favourable condition for any of these things to ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - II
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... location simply the whole Purusha consciousness separate from the whole Prakriti. Sometimes it is felt above the head—but then it is usually spoken of as the Atman and the realisation is that of the silent Self. It is not possible to distinguish the psychic being at first. What has to be done is to grow conscious of an inner being which is separate from the external personality and nature—a consciousness ...

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... the quiet and luminous but ardent aspiration of the psychic being—its aspiration is more troubled and tinged with unease. In your experience the ascent was into the regions of the calm and silent Self above; when you came down you went into the depths of the psychic being and found there the same calm and wideness. This experience is of great importance for it means that the way to both these ...

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... Consciousness which we call transformation. A sadhak of integral Yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral Yoga. Impersonal realisation is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the ...

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... that they acquired from the witness soul within him what seemed a spiritual value and significance. But now he has withdrawn that ascription or mirroring identification; he is conscious only of his silent self and aloof from all that is in motion around it; all activities are outside him and at once they cease to be intimately real; they appear now mechanical, detachable, endable. Entering exclusively ...

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... works. Prakriti applies the Will-force which works in things and men; Purusha sets that Will-force to work by his vision of that which should be done. This Purusha is not the surface ego, but a silent Self, a source of Power, an originator and receiver of Knowledge behind the ego. Our mental "I" is only a false reflection of this Self, this Power, this Knowledge. This Purusha or supporting Consciousness ...

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... above the contacts of things; 1 it regards and accepts or rejects them but is not moved in the rejection and is not subjected by the acceptance. It begins to feel itself near, kin to, one with a silent Self and Spirit self-existent and separate from the workings of Nature which it supports and makes possible, part of or merged in the motionless calm Reality that transcends the motion and action of the ...

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... intelligible aim for the cosmic and the terrestrial evolution and realise by the transfiguration of the human soul into the divine the great ideal dream of all high religions. But what then of that silent Self, inactive, pure, self-existent, self-enjoying, which presented itself to us as the abiding justification of the ascetic? Here also harmony and not irreconcilable opposition must be the illuminative ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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... transcending and universal and this individual spirit is not possible. The supreme divine nature is founded on equality. This affirmation is true of it whether we look on the Supreme Being as a pure silent Self and Spirit or as the divine Master of cosmic existence. The pure Self is equal, unmoved, the witness in an impartial peace of all the happenings and relations of cosmic existence. While it is not ...

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... impartial joy of the detached spectator the universal action in which it has no longer an active inner participation. The end of this movement is the rejection of birth and a departure into the silent self, mokṣa . But this rejection is not the last possible word of liberation. The integral liberation comes when this passion for release, mumukṣutva , founded on distaste or vairāgya , is itself ...

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... Absolute and therefore to grow into an impassive calm, impersonality and pure self-awareness of spirit is his idea of perfection and a rejection of cosmic and individual being and a settling into silent self-knowledge is his way. To the Buddhist for whom the highest truth is a negation of being, a recognition of the impermanence and sorrow of being and the disastrous nullity of desire and a dissolution ...

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...  From your indigo foot to your top of tawn With a worshipping will. I look and look until your stance Suddenly weighs  My lifted glance  Deep down to some unnamable base Of silent self within— Whence to a haloing blue My own soul masses up, out-moutaining you Page 603 ...

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... He strays in a sublime realm of symbol scenes, His night with thin-air visions and dim forms He packs or peoples with slight drifting shapes And only a moment spends in silent self. (Savitri, Book VII, Canto II, p. 479) We have stated that so long as the universal psycho-spiritual slumber is not definitively ended in man's being, his body's sleep, the sleep ...

... above it and altogether exceeds it.... This Self has two aspects and the results of realising it correspond to these two aspects. One is static, a condition of wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent Self is unaffected by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned, uddsīna. The other aspect is ...

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... simply the whole Purusha consciousness separate from the whole Prakriti. Sometimes it is felt above the head, but then it is usually spoken of as the Atman and the realisation is that of the silent Self. 28 The true being may be realised in one or both of two aspects — the individual soul (psychic being) or the Universal Self (Atman). Page 347 Being — Individual and Universal ...

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... these things.         The Mother's peace and silence have pressed down on me from all sides. Why do I feel myself beyond the need even of knowledge?       It is the condition of the silent self in which there is no need of knowledge or action.         Is spiritual knowledge an active thing in itself? Yes. Active in an imperturbable calm.         At times, when I ...

... the union in the whole being?         A sadhak of integral Yoga who stops short at the Impersonal is no longer a sadhak of integral Yoga. Impersonal realisation is the realisation of the silent Self, of the pure Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in itself without any perception of an Existent, Conscient, Blissful. It leads therefore to Nirvana. In the integral knowledge the realisation of the ...

... location simply the whole Purusha-consciousness separate from the whole Prakriti. Sometimes it is felt above the head—but then it is usually spoken of as the Atman and the realisation is that of the silent Self. I am fortunate to have the same experience repeated so soon. Yes, it proves that the Yogic consciousness is beginning to grow in you. Last night as I returned from a walk, at 11.30 p ...

... Awareness, he wrote to Sri Aurobindo describing the experience and also about the strong element of inertia in his nature and asked him whether his interpretation of the experience, that it was of the silent Self, was correct and told him that he wanted to shed his inertia and prayed to the Master to assign some work to him so that he could discipline himself. A's letter to Sri Aurobindo was read out to him ...

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... inner being to reveal itself, to become free and to open to the higher consciousness above. When this happens, several other things can happen at the same time. First, one becomes aware of the silent Self above — free, wide, without limits, pure, untroubled by the mental, vital and physical movements, empty of ego and limited personality — this is what you have described in your letter. Secondly, ...

... symbolism of the lotus as the mystic opening of the bud of consciousness to the warmth of the Divine Sun. Born on 21 February 1878 in Paris, from her early years Mirra had been a child apart, given to silent self-absorption. As a young girl, she used to take walks in the woods of Fontainebleau, and she would often sit at the foot of an ancient tree, communing With Nature for hours. From about the age of twelve ...

... powers of him working. It is not felt that the Self is acting. One may be aware of the silent static self without relation to the play of the cosmos. Again, one may be aware of the universal static self omnipresent in everything without being supra-sensuously awake to the movement of the dynamic viśva-prakṛti . The first realisation of the Self or Brahman is often a realisation of something... never be defined—it simply is. Everything acts in the self. The whole play of Nature takes place in the self, in the Divine. The self contains the universe. The Cosmic Spirit or Self The Cosmic Spirit or Self contains everything in the cosmos—it upholds cosmic Mind, universal Life, universal Matter as well as the Overmind. The Self is more than all these things which are its formulations in... The Divine, Sachchidananda, Brahman and Atman Letters on Yoga - I Chapter IV The Self or Atman The Self It [ the self ] is being, not a being. By self is meant the conscious essential existence, one in all. The self is the Divine itself in an essential aspect; it is not a portion. There is no meaning in the phrase "not even a portion" or "only ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Letters on Yoga - I
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... because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered. What is meant exactly by "opening oneself'? Calling you, praying to you, remembering you, etc.? These are acts of the mind, openness is a state of consciousness which keeps it... time. What is meant by the mental control being removed, is that the mental simply kept them in check but could not remove them. So in Yoga the mental has to be replaced by the psychic or spiritual self-control which could do what the mental cannot. Only many sadhaks do not make this exchange in time and withdraw the mental control merely. I find already that at certain moments this life seems... a significance. Today, I could make out that you wanted to tell me something but I could not understand what it was. I went over all the incidents of the day—no result.! It was only to keep your self clear from all influences except the Mother’s. Can I have tea at Dilip's place, in the morning? Yes. I hope there won't be any "encouragement of cravings". Of course, I have not been able ...

... life, supporting His active divinity by His silent essential self-being, all cosmos and all form of being. As we have gone behind the forms of the cosmos to that which is essential in their being and movement and found our self and the gods, so we have to go behind our self and the gods and find the one supreme Self and the one supreme Godhead. Then we can say, "I think that I know." Page 76 ... a real representation of the Self; and the gods are a representation in the cosmos,—a real representation since without them the cosmos could not continue,—of the Lord. The one supreme Self is the essentiality of all these individual existences; the one supreme Lord is the Godhead in the gods. The Self and the Lord are one Brahman, whom we can realise through our self and realise through that which... ignorance Page 75 and evil. 3 Behind the gods is the Master-Consciousness of which they are the positive cosmic self-representations. The other entity which represents the Brahman in the cosmos is the self of the living and thinking creature, man. This self also is not an external mask; it is not form of the mind or form of the life or form of the body. It is something that supports ...

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... his humour would burst forth. Not just jokes, nor fun but pun and wit sprang out of him as if Godess Saraswati herself supplied him with that. In front of the Mother when everyone was serious, silent and self-controlled, only Amrita was full of rasa always looking for a chance for humour. Mother responded to him sometimes with a smile, other times with a mock serious look and yet other times with an ...

... surge Of Nature and wing back to hidden shores. Page 292 Take for subtlety the lines on Savithri's natural-supernatural girlhood: She grew like a young tree in silent bliss Self-gathered that receives the shocks of earth With wordless passion. Bathed in another light, Firm, quivering inwardly with mystic rain, Proud of the ravishing storm's immense assault... It only knows as shapes of powers within. Or we see "natural magic" fringed with haunting mystery just before Sâvithrî catches sight of Suthyavan: But now to a Nature more remote, self-hidden, From all but its own vision deep and wild, Attracted by the sombre forest's call Her chariot hastened, skirting prouder glades Where the green stragglers lingered in the... fire and not the dream. A variant of the concluding line ran: I cherish, god, the fire and not the dream. A very impressive affirmation, this, artistically all the better for being self-contained by omission of the "there", and it pierces to a fundamental posture of the soul militant and intransigent amidst a region of happy illusions. The state of the manuscript raises in one even ...

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... spiritual, will become effected. It is true that at a certain stage, particularly, when one can stand back from the activities of Prakriti, it becomes possible to realize one's inner being as a silent impersonal self, the witness Purusha. In this state, one may not arrive at a discovery of the psychic being or psychic entity in their fullness, but one may be led to a spiritual realization and liberation... them and a direct contact with the Self and with the Divine, — a direct knowledge, a direct sight of Truth and of all truths, a direct penetrating spiritual emotion and feeling, a direct intuition of right will and right action, a power to rule and to create an order of the being not by the gropings of the superficial self, but from within, from the inner truth of self and things and the occult realities... nature in which there is a larger and more complex openness to the psychic light within us and to the spiritual Self or the Ishwara, to the Reality now felt above and enveloping and penetrating us. In the nature there is a more powerful and many-sided change, a spiritual building and self- creation, the appearance of a composite perfection of the saint, the selfless worker and the man of spiritual ...

... constant dedication of ourselves and our work to the Supreme Lord, the Eternal Mother. Essentially these steps involve the abolition of the separative ego by leading towards the Atman, the Silent Universal Self one in all, and towards the Chaitya Purusha, Page 152 Antaratman, the Inmost Soul, the entity called by Sri Aurobindo the "Psychic Being", who is the true individual... 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 is, most eradicative of the ego — if one's Yoga depends on a condition which has been stressed in Indian spirituality from ancient times: the presence of a God-realised Master, the human-divine Guru. If the outer self is deeply attuned to the... disappear unless the aspirant, guided by his Psychic Being, puts himself devotedly in the hands of the Guru. The Guru serves as an absolute check, leaving little room for the myriad self-deception for the sake of self-convenience to which man's nature Page 153 is prone. One is now enfolded completely by the Other and the ego is afforded no chance to play about. Through this ...

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... cosmos,—the other eats not, but watches his fellow,—the silent Witness, withdrawn from the enjoyment; when the first sees the second and knows that all is his greatness, then he is delivered from sorrow. The point of view in the two verses is different, but they have a common implication. One of the birds is the eternally silent, unbound Self or Purusha by whom all this is extended and he regards the... multiple not apart from, but in Prakriti. Akshara, the immobile, the immutable, is the silent and inactive self, it is the unity of the divine Being, Witness of Nature, but not involved in its movement; it is the inactive Purusha free from Prakriti and her works. The Uttama is the Lord, the supreme Brahman, the supreme Self, who possesses both the immutable unity and the mobile multiplicity. It is by a large... conception of Purusha itself. Prakriti conducts her activities for the pleasure of Purusha; but how is that pleasure determined? In the strict Sankhya analysis it can only be by a passive consent of the silent Witness. Passively the Witness consents to the action of the intelligent will and the ego-sense, passively he consents to the recoil of that will from the ego-sense. He is Witness, source of the consent ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   Essays on the Gita
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... is an active power, but is more capable of arriving at quiescence by its own conscious choice and will. The thought is more easily content with the illumined intellectual perception of this silent Witness Self that is higher than all our activities and, that immobile Spirit once seen, is ready, deeming its mission of truth-finding accomplished, to fall at rest and become itself immobile. For in its... sovereignly determines our orientation and of which the intellect and the heart are more or less blind and automatic servants and instruments. The Self that is quiescent, at rest, vacant of things and happenings is a support and background to existence, a silent channel or a hypostasis of something Supreme: it is not itself the one entirely real existence, not itself the Supreme. The Eternal, the Supreme... it is in the highest experience of the Supreme into which the self-annulling Mind can enter, but not in the supreme of the Supreme, Paratpara. The Mind can only be aware of the Self in a mentalised spiritual thinness, only of the mind-reflected Sachchidananda. The highest truth, the integral self-knowledge is not to be gained by this self-blinded leap into the Absolute but by a patient transit beyond ...

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... heroism and possible martyrdom, a "moral" ideal giving a farther support of strong self-approbation and the sense of righteousness. Here there is nothing that ministers to the human vital nature; the work is small, silent, shut off from the outside world and its circum stances, of value only as a field for spiritual self-culture. If one is governed by the sole spiritual motive and has the spiritual c... because people live in the surface mind and are identified with it. When one lives more inwardly, it is only the surface consciousness that is occupied and one stands behind it in another which is silent and self-offered. 4 May 1933 Does this consciousness [mentioned in the preceding letter] come only by aspiration or can one have it by following a mental discipline? One starts by a mental e... mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, development of the personal self is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender, the substitution of the Divine Page 752 guidance for one's own ignorant self-guidance based on one's ...

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... solitary communion with Nature, stray rambles in the uncharted occult regions, involvement in music and painting, dream­ visions and musings - and she had grown into a young woman unparalleled silent and self-absorbed, conscious of both the world's burden of pain and its need for love, and peering into the Future with the eyes of hope and faith. She had presently won her way to the secrets of occultism... to the famous tea ceremony.... Beauty rules over her [Japan] as an uncontested master; and all her atmosphere incites to mental and vital activity, study, observation, progress, effort, not to silent and blissful contemplation. But behind this activity stands a high aspiration .... 10 As early as 1906, in his celebrated classic The Book of Tea , Kakuzo Okakura had said: A... and there you will find the Buddha!") and the still-sitting discipline of the Okhata-Kobayashi groups at Kyoto had also their own merits. A still-sitting group of 5000 would be unbelievably silent, and even their breathing couldn't be heard. This impressive discipline had the aim of promoting physical as well as mental well-being, and perhaps of throwing open the windows to reveal the panorama ...

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... and experience of others? 8 November 1934 One may be aware of the silent static self without relation to the play of the cosmos. Again, one may be aware of the universal static self omnipresent in everything without being supra-sensuously awake to the movement of the dynamic viśva-prakṛti . The first realisation of the Self or Brahman is often a realisation of something that separates itself from... realisation of the Nirvana in the Self. That does not mean a wall between Self and Brahman, but a scission between the essential self-existence and the manifested world. 9 March 1936 Don't you think your realisation of the Self helped you in your crucial moments of struggle, kept up your faith and love? That has nothing to do with love. Realisation of Self and love Page 255 of... dynamic side of the Brahman, the Ishwara and felt himself moved by that in all his Sadhana and action. These realisations and others which followed upon them, such as that of the Self in all and all in the Self and all as the Self, the Divine in all and all in the Divine, are the heights to which Sri Aurobindo refers and to which he says we can always rise; for they presented to him no long or obstinate ...

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... appears to be no doubt in Sri Aurobindo that the Vedic seers and the early Upanishadic sages were aware of this level. What he says is that the later sages of the Upanishads concentrated on the Silent Brahmic Self instead of taking it as merely one aspect of the total Reality. The reason for this concentration is threefold. (1) The Vedics found no way to make the Supermind effective for transformation... and the Beyond was identified with the silent Brahman or passive Atman. The concept of Ishwara remained and was held to be useful for a devotion-oriented or dynamism-motived practical sadhana preparatory for the realisation of the inactive One without a Second - but, theoretically and in the final reckoning , this concept was understood as the silent Brahman (alias passive Atman) experienced... unequivocally, much less to reveal convincingly. Taking advantage of whatever temporary stress the Git puts on Jnana , Bhakti or Karma , the Acharyas harp on their spiritual predilections and feel self-justified be cause the Gita in fact falls short of a fully satisfying unification. The fault with the Acharyas lay in their missing the nisus towards that unification. Sri Aurobindo alone has brought ...

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... facilitate this entry into the inner self is the separation of the Purusha, the conscious being, from the Prakriti, the formulated nature. If one stands back from the mind and its activities so that they fall silent at will or go on as a surface movement of which one is the detached and disinterested witness, it becomes possible eventually to realise oneself as the inner Self of mind, the true and pure mental... a true and pure physical being, the Purusha. So too, by standing back from all these activities of nature successively or together, it becomes possible to realise one's inner being as the silent impersonal self, the witness Purusha. This will lead to a spiritual realisation and liberation, but will not necessarily bring about a transformation; for the Purusha, satisfied to be free and himself, may... knowledge and experience of superior planes of existence. The experience is in accord with that which is brought to us by the first opening of vision: the mind rises into a higher plane of pure self, silent, tranquil, illimitable; or it rises into regions of light or of felicity, or into planes where it feels an infinite Power or a divine Presence or experiences the contact of a divine Love or Beauty ...

Sri Aurobindo   >   Books   >   CWSA   >   The Life Divine
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