... means of the Spirit. A spiritual man, on the other hand, is able to judge the value of everything, and his own value is not to be judged by other men" (2:14-15). 87 The Jerusalem Bible 88 annotates "An unspiritual person": "Psychikos: man left to his own natural resources. Cf. the note on soma psychikon of 15:44." The Greek original, as is to be expected, for "A spiritual man" is pneumatikos. ... only general but also in persona propria: Paul refers to it in his own self. The Jerusalem Bible 90 interprets the mention of the "spiritual man" who is in opposition to the "unspiritual person" as an allusion to Paul himself: "A defensive remark: Paul, a 'spiritual' man, is not to be judged by the Corinthians who are 'sensual', 3:1-3." Paul's spirit finds open expression when he says: "Though I am ...
... The Swan that settles in the purity ... born of the Truth,—itself the Truth, the Vast. Katha Upanishad. (II. 2. 2.) If it is the sole intention of Nature in the evolution of the spiritual man to awaken him to the supreme Reality and release him from herself, or from the Ignorance in which she as the Power of the Eternal has masked herself, by a departure into a higher status of being... illumination, but it is not the complete and radical change which establishes a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thenceforward be the leader of that Nature. This is because the principle of spirituality has yet to affirm itself in its own complete right... Personal Being: then all becomes intense, vivid, concrete; the heart's emotion, feeling, spiritualised sense reach their absolute; an entire self-giving becomes possible, imperative. The nascent spiritual man makes his appearance in the emotional nature as the devotee, the bhakta; if, in addition, he becomes directly aware of his soul and its dictates, unites his emotional with his psychic personality ...
... you describe someone as a spiritual man or a spiritual woman, people at once think of one who does not eat or sits all day without moving, one who lives in a hut in great poverty, one who has given away all he had and keeps nothing for himself. This is the picture that immediately arises in the minds of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, when you speak of a spiritual man; the one proof of spirituality... distributing what he has to the poor, but accepting and enjoying all that people give him. At once with your fixed mental rule you are bewildered and cry, "Why, what is this? I thought I was to meet a spiritual man!" This false conception has to be broken down and disappear. Once it is gone, you find something that is much higher than your narrow ascetic rule, a complete openness that leaves the being free ...
... animal to physical man, vital man, mental man and spiritual man. When mental man or spiritual man appears, the others don't disappear. The tigers and serpents don't become men. In this upward growth of the human consciousness you can't say that Buddha, Christ and others have played no part. I consider the Supramental the culmination of the spiritual man. In the supramental evolution one is not required ...
... scientific discovery and achievement. The question of a Muthu becoming a Ramakrishna, i.e. a great spiritual man may look to you like being an exercise in unreal numbers or magnitudes because it exceeds the actual observable facts in the case of this Muthu who very evidently is not going to be a great spiritual man—but we were arguing the matter of essential principle. I was pointing out that in the essentiality... "that a Muthu can be metamorphosed into a saint or an Avatar? A very big jump indeed!" I tell them, "Leave out the Avatars; they are perilous examples. But a Muthu can surely be turned into a great spiritual man by the omnipotent Divine; that is quite possible." Then these people answer, "Yes, maybe it is possible, but we are in no way wiser for it, because it is not done". Now we don't know what is ...
... you describe someone as a spiritual man or a spiritual woman, people at once think of one who does not eat or sits all day without moving, one who lives in a hut in great poverty, one who has given away all he had and keeps nothing for himself. This is the picture that immediately arises in the minds of ninety-nine people out of a hundred when you speak of a spiritual man; the one proof of spirituality... g what he has to the poor, but accepting and enjoying all that people give him. At once with your fixed mental rule you are bewildered and cry, 'Why, what is this ? I thought I was to meet a spiritual man.’ This false conception has to be broken down and disappear. Once it is gone, you find something that is much higher than your narrow ascetic rule, Page 202 a complete openness ...
... The Knowledge and the Spiritual Evolution The Life Divine Chapter XXIV The Evolution of the Spiritual Man Even as men come to Me, so I accept them. It is my path that men follow from all sides.... Whatever form the worshipper chooses to worship with faith, I set in him firm faith in it, and with that faith he puts his yearning into his adoration and... rudiments of conception that are the first ground for man the thinker, so Page 883 man the mental being is sublimated by the endeavour of the evolutionary Energy to develop out of him the spiritual man, the fully conscious being, man exceeding his first material self and discoverer of his true self and highest nature. But if this is to be accepted as the intention in Nature, there are two questions... there is a predominant artistic or pragmatic trend; but there can be no such thing as a spiritual being taking up and transforming the mental into the spiritual nature. There is no evolution of the spiritual man; there is only an evolution of a new and possibly a finer and rarer element in a mental being. This then is what has to be brought out,—the clear distinction between the spiritual and the mental ...
... objects of life. If an entry into the spiritual consciousness is part of it, then mere morality will not give it to you. Politics as such has nothing to do with the spiritual life. If the spiritual man does anything for his country, it is in order to do the will of the Divine and as part of a divinely appointed work and not from any other common human motive. In none of his acts does he proceed... mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness. A spiritual life therefore cannot be founded on a moral basis, it must be founded on a spiritual basis. This does not mean that the spiritual man must be immoral—as if there were no other law of conduct than the moral. The law of action of the spiritual consciousness is higher, not lower than the moral—it is founded on union with Page... the religious and moral ideas of the past even when society drifts away from these ideas. Vice and Virtue Vice and virtue have nothing to do with darkness or light, truth and falsehood. The spiritual man rises above vice and virtue, he does not rise above truth and light, unless you mean by truth and light, human truth and mental light. They have to be transcended, just as virtue and vice have to ...
... Page 4 Sri Aurobindo has examined this argument and even formulated it in full sharpness. He has, therefore, provided basic facts of the urge in the mental man towards evolution of the spiritual man and contended that this evolution is marked by a long process of progression in four fields which are directly relevant to the evolution of spirituality: religion, occultism, philosophy and methodized... consciousness on the earth could provide solutions to the problems of humanity may be questioned; it may be argued that whatever has been achieved so far in the course of nature's evolution of the spiritual man in the human mental being cannot be regarded as the true evolution of consciousness; the evolution of spiritual consciousness may even be stigmatized as a sublimated crudity of ignorance deviating... can serve as a basis for a farther possibility of transforming Nature and even of solving the problems of humanity. In the total view of spiritual history of humankind, it can be said that the spiritual man has not stood back altogether from the life of humanity. On the contrary, the sense of unity with all beings, the stress of a universal love and compassion, the will to spend the energies for ...
... above him; she has pointed man to a yet higher and more difficult Page 749 level, inspired him with the ideal of a spiritual living, begun the evolution in him of a spiritual being. The spiritual man is her supreme supernormal effort of human creation; for, having evolved the mental creator, thinker, sage, prophet of an ideal, the self-controlled, self-disciplined, harmonised mental being, she... within in the inner being and make it the direct ruler of life or station ourselves on the spiritual and intuitive planes of being and from there and by their power transmute our nature. The spiritual man is the sign of this new evolution, this new and higher endeavour of Nature. But this evolution differs from the past process of the evolutionary Energy in two respects: it is conducted by a conscious ...
... scientific discovery and achievement. The question of a Muthu becoming a Ramakrishna, i.e. a great spiritual man may look to you like being an exercise in unreal numbers or magnitudes because it exceeds the actual observable facts in the case of this Muthu who very evidently is not going to be a great spiritual man—but we were arguing the matter of essential principle. I was pointing out that in the essentiality ...
... continuity, it will surely do it in its own way, but what that way will be will be found out if and when there is a necessity. What did Sri Ramakrishna mean by banning kāminī and kāñcan for a spiritual man? He stressed the danger of sex and greed of money for the spiritual life and insisted on a total abstinence, at any rate in the whole period of sadhana and I suppose he considered that impossible... regard to gārhasthya life? Gārhasthya life, meaning marriage and rearing of a family, is Page 717 a social institution based on ego. It can only be a stage in the evolution of a spiritual man. 13 November 1934 Is there a region of Apsaras in the intermediate zone? Perhaps you discourage me from retiring because you feel I might go there and try to get in touch with them. But probably ...
... and the quintessence of carnality in the portrait of the carnal, and godliness in the picture of the gods and beast-hood in the likeness of the beast. In this sense the artist alone is the true spiritual man. An artist may depict Lord Buddha, the Incarnation of compassion, but that is no reason why the atrocious Nadir Shah's picture should be banished from the domain of art. In the pen of Kalidasa is... without excluding the body or any part of it, then why should the artist not be able to manifest the glory of the Spirit through colour, sound, word and stone and thus play the role of a truly spiritual man? Page 75 ...
... the Swami replied: "Why, thrash the strong, of course! You forget your own part in this karma. Yours is always the right to rebel." And Vivekananda was nothing if he was not, every inch of him, a spiritual man! 154. The great leader, Gandhiji, at last disillusioned and distressed, admitted with his characteristic candour: "The attitude of violence, which we have secretly harboured, now recoils on... control. Vasishtha uses soul- force against the military violence of Vishwamitra and armies of Huns and Shakas and Pallavas hurl themselves on the aggressor. The very quiescence and passivity of the spiritual man under violence and aggression awakens the tremendous forces of the world to a retributive action; and it may even be more merciful to stay in their path, though by force, those who represent evil ...
... you describe someone as a spiritual man or a spiritual woman, people at once think of one who does not eat or sits all day without moving, one who lives in a hut in great poverty, one who has given away all he had and keeps nothing for himself. This is the picture that immediately rises in the minds of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, when you speak of a spiritual man, the one proof of spirituality ...
... more sustained spiritual effort may be necessary if supramentalisation is to take place in the near or in some foreseeable future. If egoistic mental man is ultimately to change into the spiritual man and Superman, his endeavour to forge ahead in the evolutionary scale must be met, half-way as it were, by a corresponding descent of Consciousness also. And this is how it will surely happen, as... must also mean the gradual supramentalisation of man's environment, in other words the transformation of nature into supernature. The "gnostic being" would be the consummation of the climb of the spiritual man: ...his whole way of being, thinking, living, acting would be governed by the power of a vast universal spirituality. All the trinities of the Spirit would be real to his self-awareness ...
... outlines of it are alone possible. The gnosis is the effective principle of the Spirit, a highest dynamis of the spiritual existence. The gnostic individual would be the consummation of the spiritual man; his whole way of being, thinking, living, acting would be governed by the power of a vast universal spirituality. All the trinities of the Spirit would be real to his self-awareness and realised... joy will be part of his own joy of existence. To be occupied with the good of all beings, to make the joy and grief of others one's own has been described as a sign of the liberated and fulfilled spiritual man. The supramental being will have no need, for that, of an altruistic self-effacement, since this occupation will be intimate to his self-fulfilment, the fulfilment of the One in all, and there will... one gnostic self and supernature shaping into a significant power and form of itself the whole common existence. In all spiritual living the inner life is the thing of first importance; the spiritual man lives always within, and in a world of the Ignorance that refuses to change he has to be in a certain sense separate from it and to guard his inner life against the intrusion and influence of the ...
... 28 According to Sri Aurobindo, the evolution of the spiritual man has two intentions. The first intention is to awaken the spiritual man to the supreme Reality and release him from his bondage to the complex nature of body, life and mind which are limited, obscure and ignorant; this intention is fulfilled when the spiritual man attains the capacity of a departure from Nature and its Ignorance... on, but it is not the complete and radical change which establishes a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thenceforward be the leader of that Nature."10 If we approach the problem rationally, we shall find that the movement of Nature can ...
... self with the eye on the antahkaran or heart and mind is the fulfilment of the rajasic or psychic man. The realisation of God in self with the eye on the spirit is the fulfilment of the sattwic or spiritual man. And each fulfils himself by rising beyond himself. When the material man fulfils Page 503 the divinity of the body, he does so by rising into the psychic part and finding his strength... or psychic principle of egoism. The psychic man fulfils the divinity of the soul by rising into the spirit and finding his strength in the superpsychic Will or Intelligent Force in things. The spiritual man fulfils the divinity of the spirit by rising beyond the human spirit, the Jivatman, and finding his strength in the Parameswara and Parabrahman, the Sa and the Tat, God revealed and unrevealed,... capable of misconception, the material man realises himself by identifying God with his own ego; the psychical man by identifying God with passionless, intelligent, blissful Will in himself; the spiritual man by identifying God with the All in whom everything abides. The first is the Rakshasa or the Asura of the lower order; the second is the Deva or the Asura of the higher order; the third is the Siddha ...
... Man is a transitional being, and the spiritual man is the sign of the new evolution. The intention of Nature in the evolution of the spiritual man is not merely to awaken him to the supreme Reality and release him from herself. There is a further intention - not only a revelation of the Spirit but a radical and integral transformation of Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental ...
... Man is a transitional being, and the spiritual man is the sign of the new evolution. The intention of Nature in the evolution of the spiritual man is not merely to awaken him to the supreme Reality and release him from herself. There is a further intention—not only a revelation of the Spirit but a radical and integral transformation of Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental ...
... generally, proceeds from and lives in the heart-centre. The spiritual man might live in other higher centres – say, above the head, in the spiritual consciousness. Disciple : It is not quite clear to me – the distinction. Sri Aurobindo : The saints live in the psychic being, that is, in the Purusha in the heart but the spiritual man might live above the head. I never felt like a saint... saint myself – though Maurice Magre calls me ‘a philosopher and a saint.’ Krishna, for instance, was not a saint. A spiritual man may not always behave like a saint, he may have many other things in him like Rishi Durvasa. Disciple : But saints are nearer to humanity; they are not like the Ishwar-Koti to whom no laws apply. Disciple : In this yoga one has to fight like Arjuna, ...
... animal to physical man, vital man, mental man and spiritual man. When mental man or spiritual man appears the others do not disappear. So, the tiger and serpent do not become man. In this upward growth of the human consciousness you cannot say that Buddha, Christ etc. have played no part. I consider the Supramental the culmination of the Spiritual man. When the Supramental becomes established I expect ...
... you describe someone as a spiritual man or a spiritual woman, people at once think of one who does not eat or sits all day without moving, one who lives in a hut in great poverty, one who has given away all he had and keeps nothing for himself. This is the picture that immediately arises in the minds of ninety-nine people out of a hundred, when you speak of a spiritual man; the one proof of spirituality ...
... affirmation of his refusal to accept the limitations imposed by material Nature: for his very reason of being is to go beyond her; if he cannot transform her, he must leave her. At the same time the spiritual man has not stood back altogether from the life of humanity; for the sense of unity with all beings, the stress of a universal love and compassion, the will to spend the energies for the good of all... his being from the superficial mental towards the deeper spiritual consciousness, can make a real and effective difference. To discover the spiritual being in himself is the main business of the spiritual man and to help others towards the same evolution is his real service to the race; till that is done, an outward help can succour and alleviate, but nothing or very little more is possible." The ...
... and Answers (1957-1958) 12 November 1958 " If it is the sole intention of Nature in the evolution of the spiritual man to awaken him to the supreme Reality and release him from herself, or from the Ignorance in which she as the Power of the Eternal has masked herself, by a departure into a higher status of being... illumination, but it is not the complete and radical change which establishes a secure and settled new principle, a new creation, a permanent new order of being in the field of terrestrial Nature. The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thenceforward be the leader of that Nature." The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 889-90 Sweet Mother, how can one find the right ...
... not ?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. Whatever... or [can] come down without calling only if that is quite secondary to the true thing, the seeking for the Divine, and if it is part of the Divine plan in you. Occult powers can only be for the spiritual man an instrumentation of the Divine Power that uses him, they cannot be the aim or an aim of his sadhana. I don't know who started Jashwant on this false path or whether he hit on it himself; many ...
... originally a seed, a stress, a point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or close to the Divine (salokya), he is not merely made in the image of the Divine (sarupya), and again he is not merely unified Page 37 and one with... principle was discovered and admitted, the proper key had not been found that could release and manipulate the Energy at its highest potential and largest amplitude. Because the major tendency in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the path of nivritti than the path of pravritti, this latter path being more or less identified with the path of Ignorance. But there is a higher line of ...
... originally a seed, a stress, a point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or is close to the Divine {salokya), he is not merely made in the image of the Divine (sarupya), and again Page 61 he is riot merely unified and one with... principle was discovered and admitted, the proper key had not been found that could release and manipulate the Energy at its highest potential and largest amplitude. Because the major tendency in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the path of nivrtti than the path of pravrtti, this latter path being more or less identified with the path of Ignorance. But there is a higher line of pravrtti ...
... preachings ; at any rate, more than by the Indian scriptures – the Upanishads or the Gita which he interprets in the light of his own ideas. Disciple : Many educated Indians consider him a spiritual man. Sri Aurobindo : Yes, because the Europeans call him spiritual. What he preaches is not Indian spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity, non-violence, suffering etc.... Sri Aurobindo : There are people in Europe who are enthusiastic about it, but the Charkha after all is a minor point. Disciple : There are people in India who regard Mahatmaji as a spiritual man because of his yama and niyama – the vows of self-control and simplicity and his Ahimsa, love etc. Sri Aurobindo : There is a great difference between the aim Of Patanjali and that of ...
... originally a seed, a stress, a point of concentration of this consciousness. The Yogi becomes potentially all-powerful, because he is one with the All-Power, the Mother Consciousness. The perfect spiritual man not merely dwells with or is close to the Divine (salokya), he is not merely made in the image of the Divine (sarupya), and again Page 143 he is not merely unified and one... principle was discovered and admitted, the proper key had not been found that could release and manipulate the Energy at its highest potential and largest amplitude. Because the major tendency in the spiritual man till now has been rather to follow the path of nivrtti than the path of pravrtti, this latter path being more or less identified with the path of Ignorance. But there is a higher line of pravrtti ...
... being; this subtle thinker grows into the wide, multiple and cosmic man open on all sides of him to all the multitudinous inflowings of the Truth; the cosmic soul rising in attainment strives as the spiritual man for a higher peace, joy and harmony. These are the five Aryan types, each of them a great people occupying its own province or state of the total human nature. But there is also the absolute Aryan ...
... cardinal error the intellectual man comes to despise & neglect the body, the religious man to treat the body & often the intellect also as an impediment, praising the heart only, the contemplative spiritual man to aim at casting out both mind & body & banishing from him the very thought & perception of the objective. All are ruled or driven by this dim sensation or clear belief that the subjective soul ...
... soul-force Page 42 against the military violence of Vishwamitra and armies of Huns and Shakas and Pallavas hurl themselves on the aggressor. The very quiescence and passivity of the spiritual man under violence and aggression awakens the tremendous forces of the world to a retributive action; and it may even be more merciful to stay in their path, though by force, those who represent evil ...
... summit of human endeavour. The spiritual life was to its view a nobler thing than the life of external power and enjoyment, the thinker greater than the man of action, the Page 126 spiritual man greater than the thinker. The soul that lives in God is more perfect than the soul that lives only in outward mind or only for the claims and joys of thinking and living matter. It is here that ...
... validates the function and dharma of the Vaishya as well as of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn profits and yet be a spiritual man, practise yoga, have an inner life. The Gita is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation and enjoining a Yoga of Works as well as of Bhakti and Knowledge. Krishna, however ...
... direct and total manner all the time. He is deeply, highly, keenly, hugely religious and touched by marvellous spell of the spiritual as understood in Yogic India, but he is not the full-fledged spiritual man in the Yogic sense. He does not seem to have taken indefeasibly his central seat in the soul: his seat is till in the ordinary human consciousness though at a great elevation or interiority in ...
... that which is higher even than Mind. Page 25 That highest thing, the spiritual existence, is concerned with what is eternal but not therefore entirely aloof from the transient. For the spiritual man the mind's dream of perfect beauty is realised in an eternal love, beauty and delight that has no dependence and is equal behind all objective appearances; its dream of perfect Truth in the supreme ...
... not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have, and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. Whatever ...
... of that from which the ordinary man turns away and of that to which he is attached by a sense of pleasure. The seeker of knowledge, the God-lover who finds the object of his love everywhere, the spiritual man, the intellectual, the sensuous, the aesthetic all do this in their own fashion and must do it if they would find embracingly the Knowledge, the Beauty, the Joy Page 237 or the Divinity ...
... the lower grades of being as he ascends. He may, that is to say, work out by a sort of inclusive process of self-enlargement and transformation the evolution of the material into the divine or spiritual man. This seems to have been the method of the most ancient sages of which we get some glimpse in the Rig Veda and some of the Upanishads. 1 He may, on the other hand, aim straight at the realisation ...
... ns of Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna,—for the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began,—he fulfils in power the great ...
... spiritual experiences or that these experiences are of no value. You yourself speak of the Baradi Brahmachari. Because of his habits of speech, it is surely impossible to deny greatness as a spiritual man to this remarkable ascetic admired by Ramakrishna and revered by Vivekananda. Even Ramakrishna himself had habits of speech about which Vivekananda in a letter to his gurubhais rates them for t ...
... Undoubtedly, there can be considerable differences of spiritual realisation between one guru and the other; but much depends on the inner relation between guru and shishya. One can go to a very great spiritual man and get nothing or only a little from him; one can go to a man of less spiritual capacity and get all he has to give—and more. The causes of this disparity are various and subtle; I need not expand ...
... him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder. Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines ...
... intellectual art by a musician. The truth is that in all arts everything depends upon the artist, and what he does depends upon the state of consciousness in which he is. A sculptor may be an extremely spiritual man and his production extremely spiritual also, if he knows how to express his experience. And a poet can be quite a commonplace materialist if he does not receive his inspiration from a higher state ...
... him as to some superschoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder." Questions and Answers 1929-1931 ( 23 June 1929 ) ...
... thinking animal—as also most of the art, poetry, philosophy, thirst for knowledge which relieve if they do not yet dispel the ignorance. The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: The Subconscient and the Inconscient Even in Europe the existence of something behind the surface is now very frequently ...
... superconscient, and the use of it as part of self-knowledge and world-knowledge and for the right dynamisation of that knowledge. Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine - II: The Evolution of the Spiritual Man These extraordinary occurrences which go outside the ordinary course of physical Nature happen frequently in India and are not un known elsewhere; they are akin to what are called poltergeist ...
... mind and vital, it belongs to a lower plane of consciousness. A spiritual life therefore cannot be founded on a moral basis, it must be founded on a spiritual basis. This does not mean that the spiritual man must be immoral—as if there were no other law of conduct than the moral. The law of action of the spiritual consciousness is higher not lower than the moral,—it is founded on union with the Divine ...
... tinge in his teachings; at any rate more than by the Indian scriptures—the Upanishads or the Gita which he interprets in the light of his own ideas. Many educated Indians consider him a spiritual man. Yes, because the Europeans call him spiritual. But what he preaches is not Indian spirituality but something derived from Russian Christianity, non-violence, suffering, etc---- The ...
... perception and the rudiments of conception that are the first ground for man the thinker, so man the mental being is sublimated by the endeavour of the evolutionary Energy to develop out of him the spiritual man, the fully conscious being, man exceeding his first material self and discoverer of his true self and highest nature. " But if this is to be accepted as the intention in Nature, there are two ...
... recognise, is an illegitimate transference from the limited truth of the physical field to the much more complex and plastic field of life and mind and spirit.... " In the evolution of the spiritual man there must necessarily be many stages and in each stage a great variety of individual formations of the being, the consciousness, the life, the temperament, the ideas, the character. The nature ...
... after you came last time, again while I was walking for my japa, this whole story of Narada came to me! Sri Aurobindo said that Narada himself was deceived and didn't recognize in Janaka a true spiritual man—it all came back to me suddenly. I wondered, "Well, well! Why am I thinking of this?" Page 183 It's like that all the time! All the time, all the time. I receive the explanation ...
... shadowy life that was supposed to await them in Hades. The Indian conception of life starts from a deeper centre. The Indian Page 284 idea of existence is not physical but spiritual. Man himself is not matter, but a spirit that uses life and body and that gradually should move to self-discovery. This spirit can become one with God, one with the spirit of the universe. This belief ...
... spiritual illumination. Indeed, even in the spiritual field, there are degrees and progression; but the essential knowledge is there at every stage, which prevents evil in Will. With reference to the spiritual man therefore we can say: Virtue is Knowledge. We have to remember that although Socrates initiated the rational movement in Western Philosophy through his method of dialectic, he was essentially ...
... the নিন্দাস্তুতি 108 or মানঅপমান 109 dealt out from there. And is care for these things part of the ordinary spiritual consciousness even? and if I am to be inferior in these matters to a spiritual man, R.M. for instance, how am Ito be not only supramental and superman but supramentalise others? Have you never thought of these things and will you and the others live always in the ordinary mundane ...
... should like to know? When everybody is the Supreme and of everybody it can be said that he is God, why should I alone as such stupefy you? Leave aside the question of Divine or undivine, no spiritual man who acts dynamically is limited to physical contact—the idea that physical contact through writing, speech, meeting is indispensable to the action of the spiritual force is self-contradictory, for ...
... Axis zones. "The next day at about 2 p.m., after the All India Radio news at 1.30, there was a hot discussion among three sadhaks, including P, in his room. P took the standpoint of the purely spiritual man, who judges by looking at what is behind appearances. It seemed that he had already spoken with the Mother and thus was arguing forcefully for the acceptance of the Proposals. The second person ...
... He is the Sattwic man, as known in India. There is also a still higher category, where consciousness endeavours to go beyond mind, enters into the consciousness of the Spirit; then we have the spiritual man, the saint and the sage. Beyond lie the supra-mental domains formed of the consciousness of the gods. Man, individually and collectively, has passed and is passing through these steps of ...
... Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects EVOLUTIONARY TYPES—RELIGIOUS & SPIRITUAL MAN Although all men look similar to one another, there is always a great difference in their mental and moral consciousness so much so that at the lowest end of the human mental development, men represent more or less animal consciousness and are almost on the ...
... What is the difference between art and technology? 4. Observation of the different levels of being in man: the distinction between the physical man, the vital man, the mental man, the spiritual man and the integral man. 5. Topic for deep study and reflections: "Unity of knowledge" or "All knowledge, scientific, philosophic or yogic, tends ultimately to be identical." III ...
... even envisages the transmutation of the human species and of the appearance of a supramental or Gnostic race of beings. The supramental or Gnostic individual would be the consummation of the spiritual man. The saint, the sage, the Page 77 divine lover and the divine soldier, — these four types of the spiritual being, would be integrated in their entirety and the Gnostic individual would ...
... everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth. Such is to be the ideal, the perfect, the spiritual man. Have we Page 125 here the progenitor of the Nietzschean Superman? Both smell almost the same sulphurous atmosphere. But that also seems to lie in the direction to which the whole ...
... the very definition of Yoga is that it is skill in works. To do works and not to run away from them has always been the true and natural ideal even (and particularly, as we shall see), for the spiritual man: the ideal is as old as the Upanishadic injunction, "Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years." The Yogi as a world-shunner was not always the only ideal or the highest ...
... would be no progress. Take the case of untouchability in India or colour bar here. If the conscience revolts against it one has to oppose it even if it has lasted for centuries in a community. A spiritual man is not bound by these rules. He keeps the door for redemption open even for the worst criminal, knowing the Omnipotence of Divine Grace. Q: You spoke of the Real-Idea—can it be the same ...
... without any sense of individual responsibility. They remain concentrated in, or identified with the Page 175 Higher Consciousness uncontrolled And you find as X found that the spiritual man uses foul language : of course, the yogi or the spirit in him is not bound by the rules of decency. That is why such yogis act like Jada, Pishacha or Bala – allowing nature to play freely in ...
... and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the Page IX outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer 1872 or historian could ever hope to seize it all or ...
... not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to size it all or tell it. 39 ...
... 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: "The spiritual man has evolved, but not the supramental being who shall thence-forward be the leader of that Nature." 22 In the first place, the spiritual awakening itself is not easy of accomplishment. When asked ...
... may understand a passage which seems at first sight to convey only a traditional theory of ritualism and the necessity of the ceremonial offering,—Krishna proceeds to state the superiority of the spiritual man to works. "But the man whose delight is in the Self and who is satisfied with the enjoyment of the Self and in the Self he is content, for him there exists no work that needs to be done. He ...
... not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life at all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have, and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and full and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could ever hope to seize it all or tell it. 9 February ...
... what are the difficulties that rise and prevent the experience. 1 30 November 1926 Sri Aurobindo is retired and sees no one. If you have not had even a glimpse of the Truth from any spiritual man, the fault is likely to be yours. Either you have not made it your chief concern to know and realise, putting all things else in the background or holding them to be of no account, or else you have ...
... validates the function and dharma of the Vaishya as well as of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn profits and yet be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life. The Gita is constantly justifying works as a means of spiritual salvation and enjoining a Yoga of works as well as of Bhakti and Knowledge. Krishna, however, ...
... Divine Reality and in Nature. . . . But a spirituality which draws back from life to envelop it without being dominated by it does not labour under this disability. The spiritual man who can guide human life towards its perfection is typified in the ancient Indian idea of the Rishi, one who has lived Page 19 fully the life of man and found ...
... levels of consciousness above the ordinary mind from which the higher consciousness comes down into the lower planes of the being. "The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal." 26 The superconscient includes the higher planes of mind—Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition and Overmind—as well as what is beyond mind, namely, Supermind ...
... is one who is already living in some kind of oneness with the Divine, not in the ordinary consciousness. Subordinate and Great Experiences One who lives in the spiritual consciousness is a spiritual man, just as one who lives in thinking mind is an intellectual man. The spiritual consciousness is that in which you realise the Divine, the Self, the cosmic oneness as the constant living contact with ...
... any outward action, speech or other instrumentation which is not concrete in that sense, but is all the same effective. Page 183 Leave aside the question of Divine or undivine, no spiritual man who acts dynamically is limited to physical contact—the idea that physical contact through writing, speech, meeting is indispensable to the action of the spiritual force is self-contradictory, for ...
... called down or come down without calling only if that is quite secondary to the true thing, the seeking for the Divine, and if it is part of the Divine plan in you. Occult powers can only be for the spiritual man an instrumentation of the Divine Power that uses him, they cannot be the aim or an aim of his sadhana. I don't know who started Y on this false path or whether he hit on it himself; many people ...
... determine in its own right the system of divine knowledge; it cannot school and lesson the divine love and delight; it cannot set bounds to spiritual experience or lay its yoke upon the action of the spiritual man. Its sole legitimate sphere is to explain as best it can, in its own language and to the rational and intellectual parts of man, the truths, the experiences, the laws of our suprarational and spiritual ...
... collective egoism, result of the united egoisms of all, is as little a god to be worshipped, as flawed and often an uglier and more barbarous fetish than the egoism of the individual. What the spiritual man seeks is to find by the loss of the ego the self which is one in all and perfect and complete in each and by living in that to grow into the Page 255 image of its perfection,—individually ...
... spiritual means for the final solution of its problems are the only way to a true social perfection. The free rule, that is to say, the predominant lead, control and influence of the developed spiritual man—not the half-spiritualised priest, saint or prophet or the raw religionist—is our hope for a divine guidance of the race. A spiritualised Page 182 society can alone bring about a reign ...
... the end to minimise and finally cease from their own action. But a spirituality which draws back from life to envelop it without being dominated by it does not labour under this disability. The spiritual man who can guide human life towards its perfection is typified in the ancient Indian idea of the Rishi, one who has lived fully the life of man and found the word of the supra-intellectual, supramental ...
... thinking animal—as also most of the art, poetry, philosophy, thirst for knowledge which relieve if they do not yet dispel the ignorance. The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal. That also cannot be called an insignificant role. The Subconscient Memory and Conscious Memory Exact images are retained by the subliminal memory. All that is ...
... within the field of his art. In the overhead consciousness, especially in the Overmind, these things become more and more the law of the vision and the law of the nature. Wherever the overmind spiritual man turns he sees a universal beauty touching and uplifting all things, expressing itself through them, moulding them into a field or objects of its divine aesthesis; a universal love goes out from ...
... Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality XLVII XXIII Entirely new chapter. Man and the Evolution XXIV Entirely new chapter. The Evolution of the Spiritual Man -- XXV Entirely new chapter. The Triple Transformation -- XXVI Entirely new chapter. The Ascent towards Supermind -- XXVII Entirely new chapter. The ...
... realisation lives and acts and behaves, in all ways of his being and acting, it is said in the Gita, "he lives and moves in Me"; he dwells in the Divine, he has realised the spiritual existence. The spiritual man living in the sense of the spiritual self, in the realisation of the Divine within him and everywhere, would be living inwardly a divine life and its reflection would fall on his outer acts of existence ...
... choice or pleasure. Always he is moved to do whatever is in consonance with the Truth or whatever the Divine demands through his nature. A false conclusion is sometimes drawn from this that the spiritual man, accepting the position in which Fate or God or his past Karma has placed him, content to work in the field and cadre of the family, clan, caste, nation, occupation which are his by birth and c ...
... that in the mental formula, in the mentalised life and body of man, a spiritual emergence is in process which has not yet reached its full possibility and that possibility is the emergence of the spiritual man or supramental being, then the object of the physical evolution and its significance becomes clear. The evolution of bodies is only a means for the evolution of consciousness and the spiritual ...
... center with disciples. I asked for his photograph and I'd like you to help me understand what type of man he is. ( Mother studies the photo ) He is an intellectual, at any rate—clearly not a spiritual man. He may have some vital powers (that's generally what gets hold of people). Yes, an intellectual, an idealist. Page 169 Do you have his handwriting? No. He's terribly well-mannered ...
... ns of Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna, – for the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began, – he fulfils in power the great ...
... y, there can be considerable differences of spiritual realisation between one guru and the other; but much depends on the inner relation between guru and shishya. One can go to a very great spiritual man and get nothing or only a little from him; one can go to a man of less spiritual capacity and get all he has to give – and more. The causes of this disparity are various and subtle; I need not ...
... need to desire. "Being one with all beings, we possess, in their enjoyment, in ours and in the cosmic Being's, delight of universal self-expression." 1 Delivered from Hunger, the spiritual man will at the same time overcome the law of Mortality. For as he does not seek to devour or disrupt anything, na tadaśnāti kiñcana, nothing can devour or disrupt him too, na tadaśnāti kaścana ...
... spiritual consciousness sees all as the One Self. This oneness is at the core of the creation and multiplicity and diversity of names and forms are only on the surface. Therefore the Yogi or the spiritual man is always equal-visioned and sees all as the One Self. He makes no distinction between a learned Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and the pariah. This One Self or Soul is pervasive of the ...
... shouldn't suppress those things; whatever is indispensable for the body's well-being must be kept up. For ordinary people, all other bodily activities are used for personal pleasure and benefit. The spiritual man, on the other hand, has given his body to serve the Divine, so that the Divine may use it for His work and perhaps, as Sri Aurobindo said, for His joy—although given the present state of Matter ...
... within the field of his art. In the Overhead consciousness, especially in the Overmind, these things become more and more the law of the vision and the law of the nature. Wherever the Overmind spiritual man turns he sees a universal beauty touching and uplifting all things, expressing itself through them, moulding them into a field or objects of its divine aesthesis; a universal love goes out from ...
... being and supports all that comes up in the physical nature, the superconscient supports all our spiritual possibilities and nature. "The role of the superconscient has been to evolve slowly the spiritual man out of the mental half-animal." 40 The superconscient has generally been referred to as the capital "M" Mind, the Deeper Mind, Cosmic Consciousness, the Higher Self, Spirit and other similar ...
... spiritual experiences or that these experiences are of no value You yourself speak of the Baradi Brahmachari. 144 Because of his habits of speech, it is surely impossible to deny great- ness as a spiritual man to this remarkable ascetic admired by Ramakrishna and revered by Vivekananda. Even Ramakrishna himself had habits of speech about which Vivekananda in a letter to his gurubhais [brother disciples] ...
... dot in the universe'. But if we were more deliberate, we might have probably concluded that man, the mental being, is sublimated by the endeavour of the Energy to evolve out of him as the spiritual man, the fully conscious being, man exceeding his first material self and discoverer of his true self and highest nature. Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 ...
... learnt? What is the difference between art and technology? Observation of the different levels of being in man: the distinction between the physical man, the vital man, the mental man, the spiritual man and the integral man. Topic for deep study and reflection: "Unity of knowledge" or "All knowledge scientific, philosophic or yogic, tends ultimately to be identical". Exercises to ...
... difference between art and technology? 4. Observation of the different levels of being in man: the distinction Page 97 between the physical man, the vital man, the mental man the spiritual man and the integral man. 5. Topic for deep study and reflections: "Unity of knowledge" or "All knowledge, scientific, philosophic or yogic, tends ultimately to be identical". III. Exercises ...
... ment by self-exceeding is the goal of human endeavour. The spiritual life is a nobler thing than the life of external power and enjoyment. The thinker is greater than the man of action but the spiritual man greater than the thinker. The soul that lives in God is more perfect than the soul that lives only in outward mind or only for the claims and joys of thinking and living matter." (Vide, SABCL, ...
... the intensest worldly pleasure stands no comparison with Brahmananda, the Bliss of Brahman. Any enjoyment of worldly objects, whatever they may be or of whatever high order, cannot but be to the spiritual man absolutely hollow and utterly tasteless. There is more to say in support of the ascetic spirituality and its message of outer renunciation. For even if the world existence is accepted as ...
... does not care for vices or virtues, how can He care for dark-ness or light, falsehood or truth? Vice and virtue have nothing to do with darkness or light, truth and falsehood. The spiritual man rises above vice and virtue, he does not rise above truth and light, unless you mean by truth and light, human truth and mental light. They have to be transcended, just as virtue and vice have to ...
... the way is not the objective and my way may not be another's. Many men of devotion have this notion that one who does not take to hymns and prayers, who does not take delight in them, is not a spiritual man (one following the true law). This is a sign of error and narrowness. Buddha did not indulge in hymns and prayers but who would declare that Buddha is unspiritual? Hymns and prayers have developed ...
... lies in the discovery and application of a supreme spiritual Conscious-Power. Humanists once affirmed that nothing that concerned man was alien to them, all came within their domain. The spiritual man too can make the affirmation with the same or even a greater emphasis. Indeed the spiritual consciousness in the highest degree and greatest compass must heeds govern and fashion man in his entire ...
... and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly non-intellectual creations. The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in the past, more or less methodically and absolutely non-intellectual and anti-intellectual: but the modem age, the age of scientific culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: ...
... doctrine whatsoever. Spirituality is not based on a credo or a mental deduction or a dogma. Real spirituality is not a rational conclusion, but a realisation in the heart and a direct intuition. A spiritual man may not express his realisations through a new doctrine or relate it to some already existing doctrines, but that will not in any way diminish his spirituality. Again many people hold that the ...
... reach their climax, He rushes upon us and covers us up." Therefore it is said that God appears before us not in the broad daylight but at the dead of night like a thief on tiptoe. The virtue of a spiritual man lies in his capacity to see weal in woe. Ordinarily sorrow is taken as an unmixed evil. But in the vision of the poet there are veins of delight concealed in sorrow, and in their discovery lies ...
... and utter harmony in the divine corsciousness resolving all contraries and incompatibles. Neha nanasti kinchana, there is no division or disparity here. Established in this consciousness, the spiritual man naturally and inevitably finds that he is in all and all are in him and that he is all and all are he, for all and he are indivisibly that single(yet multiple) reality. The brotherhood of man ...
... lies in the discovery and application of a supreme spiritual Conscious-Power. Humanists once affirmed that nothing that concerned man was alien to them, all came within their domain. The spiritual man too can make the affirmation with the same or even a greater emphasis. Indeed the spiritual consciousness in the highest degree and greatest compass must needs govern and fashion man in his entire ...
... succeeded in being Asoka: that's all. NIRODBARAN: Ramana Maharshi was hardly known. It was Brunton who spread his name. SRI AUROBINDO: It is a strange measure of success people adopt in judging a spiritual man by the number of disciples. Who was a greater success-Ramana Maharshi surrounded by all sorts of disciples or Ramana Maharshi doing his sadhana in seclusion for years? Success to be real must be ...
... les 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 and faultlessly. But then, it may be asked, how is it that in the history of the world we find ...
... utter harmony in the divine consciousness resolving all contraries and incompatibles. Neha nanasti ki ñcana , there is no division or disparity here. Established in this consciousness, the spiritual man naturally and inevitably finds that he is in all and all are in him and that he is all and all are he, for all and he are indivisibly that single (yet multiple) reality. The brotherhood of man is ...
... the discovery and application of a supreme spiritual Conscious-Power. Humanists once affirmed that nothing that concerned man was alien to them, all came within their domain. The spiritual man too can make the affirmation with the same or even a greater emphasis. Indeed the spiritual consciousness in the highest degree and greatest compass must needs govern and fashion man in his entire ...
... done in and through a strong rational and intellectual stress and frame the like of which cannot be found in the old-world frankly non-intellectual creations. The religious, the mystic or the spiritual man was, in the past, more or Jess methodically and absolutely non-intellectual and anti-intellectual: but the modern age, the age of scientific culture, is tending to make him as strongly intellectual: ...
... anything without explanations; it was only a language, just as poetry was another, clearer and truer language. But the essence of his being was humor, not the sarcastic humor of the so-called spiritual man, but a kind of joy that cannot help dancing wherever it passes. Now and then, in a flash that leaves us somewhat mystified, we sense behind the most tragic, the most distressing human situations ...
... looked at the world before and the way in which he perceives it after are not the same. That is what makes the difficulty of spiritual persons. For instance, somebody says, "This man is bad". The spiritual man says, "There is a bad tendency in Nature; there is no bad man. Universal nature has some tendency which is low. That's all." And there are so many things like that. There is revaluation, the ...
... renounce all desires and not sink into inertia and stagnation and eventual disintegration? Will it not spell a total defeat and frustration of life's purpose ? The answer, usually advanced by the spiritual man, is that this very defeat of life's purpose is the crowning victory of the soul. You lose the kingdom of the earth in order to gain the Page 221 kingdom of Heaven. You cannot surely ...
... the right sense of proportion, the right standard of values, and the power of right appraisement. Under its gaze the ego stands unmasked, abashed, shrivelled. This does not mean that the spiritual man will not cultivate philosophy or poetry or any of the arts, and take a genuine delight in his creations. Rather, his Yoga will enhance his creative talent and deepen his insight into the way it ...
... external and mechanical. 7-6-1924 Rasputin, the musician mystic of Russia was the subject of the talk for some time. This Rasputin had suddenly Page 27 become a spiritual man. He was a villager and suddenly got some power of the vital plane. He influenced people with his eyes. He had used his power for lower ends. Disciple . There is a pronouncement to-day about ...
... to direct vision, the knife-edge clarity and sharpness of prose dissolve into poetic imagery * In my book A Big Change (1970), a key sentence from the chapter on "The Evolution of the Spiritual Man' is analysed on pp. 125ff. See also pp. 77ffand 87ff, for other sentences similarly analysed. Page 517 and symbolism, and Sri Aurobindo is seen to be poet no less than the wielder ...
... validates the function and Dharma of the Vaishya as well as of the Brahmin and Kshatriya. It is in his view quite possible for a man to do business and make money and earn profits and yet be a spiritual man, practise Yoga, have an inner life." There, put succinctly, is the traditional Indian attitude towards money and wealth and property. Let us end this chapter with some quotations from Sri ...
... and princes. But even more important and interesting is the view he underlines that the true person is a spiritual being, that is to say, it is quite other than the empirical ego that man normally is-"not this that one worships" as the Upanishads too declare. Further, in his spiritual being man, the individual, is not simply a portion or a fraction; he is, on the contrary, an integer, a complete whole... Vol. 2 Nicholas Berdyaev : God Made Human NICHOLAS Berdyaev is an ardent worker, as a Russian is naturally expected to be, in the cause of the spiritual rehabilitation of mankind. He is a Christian, a neo-Christian: some of his conclusions are old-world truths and bear repetition and insistence; others are of a more limited, conditional and even doubtful... individual is a microcosm yet holding in it and imaging the macrocosm. Only perhaps greater stress is laid upon the aspect of creativity or activism. An Eastern sage, a Vedantin, would look for the true spiritual reality behind the flux of forces: Prakriti or Energy is only the executive will of the Purusha, the Conscious .Being. The personality in Nature is a formulation and emanation of the transcendent ...
... carrying the offering to the gods. But the sacrifice is not a mere one-sided movement, the sacrifice brings from the gods gifts for the man -material prosperity and spiritual fulfilment. Man increases himself in this way, but thereby increases the gods also. The offering that man brings in his sacrifice - all his possessions - his earthly possessions, but chiefly his possessions of the inner world, the wealth... destiny of earth as also the destiny of earth is the destiny of man. For man is an earthly creature, is born out of earth and he grows with the growth of the earth; equally the earth grows with the growth of man. In reality it is God's growth in man and earth that is reflected Page 20 and embodied in the growth of man and earth. The debt spoken of is the debt of God himself to... debt to earth and man... What is this debt that God owes to earth and man? We understand the debt that man and earth owe to God, their creator. But how is God indebted to his creation? Besides we learn that God pays his debt through his representative, his protagonist upon earth, the aspiring human being. First let us understand the mystery of God's debt to man. We know, in ordinary ...
... 137 to the gods. But the sacrifice is not a mere one-sided movement, the sacrifice brings from the gods gifts for the man— material prosperity and spiritual fulfilment. Man increases himself in this way, but thereby increases the gods also. The offering that man brings in his sacrifice—all his possessions—his earthly possessions, but chiefly his possessions of the inner world, the wealth... destiny of earth as also the destiny of earth is the destiny of man. For man is an earthly creature, is born out of earth and he grows with the growth of the earth; equally the earth grows with the growth of man. In reality it is God's growth in man and earth that is reflected and embodied in the growth of man and earth. The debt spoken of is the debt of God himself to himself. In other words... Aurobindo - Part 10 V God's Debt Here is a line from Savitri: "And paying here God's debt to earth and man." What is this debt that God owes to earth and man? We understand the debt that man and earth owe to God, their creator. But how is God indebted to his creation? Besides we learn that God pays his debt through his representative, his protagonist ...
... the offering to the gods. But the sacrifice is not a mere one-sided movement, the sacrifice brings from the gods gifts for the man – material prosperity and spiritual fulfilment. Man increases himself in this way, but thereby increases the gods also. The offering that man brings in his sacrifice – all his possessions-his earthly possessions, but chiefly his possessions of the inner world, the wealth... destiny of earth as also the destiny of earth is the destiny of man. For man is an earthly creature, is Page 267 born out of earth and he grows with the growth of the earth; equally the earth grows with the growth of man. In reality it is God's growth in man and earth that is reflected and embodied in the growth of man and earth. The debt spoken of is the debt of God himself to himself... here God's debt to earth and man. What is this debt that God owes to earth and man? We understand the debt that man and earth owe to God, their creator. But how is God indebted to his creation? Besides we learn that God pays his debt through his representative, his protagonist upon earth, the aspiring human being. First let us understand the mystery of God's debt to man. We know, in ordinary life ...
... aloof and apart from his apparent and assumed personality and has no dealings with such personalities. God has no up ā dhi, phenomenal qualification, neither has the soul of man. Therefore in his spiritual aspiration, man has to divest himself of all the outer growths that cover and bury his soul: with the clear unmixed vision of his pure soul he has to look straight into the face of the Divine ... crowd. He lays especial emphasis upon complete solitariness and total renunciation as the very condition, sine qua non, of the soul's spiritual journey and yet characterises the singleness of the one in terms that make of it an essential whole, an integer. Man must isolate himself from his phenomenal being, certainly – as the neti neti formula enjoins – but also he must first find or become his... attributed to the spiritual status is a human Page 362 way of viewing the experience: that is the impression left on the normal mind consciousness when the Purusha soars out of it, upwards from the life of the world to the life of the Spirit. But the soul, the true spiritual being in the individual, is not and cannot be an isolated entity; the nature of the spiritual consciousness is first ...
... the same light suddenly fill up the place. "Then I understood. "That particular sound holds the vibration of Page 243 thousands upon thousands of years of spiritual aspiration—man's aspiration to the Supreme is there in its entirety. And the power is automatically there since the experience is there. Oh, a tremendous power. Tremendous." OM or AUM is known also as... to pull along her brother to those 'spiritist' reunions. One day, as they went in, they were told that there was a young man who was a first-rate subject. But he looked rather puny. Matteo perceived a heap of big, fat dictionaries in the drawing-room, and he willed the young man to carry them across to the other end of the room. To his own and the group's amazement the youth lifted the pile of dictionaries... dictionaries and began carrying them. Then Matteo said to himself, "But he won't be able to carry them, he'll collapse!" And it happened! Page 237 Midway through, the young man fainted. Matteo became furious and turning to his sister said, "Look at what you made me do. Never again shall I accompany you to these reunions." Mirra replied, "But why did you first think that he should ...
... down into the material world. A great and glorious example of man becoming a god is that of Narada, therefore he is called Devarshi, that is to say, a rishi, a spiritually perfect man developing, that is, metamorphosing himself into a god coming down and inhabiting, possessing, becoming a human being. The function or role of a god-man or Devarshi like Narada has been described beautifully in Savitri... that you are within, the beautiful person within you of whom I have spoken so often to you. Through the spiritual life you develop that beautiful personality more and more and still more, until you become a being perfectly formed and fully grown. When a man ¹Shwetashwatara Upanishad: 3.13 Page 11 achieved the perfect form of the soul, he used to be called, in the ancient days... mature, so well-formed, that you begin to think of the life spiritual. When one is not content, not wholly content with ordinary life, yearns after something else, something greater, it means that the flame in you has reached a crucial stage and has to take a leap or bound into another dimension of life. The aspiration for the spiritual life means that you have now a glimpse of the true person that ...
... water and seeds will grow poorly . . . and every caste will become almost like the Shudra [labourers]. . . . But notwithstanding all these defects, the great virtue of the Kali Yuga is that the spiritual progress man accomplishes with great, ascetic efforts in the Satya Yuga he can accomplish with very little effort in the Kali Yuga." 2.Some Puranas put the durations respectively as 4800, 3600, 2400... new creation emerges. The Puranas state that the duration of each yuga is in direct proportion to the diminishing Truth. 2 As a result, man's life-span diminishes also. In addition, they say that with the declining Truth man's stature too declines. Man's height, which is fourteen cubits in Treta, is reduced to seven cubits in Dwapara, and goes down to four and a half cubits in Kali. Sri Aurobindo... one will suffer the same fate one day. Another conception they had was that there are nine layers below the earth and thirteen above it. I take it to mean that 'man' has emerged but recently upon earth —an idea which rejoins Théon's, "Man has just begun to get out of its swaddling-clothes and away from the society of the bullock and the ass." Traditionally, however, a Creation consists of four ...
... human failings in order to present graphically to us the inexpressible intensities or extensions of the high experiences above. The Vaishnava lyrics or the songs of Solomon become to us high spiritual documents. Man started his life on earth as an animal and is still continuing to be so in a large measure: his mental equipment also was almost wholly conditioned by the necessities of such a situation:... the course of advancing time. Indeed evolution in Nature means that and a great deal of that. Take for example, speech, which is a special organ of expression for man. Now, originally speech, that is to say, the vocabulary on man's tongue consisted of vocables related only Page 295 to the familiar objects around him, in the ordinary day to day movement of life. The field was narrow... language. The original written language started with images, pictorial diagrams: there was no alphabet but things and movements were presented, that is represented, almost actually. Thus for man a figure of man was drawn, that is to say, straight lines sticking out representing hands and legs and a dot for the head; the sun was a circle and so on. As consciousness grew and as the mind developed and ...
... present graphically to us the inexpressible intensities or extensions of the high experiences Page 178 above. The Vaishnava lyrics or the songs of Solomon become to us high spiritual documents. Man started his life on earth as an animal and is still continuing to be so in a large measure: his mental equipment also was almost wholly conditioned by the necessities of such a situation:... course of advancing time. Indeed evolution in Nature means that and a great deal of that. Take for example, speech, which is a special organ of expression for man. Now, originally speech, that is to say, the vocabulary on man's tongue consisted of vocables related only to the familiar objects around him, in the ordinary day to day movement of life. The field was narrow and limited, level to... language.The original written language started with images, pictorial diagrams: there was no alphabet but things and movements were presented, that is represented, almost actually. Thus for man a figure of man was drawn, that is to say, straight lines sticking out representing hands and legs and a dot for the head; the sun was a circle and so on. As consciousness grew and as the mind developed and ...
... that man is or can be: he has in him the power to evolve and release a still greater ideal energy which in its turn escapes out of the restrictions of the mental formula of his nature and discloses the supramental form, the ideal power of a spiritual being. In Yoga we have to travel beyond the physical nature and the superficial man and to discover the workings of the whole nature of the real man. In... In other words we must arrive at and use a psycho-physical knowledge with a spiritual foundation. Man is in his real nature,—however obscure now this truth may be to our present understanding and self-consciousness, we must for the purposes of Yoga have faith in it, and we shall then find that our faith is justified by an increasing experience and a greater self-knowledge,—a spirit using the mind... creative of a divine way of living in our instruments, supermind, mind, life and body, the active principle of a spiritual perfection. Supermind, mind, life and body are the four instruments which the spirit uses for its manifestation in the workings of Nature. Supermind is spiritual consciousness acting as a self-luminous knowledge, will, sense, aesthesis, energy, self-creative and unveiling power ...
... conversion and transfiguration of the whole being of man by the power of the Divine is the only means. A desperate and pervasive degeneracy calls for a radical and revolutionary redemption—and that can only be Yoga. "All Yoga is in its nature a new birth; it is a birth out of the ordinary, the mentalised material life of man into a higher spiritual consciousness and a greater and diviner .being... It means the linking or union of the human consciousness with something higher, some- thing transcendent, something eternal and divine. In the ignorance of his dividing mind, though not in spiritual fact, man is cut off from his transcendent source and sustenance. He regards himself as a separate being among countless separate beings and things, his life as his own personal concern, his thoughts... yet the adventurous spirit of man has known no defeat or discouragement! It has embraced martyrdom and suffering in the service of science and the general advancement of its intellectual and material aims. If that is the price willingly paid for the accomplishment of passing terrestrial purposes, is it any wonder that the elite of humanity, those who are spiritually evolved, have, in all ages and ...
... and world-vision. For ultimately it is an ideal and spiritual literature which expresses individual and universal truths, reveals the spirit in itself and in things around, and unveils ranges of existence beyond the physical that gives an adequate and satisfying account of the manifold creative potentialities of godhead in man. It is an inner seeing and feeling of things around us and... Aurobindo would put it, "of life broadened, raised and illumined by a strong intellectual intuition of the self of man and the large soul of humanity". 2 There is already seen a significant change in the creative thinking of our times; a subtle elevation of feeling, a psycho-spiritual touch of an inner dimension, the aroma of a near intuitive intelligence and the amplitude of human sensitivity... godhead in the world and in man, of his divine possibilities as well of the greatness of the power that manifests in what he is, a spiritualised uplifting of his thought and feeling and sense and action, a more developed psychic mind and heart, a truer and a deeper insight into his nature and the meaning of the world, a calling of diviner potentialities and more spiritual values into the intention ...
... helpers of man, for ends which are held by the singers,—or seers, as they call themselves ( kavi, ṛṣi, vipra ),—to be supremely desirable ( vara, vāra ). These desirable ends, these boons of the gods are summed up in the words rayi, rādhas , which may mean physically wealth or prosperity, and psychologically a felicity or enjoyment which consists in the abundance of certain forms of spiritual wealth.... symbolised man's effort and his means towards a greater end, the acquisition of immortality. The aspiration of the Vedic seer was the enrichment and expansion of man's being, the birth and the formation of the godheads in his life-sacrifice, the increase of the Force, Truth, Light, Joy of which they are the powers until through the enlarged and ever-opening worlds of his being the soul of man rises, sees... who wins for man Page 139 the Light and the Force. Therefore Indra is constantly addressed as the Master of the herds, gopati ; he is even imaged as himself the cow and the horse; he is the good milker whom the Rishi wishes to milk and what he yields are perfect forms and ultimate thoughts; he is Vrishabha, the Bull of the herds; his is the wealth of cows and horses which man covets. It ...
... whole immense working of Nature. But it is by degrees of the self-finding that Nature enlarges to her spiritual reality. Man himself is a doubly involved being; most of himself in mind and below is involved in a subliminal conscience or a subconscience; most of himself above mind is involved in a spiritual superconscience. When he becomes conscient in the superconscience, the heights and the depths of his... infinities of spiritual being are the more significant things, give us greater and subtler reaches of the self-disclosing. Secrecy The physical evolution is only an outward sign, the more and more complex and subtle development of a supporting structure, the growing exterior metre mould of form which is devised to sustain in matter the rising intonations of the spiritual harmony. The spiritual significance... at in the end, if we once admit as the key of the whole movement, the reality of this whole mounting creation a spiritual evolution. The word evolution carries with it in its intrinsic sense, in the idea at its root the necessity of a previous involution. We must, if a hidden spiritual being is the secret of all the action of Nature, give its full power to that latent value of the idea. We are bound ...
... towards impersonality and is in its dealing with the world more utilitarian than humanly intimate and understanding. Another difference, according to Tagore, manifests itself in the deeper spiritual field: Man quests for freedom, a rising above earth and embodiment, a flight to the Absolute, whereas woman does not feel earth to be a bondage and she cannot give up the beautiful significance of... this pressure is a highly evolutionary factor. We tend overmuch to see man and woman in relation to each other and in the way their natures manifest commonly on the mental, vital, physical levels. What we often forget is that Page 106 either is an expression ultimately of a soul, a spiritual self, and that the destiny of both is not so much in relation to each... disposition. As ardent a bhakta as the woman Mirabai was the man Chaitanya, and Buddhism had nuns as well as monks. Incline as it frequently may in one or the other direction exclusively, the psyche in either sex is two-moded. Sri Aurobindo This fact gives us a clue to what may be termed the complete spiritual aim for us — inner liberation from earth and from embodiment ...
... more towards impersonality and is in its dealing with the world more utilitarian than humanly intimate and understanding. Another difference, according to Tagore, manifests itself in the deeper spiritual field: man quests for freedom, a rising above earth and embodiment, a flight to the Absolute, whereas woman does not feel earth to be a bondage and she cannot give up the beautiful significance of form... varied function. In essence this pressure is a highly evolutionary factor. We tend overmuch to see man and woman in relation to each other and in the way their natures manifest commonly on the mental, vital, physical levels. What we often forget is that either is an expression ultimately of a soul, a spiritual self, and that the destiny of both is not so much in relation to each other as in relation to... bhakta's disposition. As ardent a bhakta as the woman Mirabai was the man Chaitanya, and Buddhism had nuns as well as monks. Incline as it frequently may in one or the other direction exclusively, the psyche in either sex is two-moded. Sri Aurobindo This fact gives us a clue to what may be termed the complete spiritual aim for us - inner liberation from earth and from embodiment together ...
... death of the Mahayogis is not less obscure. After all, they pertain to the domain of occult practices and experiences. Still, we cite these accounts here for all they are worth: When a spiritually wise man dies, his life-energy (prana-shakti) pierces the Brahmarandhra and passes out of the body following the Murdhanya or Sushumna Nadi. Thus, we read in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (IV. 4. 2):... death and a spiritually fruitful other-worldly journey. And the best preparation in this regard is to organise and harmonise all the parts of one's consciousness around the central psychic being so that they can be pliably moulded and governed at all times and in every way by one's divine centre. If one can do that, he will find after "death" that all that is required for his spiritual progression... the best possible use of every moment of your life: never lose even a moment in your effort at realising your spiritual goal. Always live in your ideal, in the truth of your ideal. Make that the only real thing in your life, the raison d'être of your being, and in all things see this spiritual ideal and never come down into the sordidities of the material life. 'If you can do so, you will find ...
... evolution of the mental being, man, out of the vital being, the animal, so its next stride will be to evolve out of mental man a greater spiritual and supramental creature.” 50 “Man is an abnormal who has not found his own normality, – he may imagine he has, he may appear to be normal in his own kind, but that normality is only a sort of provisional order; therefore, though man is infinitely greater than... es of his physical life, build for himself houses of stone, manipulate Nature’s forces, sail the seas, ride the air, develop codes of conduct, evolve conscious methods for his mental and spiritual development. Man, because he has acquired reason and still more because he has indulged his power of imagination and intuition, is able to conceive an existence higher than his own and even to envisage his... vista of self-development and self-exceeding. Man at his highest is a half-god who has risen up out of the animal Nature and is splendidly abnormal in it, but the thing which he has started out to be, the whole god, is something so much greater than what he is that it seems to him as abnormal to himself as he is to the animal.” 51 “If a spiritual unfolding on earth is the hidden truth of our ...
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