... a Yoga force or spiritual force—is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow. If Yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as Yoga force or spiritual force. It is evident that if spiritual force exists, it must be... physical contact—the idea that physical contact through writing, speech, meeting is indispensable to the action of the spiritual force is self-contradictory, for then it would not be a spiritual force. The spirit is not limited by physical things or by the body. If you have the spiritual force, it can act on people thousands of miles away who do not know and never will know that you are acting on them or... statement cannot be denounced as per se incredible and manifestly false because such things cannot be. Farther, if it be true that spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the ...
... Yoga-force or spiritual force—is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow. If Yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as Yoga-force or spiritual force. It is evident that if spiritual force exists, it must... invisible or of subjective forces was open to doubt and discussion in which there would be no material certitude—while the spiritual force is invisible in itself and also invisible in its action. So it is idle to try to prove that such and such a result was the effect of spiritual force. Each must form his own idea about that—for if it is accepted it cannot be as a result of proof and argument, but only... statement cannot be denounced as per se incredible and manifestly false, because such things cannot be. Further, if it be true that spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies or [through?] their ...
... Him as the Ruler & Sovran of the Universe. He is the still ocean of spiritual force, its mere presence sets working the creative, preservative, and destructive Shakti or Will of the Eternal Parabrahman. By her means he forms the Ocean of Prakriti, which is the substratum of all form or matter. Of these two, the Ocean of spiritual force and the Ocean of material form, the latter is contained in the other... Ocean & Brahma growing out of the lotus in his navel etc. This is the Lord, the King & Ruler. We must therefore realise all things in this universe to be the creation of that ocean of Brahman or spiritual force which surrounds them as a robe surrounds its wearer. THE STUDENT Surely all things [are] Brahman himself; why then should he be said to surround all things as if he were different from them... material world, our senses tell us, is the only existing reality; but the Upanishad warns us against the false evidence of our senses and bids us realise in our hearts and minds Brahman the Ocean of spiritual force, drawing him in our imaginations like a robe round each sensible thing. THE STUDENT But the Upanishad does not say that the material world is itself Brahman. THE GURU It will yet say that ...
... he had been assured from within and knew that he would be acquitted. During this period his view of life was radically changed; he had taken up Yoga with the original idea of acquiring spiritual force and energy and divine guidance for his work in life. But now the inner spiritual life and realisation which had continually been increasing in magnitude and universality and assuming a larger... Sri Aurobindo had retired to Pondicherry and by that time he had abandoned all outward and public political activity in order to devote himself to his spiritual work, acting only by his spiritual force on the movement in India, until his prevision of real negotiations between the British Government and the Indian leaders was fulfilled by the Cripps' proposal and the events that came after... retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the Page 261 world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter ...
... prostrated themselves at their feet. At darshan Sri Aurobindo had the opportunity of observing firsthand the inner state of his disciples, and of acting upon their inner and outer beings with his spiritual force. They, on their side, had the opportunity, to them most joyful, of seeing the embodied perfection towards which they aspired. Sri Aurobindo wrote a few letters to some of his disciples in the... was the Divine's work for the world."¹ But Sri Aurobindo's participation was not confined to following the war news or to making contributions and public statements:" Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk [May 1940] when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the... the rush of German victory almost immediately arrested and the tide of war begin to turn in the opposite direction."² We cannot hope to treat here adequately of Sri Aurobindo's spiritual force. Suffice it to say that as a result of his sadhana .Sri Aurobindo had attained not only the Peace, Light and Bliss of the Divine, but also mastery of the Divine's dynamic Energy. With this Energy ...
... a Yoga force or spiritual force—is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow. If Yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as Yoga force or spiritual force. It is evident that if spiritual force exists, it must be... Existence of Spiritual Force Even in ordinary non-spiritual things the action of invisible or of subjective forces was open to doubt and discussion in which there could be no material certitude—while the spiritual force is invisible in itself and also invisible in its action. So it is idle to try to prove that such and such a result was the effect of spiritual force. Each must form his... statement cannot be denounced as per se incredible and manifestly false because such things cannot be. Farther, if it be true that spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the ...
... it; for he had been assured from within and knew that he would be acquitted. During this period his view of life was radically changed; he had taken up Yoga with the original idea of acquiring spiritual force and energy and divine guidance for his work in life. But now the inner spiritual life and realisation which had continually been increasing in magnitude and universality and assuming a larger place... after Sri Aurobindo had retired to Pondicherry and by that time he had abandoned all outward and public political activity in order to devote himself to his spiritual work, acting only by his spiritual force on the movement in India, until his prevision of real negotiations between the British Government and the Indian leaders was fulfilled by the Cripps' proposal and the events that came after. ... give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced far in Yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there ...
... soul force, that is to say in an inner moral force as the one thing necessary behind all true action, so A.G. believes in a higher spiritual force as the one thing necessary—the one thing that must be at the basis of India's freedom and greatness. It is this spiritual force which he is seeking to call down, embody and perfect in himself and others. This he has found can only be done by a long and patient... a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economical organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his own way in his Sarigha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about—my own work which I must do myself and no one can do for... illness if it can be called by that name. I shall state first in general terms the nature of the malady and its usual developments, that is to say, the normal course it takes when no psychic or spiritual force is brought in to remove it. Afterwards I shall indicate the two possible means of cure. I think it is best for me to state the case in its worst and not only in its best possible terms because ...
... spiritual consciousness—a Yoga force or spiritual force—is making a false claim and is either a charlatan or a self-deluded imbecile; still more is he so if having no spiritual force he claims to have made a path others can follow. If Yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as Yoga force or spiritual force." That is a general statement about... even that I am made to do by and with a force, otherwise I can assure you I would not and could not do it—I sometimes am imprudent enough to make this mistake. It is foolish to do so because a spiritual force or any other is obviously something invisible and its action is invisible, so how can anyone believe in it? Only the results are seen and how is one to know that the results are the result of the... But I used the word preface to characterise the nature of what I had written, not in a prophetic sense. There are two things—Yoga-Force in its original totality which is that of the Divine spiritual force, always potentially all-powerful, and Yoga-Force doing its work under the conditions of the evolutionary world here. It is not a question of "can" or "cannot" at all. All is possible, but all ...
... 237) Another question was : "Is the spiritual Force you speak of concrete ?" He answered: "Concrete ? What do you mean by concrete ? Spiritual force has its own concreteness; it can take a form (like a stream, for instance) of which one is aware and send it quite concretely on whatever object one chooses." (ibid p. 239) "If a spiritual force is working then it must always succeed"—wrote... conditions. It is not the less a Force for that..." (Letters Vol. II P. 408) In another letter he explained why the spiritual force used in the second world-war could not bring about all the results he wanted to. He wrote : "I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs such as the war is not the Supramental but the overmind Force, and Page 68 ... When people learn about a spiritual force acting they believe it must always succeed in the human sense and fulfil man's hopes and desires. The impartiality of observation about anything, including the working of the Spiritual Power that he was using, is a quality which I have never seen in another spiritual person. To a question whether his spiritual force was used only in the Ashram, ...
... open declaration of his adhesion to the Allied cause, Sri Aurobindo's essential action was of an occult and spiritual character. As he has himself acknowledged: Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk... This he did, because he saw that behind Hitler and Nazism were dark Asuric forces and that their success would mean the enslavement of mankind... in it of India, an enslavement far more terrible than any this country had ever endured, and the undoing of all the work that had been done for her liberation. 29 What exactly this "spiritual force" was, how it operated, with what success and with whom - these are still matters that do not permit of clear analysis and statement. Reference has been made earlier to Sri Aurobindo's claim... Asuric forces at any particular point or in the individual or group against whom the force was being directed. As he explained later (July 1947) in a letter to K.D. Sethna: ...the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs such as the War is not the supramental but the Overmind force, and that when it acts in the material world is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle of the ...
... that can be cancelled if one can have sufficient faith and inner strength and openness and receive the spiritual force. 1 27 June 1935 Perhaps I might say a word about Ramakrishna's attitude with regard to the body. He seems always to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving the body or curing its ailments or taking care for it. Other Yogis—I do not speak... Help and Guidance Letters on Himself and the Ashram Therapeutic Force and Healing Spiritual Force and the Body It is a pity that X could not write all this time. Formerly when she wrote often she used to get better after writing. It is also a pity that she has been told by the doctors that she is not going to live; even if it is true, such a thing... health and condition as an instrument or a physical basis for their development in Yoga. I have always been in agreement with this view: moreover, I have never had any hesitation in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself and in others—that is indeed why the Mother has given flowers, not only as a blessing but as a help in ...
... message. The form is the body of the poem and carries within it the inspired vision, the force of divine consciousness, the living god. It is through the outer form that the poem delivers its spiritual force. It is the sounds, images, and ideas employed by the poet that enable us to enter into the poem's consciousness, as into a holy temple, and carry us beyond the outer edifice to a supreme... imagery from one thematic unit to the next (and within thematic units) to create mood and atmosphere and to reinforce the meaning. The result is poetry of the highest artistic merit and profound spiritual force. Of course, we feel this effective power when we read the poem, but a study of the Page 391 poet's method serves to further our understanding and appreciation of the vast... dramatic note of heightened tension. Conclusion We have seen that the first canto of Savitri is a magnificent expression of poetry, artfully constructed and powerful in its poetic and spiritual force. A close reading of the canto reveals that there are three main lines of contrasting imagery which run throughout the canto: Time vs. Timelessness, World and Nature vs. Spirit and God, and Darkness ...
... vast, vast, tranquil, without a ripple – such indescribable freshness, truly the feeling of bathing in the Source. Indeed, this "descending force" is the very Force of the Spirit – Shakti . Spiritual Force is not just a word. Ultimately, it will no longer be necessary to close our eyes and withdraw from the surface to feel it; it will be there every second of our life, no matter what we are doing... side of the Allies, while Gandhi, undoubtedly in an outburst of praiseworthy feelings, sent an open letter to the British people urging them not to take up arms against Hitler and to use only "spiritual force" instead. It would therefore be appropriate to explain Sri Aurobindo's spiritual position with regard to violent action. War and destruction , he wrote, are not only a universal principle... be able to manifest only what we are. Life itself will be a work of art, our outer dominion the changing stage of our inner states. Our language, likewise, will have power only through the true spiritual force within us; it will be a living mantra , a visible language like the play of emotions upon a human face. All shams will draw to an end, whether they be political, religious, literary, artistic ...
... working, remember, is not yet definitive working; it is still in the nature of experiment, with some minor results. When your sadhan of our tantric kriya has become more perfect and the necessary spiritual force can be sent from here,—then, real Tantra can begin. Meanwhile, don't be over-eager; let nothing disconcert, discourage or perplex you. Eagerness, anxiety & discouragement are all different faces... Vedantic movement leading later to a greater Tantra that the work of regeneration can be done; & of that movement neither you nor Saurin can be the head. It needs a wider knowledge & a greater spiritual force Page 196 in the Adhara through which it is engineered; it needs, in fact, the greatest which India contains & which is at the same time willing to take it up. I see only Devavrata &... & myself who have the idea—for the Dayanandas & others are a negligible quantity, & Devavrata seems to me to have gone off for the moment on a wrong route & through egoism has even allowed his spiritual force to be used against us by secret forces in the sukshma world which he is not yet advanced enough to understand. Therefore, if God wills, I will take the field. K. P.S. Gaebelé has given me ...
... of humanity". Far from taking only a passive interest in the vast conflict, the modern Kurukshetra, where the fate of the entire world was being decided, he actively participated in it with his spiritual Force and directed that very fate to a victorious consummation. The account will also bring to light Sri Aurobindo's acute political insight and wide knowledge of military affairs. Although he had left... for nearly half a century, he always kept in touch with all world-movements through outer and inner means. Perhaps people will find it difficult to believe and many will flatly deny that such a spiritual force exists; and it will be hard for them to swallow that, if at all it exists, a man acquiring and possessing it can apply it to an individual or cosmic purpose. But fortunately we have Sri Aurobindo's... Sri Aurobindo's vital interest in India's struggle for freedom, for which he had himself launched the first movement, awakening the country to her birthright and aiding her later by his decisive spiritual force towards its achievement. Though we in the Ashram are not supposed to take part in politics, we are not at all indifferent to world affairs. In fact, Sri Aurobindo has said that we are immensely ...
... following swoop upon Denmark and Norway and the lightning breakthrough in the West, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were anxiously following the events, and where necessary or feasible, directing a spiritual force in favour of the Allies. Sri Aurobindo's daily talks, morning and evening, with his attendants throw a good deal of light on his close knowledge of the developing events and his shrewd and often... In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever Page 411 necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and a silent spiritual action... there is a spiritual dynamic power which ... is greater that any other and more effective. It was this force which, as soon as he had attained to it he used... actively concern himself with it, but when it appeared as if Hitler would crush all the forces opposed to him and Nazism dominate the world, he began to intervene .... Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of ...
... application of spiritual force to preserve health or cure physical ailments. I had asked him in my letter, among other things, how far he undersigned Sri Ramakrishna's condemnation of utilisation of spiritual force to keep the body in health. "I might say a word about Sri Ramakrishna's attitude with regard to the body," he wrote. "He seems to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise... 251 Lastly, in a letter which I received in Jubbulpore he wrote: "Of course I will try to the end; for my experience is that even a hopeless effort in the fields of the working of the spiritual force is often better than none and can bring in the intervention of the miracle." I shook my head ruefully and wrote back: "But alas, Guru, I have never had a congenital weakness for what we, Indians... health and condition as an instrument or a physical basis for their development in Yoga. I have always been in agreement with this view: moreover, I have never had any hesitation in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself and in others .... I put a value on the body first as an instrument, dharmasadhana, or, more fully ...
... transformation or the spiritual change; but in the early stages of our growth this action is not apparent, it remains occult and unseizable. At first what is necessary is that the pure touch of the spiritual force must intervene in mental nature: that awakening pressure must stamp itself upon mind and heart and life and give them their upward orientation; a subtle light or a great transmuting power must... sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being. The necessary turn or change can also be brought about by an occult descent of the spiritual force from above, in which the influx, the influence, the spiritual consequence is felt, but the higher source is unknown and the actual feeling of a descent is not there. A consciousness so touched... cannot even make fully conscious, cannot securely mentalise and rationalise, it cannot spiritualise, since spiritualisation is a greater and more difficult integration. No doubt, by calling in the spiritual force, it can establish an influence and a preliminary change in some parts of the nature, especially in the thinking mind itself and in the heart which is nearest to its own province: but this change ...
... others, but if either the Kshatriya or the Brahmin goes, if either the political force or the spiritual force of a nation is lost, that nation is doomed unless it can revive or replace the missing strength. And of the two the Brahmin is the most important. He can always create the Kshatriya; spiritual force can always raise up material force Page 306 to defend it. But if the Brahmin... complete Swaraj, and never ceased fighting for the full loaf. He had come under the spell of Sri Aurobindo's magnetic personality, as his biographers rightly observe, and imbibed some- thing of his spiritual force and drive, and, though there were differences of vision and views between them, his sturdy realism, directed by his sharp and prodigious intellect, seldom failed to yield precedence to Sri ... the first week of February, and was put up for some time at Seal's Lodge. 143 Barin's idea in inviting Lele was that he might prove the right person to give some spiritual instructions and spiritual force to the youth of the revolutionary party. For, it was thought that spiritual instruction and force imparted by a Yogi would create in them a spirit of self- sacrifice for a noble cause and defiance ...
... two others, but if either the Kshatriya or the Brahmin go, if either the political force or the spiritual force of a nation is lost, that nation is doomed unless it can revive or replace the missing strength. And of the two the Brahmin is the most important. He can always create the Kshatriya, spiritual force can always raise up material force to defend it. But if the Brahmin becomes the Shudra, then... gravitate towards Shudrahood. In the Kaliyuga the Shudra is powerful and attracts into himself the less vigorous Brahmin, as the earth attracts purer but smaller bodies, and the Brahmatej, the spiritual force of the latter, already diminished, dwindles to nothingness. For the Satyayuga to return, we must get back the Brahmatej and make it general. For the Brahmatej is the basis of all the rest and in ...
... scorn ideas of impossibility and improbability and to fling life, goods and happiness away on the cast of dice already clogged against one by adverse Fortune and unfavourable circumstance. The spiritual force within not only creates the future but creates the materials for the future. It is not limited to the existing materials either in their nature or in their quantity. It can transform bad material... he also knew that even that force could not succeed without a great spiritual and moral strength behind its action and informing its aspirations. It was this strength he sought to create. The spiritual force he created by the promulgation of the mighty and uplifting ideas which pervade his writings and of which Young Italy was the organ. But moral force cannot be confirmed merely by ideas, it... averse to looking intellectually and from far-off at great objects. It had neither inspiration nor truth nor statesmanship. Nationalism has done part of the work of a Mazzini by awakening a great spiritual force in the country and giving the new generation great ideals, a wide horizon of hope and aspiration, an intense faith and energy. It has sought like Mazzini to raise up the moral condition of the ...
... of the readers or even to wider circles. In speaking of the Divine Body I entered into some far off speculations about what might become possible in the future evolution of it by means of a spiritual force, but obviously the possibilities could not be anything near or immediate and I said clearly enough that we shall have to begin at the beginning and not attempt anything out of the way. Perhaps... she will take it as soon as it becomes possible. Perhaps I might say a word about Ramakrishna’s attitude with regard to the body. He seems always to have regarded it as a misuse of spiritual force to utilise it for preserving the body or curing its ailments or taking care of it. Other Yogis – I do not speak of those who think it justifiable to develop Yogic siddhis, but of those who think... health and condition as an instrument or a physical basis for their development in Yoga. I have always been in agreement with this view: moreover, I have never had any hesitation in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself and in others – that is indeed why the Mother has given flowers, not only as a blessing but as a help ...
... mine by spiritual force and stingingly hot water, but I don't know if it would work for others. January 17, 1936 If you have cured yourself by spiritual force and hot water, why not apply the same here? Can't say if it will succeed. Differs with people. Sahana cured hers once by icing it. I am not giving anything except zinc oxide ointment which is very bland. Spiritual force, I have ...
... lost because the body of the nation was not strong enough and the soul of the nation was not pure enough to sustain the tremendous inrush of spiritual force which had suddenly come upon it. Bipin Chandra stands before India as the exponent of the spiritual force of the Page 913 movement, its pure "Indianity", its high devotion to principle; this has been the kernel of his teaching, the secret... disguised for the moment in a political and Western garb with which the bureaucracy is faced and the weapons which it uses are the weapons of the spirit, the force which makes it formidable is a spiritual force. We have nothing to oppose to the immense material engines of the bureaucracy except the exalted faith, the unflinching courage, the unswerving devotion to principle which has been so strangely... only by perfect faith, perfect self-sacrifice, perfect courage can we generate that Brahmatej in the nation which will raise up the Kshatriya spirit to protect it. Without this Brahmatej, this spiritual force in our midst, all else will be vain; Swadeshi will cease, National Education fail, the great hopes and schemes now forming in our midst disappear like idle wreaths of smoke and the whole movement ...
... invisible or subjective forces is open to doubt and discussion in which there could be no material certitude — while the spiritual force is invisible in itself and also invisible in its action. So it is idle to try to prove that such and such a result was the effect of a spiritual force. Each must form his own ideas about that — for if it is accepted it cannot be as a result of proof and argument, but... is behind them. The spiritual consciousness does not claim in that way, it can state the truth about itself but not fight for personal acceptance. A general and impersonal statement about the spiritual force is another matter, but I doubt whether the time has come for it or whether it could be understood by the mere reasoning intelligence. " But in as much as Gurudev permitted me last year to publish ...
... himself in the third person: ‘In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action.’ 42 We remember that Sri Aurobindo said that he was neither an impotent moralist nor a weak pacifist (see p. 120). ‘It is part of the experience of those who... Hitler, without much additional effort, would have become the Master of Europe and, according to Sri Aurobindo, possibly of the world. ‘Inwardly, he [Sri Aurobindo writes about himself] put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German... the first magnitude.’ 58 Sri Aurobindo writes about himself in the third person: ‘When negotiations [with Stafford Cripps] failed, Sri Aurobindo returned to his reliance on the use of spiritual force alone against the aggressor and had the satisfaction of seeing the tide of Japanese victory, which had till then swept everything before it, change immediately into a tide of rapid, crushing and ...
... conditions surrounding her. But one thing we feel that so long as there is the slightest shadow of a hope we must fight to the end to save her. Her strong psychic resistance, her openness to the spiritual force is the element most in her favour in spite of the damage done by her past tendency to give up and leave the body; now that this has gone there is a greater chance of her coming through if she... help and would only be an unnecessary strain on you, then it is different. Of course I will try to the end; for my experience is that even a hopeless effort in the fields of the working of the spiritual force is often better than none and can bring in the intervention of the miracle. Page 251 One very serious difficulty has been the entire darkness in which the medical aspects... necessary for her. Her husband’s proposal of taking her to the Delhi hospital is of course out of the question since she refuses to submit to medical treatment and is determined to trust to the spiritual force alone; nor is medical treatment likely to be of much benefit in her case. Page 252 But I suppose in his present attitude he would give his help and Surindar also and make ...
... physical contact—the idea that physical contact through writing, speech, meeting is indispensable to the action of the spiritual force is self-contradictory, for then it would not be a spiritual force. The spirit is not limited by physical things or by the body. If you have the spiritual force, it can act on people thousands of miles away who do not know and never will know that you are acting on them or ...
... But I used the word preface to characterise the nature of what I had written, not in a prophetic sense. There are two things—Yoga-Force in its original totality, which is that of the Divine spiritual force, always potentially all-powerful, and Yoga force doing its work under the conditions of the evolutionary world here. It is not a question of "can" or "cannot" 50 at all. All is possible,... in the vital to change and so did not remain here but went to his fate. The rest is for the indefinable future. One day I shall certainly try to explain methodically and by examples what the spiritual force is; how it has worked on the earth-plane, how it acts and under what conditions—conditions not rigidly fixed, but plastic and mutable. February 7, 1935 If you want seriously to write... chooses to limit or determine his action by conditions, it does not make him less omnipotent. His self-limitation is itself an act of omnipotence. The fact that P was not changed by the mental-spiritual force put on him proves that. It does not prove it for a moment. It simply proves that the omnipotent unconditioned supramental force was not put out there any more than it was when Christ was put ...
... only his political field of work, but not politics. "He kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action." His poetry and politics, his philosophy and Yoga were all of a piece - they composed a coherent, integrated, harmonious whole. We shall now offer to the reader... But he also knew that even force could not succeed without a great spiritual and moral strength behind its action and informing its aspirations. It was this strength he sought to create. The spiritual force he created by the promulgation of the mighty and uplifting ideas which pervade his writings and of which Young Italy was the organ. 144 "But moral force cannot be confirmed merely by ... an ocean of action or of force. "India must be reborn, because her rebirth is demanded by the future of the world..." Thus Sri Aurobindo poured forth an unceasing stream of dynamic spiritual force to regenerate and transform, not only India, but the whole of mankind. His nationalism was more than internationalism - it was spiritual universalism, as we have already said before. And at the ...
... give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action for it is a part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the Mind and Life and body in Matter, there... of the body, work as a concrete dynamic force on other forces, modify events, etc. etc. we would not speak of it as we do. " 12 (4) " Concrete ? What do you mean by concrete ? Spiritual force has its own concreteness; it can take a form ( like a, ___________________________ 10 Life of Sri Aurobindo, P. 281. 11 Ibid. 12 On Yoga, Tome I, P. 237 Page 13 stream... stream, for instance ) of which one is aware and can send it quite concretely on whatever object one chooses." 13 (5) " I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs, such as the War, is not the supramental but the overmind force, and that when it acts on the material world it is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle of ...
... reach the goal first. It would seem that all the adverse, anti-divine forces, the forces of the vital world, have descended on the earth... and that at the same time a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended on earth to bring it a new life. Page 666 No wonder the struggle is acute, violent and open, but since this tempo seems also more definitive... we can hope to reach... then our very processes of thinking must undergo a drastic change of functioning. It is possible only when one has had the experience of complete silence in the mental region and when the spiritual force with its light and power descends through the mind and makes it act directly without its following its usual method of analysis, deduction, reasoning. 20 This would be yet another aspect... ess (to which a reference has already been made in an earlier section), for even Page 671 the mind's "power of organisation and impulse to action can be produced directly by the spiritual force which takes hold of the mental consciousness" 21 VII In two of the Mother's Playground talks, on 12 and 26 November, the discussion was on Sri Aurobindo's statement in The Life Divine: ...
... ignorance, the soul shut up in the prison of ego, overcome, beset, hammered and moulded by the environment, mastered by the mechanism of Nature, cut off from our hold on the reality of our own secret spiritual force? The answer is that all this natural action, however now enveloped in a veiled and contrary working, still contains the principle of its own evolving freedom and perfection. A Godhead is seated... endeavour, this locked interaction of pain and pleasure, sin and virtue, striving and success and failure, soul and environment, myself and others, is only the outward imperfect form taken by a higher spiritual Force in me which pursues through its vicissitudes the progressive self-expression of the divine reality and greatness I am secretly in spirit and shall overtly become in nature. This action contains ...
... Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda... within and there is not that in us which excites the enemy to throw himself on us, then outward possibilities, usually, will not concretise themselves. Our business at present is to gather spiritual force, calm knowledge and joy regardless of the adverse powers and happenings around us so that when our work really begins we shall be able to impose ourselves on the material world in which our work ...
... sovereign of a nought. It is the return into Nirvana. This idea is everywhere in the world but expresses itself in different forms. Because until now evil has been opposed by weakness, by a spiritual force without any power for transformation in the material world, this tremendous effort of goodwill has ended only in deplorable failure and left the world in the same state Page 4 of misery... same plane as the one where the adverse forces are ruling that one must have a greater power than theirs, a power which can conquer them totally in that very domain . To put it otherwise, a spiritual force which would be capable of transforming both the consciousness and the material world. This force is the supramental force. What is necessary is to be receptive to its action on the physical plane ...
... time, there is still the question of those who are not consciously open to the new Force. Then how will they be influenced? Will it be by the spiritual force but not by the supramental? What, what, what? What difference do you make between the spiritual force and the supramental? No. But you said that those who have done nothing or have not given themselves, how can they hope to be influenced ...
... thought and will is the first step towards this change. All Yoga implies the carrying of that control to a very high pitch. But afterwards the mind must itself give place to the spirit, to the spiritual force, the supermind and the supramental force. And finally the body must develop a perfect power to hold whatever force is brought into it by the spirit and to contain its action without spilling and... physical consciousness, energy and machinery is the most important siddhi or perfection of the body. The result of these changes will be to make the body a perfect instrument of the spirit. The spiritual force will be able to do what it wills and as it wills in and through the body. It will be able to conduct an unlimited action of the mind or at a higher stage of the supermind without the body betraying ...
... Sri Aurobindo: "I am Here! I am Here!" and "Synergist's" The Debt to Rudra. A passage from Nirodbaran may be quoted: "As the disease was taking a bad turn we repeatedly asked him to use his spiritual Force to cure it... But each time we questioned him, we met with an enigmatic silence... It was the memorable 4th December... Sri Aurobindo had totally emerged from the depths and expressed a desire... implicit. When the Ishwara-Shakti manifests in a special way which constitutes what we call the Avatar manifestation we can have two embodied beings serving as radiating centres of a new creative spiritual force. Intrinsically, therefore, there is no lack of sense in speaking of the same consciousness divided into two for purposes of the play. Whether Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are such a consciousness ...
... it is, evidently, something inert and without effect or consequence... If Yoga is a reality, if spirituality is anything better than a delusion, there must be such a thing as Yoga force or spiritual force. 3 That is a statement of fact about the power inherent in spiritual consciousness. But there is also such a thing as willed use of any subtle force – it may be spiritual or mental... Sadhana which involves not only devotion or union with the Divine or a perception of Him in all things and beings but also action as workers and instruments and a work to be done in the world, a spiritual force to be brought on the world, under difficult conditions; then one has to see one’s way and do what is commanded and support what has to be supported, even if it means war and strife carried on ...
... his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action … Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction ...
... keep you very close to me. Love from your mother. 22 May 1934 My dear child, Only spiritual force has the power to impose peace on the vital, for if peace is not imposed on it by a power greater than its own, the vital will never accept it. So you must open yourself to the spiritual force and allow it to work in you; then you will more and more dwell in constant peace and joy. With ...
... be without any sense of superiority or contempt for others. The cases of friction you speak of seem to me to arise from ordinary motives of discord and they are certainly not the results of any spiritual Force working to heal the dangers of social or vital attraction by the blessings (!) of personal discord. If somebody finds that association with another for any reason raises undesirable vital feelings... vital gets in the way and disturbs the right view of things. It is only what is done sincerely with a sound spiritual motive that is proper to Yoga. The rest cannot be claimed as the working of a spiritual force mysteriously advancing its ends by ways contrary to its own nature. October 26, 1936 It is quite true that you have made great progress; in spite of depressions a great change has ...
... more difficult. We had solely relied on his Force, but the result had not uplifted our hopes. We could go ahead with our costly tablets and precious injections, but without the support of his spiritual Force, what effect would they produce? Human as we are we can but think of our own resources: good or bad we fall back on them in our need. But how to administer such strong and powerful drugs to one... the common language we are habituated to use, we insisted on the dangerous remedies in which we had faith and confidence. As the disease was taking a bad turn we repeatedly asked him to use his spiritual force to cure it, as we had been taught and made to experience that behind every malady, as behind everything else, there are forces that help and hinder. It is the proper adjustment of these forces ...
... of the Allies, made some financial contributions in answer to the appeal for funds and encouraged those who sought his advice to enter the army or share in the war effort. Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German... discords and divisions. I hope too that friendly relations between Britain and India replacing the past struggles, will be a step towards a greater world union in which, as a free nation, her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light, I offer my public adhesion, in case it can be of any help in your work.' Sir Stafford Cripps replied: 'I am most touched ...
... happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action. His public interventions were few and far between; but he constantly followed the political situation not only in India and intervened with his spiritual force. The change is Sri Aurobindo's working is shown in the following letter to a friend written ...
... but remained doing yoga elsewhere, I and God would have been the same, but this coming would not have happened. Is there any kind of intermediary centre of divine force, for instance in the spiritual force which is here above? Even in the case of those who look only for liberation and try to merge into God, such a help from someone who has realised before is generally necessary because the... knowledge has been reached also but a different kind of knowledge, a knowledge more abstract. Now it is a knowledge for effectuation, for practical purposes of the human life. That is what is in the spiritual force above. And as you are in touch here with it, it tries to manifest in you. Mother has spoken of the blue light of Shri Krishna? Yes. Krishna is generally depicted as blue. It is his ...
... God's." We do not subscribe to the motto. We do not admit that the world and the spirit are irreconcilables and incommensurables. On the contrary we assert their essential unity and identity. The spiritual force is not and need not be impotent or out of place in Caesar's domain. Rather it is the spiritual man who alone can possess the secret of mastering the forces that work out mundane things, perfectly... the spirit, if force it can be called, moves away from the field of dynamism, turns towards a plane or height where all incentives and impulses to action fall silent and vanish in the end? The spiritual force is applied to negate all mundane activity, to get out of the profane field of life. That is the skill of Yoga referred to in the Gita, that is how we are to understand the injunction to see "inaction ...
... of change in terrestrial life which can be effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a general way. It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is meant by an ascension or emergence in the evolutionary gradient 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 ...
... * Sisirkumar Mitra's comment on this is interesting: "Whether they [the astronauts] saw this 'unexplained light' with their physical eye, or in any occult vision opened to them by the spiritual force or by the impact of the infinite space, is not definitely known. Whatever it was, its implication coupled with the region in which it was seen cannot be overlooked." (The Liberator, 1970, p.... the architecture of its main buildings. There was a stir of anticipation everywhere, work commenced briskly in many directions, and the Mother was always ready with her counsel and put all her spiritual force behind the stupendous adventure of new creation. The inauguration or 'dedication' ceremony took place on the forenoon of the appointed day, a week after the Mother's 90th birthday. Almost ...
... the outside world. Newspapers and Radio broadcasts spoke of chronic civil disturbances, and there were appeals to the Mother and Sri Aurobindo for advice, for help, for the deployment of their spiritual force. Numberless were the friends of the Ashram outside, and numberless the relations and friends of the sadhaks and children in the Ashram who were still outside the immediate charmed circle of protection... inevitable expansion of its activities; tending it with divine solicitude as a controlled experiment for hewing new paths to the future, and also intervening in world affairs wherever feasible with a spiritual force to avert a disaster here, to ease a situation there, and generally to keep the lines open for a free evolution of humanity towards the next radical phase of self-development and global unity. Nor ...
... Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda... give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action.... 47 When B. Shiva Rao, then on the staff of the New India, edited by Annie Besant, visited Sri Aurobindo in 1917, he freely discussed the 'Home Rule' movement ...
... have marked out for you to choose faint and devious paths of your own treading? THE SPIRIT WITHIN IS THE TRUE SOURCE OF STRENGTH. IV. The Brahma within, the one and indivisible ocean of spiritual force is that from which all life material and mental is drawn. This is beginning to be as much recognised by leading western thinkers as it was from the old days by the East. If it be so, then spiritual... proportion as we put from us the pre-occupation of bodily desires and interests, the sensual gratifications, lusts, longings, indolences of the material world, that we can return to the ocean of spiritual force within us. (2) Because for the development of Shakti, entire concentration is necessary; the mind must be devoted entirely to its aim as a spear is hurled to its mark; if other cares and longings ...
... (Mother India, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1968), pp. 201-202. Page 146 to have helped him with his spiritual force to bring about the Revolution against Czardom. It was only with the advent of Stalin that Sri Aurobindo turned his spiritual force against communist Russia, Communism in its Stalinist "Asuric" form was anathema to him. Here it would be well to realise that ...
... soul force, that is to say in an inner moral force as the one thing necessary behind all true action, so A.G. believes in a higher spiritual force as the one thing necessary — the one thing that must be at the basis of India's freedom and greatness. It is this spiritual force which he is seeking to call down, embody and perfect in himself and others. This he has found can only be done by a long and patient ...
... the war, had been able to take prisoners or destroy the whole British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. We remember that Sri Aurobindo wrote of himself in the third person: ‘Inwardly, he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German... ourselves.’ 44 Unusual words from a politician, but he could not have put it better. There is no doubt that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have constantly intervened in the war events with their spiritual force. We already know about the ‘miraculous’ escape of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. Hitler had promised that a couple of months later, more exactly on 15 August 1940, he would address ...
... the self-development of the individual and the race. The Shastra erects a collective and external standard; it ignores the inner nature of the individual, the indeterminable elements of a secret spiritual force within him. But the nature of the individual will not be ignored; its demand is inexorable.’ 26 ‘The decision lies between God and our self … It is altogether from within that must come the... were already bringing down the Supramental into the vital, which is the domain of the life-forces — the very reason why they were looking so different and, as it were, rejuvenated. (We know that spiritual force is more concrete and mightier than material force, and that consciousness literally is a concrete entity; otherwise spirituality and yoga would only be a fiction and the transformation of the body ...
... body than to be contained, possessed and used by it,—just as the restless active mind seems to seize on and use irregularly and imperfectly whatever spiritual force comes into it, but the tranquillised mind is held, possessed and used by the spiritual force. The body, thus liberated from itself, purified from many of its disorders and irregularities, becomes, partly by Asana, completely by combined ...
... of superiority or contempt for others. The Page 347 cases of friction you speak of seem to me to arise from ordinary motives of discord and they are certainly not the results of any spiritual Force working to heal the dangers of social or vital attraction by the blessings (!) of personal discord. If somebody finds that association with another for any reason raises undesirable vital feelings... vital gets in the way and disturbs the right view of things. It is only what is done sincerely with a sound spiritual motive that is proper to Yoga. The rest cannot be claimed as the working of a spiritual force mysteriously advancing its ends by ways contrary to its own nature. Yes—self-justification [ in a quarrel ] keeps the thing going because it gives a mental support. Self-justification is ...
... with these that one succeeds best. Naturally, the value of the answer depends on the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing at all but stupidities. But if you take a book containing a condensation of forces―of knowledge or spiritual force or teaching power―you will receive your answer. So now, what do you want to know? I have explained ...
... that we wonder if it is possible to think otherwise than in the way we ordinarily do. It is possible only when one has had the experience of complete silence in the mental region and when the spiritual force with its light and power descends through the mind and makes it act directly without its following its usual method of analysis, deduction, reasoning. All these faculties which are usually considered... in order, relates them to one another, draws conclusions for action from them and gives impulse to this action. This power of organisation and impulse to action can be produced directly by the spiritual force which takes hold of the mental consciousness without these processes of analysis, deduction, reasoning being necessary. In intuition things already happen somewhat in this way; but spiritual i ...
... aside all discords and divisions. I hope too that a friendly relation between Britain and India replacing past struggles will be a step towards a greater world-union in which as a free nation her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light I offer my public adhesion in case it can be of any Page 145 help in your work." (March 31, 1942)... 'in case it can be of any help in your work's. Rarely in history can so great a help have been so unostentatiously offered. This is the release not only upon India but upon the world of a great spiritual force which has long been awaiting its appointed time." (New Delhi, 2-4-1942) Seeing that the negotiations with the Congress were not going right Sri Aurobindo decided on a further intervention ...
... the conquest of the Power of Death for the world from across the barrier. Also this natural way created conditions of crisis which would bring about an urgent and extraordinary response from the spiritual Force so that side by side with the progression towards death there would be the precipitation of the Supramental Light. A sign of what was being done may be seen from the Mother's statement: "As soon... very busy person; She often fell back on Sri Aurobindo to do the concentration needed. The more important point, however, seems to be that certain problems are better dealt with by an embodied spiritual force than a disembodied one, problems concerned perhaps with the most outward material aspect of existence. We see how our difficulties and problems get quickly solved by the Mother's direct intervention ...
... your Force's gifts? How far can one be changed by your or the spiritual Force? Changed in what way? There are plenty of upright people (uprightness, straightforwardness, a certain nobility of character are D's inborn gifts) and plenty of able and successful people outside this Asram or any Asram and there is no need of my spiritual Force for that. He told me that he began practice with only Rs ...
... based upon that by the Yogis. If it were not so, there would be no need of brahmacharya for producing tejas and ojas. Naik argued that what is seen as vigour, energy, etc., may be due to the spiritual force descending and flooding the system, and have nothing to do with the sex-gland secretions at all. It is not a question of vigour and energy per se, but of the physical support—in that physical... fraud or boost up as a miracle? There would be much else necessary to say, about allopathy, homeopathy and the elasticity of Nature, about the place of medicine, Force and the medium, about spiritual force, intermediate occult forces and material forces, about the complexity and relativity of "truths" that are only convenient formulas and the inadvisability of turning them into absolute and all-covering ...
... seems to be true and yet it is not," the Master replied, laughing. 'To be capable of everything and do justice to everything, one certainly does not need less spiritual force and elan and warmth, but more. What you call passion is not spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather ...
... of change in terrestrial life which can be effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a general way. It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is meant by an ascension or emergence in the evolutionary gradient were possible only by a physical impact embodying Page 52 and canalising the spiritual force: it is with his physical body that the Divine Incarnation ...
... only that much of change in terrestrial life which can be effected by the mere spiritual force acting in a general way. It looks as if the physical transformation which is what is meant by an ascension or emergence in 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 ...
... Mother drew the map of undivided India. And she always stood in front of this map during March-past. And even today her seat is kept there as before. And she continues to preside over us in her spiritual force and greatness just like in former times. (23) It was around 1942-43. I was studying in the third year of college at Berhampore. I had started a club for physical training... in forty years from then India would go through a very bad time. Now when we think about it we realise that she had spoken truly. However, Mother has also repeated constantly that with her spiritual force India will become great again. And one day it will show the path to the earth's future. India will be the guru of the world. The partition of India prior to Independence had pained Mother very ...
... marked out for you, to choose faint and devious paths of your own treading? The Spirit Within Is the True Source of Strength IV. The Brahma within, the one and indivisible ocean of spiritual force is that from which all life, material and mental, is drawn. This is beginning to be as much recognised by leading Western thinkers as it was from the old days by the East. If it be so, then... proportion as we put from us the preoccupation of bodily desires and interests, the sensual gratifications, lusts, longings, indolence of the material world, that we can return to the ocean of spiritual force within us. 2. Because for the development of Shakti, entire concentration is necessary; the mind must be devoted entirely to its aim as a spear is hurled to its mark; if other cares and ...
... 265, 387ff at Darshans 358ff sustains a fall 398-9 converses with his attendants 400ff involvement in the War 404ff, 571 revision of The Life Divine 408-9 intervention with a spiritual force 411-2 knowledge of military and diplomatic moves 413 warns against support for Hitler 414-5 contribution to the war effort 415-6 against India seeking Japanese help 424 supports... 567 exchange of letters 136, 139-42, 144-5, 154-5 identity of consciousness 229-30, 243, 354-6, 394, 830-2 maintaining the Ashram 240, 248ff, 251, 280-2, 432ff, 443ff, 459 action of their spiritual Force 136-7, 230-1, 243-5, 249-50, 282, 356-7, 367-8, 589 'Leaders of the Way' 373, 380, 420 atmosphere 374 Sri Aurobindo on the Mother: in her Prayers and Meditations 65 her self-surrender ...
... Every thing internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda within, it would be harassing and disgusting... continued retirement and detachment from action. I believe in the necessity at such times and for such great objects of Tapasya in silence for self-training, for self-knowledge and storage of spiritual force. Our fore- fathers used that means, though in different forms. And it is the best means for becoming an efficient worker in the great days of the world." IX In 1917, B ...
... instance, Sri Ramakrishna's attitude with regard to the body was that it was a misuse of spiritual force to utilize it for preserving the body or taking care of it or curing its ailments. Sri Aurobindo's was quite the opposite. "I have never had any hesitation," he wrote to Dilip, "in the use of a spiritual force for all legitimate purposes including the maintenance of health and physical life in myself ...
... brain-power and in its last form of ojas rises to the brain and informs it with that primal energy which is the most refined form of matter and nearest to spirit. It is ojas that creates a spiritual force or vīrya , by which a man attains to spiritual knowledge, spiritual love and faith, spiritual strength. It follows that the more we can by Brahmacharya increase the store of tapas, tejas, vidyut ...
... purity of its being and the joy and purity of its power. The soul that lives in God acts by this spiritual will and not by the normal will of the unliberated mind: its kinesis takes place by this spiritual force and not by the rajasic mode of Nature, precisely because it no longer lives in the lower movement to which that deformation belongs, but has got back in the divine nature to the pure and perfect ...
... that throws itself out in various essential and spiritual power of quality in the Jiva: that essential power is the swabhava of the Jiva. All act and becoming which proceed directly from this spiritual force are a divine becoming and a pure and spiritual action. Therefore it follows that in action the effort of the human individual must be to get back to his true spiritual personality and to make all ...
... action did not involve the Asram. His name also must not be published in this connection. They must be satisfied with the knowledge that his sympathy is entirely with your objects and that his spiritual force will be behind your work, but this must not be made public. 14 April 1947 Avoidance of Speech and Writing about Ashram Life I do not know why you said all you did to Miss Maitland about ...
... resistance of the Inconscient and the support it gives to human ignorance which is always the main obstacle in any attempt to change the world or even to change oneself. I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs such as the War is not the supramental but the overmind force, and that when it acts in the material world it is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle of the ...
... of his difficulty is in his mind; it is too full of uncertainties, useless complexities and twistings upon itself and hesitations and খটকা generally, to give his inner heart and life-force and spiritual force a real chance. If he wants effective help, he ought to lay himself open entirely to us and receive without hesitation our influence. As regards this paper, I cannot say that it has any very ...
... you have been so vividly aware of it. We do not think it is correct that the Mother can only take the pain away but cannot replace the organs in their right place. This also is possible for the spiritual Force to effect in time. But it is desirable that you should not allow any inner condition of yours which makes the working easy to yield to one like those you speak of which would make it difficult ...
... stated that for the spreading of spirituality in the world India must be free. I suppose you must be working for it! You are the only one who can do something really effective by the use of your spiritual Force. That is all settled. It is a question of working out only. The question is what is India going to do with her independence? The above kind of affair? Bolshevism? Goonda-raj? Things look ominous ...
... not aware that Ramakrishna or any other of those you speak of wanted to change the earth consciousness—they were concerned to raise people out of it, not to bring down anything into it, except spiritual force for personal salvation. Are we to expect the same results for us—unsteadiness, fall and fiasco? It does not matter very much what you expect. It depends on whether the greater consciousness ...
... do these things, unless he has a native "psychic" (that is, occult) faculty and even then he will have to learn the law of the thing before he can use it at will. It is al ways possible to use spiritual force or mind-power or will-power or a certain kind of vital energy to produce effects in men, things and happenings; but knowledge and much practice is needed before this possibility ceases to be occasional ...
... the adverse, anti-divine forces, the forces of the vital world, have descended on the earth, are making use of it as their field of action, and that at the same time a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended on earth to bring it a new life. This makes the struggle more acute, more violent, more visible, but it seems also more definitive, and that is why we can hope to reach an early ...
... detachment Page 110 from action. I believe in the necessity at such times and for such great objects of tapasyā in silence for self-training, for self-knowledge and storage of spiritual force. Our forefathers used that means, though in different forms. And it is the best means for becoming an efficient worker in the great days of the world. 36 (From a letter to Motilal Roy.) ...
... was a case of cholera which was healed like that. The cholera had just been caught, had entered, but was not yet lodged; it was completely cured. Consequently, when I say that if one masters the spiritual force and knows how to use it, there is no malady which cannot be cured. I don't say it just like that in the air; it is said from experience with the thing. Of course, you will say you don't know how ...
... what happens to the psychic being? Generally, it goes away. I must tell you that the beings of the vital world are immortal—they cannot die. They can be destroyed, but it is only the pure spiritual force which can destroy them. For example, in a vital battle (there are people who have a vital fighting power), the experience is always the same: if you fight in the vital world with a vital being ...
... Thought of God, new for us, descending into this world and taking a new form here. And here we come back to our starting point, to our duty of true maternity. For this form meant to manifest the spiritual force capable of transforming the earth's present conditions, this new form, who is to construct it if not the women? Thus we see that at this critical period of the world's life it is no longer ...
... the stars. From what point of view? Symbolically? Yes, Mother. That depends on the schools of thought, the periods, the countries.... In a general way, the moon is associated with spiritual force, spiritual progress, spiritual aspiration. The waxing moon used to be considered as the symbol of spiritual aspiration for transformation, and spiritual plenitude was symbolised by the full ...
... and standing discontent trained in the most strenuous methods of passive resistance. And many of them are Mahomedans. The one favourable factor in favour of the Transvaal Indians is their own spiritual force and the chance of its altering the conditions by sheer moral weight. It is India's duty to aid them by financial succour which they sorely need and the rich men of the country can easily afford ...
... political servitude is a sheer impossibility. When India was free, thousands of men set their feet in the stairs of heaven, but as the night deepened and the sun of liberty withdrew its rays, the spiritual force inborn in every Indian heart became weaker and weaker until now it burns so faintly that aliens have taken upon themselves the role of spiritual teachers, and the people chosen by God have to sit ...
... beyond and the rhythmic clarity and beauty of his singing. A greater poet by nature than almost any of these, Shelley was alone of them all very nearly fitted to be a sovereign voice of the new spiritual force that was at the moment attempting to break into poetry and possess there its kingdom. He has on the one hand, one feels, been a native of the heights to which he aspires and the memory of them ...
... discover. The main power of our living must be no longer the inferior vital urge of Nature which is already accomplished in us and can only whirl upon its rounds about the ego-centre, but that spiritual force of which we sometimes hear and speak but have not yet its inmost secret. For that is still retired in our depths and waits for our transcendence of the ego and the discovery of the true individual ...
... intellectual, vital or mental activity of which the gods have their share. (12) The mantra consists of gayatra, brahma and arka, the formulation of thought into rhythmic speech to bring about a spiritual force or result, the filling of the soul (brahma) with the idea & name of the god of the mantra, the use of the mantra for effectuation of the external object or the activity desired. (13) The tantra ...
... that can now only be known, worked out or created by the use of invented tools and machinery might be achieved by the new body in its own power or by the inhabitant spirit through its own direct spiritual force. The body itself might acquire new means and ranges of communication with other bodies, new processes of acquiring knowledge, a new aesthesis, new potencies Page 556 of manipulation ...
... do these things, unless he has a native "psychic" (that is, occult) faculty and even then he will have to learn the law of the thing before he can use it at will. It is always possible to use spiritual force or mind-power or will power or a certain kind of vital energy to produce effects in men, things and happenings; but knowledge and much practice is needed before this possibility ceases to be occasional ...
... manifested creation (mind-matter), a Force behind that is distinct from that which gives rise to emotions, anger, lust which are all purified and transformed gradually", in other words, the Divine or Spiritual Force, other than the cosmic vital which supports the ordinary embodied consciousness; that is also very clear. I suppose it is only a contact yet, but a very true and vivid contact if it gives rise ...
... survival there were. X 's physical destiny has always been against her but this is a thing that can be cancelled if one can have sufficient faith and inner strength and openness and receive the spiritual force. Page 558 These auto-suggestions [ of being restored to good health ]—it is really faith in a mental form—act both on the subliminal and the subconscient. In the subliminal they ...
... system, mental, vital and physical—and that justifies the Indian idea of Brahmacharya, the transformation of retas into ojas and the raising of its energies upward so that they change into a spiritual force. As for the method of mastery, it cannot be done by physical abstinence alone—it proceeds by a process of combined detachment and rejection. The consciousness stands back from the sex-impulse ...
... there—it is the centre of the inner mind, inner will and occult vision. The light outside means a touch or influence of the Force indicated by the light (golden is truth-light, blue is some spiritual force from the upper planes), while within means that it has penetrated and is established or is frequently active in the nature itself. Light above means a Force descending upon the mind, light around ...
... 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 is in itself full of low and obscure desires, it is the most animal part of the human being. One has to come into contact with it so as to know what is there and transform it. Most ...
... the nature without leading to collapse—or an attempt to sexualise spiritual experience on an animal or gross material basis; second, an exaggerated ambition, pride or vanity trying to seize on spiritual force or experience and turn it to one's own glorification—ending in megalomania; third, an unbalanced vital and a weak nervous system apt to follow its own imaginations and unruled impulses without ...
... House when we were there. In neither case it is a miracle. But to do as you suggest, make it a common or everyday phenomenon, would be hardly practicable and spiritually not useful, as it is not a spiritual force which gives the power but an occult mental-vital force. It would turn the Yoga into a display of occultism, rather than a process of spiritual change. 20 October 1935 You have said that ...
... in Sparta and early republican Rome or a theocracy as in Egypt. For in order to control not only the heart and imagination but the deepest self in the individual society called in the aid of a spiritual force rapidly growing in its midst, the power of religion. In some communities, it strove even to give the religious sanction to all its own ideas, traditions, demands, sanctions. In the older races ...
... converted by a natural heightening into a divine love for the Divine Inhabitant immanent in a mind and soul and body occupied by the One in all creatures. All love, indeed, that is adoration has a spiritual force behind it, and even when it is offered ignorantly and to a limited object, something of that splendour appears through the poverty of the rite and the smallness of its issues. For love that is ...
... rectitude of the spiritual will, the calm and passion of her supramental largeness, her felicity of illumination: she is Mahakali, goddess of the supreme strength, and with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of tapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and Page 780 the laughter, the aṭṭahāsya , that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance: ...
... the seeker of a greater perfection will draw back from all these dualities, regard them with an equal eye and arrive through equality at an impartial and universal action of the dynamic Tapas, spiritual force, in which his own force and will are turned into pure and just instruments of a greater calm secret of divine working. The ordinary mental standards will be exceeded on the basis of this dynamic ...
... personality, our need of ego-enlargement Page 1065 upon the others whom we take up into our expanded orbit. So far as we really succeed in living for others, it is done by an inner spiritual force of love and sympathy; but the power and field of effectuality of this force in us are small, the psychic movement that prompts it is incomplete, its action often ignorant because there is contact ...
... standardiser of its valuations and effectuations of values. Therefore in proportion as the soul becomes again the knower, it gets the capacity of becoming also the controller of the action whether by spiritual force alone or by that force figuring itself in mental and physical activities. There may be in our soul life a perfect spiritual knowledge and understanding Page 433 not only of all our ...
... of our Yoga, since this province has never been conquered by the spiritual Power, the old Yogas having either left it alone or used on it only a detail mental and vital force, not the general spiritual force. It was the reason why after a serious illness caused by a terribly bad state of the Ashram atmosphere... ( Mother laughs ) "...I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise ...
... spectacular spiritual events. All who were present have testified that miracles were the order of the day. What can be called miracles happen every day even now in the Ashram - wherever a great spiritual Force is at work the miraculous is inevitable - but many such events occur without any éclat and often wear even the appearance of natural phenomena. Those which were common occurrences in those ...
... or no materials, worked in many modes at its job which was like that of Napoleon who was said to have made generals of genius out of mud. Sri Aurobindo not only put from afar his mighty spiritual force to the task of "politicising" the Editor's grey cells. He also got every editorial, however lengthy, read out to him before publication and sent a telegram of approval or modification or ...
... it to an infinite and eternal Silence exceeding all cosmic activity and making the whole cosmos seem an inexplicably created enigma that has no basic reality - or else they apply it to a spiritual Force beyond the mind, standing against the background of that Silence and governing its own creation, this universe in which the souls of creatures rise from birth to birth but in which, despite ...
... Shall we deny God? Rationality demands that we should. And if we do not, it is simply because it would be to deny God, because we have "mere" faith, because we believe that God is within us, a spiritual force strong enough to overcome all physical obstacles, weaknesses, disabilities, that God is in the movement, that He is its leader and guides it, that we belong to the world and the future and are ...
... An Experience Recollected A REPORT BY AMAL KIRAN It was in 1963. Sehra was ill. I informed the Mother. Having acted as usual with her spiritual force she expected a result. But somehow the attack of asthma continued. Then a strange incident took place. I wrote to the Mother about it. On the night of January 13, racked by a terrible asthmatic ...
... everything." A sudden flood of power swept over the hearer. "Oh, yes," he said, "Sri Aurobindo will surely do the impossible." And Sri Aurobindo did. Not only did he put from afar his mighty spiritual force to the task of "politicising" the Editor's grey cells. He also got every editorial, however lengthy, read out to him before publication and sent a telegram of approval or modification. Matter for ...
... inner vision, mind and will which is between the eyebrows in the forehead. The light outside means a touch or influence of the force indicated by the light (golden is Truth-light, blue some spiritual force from the upper plane) while the light within means that it has penetrated or is established or frequently active in the nature itself. Light above means a force descending upon the mind, light ...
... rectitude of the spiritual will, the calm and passion of her supramental largeness, her felicity of illumination; she is Mahakali, goddess of the supreme strength, and with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of Tapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and the laughter that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance; she is Mahalakshmi, the goddess ...
... were perceived or interpreted by them. The pranam , just like the other Ashram activities, was never intended to be a kind of ceremony; it was an occasion on which the Mother could transmit her spiritual force and make it active in the sadhaks. Sri Aurobindo’s intriguing words about ‘the soup in the evening’ refer to an activity the Ashramites called ‘the soup ceremony’ and which was held till ...
... aware of it, is no criterion for evaluation, as it is not a factor in the elaboration of that vision. For they have dug the foundations “to front the years”, and in those foundations is built a spiritual Force to assure the automatic realisation of the Work they, as the Avatar of the Supermind, had come to perform. As they were one, none of the two was “greater” than the other. And if the above is ...
... and the time of accomplishment, when the results of his mission are a concrete part of the manifestation. These are the four phases of the avataric action which can be seen as one new field, a spiritual force field, bringing about the creation of a new step in the evolution or whatever may be the mission of the Avatar. We will now briefly sketch these four phases as applied to the work of Sri Aurobindo ...
... is at all possible to think except in the manner in which one thinks ordinarily. "It is only possible when one has the experience of a complete silence in the mental region and when the spiritual force, with its light and power comes down through the mind and makes it act directly without following its usual method of analysis and deduction and reasoning. All these faculties that are considered ...
... the hostile, anti-divine forces, these forces of the vital world, seem to have descended upon earth and are using it as their field of action; and at the same time, a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended upon earth to bring a new life to it. This renders the battle more bitter, violent and visible, but apparently more decisive, too, which is why we may hope to arrive at an early ...
... either by force—violent force—or else by a miracle (what they call a "miracle") that will leave them... dumbfounded. Those people are entirely vulnerable (by vulnerable, I mean defenseless) to spiritual force. The day when it manifests physically, there will be a debacle. Even here, with these people who through their tradition are so accustomed to the Power, the true spiritual Power, when it just ...
... seen a case of snake-bite in the Ashram and evidently the Mother was not willing to take any risk with so serious an injury. It is equally evident that she was confident of curing it by her spiritual force. The second occasion on which she mentioned snakes was when she related an experience of hers during one of the outings she made daily in the late afternoon. She said: "I was walking ...
... normally." I was surprised at the confident prophecy. But actually it did come true — within exactly two days I was up and hobbling about in my old way, as if nothing had happened. This shows how spiritual force can work. I may give you another instance. It was in connection with a side-tooth of mine. You see, I had a bit of tooth-trouble once and I went to our oldest dentist. Our dentists ...
... because he keeps connecting his Cosmic Christ with the Christian movement. What we have to mark is how in each case the Christie is extended backward beyond the life of Jesus and made out to be a spiritual force, a divine presence, from the beginning of the world, a cosmic dramatis persona ontological-ly involved and therefore "an element of reality, of a concrete involvement in the cosmos". It is ...
... of neither capitalism nor communism nor any other political 'ism'. In every field of activity we shall criticise whatever militates against the instinct of divinity and blocks the work of the spiritual force that is Mother India.... The Godhead secret within man is the truth of the man and most keenly the truth of the Indian nation, he truth that has to be lived out as much as possible. Not ...
... Yoga, p. 1129 This Higher Consciousness carrying in it a sense of wide and boundless existence, light, power, peace, Ananda etc. is always there above the head and when something of the spiritual Force comes down to work upon the nature, it is from 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 ...
... These experiences changed him completely, as he explains himself: During this period his view of life was radically changed; he had taken up Yoga with the original idea of acquiring spiritual force and energy and divine guidance for his work in life. But now the inner spiritual life and realisation which had continually been increasing in magnitude and universality and assuming a larger ...
... keeping his absolute authority intact. In Sri Aurobindo's Savitri, on the other hand, Death suffers a real defeat. Stated in the terms of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and Yoga, there is a victory of spiritual force over the laws of a world that has emerged from the Inconscient. The world is not transformed at a single stroke, but a decisive precedent is set that clears the way for a freer outflowering of ...
... spectacular spiritual events. All who were present have testified that miracles were the order of the day. What can be called miracles happen every day even now in the Ashram—wherever a great spiritual Force is at work the miraculous is inevitable—but many such events occur without any eclat and often wear even the appearance of natural phenomena. Those which were common occurrences in those ten ...
... understood that apart from the use of medicines as an occasional and quite subordinate expedient, those who live here should be sufficiently open mentally, — psychically, and physically to the spiritual force to recover rapidly from attacks of illness and to keep a sufficient power of life and health in them not to need to be treated as chronic invalids. Any other rule would make the existence of the ...
... capacity to begin on that level; hence, this new synthesis of yoga aims at spiritualizing man's being by the power of the soul in mind, and the method is to open the soul in mind directly to a higher spiritual force and being and to perfect by that higher force so possessed and brought into action the rule of his nature. In order to work out this process, this synthesis of yoga utilizes powers of soul in mind ...
... knowledge himself, how can he transmit them to his students?" (Ibid., pp. 174-75) Then the Mother adds: "To tell the truth, we rely mainly on the all-surrounding atmosphere charged with spiritual force, which has an effect even if it is not perceived or felt." (Ibid., p. 175) Now the puzzling question of a particular teacher who wrote: " 'Free Progress' education being essentially an ...
... heterogeneous elements working together. This simple fact cannot but convince anyone with unblemished vision that this smooth functioning of our Ashram collectivity is a tangible proof that a higher spiritual Force and not any mere human control has been at work here despite the individual sadhaks foibles and deficiencies. Sri Aurobindo has not left us. The Mother has not left us. Page 87 ...
... that can now only be known, worked out or created by the use of invented tools and machinery might be achieved by the new body in its own power or by the inhabitant spirit through its own direct spiritual force. The body itself might acquire new means and ranges of communication with other bodies, new processes of acquiring knowledge, a new aesthesis, new potencies of manipulation of itself and objects ...
... life on the Spirit and give it a spiritual meaning'. To say therefore that he had shunned the world is to misunderstand the nature and purpose of his Yoga. The vast range and significance of his spiritual force and action which he was now to radiate from Pondicherry — his 'Cave of Tapasya' — will unfold themselves more and more to us as we proceed further. ...
... inertia is apravritti [immobility] - the action of the mechanical mind is a pravritti [movement] though a tamasic obscure pravritti. Cannot the mechanical mind be fired out by a spiritual Force? What is the need of transforming it? You can't fire out a part of the being. What is called the mechanical mind is necessary for the maintenance (in the physical) of things gained - it ...
... became quite well known, filling a vacuum in the spiritual and cultural life of Bengal at that time. So long as Motilal Roy remained in touch with Pondicherry and was receptive to Sri Aurobindo's spiritual force, the Sangha moved in the right direction; but afterwards it changed its course. In 1921 Motilal came to Pondicherry with his wife for an intensive pursuit of sadhana but he could not adjust himself ...
... that, for the spreading of spirituality in the world, India must be free. I suppose you must be working for it! You are the only one who can do something really effective by the use of your spiritual Force. Then Sri Aurobindo wrote back: That is all settled. It is a question of working out only. The question is what is India going to do with her independence ? The above ...
... intellect, realise that whatever D has achieved, has been done because of some inner gain through your Force? A man may have a great intellect and yet understand nothing about spiritual things or spiritual force. X's knowledge in these matters does not seem to go beyond closing his eyes and feeling nice and peaceful. I wonder why these people don't understand the work you are doing. How the deuce ...
... instance of such a mishap; but we are certainly familiar with something analogous, a derangement of the brain instead of the physical falling off of the head. As the Mother has said, the spiritual force is a kind of fire, to play with this fire without an inner devotion and sincerity invites dangers of this sort. Let me here draw your attention to another – a rather interesting – aspect ...
... egoistic ignorance what is foreseen in full supramental light by the inner Will and Knowledge. 200 When fate seems to bar one's path, there is one recourse possible: appeal to spiritual force. All is possible then. The law itself may be exceeded, and predestination held at bay or even effectively turned back: ...as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old ...
... of that consciousness. Naturally the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on the physical plane in mundane affairs—Buddha, it is said for example, has not been able to rid the earth of age, disease and death (although it was not Buddha's intention to ...
... Naturally Page 67 the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on the physical plane in mundane affairs—Buddha, it is said, for example, has not been able to rid the earth of age, disease and death (although it was not Buddha's intention to ...
... of thought or of life, whether in the individual or in the mass—proceed from a fundamental intuition which lies in the background as the logical presupposition, the psychological motive and the spiritual force. A certain attitude of the soul, a certain angle of vision is what is posited first; all other things—all thoughts and feelings and activities are but necessary attempts to express, to demonstrate ...
... l scheme. It is certainly easy to inflame the emotions of children, but it is not a sound and healthy process as the level of the force involved is almost invariably vital. The case of a true spiritual force is very, very rare and, let me say it at once, when it manifests, everything should bow down to it. But what the arguer has probably in view is the communication of an interest, an enthusiasm ...
... receded behind. Perhaps it is coming back now there also. That is why Europeans who have got a spiritual aspiration turn to India. It does not mean that they turn to Indians but to the accumulated spiritual force that is here. At any rate it is easy to make a start in India. Disciple : Is it not also easier to fight the obstacles that come in the spiritual life in India than outside ? Sri Aurobindo ...
... the yogic life is concerned the sexual act with one's own wife is as much harmful as that with any other woman. Only those who have risen above the human level, those who have a certain kind of spiritual force as well as vital force, can possibly make a proper use of the sexual act for a spiritual purpose. If Sadhakas at a lower stage take to these things they are certain to fall. Disciple : ...
... of bringing down the Truth does not succeed in India, do you think India will lose the chance for ever ? Sri Aurobindo : India has the greatest chance because of her past and because the spiritual force is accumulated here. The real movement is from Above – the Truth trying to come down. Then there is a general upheaval and vague feeling of the Truth coming down – the idea of Avatars, a general ...
... give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there ...
... Naturally Page 149 the limits and the limitation of that consciousness mark also the limits and limitation of the disposition he can effect in his life. When it is said that the spiritual force is not effective on the physical plane in mundane affairs – Buddha, it is said, for example, has not been able to rid the earth or age, disease and death (although it was not Buddha's intention ...
... from her game of tennis and taking French translation classes soon after, or going to the sports ground to watch our tournaments, herself taking down the names and scores of each participant, her spiritual force acting simultaneously, protecting, sustaining and inspiring all, her very Presence electrifying the atmosphere with a divine energy and quietude. She would hold one end of the tape at the terminus ...
... of thought or of life, whether in the individual or in the mass-proceed from a fundamental intuition which lies in the background as the logical presupposition, the psychological motive and the spiritual force. A certain attitude of the soul, a certain angle of vision is what is posited first; all other things-all thoughts and feelings and activities are but necessary attempts to express, to demonstrate ...
... receptive, you will get the answer at once. You see, when I read your letter, I sent the answer immediately…. I do not formulate it mentally, but it is a clear and distinct formation sustained by a spiritual force which acts and contains a power of efficacy and I send it towards the person with whom I want to communicate. Like this ( Mother makes a gesture ), I aim it — it is like a vibration originating ...
... careless with such a heavy responsibility on you. SRI AUROBINDO: As I said, I had nothing to do directly with the movement. I would have been very cautious. NIRODBARAN: I asked Dutt if the spiritual force he spoke of among the boys had been imparted by you. SRI AUROBINDO: I didn't impart anything. NIRODBARAN: He said, "I doubt it. Firstly Sri Aurobindo had not advanced sufficiently in Yoga ...
... intense force, peace, etc. at Calcutta in their meditation. So intense that some people wonder if it isn't the supramental force that is descending. SRI AUROBINDO (laughing): No! It is the spiritual force. NIRODBARAN: Even the children feel it. SRI AUROBINDO: Then it must be supramental. (Laughter) The supramental is independent of conditions and circumstances. NIRODBARAN: It is curious ...
... be effected except as the result of strivings, advances, setbacks, fresh advances and the final leap to the Goal. "There is a sort of locked struggle," Sri Aurobindo had written in 1915, "the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world... but the eye of knowledge looks beyond and sees that it is only a protracted episode." 36 The faith born of knowledge sustains the intestine ...
... Fund: 'We believe that... this is a battle waged in... defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity.' They put their spiritual force behind the Allies. 1942 Mar-Apr Sees 'the Divine Grace directly present' behind the Cripps' proposal: 'If it is accepted, the nation will survive and get a new birth in the Divine's consciousness ...
... Wake up to your true mission in the world. Show the way to union and harmony! 23 It would not be wide off the mark, then, to say that the Mother, in one aspect of her life, symbolised the spiritual force of Bharat, and she saw clearly that, with a change in her consciousness and a bold redefinition of her ends and means, India was very likely to take the decisive quantum leap into the Future. Hence ...
... surface vicissitudes. At exhibition, seminar, conference, shibir, lecture - always the challenge was to take one's fill of the current occasion and thereby to expose oneself to the power, the spiritual force, the creative Agni (Fire-Will) of the 'Sri Aurobindo' manifestation. The far-flung yearlong schedule of the birth centenary celebrations was packed with excitement and significance, and happily ...
... give it a spiritual meaning." In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action? 31 During the Second World War, he advised all support to the Allies, and later, during the Cripps Mission, he advised acceptance of the British offer. The purblind ...
... with the living Presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother generating the central Force for success in the pursuit of the sadhana, was but one aspect of the Truth. On the other hand, being a spiritual Force, the influence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was by no means confined to the Ashram, for "the psychic contact can exist at a distance". But to what extent it was felt, or became operative ...
... depends on him."* But the next day, as Nirodbaran notes, "he emerged from the depth", and got up and sat in his chair. Then he was asked entreatingly by Champaklal whether he was not using his spiritual force to cure himself, he said "No!" When the question was repeated he gave the same answer. "Why not?" they persisted, "How is the disease going to be cured otherwise?" But his reply was brief: "Can't ...
... discords and divisions. I hope too that friendly relations between Britain and India replacing the past struggles, will be a step towards a greater world union in which, as a free nation, her spiritual force will tribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light, offer my public adhesion, in case it can be of any help in your work. 8 Stafford's response to this unexpected ...
... spiritual meaning. In his retirement he kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively Page 51 intervened whenever necessary but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action. For it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of mind and life and body in matter there are ...
... life and the physical being; a sensitive perception of and participation in the working of the universal Nature; an increasing impersonal serenity and flexibility; and a steadier drive of the spiritual force, are some of the developing results of the widening and ascent of consciousness. But the complete elimination of the ego is yet a far cry. What we have described above is a change brought ...
... give it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there are ...
... descends the suffering will remain. If you choose to remain in suffering how can it go? Disciple : They say that they can compel people to take injections even against their will, can spiritual force do that? The Yogis have been busy with their own salvation while the world has remained just the same. Sri Aurobindo : Evolution has proceeded from matter through animal to physical man ...
... these hermitages and also in some of them "She rested drawing round her like a cloak Its spirit of patient muse and potent prayer". At times, she found in the atmosphere some spiritual force and stopped her chariot and felt the impress of the souls left by ancient seers. She experienced the kinship of eternal calm. "But morn broke in reminding her other quest And from low ...
... internal is ripe or ripening, He wrote to Mother, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda ...
... the nervous being, and the vital mind, so that they may become fit instruments of the Truth. That is a big enough work.... 52 On 13 July, he said that, for bringing down any higher spiritual force (especially the Supermind) into the earth-plane and the physical being, one had to sit down to it and call it down and hold it, and not prematurely rush into inconsequential action. "Therefore ...
... "Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda ...
... first successful attack by barbarians able to reach the other shore of the Indus river. Therefore the Kingdom of Truth founded by Arjuna had still so much power of the warrior-force, inspired by spiritual force, that it was able to protect the country for such a long time. "Even then, there remained such an accumulation of warrior-force that a mere fraction of it kept the country safe; great men ...
... ugly rumour that Poincare [France's president] supports Bluysen; there are always corrupt financial dealings underlying French politics which the outside world does not see. If so, we must put spiritual force against the banded forces of evil and see the result." Bluysen's election was validated. In his letter Sri Aurobindo gave some other pieces of news. "Meanwhile Richard intends to remain ...
... strength and the rough and natural touch of the soil. In no case can our Ramayan compare with the great epic of Tulsidas, that mine of poetry, strong and beautiful thought and description and deep spiritual force and sweetness. But it must have been greater in its original form than in its modern dress. The great value of the edition lies however in the illustrations. All the pictures are not excellent; ...
... spirit. So far is this true that form itself only exists as a manifestation of spirit and has no independent being. When we speak of the Homeric hexameter, we are speaking of a certain balance [of] spiritual force called by us Homer working through emotion into the material shape of a fixed mould of rhythmical sound which obeys both in its limiting sameness & in its variations the law of the spirit within ...
... mind of the people. The sudden irruption of Mrs. Besant into the field with her unequalled gift,—born of her untiring energy, her flaming enthusiasm, her magnificent and magnetic personality, her spiritual force,—for bringing an ideal into the stage of actuality with one rapid whirl and rush, has been the second factor. Indeed the presence of three such personalities as Mr. Tilak, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Gandhi ...
... order to secure an extreme simplicity of form and contour,—the best condition for accomplishing the principal object of the Indian sculptor which was to fill the form with the utmost power of spiritual force and significance. The figure of this princely doorkeeper of the temple in its union of calm, grave, sweet and restful serenity with a latent and restrained heroic energy in its stillness, noted ...
... free Egypt and the Pan-Islamic idea have joined hands in the land of the Pharaohs. The idea of a free and united India has been born and arrived at full stature in the land of the Rishis, and the spiritual force of a great civilisation of which the world has need, is gathering at its back. Will England crush these ideas with ukases and coercion laws? Will she even kill them with maxims and siege-guns? ...
... then proceed calmly with the great work the Samaj has undertaken, serenely strong and unperturbed in good fortune or evil fortune, good report or evil report, confident in God's grace and the spiritual force communicated by the founder. This is the only course worthy of a manly community professing a robust and virile religion. Anxious repetition of unheeded disclaimers seems to us undignified and ...
... less ephemeral race is no substitute for a belief in Christ or Buddha, for the law of Divine Love or the trust in Divine Power & Providence. If Philosophy failed to be an ethical control or a spiritual force, Science has failed still more completely, and for a very simple reason—the intellect does not control the conduct. There is quite another mental force which controls it and which turns into motives ...
... There is Page 3 a closer resemblance to the recent Celtic movement in Ireland, the attempt of a reawakened national spirit to find a new impulse of self-expression which shall give the spiritual force for a great reshaping and rebuilding: in Ireland this was discovered by a return to the Celtic spirit and culture after a long period of eclipsing English influences, and in India something of ...
... intimately the Mother and he were connected with the conduct of the war and with all its vicissitudes. They were like two Super-Generals. Sri Aurobindo has explicitly declared that he pitted his spiritual force against the Nazis and later against the Japanese. He kept himself acquainted with all the turns and twists of Page 227 the campaigns both on the European front and on the ...
... varied pattern of physical education gradually came into being as an essential element of the expanding activities of the school. The body needed to be made a conscious base for the descent of the spiritual force. When did the Mother give you the name Aster? It was around this time that the Mother gave me a new name. I was about eleven at the time. The name given me by my father was Mira. Mother ...
... and ends in pale blue light, which is Sri Aurobindo's light. It was soothing and some movements took place in all the centres of his body, signifying the beginning of the action of the highest spiritual Force which by descending can open up from above what traditionally is described as the result of the arousing of the Kundalini, culminating in Peace, Joy and Ananda. ...
... illness if it can be called by that name. I shall state first in general terms the nature of the malady and its usual developments that is to say, the normal course it takes when no psychic or spiritual force is brought in to remove it. After-wards I shall indicate the two possible means of cure. I think it best for me to state the case in its worst and not only in its best possible terms because ...
... a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economical organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his own way in his Sangha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about — my own work which I must do myself and no one can do for ...
... pp. 370-74 Page 166 × The word expressing the idea has the same power if it is surcharged with the spiritual force; that is the rationale of the Indian use of the mantra. ...
... acceptable text. Its overhead character should be our main criterion. Take an example. The supplicatory verses in the eleventh chapter of the Gita are absolutely mantric and they carry a spiritual force that can really work wonders. Jnaneshwar’s rendering of them into Marathi is also an inspired marvel. It is another creation, psychic-lyrical with a powerful spontaneity which can lift up the soul ...
... subtle sensings or [?] temporarily to others, occult power of transmutation (e.g. Ramakrishna’s turning of wine into D. Gupta’s fever mixture or Christ’s turning of water into wine) – but here a spiritual force was at work. Page 147 I am told there is no record or evidence of V. having any spiritual realisation. If so his powers, if any, would be occult alone, probably on the vital ...
... it a sort of magic that acts in the void or without any process. Nor is it a machine which acts in the same way on everybody or in all conditions and circumstances; it is not a physical but a spiritual Force and its action cannot be reduced to rules. What he quotes about the limitation of the power of the Guru to that of a teacher who shows the way but cannot help or guide is the conception ...
... antidivine forces, the forces of the vital world, have descended upon the earth, that they are using it as their fields of action, 81 and that at the same time a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended on earth to bring it a new life. This renders the struggle more acute, more violent, more visible, but also, it seems, more definitive, and that is why we can hope to reach an ...
... from those powerful forces within Britain that were ready to seek terms with Hitler.” 1123 Sri Aurobindo would later write about himself, once more in the third person: “Inwardly he put his spiritual force behind the Allies from the moment of Dunkirk when everybody was expecting the immediate fall of England and the definite triumph of Hitler, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the rush of German ...
... the growth of humanity. His correspondence was a means of direct contact with and a transmission of forces to the human elements who had felt the call to participate in that battle; without the spiritual force accompanying the letters, the written word would have been but of little use. In the meantime Sri Aurobindo worked with his yogic powers on the events and personalities on the Earth, on everything ...
... light, a manifestation upon Earth of some divine force unknown until now, a Thought of God, new for us, descending into this world and taking a new form here … This form, meant to manifest the spiritual force capable of transforming the Earth’s present conditions, this new form: who is to construct it if not the women? ‘Thus we see that at this critical period of the world’s life it is no longer ...
... the nature with out leading to collapse—or an attempt to sexualise spiritual experience on an animal or gross material basis; second, an exaggerated ambition, pride or vanity trying to seize on spiritual force or experience and turn it to one's own glorification—ending in megalomania; third, an unbalanced vital and a weak nervous system apt to follow its own imaginations and unruled impulses without ...
... you persevere. What seemed to me denied and impossible for years (bringing about a state of helpless stagnation and hopelessness and disbelief in even the goodwill and power of the Divine, the spiritual Force and the Guru) suddenly happens after all — when Page 144 those who never had any experience for years get the opening The difficulty is great and the darkness of the material conscious ...
... widening in its gleaming surges of meaning and sense with their massiveness, yet remaining subtly fluent in its greatness and in its gracefulness; the other is lyric-delightful. In one is the spiritual force, Tapas Shakti; in the other the upward winging of the happy psychic, the soul of adoration freely breathing ethereality of deep blue spiritual skies. To the language of the Spirit has now been ...
... spoke a great deal about yoga and spiritual matters. He was inclined to be sceptical and finally said: “If you can off-load all the machines on to that pier, I will believe in all this talk of spiritual Force. Seeing is believing.” We left it at that. ‘Among the machines there was one piece that weighed about six tons, and the question was really about that piece, as the two cranes were only of ...
... Yogi. He wrote about himself: ‘In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual force and silent spiritual action … It was this force which, as soon as he had attained it, he used, at first only in a limited field of personal work, but afterwards in a constant action upon the world ...
... to prescribe any medicine but to consider the outer symptoms and diagnose where the damage had resulted. His diagnosis was meant to help the Mother and Sri Aurobindo to focus their curative spiritual force. The Soup-distribution was never resumed. But, of course, the Mother's giving of her energies to us went on in different ways, and many of the physical troubles she later had were due ...
... much. Perhaps he is too frantic and wishes to achieve the highest at one leap. I have advised equanimity as the basis of sadhana, but it is necessary to acquire a poise even with regard to the spiritual force. Do not be over-enthusiastic, over-zealous. Proceed calmly, slowly. You seem sometimes to be in a sort of fever for Yoga. This is not advisable - especially for a disposition which is liable to ...
... of the Inconscient and the support it gives to human ignorance which is always the main obstacle in any attempt to change the world or even to change oneself. I have always said that the spiritual force I have been putting on human affairs such as the War is not the supramental but the Overmind force, and that when it acts in the material world it is so inextricably mixed up in the tangle ...
... misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandannagar [i.e. Chandernagore] the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economical organization and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his own way in his Sangha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about – my own work which I must do myself and no one can do for ...
... rectitude of the spiritual will, the calm and passion of her supramental largeness, her felicity of illumination; she is Mahakali, goddess of the supreme strength, and with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of Tapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and the laughter, the attahasya, that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance: she is Mahalakshmi ...
... Dyuman's stores—no precious things at all... and the Mother's Shrine will be an empty place, empty of all material things, meant only for meditation, and prayer.. and I hope, filled with light, spiritual force and the presence of the Truth. With all my love . I contemplated on the Mother's letter and realised exactly what she had meant. ...
... it to regard and even to bow down to something that is the direct negation of its own petty ideals, sordid cares and egoistic self-content. But the work in the world of so supreme a power as spiritual force cannot be thus limited. The spiritual life also can return upon the material and use it as a means of its own greater Page 26 fullness. Refusing to be blinded by the dualities, the ...
... the whole of the movement, even as they do not make up the whole of the life of the people; they represent its highest points,—or in the two or three peoples that have powerfully developed the spiritual force within, the highest with the exception of the spiritual summit. In these few we can best see the inner character and aim of any one line of the movement,—whether it be the line of poetry, the line ...
... Rajas and Tamas It is possible that the fatigue or lethargy comes as the wrong condition which has to be replaced by the peace. As rajas, kinetic passion, has to be replaced by tapas , the spiritual force, so tamas, Page 48 the obscure inertia, has to be replaced by śama , the luminous quietude and peace. The peace ( śama ) is the pure form, tamas is its degraded or perverted ...
... the individual and the race. The Shastra erects a collective and external standard; it ignores the inner nature of the individual, the indeterminable Page 203 elements of a secret spiritual force within him. But the nature of the individual will not be ignored; its demand is inexorable. The unrestrained indulgence of his outer impulses leads to anarchy and dissolution, but the suppression ...
... thinking synthesis; an enlightened life of the mind grasps at all knowledge with a delight of finding and reception and holding, a spiritual enthusiasm, passion, or ecstasy; a power of light full of spiritual force, illumination and purity of working manifests its empire, brahma-tejas, brahma-varcas ; a bottomless steadiness and illimitable calm upholds all the illumination, movement, action as on some rock ...
... mental, vital and physical energy in us and the universe is felt to be a derivation from the supreme Shakti, but at the same time an inferior, separated and in some sense another working. The real spiritual force may send down its messages or the light and power of its presence above us to the lower levels or may descend occasionally and even for a time possess, but it is then mixed with the inferior workings ...
... spirit in mind much more than a spirit in body and assumes in him the capacity to begin on that level, to spiritualise his being by the power of the soul in mind opening itself directly to a higher spiritual force and being and to perfect by that higher force so possessed and brought into action the whole of his nature. For that reason our initial stress has fallen upon the utilisation of the powers of soul ...
... Brahmin has not only the thirst for knowledge but also a general clearness of mind and its tendency to be easily illuminated by ideas and to receive the truth. This is Jnanaprakasha. He has also a spiritual force which comes from knowledge and purity. This is Brahmavarchasya. Kshatriya: [Abhaya, Sahasa], 3 Yasholipsa, Atma Shakti (Atma Slagha) There should also be the qualities of the Kshatriya ...
... prarabdha karma has worked itself out and the debts he has written against his name are wiped off. Even the greatest Yogi by his mere bodily presence in the world, is pouring out a stream of spiritual force on all sides; this action does not bind him, it is true, yet it is work and work which exercises a stupendous influence on others. He is सर्वभूतहितरतः, busy doing good to all creatures by his very ...
... outward [being] and action,—for all being and action are of the spirit, but still its real nature, its native action is concealed, altered, not manifest in the material life in its true nature of a spiritual force. This is a fundamental idea of Vedic thinking; and if we keep it well in mind, we shall be able to understand the peculiar imagery of the Veda. Earth is the image of the material being; material ...
... d, phenomenal aspect as Isha, Lord of the Universe. As Isha the Karmayogin may worship Him in various sub-aspects. Isha is a double being as Purusha-Prakriti; Purusha, the great male ocean of spiritual force which sets Prakriti to produce and watches her workings, and Prakriti, the mighty female energy which produces and works unweariedly for the pleasure of Purusha. He is the triple Being, Prajna ...
... out of this supreme Principle. All this activity of forms, all this mental, sensuous, intelligential striving of the lower nature is only a phenomenon, which could not be at all except for this spiritual force and this power of being; it comes from that and it exists in that and by that solely. If we dwell in the phenomenal nature only and see things only by the notions it impresses on us, we shall not ...
... supreme Self, one greater than the Impersonal. There is no longer the lower blind and limping action of the ego and the three gunas, but instead the vast self-determining movement of an infinite spiritual Force, a free immeasurable Shakti. All Nature becomes the power of the one Divine and all action his action through the individual as channel and instrument. In place of the ego there comes forward conscious ...
... its way of descent. This Higher Consciousness carrying in it a sense of wide and boundless existence, light, power, peace, Ananda etc. is always there above the head and when something of the spiritual Force comes down to work upon the nature, it is from 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 ...
... and there would be the siddhi. That cannot come at once. Page 666 × Sri Aurobindo sent the disciple a spiritual force which enabled him to write a very good poem.—Ed. ...
... of our Yoga, since this province has never been conquered by the spiritual Power, the old Yogas having either left it alone or used on it only a detailed mental and vital force, not the general spiritual force. It was the reason why after a serious illness caused by a terribly bad state of the Asram atmosphere, I had to insist on her partial retirement so as to minimise the most concrete part of the ...
... chooses to limit or determine his action by conditions, it does not make him less omnipotent. His self limitation is itself an act of omnipotence. The fact that X was not changed by the mental-spiritual force put on him proves that. It does not prove it for a moment. It simply proves that the omnipotent unconditioned supramental force was not put out there—any more than it was when Christ was put ...
... called by that name. I shall state first in general terms Page 373 the nature of the malady and its usual developments, that is to say, the normal course it takes when no psychic or spiritual force is brought in to remove it. Afterwards I shall indicate the two possible means of cure. I think it is best for me to state the case in its worst and not only in its best possible terms because ...
... some of the readers or even to wider circles. In speaking of the divine body I entered into some far-off speculations about what might become possible in the future evolution of it by means of a spiritual force, but obviously the possibilities could not be anything near or immediate and I said clearly enough that we shall have to begin at the beginning and not attempt anything out of the way. Perhaps ...
... condition. People see all kinds of lights around the Mother when she walks on the roof. They are all the flowing out of different forces. If it was like the moonlight in appearance it would be the spiritual force. 1 November 1933 What people see around the Mother is first her aura, as it is called nowadays, and secondly the forces of Light that pour out from her when she concentrates, as she always ...
... a possible misunderstanding. Long ago I gave to Motilal Roy of Chandernagore the ideas and some principles and lines of a new social and economical organisation and education and this with my spiritual force behind him he has been trying to work out in his own way in his Sangha. This is quite a separate thing from what I am now writing about,—my own work which I must do myself and no one can do for ...
... aside all discords and divisions. I hope too that a friendly relation between Britain and India replacing past struggles will be a step towards a greater world union in which as a free nation her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light I offer my public adhesion in case it can be of any help in your work. 1 Sri Aurobindo The Asram Pondicherry ...
... once, the Secretary said, that the different parts of India, whoever may be their present rulers, are bound to join the mother country and that India, free and united, will become a dynamic spiritual force bringing peace and harmony to the war-scarred world and suffering humanity in general. Asked whether this meant that Sri Aurobindo desired Chandernagore, Pondicherry and other French Settlements ...
... sadhana which involves not only devotion or union with the Divine or a perception of him in all things and beings, but also action as workers and instruments and a work to be done in the world, a spiritual force to be brought on the world, under difficult conditions; then one has to see one's way and do what is commanded and support what has to be supported, even if it means war and strife carried on whether ...
... aspiration or the power of the Word? This depends a great deal on the degree of the sadhak's development, you see. If he is developed and conscious enough to be in direct contact with the spiritual Force which is working behind the words, then the word is only an excuse. But if for him it must pass through his mental understanding in order to have its effect, then the word takes on a much greater ...
... what is the cause of the disorder. You look. Of course, there are many, but still you try to find out approximately the cause of this disorder, and through the pressure of light and knowledge and spiritual force you re-establish the harmony, Page 184 the proper functioning. And if the ailing part is receptive, if it does not offer any obstinate resistance, you can be cured in a few seconds ...
... make an inner effort or a mental effort, and in one way or another enter into contact with the great currents of forces, at first currents of mental force, of the higher light and sometimes of spiritual force. Then they receive a kind of drop of that within their consciousness, and this produces in them the illumination of a revelation, and they feel that they have grasped the truth. They have a revelation ...
... discords and divisions. I hope too that friendly relations between Britain and India replacing the past struggles, will be a step towards a greater world union in which, as a free nation, her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light, I offer my public adhesion, in case it can be of any help in your work. 1 31-3-1942 * ...
... If he does not have the Vision and the inner knowledge himself, how can he transmit them to his students? To tell the truth, we rely mainly on the all surrounding atmosphere charged with spiritual force, Page 59 which has an effect even if it is not perceived or felt. 20 April 1966 * Mother, In the context of your recent messages to the school e ...
... have the vision and the inner knowledge himself, how can he transmit them to his students? Page 173 To tell the truth, we rely mainly on the all-surrounding atmosphere charged with spiritual force, which has an effect even if it is not perceived or felt. 20 April 1966 To the teachers and students: The "Vers la Perfection" classes 3 are in accord with the teaching of Sri ...
... does not want falterers and flinchers for his work, nor does he want unstable enthusiasts who cannot maintain the energy of their first movements. * * * August 21, 1909 The spiritual force within not only creates the future but creates the materials for the future. It is not limited to the existing materials either in their nature or in their quantity. It can transform bad material ...
... If this work of bringing down the Truth does not succeed in India, do you think India will lose the chance for ever? India has the greatest chance because of her past and because the spiritual force is accumulated here____ But if India remains indifferent and sticks to old worn-out forms and refuses to move forward or listen to the call of her soul, then the Truth may recede and try somewhere ...
... own limitations, its poverty, it would never make any effort to find its way out of all that by the right door: liberation into a higher and truer mode of being. Page 418 When the spiritual force is able to act, when it begins to have an influence, it jolts the mind's self-satisfaction and, by continuous pressure, begins to make it feel that beyond it there is something higher and truer; ...
... Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda ...
... everything." A sudden flood of power swept over the hearer. "Oh, yes," he said, "Sri Aurobindo will surely do the impossible." And Sri Aurobindo did. Not only did he put from afar his mighty spiritual force to the task of 'politicising' the Editor's grey cells. He also got every editorial, however lengthy, read out to him before publication and sent a telegram of approval or modification. Matter ...
... vehicle of supernatural light, and they had to accept the mysterious "No" he had categorically returned to their anxious question which had meant: "Are you not using on yourself the sovereign spiritual force with which you have saved hundreds?" The body that seemed able to live without end by the protection of an all-transformative power was being allowed by its master to suffer extreme uraemia and ...
... (1956): 29 February 1956 Golden light is usually a light from the supermind, a light of Truth-Knowledge. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Colours Blue light is some spiritual force from the upper plane. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Light ...
... his burning guidance. The analogies to Roosevelt, mutatis mutandis, are suggestive throughout the whole life span, since Loyola too was a propagandizer, a popularizer, a political leader, and a spiritual force almost beyond comprehension, whose impact jarred the world for years, and whose work lived after him. Loyola aside, there are few close parallels. In fact so far as I know FDR is the only ...
... affected Morihei. He went to his father's tomb to pay his last respects. In a moment of intense emotion, he invoked the paternal spirit and swore that henceforth he would devote all his human and spiritual force to probing the secret of being and of budo. A profound change took place in him. For four years, until he was about 41, he lived in solitary confinement. Faithful to tradition, Ueshiba selected ...
... I don't know if you will believe me if I say that He has moved the whole world by His ideas, by His thoughts, by His spiritual power, through His writings, and through His subtle, invisible spiritual force. Mother and Sri Aurobindo have not gone anywhere, not a single step from where they are, and yet you see today how people from all over the world are flocking here to seek the Light, to seek ...
... it will be after two or three centuries. Some reaction may take place and then somebody else may turn up. ( Laughter ) SATYENDRA: He does not seem to make much distinction between moral and spiritual force. SRI AUROBINDO: None at all. SATYENDRA: Nirod will bring down the Supermind to solve all the problems. SRI AUROBINDO: What is the prospect, Nirod? Is it near? NIRODBARAN: I will bring ...
... descent, suffering will remain. If you choose to remain in suffering, how can it go? NIRODBARAN: Doctors can compel people to take injections even against their will and thus benefit them. Can spiritual Force give such benefits? The Yogis have been busy with their own salvation while the world has remained just the same. SRI AUROBINDO: Evolution has proceeded from matter through animal to physical ...
... life." Sri Aurobindo could foresee, as it were, the various strategic moves with their immediate or ultimate consequences on the fate of the war. Sometimes he would drop hints as to how by his spiritual force he was guiding, helping and protecting the Allies and safeguarding India's interests. In the early period, the conversations took place in the evenings. Some five or six of us used to sit by ...
... iend who Was unjustly involved in a criminal case and detained in jail. It was a serious case, indeed. Sri Aurobindo gave specific instructions on many legal points, backed undoubtedly by his spiritual Force, till it ended with the release of the accused. A Maharani, also involved in some legal suits, prayed to him for help. Then during the Hindu-Moslem riot in Calcutta constant frantic appeals were ...
... 1940-contd Talks with Sri Aurobindo 15 JUNE 1940 PURANI: Haradhan is convinced that France will win. NIRODBARAN: Is he sending spiritual force? PURANI: Of course he is! SRI AUROBINDO: France might win after great suffering but she is likely to be overrun before that. NIRODBARAN: Already they are being chased by Germany. The Germans have bombed ...
... vetoed. Here Sri Aurobindo was more positive. He explained that he had not been accustomed to taking any medical accessories for years and years, all his ailments he had cured by the application of spiritual Force. We argued that trifalā , for instance, could hardly be called a medicine, it was a compound made of three fruits. Since the argument did not work, we asked, "Why not apply the Force then?" "Well ...
... Moon, Star, Fire Stars indicate beginnings or promise of Light. Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - III: Sun, Moon, Star, Fire Moon: In a general way, the moon is associated with spiritual force, spiritual progress, spiritual aspiration. The Mother, Questions and Answers (1957 - 1958): 26 February 1958 ...
... important to note that in this view "changes which occur in living organisms never spring from within, but are always imposed from without. In order to account for them we need postulate no spiritual force or purposive will, whether operating within the organism or directing it from outside." 4 And so it is asserted that the liberating and transmuting action of consciousness upon the ...
... — these are the four qualities of a physician. Excellence in knowledge can be had by attending on preceptors and studying scriptures. Purity in a physician helps the patient by dint of its spiritual force. Reputation as infallible in prescribing medicines is also one of the qualities of a physician which is included in the four qualities mentioned above. Page 98 ...
... passive resistance, and national education, — the path that ultimately came to be adopted as the national programme during the subsequent period of the struggle. He even ventured to search for a spiritual force that could be applied to the political struggle so as to liberate the country from slavery to the British rule and attain freedom in its totality. In his search for this force, he turned to Yoga ...
... mind much more than a spirit in the body and assumes in him the capacity to begin on that level, to spiritualise his being by the power of the soul in mind opening itself directly to a higher spiritual force and being and to perfect by that higher force so possessed and brought into action the whole of his nature. Therefore, the initial stress here falls upon the utilisation of the powers of soul in ...
... acquiring life and light of learning! 3. O Lord! Thou art greatest Giver, Remover of sins; Thou art verify the Mighty. O All pervading Powerful Lord, equip us; with the fruits of knowledge and spiritual force. O Mighty Master, make us strong. Manifest Thyself in our heart. Accept our adoration. May thou ever remain blissful with the drink of our purity offered to Thee. 4. O God, grant us the force ...
... it was an occasion to look into the innermost being of each disciple to see his spiritual progress. Besides, Sri Aurobindo said that at the time of the darshans there were special descents of spiritual Force, Light, Peace, etc. which could help the disciples in their sadhana if they were receptive. Many indeed had unusual experiences and some would have the vision of divine manifestations emanating ...
... without: 'Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks.... And if there were not the strength and Ananda ...
... spiritual achievements? Certainly the energies should be directed towards spiritual achievement here—other things can only be a corollary or else something developed for the service of the spiritual Force. I suppose he didn't mean born poets like Harindra and Nishikanta but the common herd like us who have no inborn talents, but who nevertheless aspire to be literary men. But even then, one ...
... of social duties, attachment to family, friends etc. Just as you have developed poetry, music, etc., in X, I thought these gifts which Doraiswamy is endowed with, may have been due to your Spiritual Force, not knowing what his born or unborn gifts were. No, Duraiswami was always a sattwic man, a very fine sattwic type. But for spirituality one must get beyond the sattwic. Then by X's bigness ...
... might have had the waist of a race-runner and the hair of Samson. I read in Mother's Conversations 170 that skin, hair and teeth "belong to the most material layers of the being", so spiritual Force takes a long time to act on them. Is it true? Painfully true. Then I have no chance till the Supermind descends? I suppose not. And who knows what fancies the Supramental may have ...
... if you had not feared; you might have had the waist of a race-runner and the hair of Samson. MYSELF: I read in Conversation that skin, hair and teeth are very near to Matter and so, spiritual Force takes a long time in acting on them. Is it true? SRI AUROBINDO: Painfully true. MYSELF: Then I have no chance till Supermind descends? SRI AUROBINDO: I suppose not. And ...
... an artesian well in you." *** During the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, when General JN Chaudhuri was Chief of Army staff, it was reported that some of our soldiers felt a special spiritual force working in them and driving away the Pakistanis. Have you ever realised that the world was on the brink of war more than once? And how has it been averted? Mother has said that it was the working ...
... to formulas. If you want to reduce things to patterns and formulas, you will necessarily fail to understand the workings of a spiritual (non-mental) Force. (5) All that I say here refers to spiritual Force. I am not speaking of the Supramental. (6) Also please note that this is all about the working of Force on or through people: it has nothing to do with intuition which is quite another matter ...
... it off in time before it enters his body, but what will be the doctor’s role in it unless he too is an occultist and helps the patient in an occult way? The greatest thing I learnt was that spiritual Force can cure diseases. Though I believed in it, my outer medical being probably lacked a total faith. Or else my doubting nature stood in the way and I had to put up with the Master constantly drilling ...
... Page 103 And Your success-line, Mother, touches the mystic cross, and goes up to the spiritual centre. It is so big! Yes, it is all this that I have accomplished by the spiritual force. You know, I have noticed a strange thing; it happened twice in my life. The lines and the marks that were on my hand were completely erased twice. And new lines appeared, distinct lines which ...
... also tamasic. November 21, 1933 × Literally, a receptacle, that is an instrument capable of holding the spiritual Force. × One who follows the path of love and adoration. ...
... spirit in mind much more than a spirit in body and assumes in him the capacity to begin on that level, to spiritualise his being by the power of the soul in mind opening itself directly to a higher spiritual force and being and to perfect by that higher force so possessed and brought into action the whole of his nature. In order to work out this process, this yoga utilizes the powers of soul in mind ...
... instance of such a mishap; but we are certainly familiar with something analogous, a derangement of the brain instead of the physical falling off of the head. As the Mother has said, the spiritual force is a kind of fire, to play with this fire without an inner devotion and sincerity invites dangers of this sort. Let me here draw your attention to another — a rather interesting — aspect ...
... worked out or created by the use of invented tools and machinery might be achieved page - 169 by the hew body in its own power or by the inhabitant spirit through its own direct spiritual force. The body itself might acquire new means and ranges of communication with other bodies, new processes of acquiring knowledge, a new aesthesis, new potencies of manipulation of itself and objects ...
... last form of ojas rises to the brain Page 85 and informs it with that primal energy which is the most refined form of matter and nearest to spirit. It is oj as that creates a spiritual force or virya, by which a man attains to spiritual knowledge, spiritual love and faith, spiritual strength. It follows that the more we can by Brahmacharya increase the store of tapas, tejas, vidyut ...
... illumine and transform it and render it an abode of the Divine. The overstress on the individual salvation was a passing phase of human aspiration when the spiritual vision was contracting and the spiritual force receding before the advancing tide of materialism. The great primeval prayer of the human heart is, in the words of the Rig Veda, "Become high-uplifted, O Strength, pierce all veils, manifest ...
... poetry. 1940 September 19 Joint declaration by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in support of the Allies in World War II. From the time of the evacuation of Dunkirk Sri Aurobindo puts his spiritual force behind the Allied war effort. 1942 Publication of Collected Poems and Plays. March 31 Sri Aurobindo's support of the Proposals of Sir Stafford Cripps, emissary of the British ...
... might be made (hazardous though all such generalisations must be) that the two great creative spirits of modern India—Mahatma Gandhi used moral force in politics while Sri Aurobindo used a spiritual force, and both sought, in their different ways, to purge politics of its asuric and egoistic evils. Page 29 ...
... it a spiritual meaning. In his retirement Sri Aurobindo kept a close watch on all that was happening in the world and in India and actively intervened, whenever necessary, but solely with a spiritual Force and silent spiritual action; for it is part of the experience of those who have advanced in yoga that, besides the ordinary forces and activities of the mind and life and body in Matter, there ...
... earth-plane is not important. It is important according to what you can put into it. Otherwise, how is the physical life of man better than that of an ant ? In order to bring down any higher spiritual force into the earth-plane you require to sit down to it, you have to call down and hold Page 279 the Power in you. You have to allow it to organise your being and transform it. Then ...
... revenge. So, in the beginning there was passive resistance but when Christianity came to power it turned oppressive. Thus, by accepting Christianity the lower forces occupied the place of genuine spiritual force of Christ. They had thought, "Let us establish a new religion and the thing will be done." But the problem is not so simple. There is a spiritual solution which I propose; but it aims at ...
... your word, only I wondered – how shall I put it – I mean I asked myself whether it was a concrete Force you had meant when you speak about it." "Concrete? What do you mean by 'concrete' ? Spiritual Force has its own concreteness. It can take a form – like a stream for instance – of which one is aware and can send it quite concretely on whatever object one chooses. This is a statement of fact ...
... poetry. 1940 — September 19 Joint declaration by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in support of the Allies in World War II. Prom the time of the evacuation of Dunkirk Sri Aurobindo puts his spiritual force behind the Allied war effort. 1942 — Publication of Collected Poems and Plays. March 31 Sri Aurobindo's support of the Proposals of Sir Stafford Cripps, emissary of the British ...
... two fundamental categories of experience. Matter and Spirit, and the three classical high roads to release and realisation, Jñāna, Karma and Bhakti, and harnessing above all the breakthrough spiritual force of sovereign Supermind. It was a significant victory, no doubt; but the victory was also tinged with disappointment. As he told Dilip Kumar Roy: It was then that my outlook ...
... Everything internal is ripe or ripening, but there is a sort of locked struggle in which neither side can make a very appreciable advance (somewhat like the trench warfare in Europe), the spiritual force insisting against the resistance of the physical world, that resistance disputing every inch and making more or less effective counter-attacks .... And if there were not the strength and Ananda ...
... preaching of the idea of human brotherhood? What has misfired all along? It is here that the Mother gets at the heart of the problem: Because until now evil has been opposed by weakness, by a spiritual force without any power for transformation in the material world, this tremendous effort of goodwill has ended only in deplorable failure and left the world in the same state of misery and corruption ...
... mental, vital and physical— and that justifies the Indian idea of brahmacarya, the trans- formation of retas into ojas and the raising of the energies upwards so that they change into a spiritual force."¹ ¹ On Yoga—II. Page 284 The purification of the physical being at its subconscient and inconscient roots will eliminate most of the causes of illness, decay and decrepitude ...
... not happen in the case of an ethical self-culturist or a humanitarian worker, for their minds exert some sort of curb or control over the movements of their lower nature, and there is no higher spiritual force doing in them the work of purification in its inscrutable but impeccable way. Even in the other yogas, ¹Sri Aurobindo. ²Conversations with the Mother. Page 300 ...
... physical being",. and dhāranā-sāmarthya, "a holding and responsive power in the whole physical machine and its driving springs." The body will be filled with the majesty and might of the spiritual force, which is the conscious transcendental and universal śakti, accomplishing Her Will and Purpose in the individual frame by a perennial supply of strength and executive energy. The body will ...
... delegates and volunteers were "magnetised by his very presence," the Professor concludes: "To those, who had anything to do with the conference, it was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that a great spiritual force was working there and everyone felt assured that all opposition, in the face of that great force, was bound to break down." Page 390 ...
... moment that the real worth and importance of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram is not in its opulent eye-catching faÇade but in its inner spiritual character and we the Mother's children, the inmates of the Ashram, should see to it that it does not forfeit its spiritual life-force and turn into something stale and of alien character. But is there really any possibility that our Ashram may meet with some... earnestly collaborate in the work of our spiritual transformation. For Sri Aurobindo has warned us, Page 20 their work in the Ashram may be hampered by the instrumental difficulties offered by the disciples who dwell there. Let us listen to his words: "The two obstacles that stand in the way of a smooth and harmonious working [of the Conscious Force] in and through the Sadhaks are: ... character and be moribund or even dead as a spiritual organisation. But surely that type of fiasco the Mother and Sri Aurobindo did not visualise for the destiny of their Page 17 Ashram. Here are Sri Aurobindo's own words: "I have no intention of giving my sanction to a new edition of the old fiasco, a partial or transient spiritual opening within with no true and radical change ...
... of consciousness just above the mind is blue. The light indicates an action of force (bluish probably indicates the spiritual-mind-force), the rest was a working to open the higher spiritual centre ( sahasradala ). Blue is the normal colour of the spiritual planes; moonlight indicates the spiritual mind and its light. Moonlight indicates spirituality—the blue light may be that... for work, blue the spiritual consciousness of the divine Truth, the gold its knowledge. The silver temple is that of the spiritualised mind—the golden is that of the divine Truth. Yellow is the colour of the light of the thinking mind—white is that of the divine consciousness. White Light White light indicates the divine consciousness. White indicates a force of purity. The... indication of the Mother writing the things of the Divine Truth in you,—for gold in these visions is the symbol of the Divine Truth. The spiritual Power is naturally more free on its own level than in the body. The golden colour indicates here Mahakali force which is the strongest for the working in the body. The different parts [ mind, life and body ] are naturally coloured by the lights ...
... the call will come. But in whatever way it comes, there must be a decision of the mind and the will and, as its result, a complete and effective self-consecration. The acceptance of a new spiritual idea-force and upward orientation in the being, an illumination, a turning or conversion seized on by the will and the heart's aspiration,—this is the momentous act which contains as in a seed all the... deliberate choice to the force and activities of discriminative thought, finds release in the mind's hushed inward-drawn endeavour. He concentrates on the idea of the self, succeeds by a subtle inner discernment Page 76 in distinguishing its silent presence amid the veiling activities of Nature, and through the perceptive idea arrives at the concrete spiritual experience. He is indifferent... all but the one central difficulty which pursues the one chosen motive-force; into the midst of the dividing calls of our nature the principle of an exclusive concentration comes sovereignly to our rescue. But for the sadhaka of the integral Yoga this inner or this outer solitude can only be incidents or periods in his spiritual progress. Accepting life, he has to bear not only his own burden, but ...
... Vedic "cow" is the symbol of light, so the Vedic "horse" is a symbol of power, spiritual strength, force of tapasya. When the Rishi asks Agni for a "horse-form cow-in-front gift" he is not asking really for a number of horses forming a body of the gift with some cows walking in front, he is asking for a great body of spiritual power led by the light or, as we may translate it, "with the Ray-Cow walking... etymologists, by the logicians, a spiritual interpretation. Yaska himself declares that there is a triple knowledge and therefore a triple meaning of the Vedic hymns, a sacrificial or ritualistic knowledge, a knowledge of the gods and finally a spiritual knowledge; but the last is the true sense and when one gets it the others drop or are cut away. It is this spiritual sense that saves and the rest is... extent mystics themselves or drew many of their ideas from the mystics. In India philosophy grew out of the seeking of the mystics and retained and developed their spiritual aims and kept something of their methods in later Indian spiritual discipline and Yoga. The Vedic tradition, the fact of a mystical element in the Veda fits in perfectly with this historical truth and takes its place in the history ...
... sadhana and the application of Yogic Force." And this experiment was successfully undertaken by Sri Aurobindo himself in his Ashram in the third and the fourth decades of the present century. Quite a few of Sri Aurobindo's disciples who had never written a single line of poetry before they joined the Ashram and opened themselves to Sri Aurobindo's spiritually creative Force, became very good poets in course... poets, but to give them birth, a spiritual, not a physical birth into the body. In a number of instances we are supposed to have succeeded — one of these is your noble self — or if I am to believe the man of sorrows in you, your abject, miserable, hopeless and ineffectual self. But how was it done? "There are two theories, it seems - one, that it was by the Force, the other that it was done by your... started doing sadhana in right earnest and opened themselves to the creative Yogic force of Sri Aurobindo, Arjava the mathematician, Nirodbaran the medico, Prithwi Singh the novice, Nishikanto the improbable and Dilip Kumar the inexperienced became in time successful poets. But was it really due to the action of the Force or, perhaps, it was their own personal labour and efforts which brought about this ...
... harmonization of these possible, but also the intensive sole following out of any line of experience are both of them necessary movements of the emerging spiritual Conscious-Force within us. Moreover, the accommodation of kind and life to the spiritual truth, its expression in them, must vary with the mentality of the seeker so long as he has not risen above all need of such accommodation or such limiting... apprehended during a mystical experience.” (John Horgan 61 ) “The fundamental truth of spiritual experience is one, its consciousness is one,” writes Sri Aurobindo, “everywhere it follows the same general lines and tendencies of awakening and growth into spiritual being, for these are the imperatives of the spiritual consciousness. But also there are, based on those imperatives, numberless possibilities... the earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond,” wrote Sri Aurobindo. “The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of the consciousness, a change from the ordinary consciousness in which ...
... supported itself in the West not by philosophy but by a credal theology; sometimes a spiritual philosophy emerges by sheer force of individual genius, but it has not been as in the East a necessary adjunct to every considerable line of spiritual experience and endeavour. It is true that a philosophic development of spiritual thought is not entirely indispensable; for the truths of spirit can be reached more... movements of the emerging spiritual Conscious-Force within us. Moreover, the accommodation of mind and life to the spiritual truth, its expression in them, must vary with the mentality of the seeker so long as he has not risen above all need of such accommodation or such limiting expression. It is this mental and vital element which has created the oppositions that still divide spiritual seekers or enter into... and even developed a great and powerful system of spiritual discipline and self-realisation. For the highest occultism is that which discovers the secret movements and dynamic supernormal possibilities of mind and life and spirit and uses them in their native force or by an applied process for the greater effectivity of our mental, vital and spiritual being. Occultism is associated in popular idea ...
... identified with the body, to separate oneself from the body-consciousness, is a recognised and necessary step whether towards spiritual liberation or towards spiritual perfection and mastery over Nature. But, this redemption once effected, the descent of the spiritual light and force can invade and take up the body also and there can be a new liberated and sovereign acceptance of material Nature. That is... capacity of spiritual existence on the way to the supreme Reality. But also the presence of the liberated and now sovereign supramental light and force at the head of evolutionary Nature might be expected to have its consequences in the whole evolution. An incidence, a decisive stress would affect the life of the lower evolutionary stages; something of the light, something of the force would penetrate... is not overmastered by any contact. His action on the world will be largely an inner action by the power of the spirit, by the spiritual-supramental idea-force formulating itself in the world, by the secret unspoken word, by the power of the heart, by the dynamic life-force, by the enveloping and penetrating power of the self one with all things; the outer expressed and visible action will be only a ...
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