... of knowledge. 1972 * One must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual teaching. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future; it enlightens the consciousness and prepares it for future realisation. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives for a total Truth. It teaches us to enter into direct contact ...
... her ), it was in an envelope. "One must not confuse a religious teaching and a spiritual teaching. Religious teaching belongs to the past and stops all progress, spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future. It enlightens the consciousness and prepares it for the future realization. "A spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a total truth. It teaches us to come into direct ...
... teacher, he says, is to awaken Presence by contagion through words that are charged with Presence, and which have a dimension far greater than that of the mental content conveyed by the words. Spiritual teaching, says Eckhart, consists in a transmission of Presence rather than the imparting of ideas. 18 Sri Aurobindo similarly describes mind as an "ignorance-consciousness" which he distinguishes... consists of "the knowledge of the truths, principles, powers, and processes that govern the realization"—is usually the mental knowledge that one acquires from books and reacher. Almost all spiritual teaching starts with some mental concepts. Thus, the exposition of the Gita begins with the chapter on "Buddhi 23 Yoga," the "Yoga of the Intelligent Will," containing ... the first necessary... true illuminating knowledge or else deforms it as soon as it touches or even before it fully touches the human mental plane. 31 Eckhart attaches little importance to mental knowledge in spiritual teaching, whereas Sri Aurobindo regards an intellectual preparation as a possible "first step in a powerful Yoga" in spiritual life. This is probably because Eckhart had a transformative experience ...
... The Mother describes on 12.7.1972: One must not confuse a religious teaching with spiritual teaching. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future; it enlightens the consciousness and prepares it for future realisation . Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives for a total Truth. It teaches us to enter into direct contact ...
... You must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual one. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for the future—it realisation. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a global Truth. It teaches us to enter into direct relations with the Divine. 12 ...
... You must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual one. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future—it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for future realisation. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a global Truth. It teaches us to enter into direct relation with the Divine. 15 July ...
... teachers: ‘You must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual one. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future – it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for the future realization. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards global Truth. It teaches us to enter into direct relations with the Divine.’ 44 She strongly ...
... must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual one. Religious teaching belongs to the past and halts progress. Spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future — it illumines the consciousness and prepares it for the future realisation. Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a global Truth. It teaches us to enter into direct relations with the Divine." (Ibid ...
... freedom and the whole significance of immortality. This supreme importance assigned to sādharmya is a capital point in the teaching of the Gita. To be immortal was never held in the ancient spiritual teaching to consist merely in a personal survival of the death of the body: all beings are immortal in that sense and it is only the forms that perish. The souls that do not arrive at liberation, live ...
... said, I hope, that work only prepares. Meditation also prepares for the direct contact. If we are to do work only as a preparation and then become motionless meditative ascetics, then all my spiritual teaching is false and there is no use for supramental realisation or anything else that has not been done in the past. My own impression is that work is an excellent means as a preparation, but the ...
... everything that is difficult to obtain, and you make a great effort to deserve it. Most of you came here when you were very small, at an age when there can be no question of the spiritual life or spiritual teaching—it would be altogether premature. You have indeed lived in this atmosphere but without even being aware of it; you are accustomed to seeing me, hearing me; I speak to you as one does to all children ...
... you make a great effort to deserve it. Page-208 Most of you came here when you were very small, at an age when there can be no question of the spiritual life or spiritual teaching it would be altogether premature. You have indeed lived in this atmosphere but without even being aware of it; you are accustomed to seeing me, hearing me; I speak to you as one does to all children ...
... n Sri Page 977 Ramakrishna came to begin and all the development of the previous two thousand years and more since Buddha appeared has been a preparation for the harmonization of spiritual teaching and experience by the avatar of Dakshineshwar. The long ages of discipline which India underwent, are now drawing to an end. A great light is dawning on the East, a light whose first heralding ...
... precious, like everything that is difficult to obtain, and one makes a serious effort to be worthy of it. ‘Most of you came here when you were very small, at an age when the spiritual life or a spiritual teaching were still out of the question, for it would have been altogether premature. You have indeed lived in this atmosphere but without even being aware of it. You are accustomed to seeing me, hearing ...
... earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness. 20 June 1972 Sri Aurobindo has given us the spiritual teaching which teaches us to come in direct contact with the Divine. July 1972 Sri Aurobindo shows us the way towards a glorious future. August 1972 ( Darshan Message ) Sri A ...
... the possibility of surrender or surrender happens spontaneously, usually through suffering or a combination of both. There is suffering, there is some degree of surrender. And then there's the spiritual teaching. And there's a deepening of surrender. So, again, self-effort, for quite a while ... self-effort implies wanting to get somewhere, to achieve a state, to become greater, more perfect, more pure ...
... respect of Education in Human Values. What stimulates one may bore another. Appropriate practical research is essential to make the Value Education Programme truly effective. 1.5Moral and Spiritual teaching be made compulsory. 1.6A list of values may be prepared through general consensus. 1.7Emphasis in the education system may be given on values such as: - Nationalism/national ...
... expressions of a particular people, it is clear that they are founded on actual historical events that have assumed great importance in the life of mankind. The Mahabharata gave us the great spiritual teaching of the Gita which it is said will yet liberate mankind; the Iliad led to the creation of Hellas and modern western civilization. Both epics have put before us heroes who upheld the ancient ...
... the insolence of our external knowledge we are accustomed to look back as the childhood of humanity or at best a period of vigorous barbarism, this was the inspired and intuitive psychic and spiritual teaching by which the ancient human fathers, pūrve pitaraḥ manuṣyāḥ , founded a great and profound civilisation in India. This high beginning was secured in its results by a larger sublime efflorescence ...
... in a mass of intuitive experience and revelatory knowledge as in the Upanishads, but for intellectual comprehension in system and order,—and in that sense the Gita is able to call its profound spiritual teaching the most secret science, guhyatamaṁ śāstram . This high scientific and philosophical spirit was carried by the ancient Indian culture into all its activities. No Indian religion is complete ...
... incarnating among us, and even were his stature to greatly surpass that of our greatest avatars, one could not really speak of a new phase in the history of evolution. We would receive a new spiritual teaching which would enable us to continue our journey in the name of an ideal more elevated than all those we have heretofore conceived. And, this would already be a great deal. But that is not here ...
... teaching about the witnessing Presence and the process of the Sankhya—a path of knowledge— may seem surprising in view of Eckhart's de-emphasis on the role of knowledge or "information" in a spiritual teaching. But the knowledge aimed at in the Path of Knowledge is not an intellectual understanding. The intellect does play an important role in the Path of Knowledge because, right thought consisting ...
... to Eckhart in recent years. In the first place, that need had already been amply met by Theosophy and by Sri Aurobindo. Secondly, Eckhart does not offer a system of philosophy. As he states, a spiritual teaching is not a philosophy or a cosmology; it does not seek to explain the nature of the universe but to help one in accessing a state of consciousness beyond that of the mind. Many of Eckhart's talks ...
... concerned] Sri Aurobindo may have loosely opted for ‘twixt’… We should be aware of allowing currency to a text which, on a natural interpretation, is out of accord with Sri Aurobindo’s known spiritual teaching no less than with his own poetic choice in an overwhelming majority of versions…” This is another strange piece of logic, we “…read the meaning and not quite the words…”, that so much saturated ...
... ignored by literary articles and currency given only to the text. We should beware of allowing currency to a text which, on a natural interpretation, is out of accord with Sri Aurobindo's known spiritual teaching no less than with his own poetic choice in an overwhelming majority of versions. 4 Lest anyone should think we are making a very special or unique case out of "twixt", I might ...
... Letters on Yoga - I Note on the Texts LETTERS ON YOGA — I, the first of four volumes, contains letters in which Sri Aurobindo speaks about the foundations of his spiritual teaching and method of Yogic practice. The letters have been arranged in five parts dealing with five broad subject areas: 1. The Divine, the Cosmos and the Individual 2. The Parts of the Being ...
... In all effort at self-finding these possibilities are there; they are the conditions of this spiritual adventure. Now we have to see how the Gita deals with this question on its own line of spiritual teaching and self-discipline. For Arjuna puts immediately a suggestive query from which the problem or one aspect of it arises. When men, he says, sacrifice to God or the gods with faith, śraddhā , ...
... said, I hope, that work only prepares. Meditation also prepares for the direct contact. If we are to do work only as a preparation and then become motionless meditative ascetics, then all my spiritual teaching is false and there is no use for supramental realisation or anything else that has not been done in the past. The including of the outer consciousness in the transformation is of supreme ...
... spiritual teachings, morality as it is mentally conceived is out of place. So too the word "impurity". Pure, as it is understood morally, has not at all the meaning it is given in a truly spiritual teaching; and particularly from the Buddhist standpoint, purity is absence of ignorance, as I have already told you last time, and ignorance means ignoring the inner law, the truth of the being. And loyalty ...
... must never, during the period of the experience, try to understand what it is, for you immediately cause it to vanish, or you deform it and take away its purity; in the same way, if you want a spiritual teaching to enter into you, you must be absolutely immobile in your head, immobile like a mirror which not only reflects but absorbs the ray of light, lets it enter and go deep within, so that from ...
... Sri Aurobindo is much more than cither a philosopher or a spiritual teacher. Vivid concrete visions and experiences of the inner life are the stuff of a Yogi-poet's expression. Philosophy and spiritual teaching are byproducts of his verse. Also, before launching on an exploration of "unknown modes of being", he was neither a philosopher nor a spiritual teacher. His absorption was in literature and history ...
... utmost vulgarity. And yet a country of such great natural beauty, which the American Way of Life has not succeeded in destroying. And with it all, a great desire to learn, an energy and desire for spiritual teaching, and more rishis and lamas and rinpoches than in their own countries. Seeds of every religion and cult and sect in the world there Page 285 falls on fertile virgin soil. So long ...
... Sri Aurobindo's Action are two brothers. The Society will help Sri Aurobindo's Action with its centres which are already there. The Society will continue to be engaged with the philosophy and spiritual teaching of Sri Aurobindo." Later, on 30.4.1971, when the above was being printed for circulation, Mother wrote the following additional lines:- Les temps sont graves. The situation ...
... to take the Ashram, the Guru and the teaching for granted and do nothing: Most of you came here when you were very small, at an age when there can be no question of the spiritual life or spiritual teaching.... You have indeed lived in this atmosphere but without even being aware of it; you are accustomed to seeing me, hearing me; I speak to you as one does to all children, I have even played with ...
... silence, 17, 24, 25, 98, 99 space, 17 spiritual evolution, 5 spiritual path, 42-44 spiritual practice, 65, 66 Page 171 aim of, 144-147 methods, 112-121 zeal in, 107 spiritual teachings, paradoxes in, 20, 21 spiritual transformation, 146, 147 Sri Aurobindo's viewpoints, see also teachings; yoga the Divine, 71, 72, 78, 150 ... viewpoints, 29, 30 phenomenon of, 14 reversal of, 29, 30 in the teachings of Eckhart and Sri Aurobindo, 81-84, 154 D Darshanas, 68 dispersion, state of, 118, 119 the Divine, 5,6, 71,72,79,105,106,150 E Eastern spiritual philosophy, 4, 5 Eckhart's viewpoints, see also teachings concept of enlightenment portals, 17, 18 dealing with negative... 58, 64, 65, 117 pain-body, 18, 19 paradoxes in spiritual teachings, 20 perspective on desire, 45-48 presence of mind, 33-35 reversal of consciousness, 30 scientific observation, 35, 36 self-realization, 52 silence, 25 simplicity of enlightenment, 25, 26, 30,31 spiritual path/practice, 42-44, 65,66 surrender, 52, 55, 63 ...
... in her. Her life and work are concerned mostly with the supraphysical worlds and spirits and miraculous powers and Mahatmas. You are quite right. She was an occultist, not a spiritual personality. What spiritual teachings she gave, seemed to be based on intellectual knowledge, not on realisation. Her attitude was Tibetan Buddhistic. She did not believe in God, but in Nirvana, miraculous powers ...
... him. But tomorrow will prove the truth of what he revealed and his work will be done. 21 February 1957 The essential mistake was to have considered Sri Aurobindo's teaching as one among the spiritual teachings—and the work done here now as one among the many aspects of the Divine works. This has falsified your basic position and has been the cause of all the difficulties and confusions... Sri Aurobindo Sri Aurobindo Words of the Mother - I Work and Teaching Sri Aurobindo's work is a unique earth-transformation. Sri Aurobindo incarnated in a human body the supramental consciousness and has not only revealed to us the nature of the path to follow and the method of following it so as to arrive at the goal, but has also by his own personal... corrected in your mind and in your attitude all other difficulties will disappear easily. Page 22 You must understand that what Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history, is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. And I am just trying to fulfil that action. 1961 Criticising a friend's paper on Gandhi I quoted Sri Aurobindo's ...
... individual soul are illusions, Maya, is based on a spiritual experience that is fundamentally different from the equally valid experience on which is based another Hindu' view that regards the world as a divine play, Lila. Here, the eternal Supreme Being plays hide-and-seek with the eternal individual soul. In Eckhart's teaching, as in all spiritual teachings, there are certain paradoxes. There is also a... pitfall of mistaking the signpost for the destination, or the map for the territory. The most valuable aspect of Eckhart's teachings thus lies not in the concepts and ideas he employs but in the energetic charge of the spiritual consciousness from which his teachings emanate and with which his words are powerfully impregnated. For this reason, Chapter 2 of the book, which is a verbatim transcription... must emerge in order to find one's true being. Eckhart's teachings start at the high level where one is ready to step out of the mode of all personal seeking. So does Sri Aurobindo's yoga, which, however, recognizes that, although we viii human beings are initially always motivated by the egoic self even in doing yoga, all spiritual seeking is at heart a yearning of one's true self to discover ...
... a higher region, a higher force which, passing through the mental layers, comes and takes a form in a human mind and reveals itself in the world as new truths, new philosophical systems, new spiritual teachings, which are the works and at the same time the actions of the great beings who come to take birth Page 385 on earth. That is an imagination which can be called "Truth-imagination" ...
... upon the spiritual life". The impurities to be purged are egoism and ignorance, intemperance and untruthfulness. Translating the surface moral code into the deeper spiritual, the Mother says: "In all truly spiritual teachings, morality as it is mentally conceived is out of place." Balance, moderation, truthfulness, sincerity, honesty- these are certainly necessary for those who aim at spiritual life,... the world. Thus is the Buddha's core-teaching linked up with the Aurobindonian affirmation of the need to join the spiritual consciousness to an evolving Page 641 mental consciousness leading to the establishment here of a new Heaven and a new Earth. Such, the Mother feels, "was the original conception of the Buddhist teaching". The 13th and 14th verses are about the... Throughout this teaching there is one thing to be noticed; it is this: you are never told that to live well, to think well, is the result of a struggle or of a sacrifice; on the contrary it is a delightful state which cures all suffering. At that time, the time of the Buddha, to live a spiritual life was a joy, a beatitude.... It is the materialism of modern times that has turned spiritual effort into ...
... Environmental consciousness — see Circumconscient. the Force — see Consciousness-Force the Gita —short form of Bhagavad Gita, "the Song of the Blessed Lord", being the spiritual teachings of Sri Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra; it occurs as an episode in the Mahabharata. Gnosis — a supreme totally self-aware and all-aware Intelligence; the Divine... the Veda"; a system of philosophy based on the Upanishads (which occur at the end of the Veda), teaching the culminating knowledge of the Absolute. Vedantin, Vedantist — an advocate of Vedanta. Vedic — pertaining to the Veda. Vidya —knowledge; Knowledge in its highest spiritual sense; the consciousness of Unity. the Vital — the Life-nature made up of desires, sensations... Gradations between Mind and Supermind. mok ṣ a, Moksha — spiritual liberation. mole ruet sua — (Latin) will collapse by its own mass. Mukta —free. Muladhar —"root vessel or chamber"; the physical consciousness centre (Chakra); see also Centres of Consciousness. Mukti — spiritual liberation, the release of the soul from the bondage of Ignorance. ...
... matter of individual feeling. The Buddhist Jatakas are legends about the past incarnations of the Buddha, often with a teaching implied in them, and are not a part of the Hindu system. To the Buddhists Buddha was not an Avatar at all, he was the soul climbing up the ladder of spiritual evolution till it reached the final stage of emancipation—although Hindu influence did make Buddhism develop the idea... and they are not concerned with morality or immorality, perfection or imperfection according to small human standards or setting an example to men or showing new moral attitudes or giving new spiritual teachings. These things may or may not Page 489 be done, but they are not at all the essence of the matter. Also, I do not consider your method of dealing with Rama's personality to be the... Questions of Spiritual and Occult Knowledge Questions of Spiritual and Occult Knowledge The Avatar and the Vibhuti Letters on Yoga - I Chapter II Specific Avatars and Vibhutis The Ten Avatars as a Parable of Evolution Avatarhood would have little meaning if it were not connected with the evolution. The Hindu procession of the ten Avatars is itself ...
... into manhood and to base the system of teaching and training on that inner reality alone. There has to be a new psychic dealing of man with his own being, with his fellow-men and with the ordering of his individual and social life. The aim of education should be to help every individual child to develop his own intellectual, aesthetic, emotional, moral, spiritual being and his communal life and impulses... just spoken inter alia of the process of "evoking knowledge from within". The idea may perhaps sound queer Page 12 to those readers who are not well acquainted with the spiritual teachings of Sri Aurobindo, the propounder of the Yoga of Integral Self-Perfection. Constraints of time and space do not allow us to elaborate further on this topic here. However, we may content ourselves... full of various samsk ā ras or impressions both inborn and acquired. The teacher has to be cognisant of this ground reality, take the child as he is and begin his teaching from there. For, the principle of effective and creative teaching is to "work from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be." Therefore, the teacher in his hasty and rash ignorance should not try to lift and ...
... they are not concerned with morality or immorality, perfection or imperfection according to small hu- man standards or setting an example to men or showing new moral attitudes or giving new spiritual teachings. These may or may not be done, but they are not at all the essence of the matter. Also, I do not consider your method of dealing with the human personality of Rama to be the right one. It... has been spoken of as a fifth Veda, it has been said of both these poems that they are not only great poems but Dharmashastras, the body of a large religious and ethical and social and political teaching, and their effect and hold on the mind and life of the people have been so great that they have been described as the bible of the Indian people. That is not quite an accurate analogy, for the bible... strongest possible evidence of the greatness and fineness of this ancient Indian culture. ....The Vedic Rishis and their successors made it their chief work to found a spiritual basis of Indian life and to effect the spiritual and cultural unity of the many races and peoples of the peninsula. But they were not blind to the necessity of a political unification. Observing the constant tendency of ...
... taken a subordinate place as karmakanda, books of ritual; and to the Upanishads alone, in spite of occasional appeals to the text of the earlier Scriptures, is reserved that aspect of spiritual knowledge & teaching which alone justifies the application to any human composition of the great name of Veda. But in spite of this great downfall the ancient tradition, the ancient sanctity survived. The... Sama and Yajur are put aside as ritualistic writings, possessing a value only for ceremonial of sacrifice, and all search for spiritual knowledge is confined to the Vedanta, was unrecognised & even unknown to the writer of the Gita. To him the Vedas are writings full of spiritual truth; the language of the line Vedaish cha sarvair aham eva vedyo, the significance of the double emphasis in the etymological... futile. If the modern interpretation stands, the Vedas are no doubt of high interest & value to the philologist, the anthropologist & the historian; but poetically and spiritually they are null and worthless. Its reputation for spiritual knowledge & deep religious wealth, is the most imposing & baseless hoax that has ever been worked upon the imagination of a whole people throughout many millenniums. ...
... and they are not concerned with morality or immorality, perfection or imperfection according to small human standards or setting an example to men or showing new moral attitudes or giving new spiritual teachings. Those things may or may not be done, but they are not at all the essence of the matter. Also, I do not consider your method of dealing with Rama's personality to be the right one. It has... and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere-1 do not see why these facts which are facts of spiritual history and of quite ordinary spiritual experience should be discussed and denied and argued as if they were mere matters of speculation. Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity;... resolutely toil to the finish. January 6, 1934 There is no reason why the passage about Buddhism should be omitted. It gives one side of the Buddhistic teaching which is not much known or is usually ignored, for that teaching is by most rendered as Nirvana ( sunyavada [nihilism]) and a spiritualised humanitairianism. The difficulty is that it is these sides that have been stressed especially ...
... 'didache', the teaching of Jesus. St. Luke clearly found "nothing inconsistent" in putting the Kerugma in the mouth of Peter, but in his gospel filling in the teaching and the stories of the infancy and the Resurrection. Matthew again arranged the stories and the teaching in another way, and John writing it at a later date elaborated it still further and brought out the spiritual meaning. No one... the supposed spiritual ability of the Church to decide whether a doctrine is right or wrong, irrespective of what scholars may say on the strength of scriptures: "Of course, it is almost axiomatic that what the Church teaches does not draw its validity from the arguments used to reach that teaching, because the Church has an insight into revelation (through a type of spiritual connaturality)... characteristics of the Supermind both as the creative and the transformative divinity. If we do not attend to his clarifications and expositions we shall always be tempted to read into past spiritual teachings and events what could never have been there and we shall miss the great evolutive impact of Sri Aurobindo's appearance on our earth and the glorious future to which he calls us and for which ...
... thought or for a living spiritual experience. 291 But in the original, he discovered a constant vein of the richest gold of thought and spiritual experience.... 292 I found that the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light psychological experiences of my own for which I had found no sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta... discover. The True Vital Thus, there is a kind of threshold to be crossed if we want to find the true life force behind the troubled life of the frontal man. According to traditional spiritual teachings, this crossing involves mortifications and renunciations of all sorts (which, by the way, Page 69 serve mainly to enhance the ascetic's high opinion of himself), but we are after something... all, no one would try to teach him anything (rather, "unlearning" was what was required); there were no classes and no "teaching," except for Sri Aurobindo's written works and the Mother's Questions and Answers , which were at everyone's disposal (as well as all other teachings, in fact, both traditional and nontraditional). There were no rules, either. A disciple had to discover everything for ...
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