... some instances they were quite visible.] What do you see as being the purpose for this extrasensory sight that you have been given? It has made me more aware of the consciousness of the subtle worlds. It has helped me to become more aware of the world around me as it relates to the worlds within. It has expanded my consciousness and even helps me when I heal people. It has given me an inner... closer contact with the Mother. It is a gift from the Mother that has helped me to give meaning to my visions and contact with the inner worlds. Have you ever seen Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the subtle worlds? Yes, I have seen them on the subtle planes. They appear as human forms but when they “walk” they advance without taking steps. They move as though in a gliding motion over the subtle surfaces ...
... the mantra. Anyway I am not very much interested in all this. There is something else now about which I want your opinion"... that the innermost parts of our brain centres are associated with subtle worlds of being... that the most important centre of all enables us to obtain divine consciousness of the highest order." 191 Nothing new in that—except that it ignores the part played by the subtle... upon to do. You are justly punished—but what is Yog-biyog? I thought that had to do with mathematics, not spiritual philosophy. Is it for nothing that I see the Red Light burning in the subtle worlds, as the outcome of my misadventure? Take courage. Say Tut tut tut to the misadventure and go ahead. April 10, 1936 I stopped R's treatment because the boil has boiled down. Now ...
... disappear or no longer seek to intervene in the earth-play. These things [ such as temptation by Apsaras ] are possible but they do not usually happen—because it is difficult for beings of the subtle worlds to materialise to such an extent or for a long time. They prefer to act by influencing human beings, using them as instruments or taking possession of a human mind and body. There are two ...
... Apsaras to the Tapaswis in the stories of the epics and Puranas. The other dreams were dreams of success and fame and were also of the vital plane. You need not be depressed by these ordeals in the subtle worlds; they come to all in one form or another; only you have to learn vigilance and find your way through these lesser planes to the highest, so that it may be the highest that will come down into you ...
... that is so, there is no "whither" in an essential sense. Here and here only must we attain perfection. Of course, the soul passes out of earth at death, Page 141 moves through subtle worlds and then waits in its own deep world until the time comes to shape forth a new embodiment of new mind and vitality - this happens again and again till a large range of experience has been collected ...
... which I had no prior knowledge. Page 222 ( Then the disciple asks for details on going out of each successive body into the next, more subtle one ) There are subtle bodies and subtle worlds that correspond to these bodies; it is what the psychological method calls 'states of consciousness,' but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult process consists in ...
... threatened with the loss of this darshan. ’ 34 Stranger still, the Mother would talk much later about some deceased sadhaks who were together with Sri Aurobindo in his dwelling in the subtle worlds, after he had left his body in 1950. She named several of those sadhaks, and among them was Mridu! Which goes to show how difficult it is to judge by appearances with our ordinary human knowledge ...
... there; they use different words, but the experience is very similar and the handling of forces is the same. This knowledge of the occult worlds is based on the existence of subtle bodies and of subtle worlds corresponding to those bodies. They are what the psychological method calls "states of consciousness", but these states of consciousness really correspond to worlds. The occult procedure consists ...
... stayed there for several years, it became a little dangerous because the Guru's protection was not immediate. And there I found that I would loiter about in all sorts of unpleasant places. In those subtle worlds, you must understand, there are pretty unpleasant spots. There are extremes: on the one hand you find beauty surpassing anything that any poet has described — on the other you find indescribable ...
... dream and sleep, but of increasingly inner yogic states of consciousness. The dream consciousness that is spoken of here opens up subtle faculties of consciousness by which subtle objects of the subtle worlds are experienced and enjoyed. The dream consciousness opens up doors of what Sri Aurobindo calls the worlds of subliminal consciousness. There is a complete difference between dream-state of yoga ...
... Sweet Mother The Subtle Worlds Eh, Eh! (in a teasing tone) I thought you had evaporated as you were not here a moment ago. Yet, I saw you when I passed by maybe ten minutes back. Mother, I went downstairs for some work. But I thought you had disappeared, melted... gone. I could not see you, but I felt that you were somewhere in the room ...
... the next step is positive. And then we are open to so many things, so many unknown worlds: we hear sometimes the power of vibration of the harmonies that constitute music, the vibrations of the subtle worlds, the nuances and the combinations of the vibrations which transmute matter. We feel the joy and the beatitude being transmitted in the cells, in the body. We begin to see the celestial beauty by ...
... up another body. But very many events intervene before these things happen. Besides his physical body, man has several subtle bodies or sheaths about which most people are ignorant. And in the subtle worlds, there are innumerable separate entities, small and big, good and bad. In short, even when the soul has returned to its own world after the death of the physical body, the subtle sheaths may be ...
... vital changes necessary will take place without much disturbance and so much destruction. Disciple : Do you mean that the Supreme Vision's decision can be different from the decision of the subtle worlds? Sri Aurobindo : Not necessarily, but between the vision of the Supreme and its realization here, there are many possible variations. In fact, if you speak of "destiny" then you must know ...
... of today must be free to have his own vision and create accordingly. Page 30 Q. From what you say it seems that the forms created by the artist pre-exist somewhere in the subtle worlds? A. Most of them do. Only, it does not follow that these forms are always bound to correspond to the ones created here. Q. You said that form is not indispensable for the experience ...
... element common to the ancient art of Asia and there were kindred things in Greece and mediaeval Europe. It is the result, I would suggest, of an imagination or an experience that has entered into the subtle worlds and found there a side of things dangerous and distorted and terrible that have yet to be compelled by the adventure of the self-conquering spirit into an element of divine harmony and significance ...
... racial, sexual, interpersonal, financial — with endless discussions, friction and quarrels about trifles. The Mother listened, gave advice, counsel and encouragement. Really, the certainty in the subtle worlds concerning Auroville must have been very firm and the invisible protection very powerful to allow the Mother to proceed with the foundation of the most utopian of all utopias: ‘the cradle of the ...
... stranger still the Mother later reported, as one reads in the Agenda , that the by then deceased Mridu was one of those she had met, after Sri Aurobindo’s passing, in his permanent dwelling in the subtle worlds! Which shows once more that it is difficult, especially in spiritual matters, to judge from outward appearances. Some weeks after his accident Sri Aurobindo began to revise the text of The Life ...
... of poetic form and technique in English absolutely rudimentary. And still by sheer absorption of the influence excercised by the Yogic presence of Sri Aurobindo, he was able to open himself to subtle worlds of visions and voices and his poor English equipment was magically made use of and transfigured, with the result that he produced poems which, whatever flaws there might have been in places to be ...
... has a well-developed vital being can see in the vital world with his vital sight, consciously and with the memory of what he has seen. This is what makes a vision. It is the same for all the subtle worlds—vital, mental, overmental, supramental—and for all the intermediate worlds and planes of the being. In this way one can have visions that are vital, mental, overmental, supramental, etc. On the ...
... become true for you. For me, this subtle world is far more real than the material world—much truer, much more tangible, concrete, real—but for others in this material world to believe in the subtle worlds, either they must have some beginning of experience, or else they must agree to have confidence and say, 'All right, they say it's like that, therefore it must be like that.' Otherwise, to be convinced ...
... these inner states of being correspond to invisible worlds. There is a physical world, a vital world, a mental world, a psychic world, and many spiritual worlds, a whole range of more and more subtle worlds approaching nearer and nearer to the Supreme. So, since you carry within yourself a corresponding range, by studying and becoming aware of your inner being you gradually make yourself capable of ...
... mood-thrill imparted through any species of style by any poetic temperament bears the stamp of authenticity if that one sine qua non is found — the unanalysable but ever unmistakable force from subtle worlds we know as Inspiration, the living experience whose sole sign of truth lies in whatever figure reveals itself of a beauty that is intrinsic and not meretricious. Page 113 ...
... was that same being which absorbed [others' suffering]. So ultimately, it's on the earth, by taking a body on earth, that one can deliver those worlds? ( Mother has not heard ) Those subtle worlds that are imprisoned worlds, it's by taking a body on earth that one can deliver them? They are worlds of the vital. That, of course [i.e., taking a body to deliver them]. ( Mother goes ...
... 1966 My Savitri work with the Mother 09 September 1966 I had a habit of going out of my body to explore the subtle worlds. The Mother knew about this. So she answered me: 9.9.66 My very dear little child Huta Wherever you go in sleep, subconscient or vital, you are always protected. With all my love ...
... consecutive days 154Behind the physical world, there are other worlds, real and concrete, but made of much finer, subtler substance. During sleep or even in a trance, we enter into these subtle worlds. 155'Salon' is the Long Room on the first floor, parallel to the stairs ascending from the Meditation Hall to the First Floor. At the southern end, there is the narrow staircase going up to ...
... Turkey now they enter the mosques with shoes on and the Muezzin has been abolished. PURANI: Coming to Europe, I want to ask you if it can be said that there was an inrush of forces from the subtle worlds at the time of the French Revolution and in Napoleon's time, changing the course of History. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, There was. It changed the course of European history and gave the world new political ...
... puts the human consciousness on the gross planes but he believes that it opens to the subtle ones. SRI AUROBINDO: The human consciousness has what I call the subliminal, which is open to the subtle worlds, but of which one is not aware because the surface awareness is clouded by the ordinary human mental, vital and physical. The inner opening is to the subliminal while the higher is to the Superconscient ...
... which was read by Sri Aurobindo. SATYENDRA: Krishnaprem quotes the Gita's, "By Me these have been slain" and says, "The war has already been fought and won," by which he means action in the subtle worlds. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, of course, it is there that things first happen. They are decided in the higher worlds before they are projected here. NIRODBARAN: So what happens here will be the result ...
... and make it active and functional there, if we can awaken our latent potency of knowledge vis-à-vis objects which are beyond the grasp of our gross physical senses, we can have access to these subtle worlds depending on our individual capacities and development, and establish conscious communication with them. What is more, even while still living in our gross physical body, even before we have shed ...
... For picture two she said: Child, there are actually twelve bodies in human beings. You see, I go out of these bodies one after another successively, consciously, and enter into the subtle worlds. I can stop on any plane, do what I have to do over there. I move around freely, and observe the secret of the realms. In each plane there are beings. I saw the beauties of the higher ...
... safety on the path of spiritual sadhana. For without the constant support of this virtue of intrepidity, he is apt to make a slip and stumble almost at every step. All the hostile forces of the subtle worlds are ever on the alert to detect even the slightest trace of fear and trepidation in the sadhaka' s consciousness so that they can use it as a convenient point d'appui to throw down the already built ...
... coming into this world. If that is so, there is no ‘whither’ in an essential sense. Here and here only must we attain perfection. Of course, the soul passes out of earth at death, moves through subtle worlds and then waits in its own deep world until the time comes to shape forth a new embodiment of a new mind and vitality - this happens again and again till a large range of experience has been collected ...
... tapasya and even married them. Are these really facts or mere religious fables? These things are possible but they do not usually happen — because it is difficult for beings of the subtle worlds to materialise to such an extent or for a long time. They prefer to act by influencing human beings, using them as instruments or taking possession of a human mind and body. ASCENT AND ...
... When that comes there comes often a salt or a bitter as well as a sweet taste in the mouth. In the end the sweet taste swallows up the others. How many tastes are there in the subtle worlds in addition Page 188 to those above mentioned? Are there other ones than those known on this earth? There are sour, pungent and astringent tastes — but also ...
... within the frame of this material heaven do not breathe air; all other heavens lack precisely this earth-atomsphere: and they do not grow or change. Take for instance the legendary beings of the subtle worlds – fairies, elfs, spirits, gnomes, goblins – all are types, definite species, they do not change, alter their character or nature: they remain themselves, true to themselves throughout from beginning ...
... inner eye They shone like images thrown from a far scene Too high and glad for mortal lids to seize" It almost lays bare the process of occult vision by which a man is able to see the subtle worlds. The process of television gives to it not only a great sense of concreteness but of a convincing reality by bringing to the doubting physical mind a process of scientific invention which seems ...
... Sri Aurobindo says regarding the subtle sight, referred to above, will be found interesting by the scientists who are materialistic in their thought and outlook, and deny the existence of the subtle worlds: "I remember when I first began to see inwardly (and outwardly also with the open eye), a scientific friend of mine began to talk of after-images - 'these are only after-images'. I asked ...
... from here. April 10, 1978 Deed for the purchase of Land's End signed in Ooty. * (Letter to Micheline) Harwood Dear Micheline, These last days were like a fury in the "subtle" worlds — in fact since March 30 or 31, with a "peak" on April 4, when one of our white pigeons died, attacked by blackbirds, chased and ... drowned in the septic tank! This is the nauseating sign of ...
... end. I he process of creation always follows this line: a thing to Page 19 be created or embodied upon earth is first created in a subtle world. When it is ready, ready-made in that world, then it precipitates itself upon the material world, slowly or gradually or suddenly, according to the cosmic will. An illustration to explain the point-the Mother herself gives it: Once, asked... about in the year 1947, that is to say, 32 years after the thing happened in the subtle world. Mother comments that that is the exact image of the resistance to the manifestation, the physical realisation. Not merely creation, but destruction also happens in the same way. Destruction first occurs in the subtle world and as a consequence physical destruction inevitably takes place. Sri Krishna in... admission. Mother explains that the substance of which this new world was made was the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest to the physical world, its first manifestation. Once again she affirms the reality of her vision in the message she gave to her children on the New Year Day of 1961: This wonderful world of delight waiting at our gates for our call, to come down ...
... about in the year 1947, that is to say, 32 years after the thing happened in the subtle world. Mother comments that is the exact image of the resistance to the manifestation, the physical realisation. Not merely creation, but destruction also happens in the same way. The destruction first occurs in the subtle world and as a consequence inevitably takes place the physical destruction. Sri Krishna... admission. Mother explains that the substance of which this new world was made was the most material supramental, the supramental substance nearest to the physical world, its first manifestation. Once again she reaffirms the reality of her vision in the message she gave to her children on the New Year Day of 1961: This wonderful world of delight waiting at our gates for our call, to come down... nos partes, qui attend notre appel pour descendre sur Ia terre. Page 111 world. When it is ready, ready-made in that world, then it precipitates itself upon the material world, slowly or gradually or suddenly according to the cosmic will. An illustration to explain the point, the Mother herself gives it. Once, asked ...
... of invasion by this subtle world, which will pierce the veil, the barrier, and will enter, will manifest in the physical world? It may well be.... It may well be! Because a few days ago, I read again a text of Sri Aurobindo with quite a different understanding.... Ah, what text? It was a very "Ordinary" text (I've brought it with me), in "The Riddle of this World." Ah! And at... barrier, into a passage for the higher powers of consciousness of the Being now above it...." Ooh!... It seems to be that. Yes! I understood it differently, but one may understand that... this subtle world will break the screen, or the barrier, and will be able to manifest physically! Yes, that's what seems to want to happen.... Because just now, it was so imperative. ( silence ) The only... feel just now? ... Nothing special? I always feel the Power, there, present. It was that world I was telling you about... as if it wanted to ENTER into this world (and there is indeed a great power in it), and, I don't know how to explain... as if it wanted to force its way into this world. And it came... (you know, it comes without the least personal will, I am like this [ still, silent ...
... was why the Mother plunged into the Inconscience. Now it is no more in the subtle world. It is down into this material world that Brahman and Brahmashakti have descended. The difficult work that the Supreme Purusha and Brahmashakti, the Mother, the Eternal Shakti began from the beginning of this creation in the subtle world is coming to a close. That is what the Mother’s reassuring words seemed to... much corruption in man and in the creation! And in trying to protect man and the world from the grip of these negative forces, I have had to swallow all this poison. In this way I am protecting the world and man.” We know that Shiva had swallowed halahal and it was lodged in his throat. But that was in the subtle world. And now Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were doing the same with all the poison... poison and falsehood and deceit that were being churned out from within us and thus They were protecting the world and humanity. Every time the Mother has come down into this physical world, Brahman too has been present near Her in a physical body. Where there is Parvati, there is always Mahadev, Shiva. Where there is Ishwari, there is also Ishwara. Even though two they are in fact One. One cannot exist ...
... knowledge bare to absolute sight..." (320) (4)''Through a gleaming far-seen sky of wordless thought, Through naked thought-free heavens of absolute sight..." (632) (5)"That subtle world withdrew deeply within Behind the sun-veil of the inner sight." (527) Page 21 ... physical sight the interposition of an opaque obstacle in between the viewer of an object and the object itself is liable to prevent the vision of the object from taking place, so in the case of a subtle supraphysical vision the "seer" has to take care that no "opaque" psychological obstacle intervenes between his ' 'eye'' of vision and the reality of the object viewed. Some of these possible obstructions... lids acting as obstacles to the spirit's vision: (1)"Cast from thee sense that veils thy spirit's sight: In the enormous emptiness of thy mind Thou shall see the Eternal's body in the world...'' (476) (2)"... a curtain of bright mind That hangs between our thought and absolute sight..." (74) (3)''The robes of mortal thinking were cast down Leaving ...
... "It is evidently in a subtle world, not the physical that you move; that is evident from the different arrangement of things, but such details as the third arm and the book-marker removed yet there show that it is a subtle world very near to the physical; it is either a subtle-physical world or a very material vital domain. In all the subtle domains the physical is reproduced... into it) one can traverse the same scene in the physical body. But this is rare; the subtle wandering is on the contrary a frequent phenomenon, only when it is near to the physical world all seems very material and concrete and the association of physical habits and physical mental movements with the subtle events is closer." 23.8.37 Will the Supermind, when it makes its descent... just to wish to touch or reach an object and one is simply there without much sense of passing through the intervening space. I have asked whether one is forced to explore only some subtle world. But take the following experience. I was meditating in my easy-chair. A book was lying on my left side where I had put it before closing my eyes there was a book-marker inserted at the page ...
... remained bright and did not become cloudy his disciples would know that he had succeeded in crossing the Sun-world. Is it the Supermind that is spoken of in the Upanishad? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes. It is only by going to the Supermind that birth ceases. But I don't know what is meant here. In the subtle world there are many suns and moons. NIRODBARAN: We find an example of Barodi Brahmachari's unusual eyesight... 1940 Talks with Sri Aurobindo 7 FEBRUARY 1940 EVENING NIRODBARAN: I find in the Life of Barodi Brahmachari that he tried to cross the Sun-world three times but failed. It seems that those who cross it don't take birth again. SRI AUROBINDO: It is the Upanishad's saying—the Upanishad speaks both of the rays of the Sun and the gate of the Sun. Those ...
... harmonious life. The Mother: Yes, it is quite true; he has this capacity to see the reality behind things, as they are in the subtle world. He has this inner perception which enables him to communicate with nature. This power of physical absorption, this vision of the subtle world, are Sri Aurobindo’s great gifts to him. Because your father took care of Sri Aurobindo, because he is so close to Him, he ...
... Break the five bonds (belief in the ego, doubt, belief in vain rites and ceremonies, craving and bad will). Renounce these five other bonds (the desire to live in the world of forms, the desire to live in the subtle world, pride, restlessness and ignorance). Cultivate these five (faith, energy, mindfulness, meditation, and wisdom). The Bhikkhu who is thus five times free is said to be "he who... Buddha, the Bhikkhu attains the state of perfect peace, cessation of all compounded existence. The young Bhikkhu who consecrates himself to the Teaching of the Enlightened One, illumines this world like the moon coming forth from behind the clouds. Page 290 One piece of advice given here is that one should always be kind. It should not be mistaken for the sort of advice people normally ...
... practical question I'd like to ask you regarding the subtle physical. I understand the mind centers, which correspond to a particular world, the vital centers, which receive all sorts of influences, but which center corresponds to the subtle physical, and what are the influences coming from the subtle physical? Is there a center that corresponds to the subtle physical? Where do you situate the center... as we are. And it is probably—it will probably be formed completely in that subtle world before it materializes. I think few people are able to make the distinction. They have rather an impression that it's their "dream way" of seeing things; I mean they say, "Oh, it's just a dream." In most cases it's like that. The subtle physical has the character of a realm where things are more fluid and harmonious... does it exert a DIRECT action on the earth, just as the vital has an action on the earth? Page 36 I think that as the Supramental descends, the subtle physical will have a greater and greater action on earth, because it is the world where the new creation will be formed before it "descends," before it becomes absolutely visible and concrete. I often have a sense that it would take only ...
... ordinary men feel and enjoy in and through their physical senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee." Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness. Therefore one more step has to be taken when the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this physical earth in a concretely... Prakriti as Parashakti, the Divine Mother who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the Mother, which was the original meaning of the word 'maya', the Divine Maya. The Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee),... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 4 Beyond Vedanta THE first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the Buddhist experience of nihil, nothingness, extinction that is the first step, the very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit – the ...
... through their physical senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee." Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation Page 11 in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness. Therefore one more step has to be taken when the Divine Love will incarnate in its integral and absolute reality upon this physical earth in a ... Prakriti as Parashakti, the Divine Mother, who holds in herself the supreme Purusha. The world is created and exists not by the power of Maya but by the formative power of the Mother, which was the original meaning of the word 'maya', the Divine Maya. The Divine Mother creates the world and maintains the world in the Delight of her Conscious Existence. She is the Supreme Consciousness (Chinmayee)... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 10 II Beyond Vedanta The first step in the spiritual life is the Vedantic experience that the world is an illusion, an absolute illusion. Rather it is the Buddhist experience of nihil, nothingness, extinction that is the first step, the very basic realisation of all spiritual life. It is not the summit—the ...
... When we feel that is so very much out there, we say: Oh! It’s a “subtle” world, it’s a “subtle” body, it’s a “vision,” a dream.… And when it is come here … well, it’s fully physical! it is one and only one physical separated by walls of consciousness and layers of filth. In the pure little cell, the two worlds are ONE, the “subtle” is as perfectly physical as Mr. Jones in a suit (perhaps even more... pure, direct body. And simultaneously, the “other” world, the so-called “subtle” world, the so-called “other side” entered this one (not “entered,” as it had always been on this side: it showed through): Last night, remarked Mother in that same conversation of 1970, it was really remarkable.... One would have been unable to say, “This is the subtle physical, and that is the material physical.” It... it was as if, simultaneously, the “other world” hewed its path into this one and She found herself suddenly, with her eyes wide-open, in “Sri Aurobindo’s residence,” that so-called “lining” of the world where the living and the dead go around together as if there were nothing to it. So it becomes evident that what makes the veil between the two worlds is the physical Mind and what makes death is ...
... slumber or trance or from self-absorption, it opens its eyes to the outside world and its manifest organisation and demands its due right and fulfilment. In common parlance, it is then said that the call has come to the man or his time is ripe. But the truth is that at the profound depth of the consciousness, in the inmost subtle world, there has been this awakening. The awakened force or the truth of the... subsequently its life-energy burst forth in Vivekananda. In fact we may generalise that all disciplines and ways of creation proceed in the same order. The truth that is to manifest in the material world in a concrete physical form appears at first in an apperception of the inner heart, hrdi pratisya. The mind then seizes upon it and gives a manifest form, manasa abhiklapta. Next it takes a step... mind, becomes living, dynamic Page 221 and concrete when it descends into the vital. Vivekananda is the living embodiment of the life-energy of modern Bengal. Not simply in the world of mental imagination, not in the mere sport of thought, but in the flesh and blood of life, to make the truth dynamic is the arduous tapasya of Vivekananda. It is from Vivekananda that the life-force ...
... phenomenon. It is evidently in a subtle world, not the physical that you move; that is evident from the different arrangement of things, by such details as the third arm and the book marker removed yet there; but they show also that it is a subtle world very near to the physical; it is either a subtle physical world or a very material vital domain. In all the subtle domains the physical is reproduced... the subtle wandering is on the contrary a frequent phenomenon, only when it is near to the physical world, all seems very material and concrete and the association of physical habits and physical Page 193 mental movements with the subtle events is closer. Vital Experiences The place where you were [ in a dream ] is as much a world of fact and reality as is the material world and its... Beings of Other Planes The case of the girl in question seems to be of a fairly common kind. In one way or another a certain subtle faculty is awakened by which there is contact with some other plane of consciousness and its beings, usually with the vital or larger "life" worlds behind the material plane. These experiences are often of little value, trivial and full of misleading conceptions, messages ...
... the waves of gratitude that should go straight, straight to their true goal: the supreme Lord. I always refrain from having anything to do with those people, whether they are on earth or in the subtle world. Whatever the Lord wills for us He will always give us, and I prefer to receive it directly rather than through intermediaries, however great they may be." ( Later, regarding a recent note ...
... interfere with the images rising in you. It does not matter whether they are mental or psychic. One must have experiences not only of the true psychic but of the inner mental, the inner vital and subtle physical worlds or planes of consciousness. The occurrence of images is a sign that these are opening and to inhibit them would mean to inhibit the expansion of consciousness and experience without which this ...
... which still attach it to the earth or to the vital worlds, so that it may pass quickly to its rest in the psychic peace. Sri Aurobindo Letters on Yoga - I: Rebirth (1) The psychic being stands behind mind, life and body, supporting them; so also the psychic world is not one world in the scale like the mental, vital or physical worlds, but stands behind all these and it is there that the... question of their going straight up into higher worlds of manifestation. Nirvana or Moksha is a liberated condition of the being, not a world—it is a withdrawal from the worlds and the manifestation. The analogy of pitṛyāna and devayāna can hardly be mentioned in this connection. (3) The condition of the souls that retire into the psychic world is entirely static; each withdraws into himself... vital physical world near earth, etc., etc. A horrible confusion for the most part—a hotch-potch of all sorts of things coming through a medium of "astral" grey light and shadow. Many communicants seem to be people who have just gone across into a subtle world where they feel surrounded by an improved edition of the earthly life and think that that is the real and definitive other world after earth—but ...
... stand them with absolute calm; nor must it pay attention to compliments, forgetting that each movement of self-satisfaction is an offering at the altar of the lords of falsehood. The beings of the subtle world of the life-force, with which our vital is connected, live and flourish on the worship of their devotees, and that is why they are always inspiring new-cults and religions so that their feasts of... the least bit, and whenever the vital tends to air its petty grievances with pompous exaggeration just stop to consider how very happy you are, compared to Page 49 so many in this world. Reflect for a moment on what the soldiers who fought in the last war had to go through. If you had to bear such hardships you would realise the utter silliness of your dissatisfactions. And yet I do ...
... stand them with absolute calm; nor must it pay attention to compliments, forgetting that each movement of self-satisfaction is an offering at the altar of the lords of falsehood. The beings of the subtle world of the life-force, with which our vital is connected, live and flourish on the worship of their devotees, and that is why they are always inspiring new cults and religions so that their feasts of... disturbed. Let nothing ruffle you the least bit, and whenever the vital tends to air its petty grievances with pompous exaggeration just stop to consider how very happy you are, compared to so many in this world. Reflect for a moment on what the soldiers who fought in the last war had to go through. If you had to bear such hardships you would realise the utter silliness of your dissatisfactions. And yet I do ...
... precise than this one (with the ordinary eyes) . And I tell you, this is the best way to read Savitri , because one comes in contact with something much superior to us, — that which governs this subtle world. And the things are infinitely clear up there. That is why one understands better, and it comes like a revelation.... Mother, talking of Savitri , I remember that you had spoken to ...
... consciousness, has nothing physical in it, but it carried Dante in his peregrinations through all the worlds even to the very presence of God in heaven, to the presence Page 24 of his divinised Beloved (in and with his very physical body, it is said). You have to create the subtle world of feeling: it may be dwelling within you or enclosing -you, surrounding you, it may be immanent... only they seem to be slow in their action and not efficient enough under the present circumstances. But man's destiny is not to be confined to this sphere of the triple world. He has a higher destiny transcending these lower worlds and that is being worked out elsewhere deep within him. He has a destiny which even the gods envy; for he has the Divine's own home in him. It is God himself who is implanted... immanent and circumambient – both are the same in that sphere of existence or consciousness. The outer world is more or less independent of you, you have not much control over it but the subtler ground is more pliant and plastic and obedient to your will and purpose. In the midst of all trouble and tribulation, even the greatest misery, this other realm you can build up to a great extent after your heart ...
... All those sculptors who have made images of gods and goddesses must have had a vision of the Mother in some subtle world. That is why they were inspired to carve these images. I was awestruck. We humans could gaze at the Mother’s divine Body in a human form from so close in this mortal world! Gaze and be blessed! It is one thing to be able to see these incomparable Feet in a painting or a statue but ...
... know of worlds – vital worlds – which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. Many have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic experiences or unconsciously in nightmare. They bear testimony to the stark monstrosity of these worlds – the gloom, the fear, the pain and torture, the doom and damnation that reign there. That entire inner world seems... upon earth in the shape of a happy city (the city of the Raghus): today we have done the opposite miracle, the devil's capital city is installed upon earth, or even something worse. For, in the subtler worlds there is a saving grace, after all. If you have within you somewhere an aspiration, a trust, a faith, a light the enemy cannot touch you or maul you badly. You may have also around you there beings... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 3 PART SIX The End of a Civilisation THE world has been going down in its course of degradation with an increased momentum since the very beginning of the present century. One of the great symptoms of the decline is the prevalence of wars. It can be said in fact that there has been no ...
... through all the worlds even to the very presence of God in heaven, to the presence of his divinised Beloved (in and with his very physical body, it is said). You have to create the subtle world of feeling: it may be dwelling within you or enclosing you, surrounding you; it may be immanent or circumambient—both are the same in that sphere of existence or consciousness. The outer world is more or less... they seem to be slow in their action and not efficient enough under the present circumstances. But man's destiny is not to be confined to this sphere of the triple world. He has a higher destiny transcending these lower worlds and that is being worked out elsewhere deep within him. He has a destiny which even the Gods envy; for he has the Divine's own home in him. It is God himself who is implanted... There are two realms—the physical realm of action and the subtle realm of feeling (bh ā va). It is not that the physical is the only real realm and the subtle is unreal or less real; the subtle may be equally real, even more real and concrete, even more physical, as it were. A physical blow is painful, but King Lear went mad because of a subtle blow, the blow of ingratitude which hit him more than the ...
... like this construction of an ideal place... It's a pity this subtle world can't be photographed! January 18, 1964 MA V-28-29 ... I saw [an Ashramite] this morning, the person who went to America, who knew Kennedy and even spoke to him about the possibility of openly joining with Russia so as to exert pressure on the world and prevent armed disputes (he said, "to settle all border and... creation, by-passing the process of ordinary Nature. Then through them the true supramental beings will be born, who will necessarily have to live in a supramental world. But how would contact be made between these beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a transformation of nature sufficient to enable this supramental creation to take place on earth? I don't know. Of course, we know... comparison! (silence) But the problem remains: Buddha and all the rest have FIRST realized, then resumed contact with the world. That makes it very simple. But for the total realization of what I envisage, isn't it indispensable to remain in the world? .. (Mother is absorbed for a while, gazing into the distance) I am constantly seeing images! Not images, living things ...
... know of worlds—vital worlds—which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. Many have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic experiences or unconsciously in nightmare. They bear testimony to the stark monstrosity of these worlds—the gloom, the fear, the pain and torture, the doom and damnation that reign there. That entire inner world seems... upon earth in the shape of a happy city (the city of the Raghus): today we have done the opposite miracle, the devil's capital city is installed upon earth, or even something worse. For, in the subtler worlds there is a saving grace, after all. If you have within you somewhere an Page 2 aspiration, a trust, a faith, a light, the enemy cannot touch you or maul you badly. You may have... The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 6 The end of a civilisation The world has been going down in its course of degradation with an increased momentum since the very beginning of the present century. One of the great symptoms of the decline is the prevalence of wars. It can be said in fact that there has been no real peace or even truce upon earth since the ...
... and each step of its fears, apprehensions, laws and legal catastrophes, like an octopus. It is the veil between the two worlds. It is truly the veil of death. So we say the “concrete,” real world is on one side and the impalpable, “invisible” world is on the other, a “subtle” world, though perhaps physical. But if the veil, that opaque periphery, wore down and fell, if our cells perceived reality, what... It is perhaps for this reason that the wearing thin of the veil is slow, merciful and chaotic. There are no chosen ones, mind you : all of evolution is chosen. And we always come back to those two worlds existing side by side, one within the other, two “humanities,” one might say, one slowly opening the eyes of its cells, slowly spinning a new body of beauty and joy, and the other, laggard, which by... the last unveiling and perfect plenitude. One must really change the death of Matter, it is not sufficient to overleap it into another species. It is in the body that the veil that separates the two worlds must be destroyed. And one morning, I saw Mother arrive with four verses of Savitri from “The debate of Love and Death”: The great stars burn with my unceasing fire And life and death are ...
... empty-handed. And even today she never fails to make as many handkerchiefs as she can in order to offer them to Her. The Mother must certainly be still appreciating these handkerchiefs from the subtle world and blessing Smriti with Her infinite love. Sumedha, Sudha, Kokila, Nirata and several other young girls from the school used to offer all kinds of embroidered things to the Mother, all exquisitely... eternal. Eternity is my birthright.’ On this day our soul bows to the Mother in a movement of total faith and devotion with the resolve to walk on the path of life with renewed energy. In the outside world this day also brings every year a special happiness and love into our lives. Many of the Mother’s children who live far away come rushing back to the Ashram even today in order to offer their pranam... heart. On this day we felt love for each and every thing: love and affection for one and all would flow out from the inmost heart! How my heart has bloomed today, In warm embrace with the world at play, Ah, what’s this feeling at break of light? Whose face to touch my eyes delight? We would inwardly bow down to the Mother and launch a new year on our birthday. Be it young ...
... how to go there. 13 August 1964 ( During sleep a sadhak had a vision of Sri Aurobindo in his subtle physical body living in the subtle physical world. He sent a report of his vision to Mother, who replied: ) Sri Aurobindo shows himself according to the need of each one and in the subtle physical the things are not as fixed as they are here. Attach more importance to the feeling produced... concrete (in the subtle physical), was sitting over the whole compound during the meditation. 28 August 1962 Last night, we (you and I and some others) were together for quite a long time in the permanent dwelling-place of Sri Aurobindo which exists in the subtle physical (what Sri Aurobindo called the true physical). 1 February 1963 Sri Aurobindo is in the subtle physical, you can... contrary, it is quite correct, he has never been so alive as now! 5 December 1967 Sri Aurobindo is constantly in the subtle physical, very active there. I see him almost daily, and last night I spent many hours with him. If you become conscious in the subtle physical you will surely meet him, it is what he called the true physical—it has nothing to do with the psychic. 21 December ...
... so many useful things that it is impossible to describe in words: the way She talked, the way She looked, the freshness and beauty of every bodily movement beckoned us, as it were, towards some subtler world and transported us onto streams of ananda . From the ocean of bliss an arrow has come today. The Mother of Bliss is Herself present in our midst. Doubts, despair, sorrows, death—nothing can... had put the shield of the sun at the time of his birth, the divine Mother Herself, Aditi, was our shield. And this shield will protect us forever. It will protect us now from the attacks of the subtle world. * After the Mother’s physical withdrawal Nolini-da wrote: So long her physical body was our protection; we did not suffer the full consequences of our Karma because her body acted as a... different groups and even the spectators feel the same power of the Mother. The Mother came and always stood in front of the map of India to take the salute during the March Past. Those who have a subtle sight are still blessed with that vision of the Mother. * One could never go to the Mother with a complaint against anybody. Even if we had noticed the gravest of faults in somebody’s nature ...
... part in the terrestrial movements by throwing into them his guiding light and loving solicitude. And yet Narada is not the last word of the human evolution. Because he is still in the end of the subtle world, he has not undergone the material bodily transformation, he has not yet arrived at the golden body of which Sri Aurobindo speaks, the receptacle of Life Divine. The divinely trans- formed human... all pundits, are proverbially supposed to be very unpractical. That is to say, they are so much engrossed in their study, in their books, in abstract things that they lose their sense of the material world, of the external things. So, once it seems, a pundit wanted to know what a pig was: "I have heard of a pig, a boar, what is it? I have not seen it." Someone answered: "It is an animal." "What kind of... development of the spark into the being, and the being into higher beings? Life is the agent, life-forces are the artisans that do this work. Life means a series of experiences, impacts of the surrounding world upon yourself, your mind and body and sensation. These are like fuel that you pour into the flame, that feed and increase that flame. Life after life you have to gather these experiences that fortify ...
... "2, 3, 4, 5, 6", they will say, "What does your number mean, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6? Nothing at all." These things can be taken usefully as symbols and as a means of bringing a more subtle world in contact with a more material world. They may be used in this way, that's all. But if, instead of the millions of people who use the present calendar, there were only three or four, it would be pointless to say... this Page 91 convention is adopted, it may be utilised to do a certain work. But it has only a relative value in proportion to the number of people who have adopted it. In this relative world, everything is necessarily relative. So things should not be taken literally, for that makes your mind small and narrow. The more primitive people are, the more simple-minded they are, and these ...
... been pointed out, is her hold upon life and the actualities of material existence; whereas the thing that characterises Asia as a separate organism is her grasp of the Spirit, the realities of a subtle world. Thus considered, the two need not, it is urged, be necessarily contradictory, they may as well be complementary to each other; and if mankind has the will to it, a union, even a fusion of them... life in its manifold expression is moulded according to a definite pattern, forming a closed circle; on the other hand, Asia basing herself upon the spiritual and the Page 148 other world has in quite a different way fashioned an altogether different culture-complex. One cannot take some spiritual element out of Asiatic culture and mix it with some profane element extracted from European... desire cherished, no doubt, by sentimental visionaries, but it is bound to come to grief in the end, when brought to face the realities of life and the stern forces that shape the forms of the concrete world. But is it after all an incontrovertible fact that Europe is Europe and Asia Asia? It is now too late in the day to maintain that Asia was always dreamy and metaphysical and that she always ...
... India was no longer divided. Mother India herself, the World-Mother revealed herself. And this unforgettable event happened before Sri Aurobindo’s physical withdrawal. Mother India herself had come down in a human form. By drawing this form with Her own hand, the Mother showed the whole world that India could not remain divided. In the subtle world this division has not happened: …the division was... India. The Director-General of All India Radio then was A. S. Bokhari and the director of the Calcutta station was Ashoke Sen. Once on Mr. Bokhari’s and Mr. Sen’s invitation the ‘Vishvakavi’ (the World-Poet) visited the radio station. When Rabindranath arrived everyone got busy to welcome him with due honour and respect. I was among the various people and artists present that day. Mr. Bokhari and... service of his motherland. He vowed that the country had to be freed from the shackles of foreign domination. At about the same time another Indian set out for the West in order to lay before the world the real truth about his country and the sanatana dharma . This was Swami Vivekananda. Eighteen ninety-three turned into a memorable year as it witnessed two voyages in opposite directions by two ...
... from our co-revolutionaries — Bijoy Nag, Nolini Gupta, Upen Banerjee and Hrishikesh. We heard that around the year 1920 Sri Aurobindo had said that India’s freedom was already a reality in the subtle world; its earthly manifestation was being delayed only due to our own defects…. I asked my wife, “Is it true that you have become a fortuneteller, that you are telling people truths about their past... goes into trance ) But she did not belong to this world. She belonged to the world of Gandharvas. Do you understand what it means? There are beings who take birth from time to time, who come down upon earth to complete some experience or realisation, and your mother is one of them. She lives there, above our earth, but very close to us, in the world of Gandharvas; these beings are blessed with exceptional... Sudhir Kumar Sarkar: A Spirit Indomitable Suniti Devi – Sudhir’s Wife Part I The Mother said she was a being from another world. Here is a portion of the Mother’s talk on Suniti Devi with her son Mona. Mona: Mother, here is the photo of my mother that you wanted to see. The Mother: Ah! show it to me. She is your mother… ( The Mother concentrates on ...
... discussion, I repeat, has been a lot of unnecessary excitement—what could be called a quarrel among ants or, as one says in French, "Il n'y a pas de quoi fouetter un chat." 2 There is a subtle world where you can see all possible subjects for paintings, novels, plays of all kinds, even the cinema. It is from there that most authors receive their inspiration. ( A teacher suggested that... correct language. Page 147 Stop reading all this nonsense. The occultism that can be found in books is vital and most dangerous. If you want to know what is really happening in the world, you should not read newspapers of any sort, for they are full of lies. To read a newspaper is to take part in the great collective falsehoods. 2 February 1970 Mother, How can one ...
... same things become lovely, it all becomes interesting, but in themselves, for themselves, they are NOTHING. It's the first time I have felt that so intensely. Because I felt it in the subtle world (in the material world it's always mixed with all kinds of trouble and effort and difficulty, so it's completely different), there, things are absolutely free of difficulties, completely harmonious, really... aspiration ). Life anywhere—anywhere, in any part of the world (of the universe) and in any conditions, even the easiest and harmonious, is not worth living without this intensity of aspiration, of the NEED to be divine. It's the first time. In the past, when I went to all those regions, there were always very interesting things; and in the subtle physical, as a rule I was always with Sri Aurobindo—I... (sign or cause) of a disorder. We know there is still plenty of it. It's a slow work, a whole world! When you ... (how should I put it?) when you descend into (one can say descend or concentrate on) this cellular constitution of the body, on the body's scale, it's an innumerable world! An innumerable world. Everything is as though made up of innumerable tiny points, and each point has to be awakened ...
... different, regular South Indian Brahmin features. But curiously enough, exactly after two years I saw that man had changed to what I had seen of him in vision. These things are thrown out from the subtle world to the surface consciousness. There is another instance; I was a great tea addict and could not do any work without a cup of tea. The management of tea was in charge of my brother-in-law. He used... Swami Bhaskaranand, "What will happen to our Aurobindo ?" He replied, "The Divine Mother has taken him in her arms; nothing will happen to him. But he is not your Aurobindo . He is world's Aurobindo and the world will be filled with his perfume.". Another time I was taken by Jatin Banerji to a Swami Narayan Jyotishi who foretold about my three trials, white enemies and also my release. When my ...
... be light and peace in all the worlds. 44 Savitri moved still onwards and entered the "night of God," a region beyond knowledge and wisdom, outside the pale of any human light and love. Here, she realised that, Her self was nothing, God alone was all, Yet God she knew not but only knew he was. A sacred darkness brooded now within, The world was a deep darkness great and... These Gods and Goddesses were he and she: The Mother was she of Beauty and Delight, The Word in Brahma's vast creating clasp. The World-Puissance on almighty Shiva's lap, — The Master and the Mother of all lives Watching the worlds their twin regard had made, And Krishna and Radha for ever entwined in bliss, And Adorer and Adored self-lost and one. 51 Savitri... identity. Then with a magic transformation's speed They rushed into each other and grew one. 59 After finding her soul Savitri returns to her human and earthly environment. The subtle world withdraws behind a luminous veil of inner sight and Savitri experiences within her the harmonising oneness of life, mind and soul. She invokes the Supreme Mother to descend into her earthly body ...
... disprove the existence of God. The fact of a material world to which our instruments are accorded does not disprove the existence of less material worlds which certain subtler instruments can show to us. Occult Forces [ Occult forces: ] The forces that can only be known by going behind the veil of apparent phenomena—especially the forces of the subtle physical and supraphysical planes. Nature-forces... cal or subtle physical worlds and do not receive anything higher at all. Not much confidence can be placed in all that [ communications from spirit guides on other planes ]. If examined closely it will be seen that these spirit guides only suggest to their subjects what is in the mind of the sitter or sitters or in the air and it comes to very little. Influences from the other worlds there are... vital physical world near earth, etc. etc. A horrible confusion for the most part—a hotch-potch of all sorts of things coming through a medium of "astral" grey light and shadow. Many communicants seem to be people who have just gone across into some subtle world where they feel surrounded by an improved edition of the earthly life and think that is the real and definitive other world after earth—but ...
... one of the Nivedita type. If also a certain number of votes can be recorded for Richard in Chandernagore so much the better; for that will mean a practical beginning, a tendency from the Sukshma [subtle] world materialised initially in the Sthula [gross]. If you think this can be done, please get it done,— always taking care not to expose yourself. For your main work is not political but spiritual.... to a great extent, Laporte and Richard. Richard is not only a personal friend of mine and a brother in the Yoga, but he wishes like myself, and in his own way works for a general renovation of the world by which the present European civilisation shall be replaced by a spiritual civilisation. In that change the resurrection of the Asiatic races and especially of India is an essential point. He and Madame... if possible, of active result which would be a foundation for the future and enable us at the next election to present one or other of these candidates with a fair chance of success." The First World War intervened and the whole political situation changed. "I want to know whether it is possible without your exposing yourself to have the idea spread in Chandernagore, especially among the younger ...
... dreams he has died? Yes. I see that. Also the end: I see the end. I see several images. So I would be very interested to know which one would take those images—those images are somewhere in a subtle world. We'll see to that. Even if it takes a few years, two or three years, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But you'll have a sequel, won't you? ( Satprem opens his hands ) There... or invisible: to appear just when there's a reason for them to, and to disappear when they no longer need to be there.... It opens up magnificent horizons! Yes, but it's already like that in the subtle physical. Yes-yes, but... Basically, it's the screen between life and what people call "death" that must... disappear. Because when I say that those beings "draw back within," well, to us they... you will appear to be abstractions and speculations." A friend of Satprem's in the same publishing house gave him this explanation: "Were you writing about Vietnam, the Black problem, LSD, the Third World or Marcuse, we would a priori be interested, even if we disagreed with you. But capital letters frighten us. Social peace is a topic; Peace isn't." ...
... a nobler kind." Frankness of earth, intimacy of "infant God" I have enjoyed. Earth and sky are our "close belongings" and I have fully enjoyed and possessed them. Besides, I have seen another subtler world behind this external one —the animals running wildly gave me glimpses of beings moving swiftly, the herds of deer running "became a song of evening", the king-fisher I perceived as some eternal... trance", they "Came into a new self and a new world" "The world" henceforth, "was but their twin self-finding's scene", "Or their own wedded being's vaster frame". Satyavan and Savitri "The united Two began a greater age". Then "one human moment was eternal made". Afterwards Satyavan led her to the hermitage, "her future world". There she saw "the thatch that covered the life of... symbols at our hearts". Thus "...when I found the Self, I lost the world, My other selves I lost and the body of God, The link of the finite with the Infinite. But now the goldlink comes to me with thy feet "For now another realm draws near with thee" Page 287 "A strange new world swims to me in thy gaze Approaching like a star from unknown heavens" ...
... and solidity. These are the worlds perhaps, which Sri Aurobindo refers to when he speaks of "the other earths." Beings and things have a happy, a pure beauty in their form and movement. This does not come to you merely as a thought or an imagination but a very concrete reality in which you live and move and have your being. Your sleep-world is full of many worlds, rising tier upon tier like... like hills in a mountain range. Quite at the bottom is an almost physical, a subtle physical world and at the top is the world of the spiritual or psychic being or consciousness. Page 55 You range through all of them in some way or other but you remember only partially and in snippets and you do not know which is which. It is by focussing your attention upon them and trying to ... normal life. Indeed when it is happening you feel it is happening in your waking life. You find the difference only when you wake up. As a matter of fact it is a region very near to the material world running parallel to it. And at times we are lifted bodily as it were into it and the experiences and adventures we go through are very analogous to those in normal life. Still when we are awake and ...
... solidity. These are the worlds perhaps, which Sri Aurobindo refers to when he speaks of "the other earths." Beings and things have a happy, a pure beauty in their form and movement. This does not come to you merely as a thought Page 212 or an imagination but a very concrete reality in which you live and move and have your being. your sleep-world is full of many worlds, rising tier upon tier... tier like hills in a mountain range. Quite at the bottom is an almost physical, a subtle physical world and at the top is the world of the spiritual or psychic being or consciousness. You range through all of them in some way or other but you remember only partially and in snippets and you do not know which is which. It is by focussing your attention upon them and trying to distinguish the different... the normal life. Indeed when it is happening you feel it is happening in your waking life. You find the difference only when you wake up. As a matter of fact it is a region very near to the material world running parallel to it. And at times we are lifted bodily as it were into it and the experiences and adventures we go through are very analogous to those in normal life. Still when we are awake and ...
... (I see him almost every night, but for a few days I hadn't seen him, then I met him at night ... because he is always there ( Mother makes a gesture enveloping her ), but at night, in that subtle physical world, I see him objectively, as if I were meeting him), and I said to him, " I didn't see you for a few days ," like that, in jest. Then he put on his most serious air, but with all his irony, "... there are differences so subtle that for the understanding (I am not referring to the ordinary understanding, but even for a quite spiritualized and prepared state of consciousness, which is not THE consciousness), even an insignificant, almost imperceptible, tiny little movement could bring about a catastrophe. What catastrophe? I don't know.... Like a dissolution of the world. 2 So you are ...
... them. Flying When you find yourself flying it is always the vital being in the subtle body in the vital world that is doing it. Flying during sleep over houses, streets, etc. simply means that the consciousness in the vital sheaths has gone out and is moving over places in the vital or subtle physical world (even sometimes the material); it is always in the vital sheath that one flies like... The Opening of the Inner Senses The Opening of the Inner Senses Symbols Letters on Yoga - III Chapter VII The Human World Child The child is usually the symbol of the psychic being. A dream like this of a child—especially a newborn child—usually signifies the birth (i.e. the awakening) of the soul or psychic being in the outward nature. ...
... are resemblances, there are categories, families, churches, ideals also, that is, a certain collective way of approaching the Divine, which creates a kind of church, not materialised but in a more subtle world—there are all these things—but for the details of the path, the details of yoga, it will be different according to each individual, necessarily, and conditioned physically by his present bodily... is an individual being who is truly personal, that is, who has all the characteristics of something different from all others—for in principle there are no two individualities exactly alike in the world—then, when one has succeeded in expressing the individuality one is, is exclusively, represents exclusively in the universal creation, then one is ready for the ego to disappear—but not before. It... It is this: "To enjoy him in all experience of passivity and activity, of peace and of power, of unity and of difference, is the happiness which the jiva, the individual soul manifested in the world, is obscurely seeking." Page 367 Yes. But you are not told anything about the love of riches or the love of power or the love of knowledge. You are told about the divine Love; it is not ...
... features. But curiously enough, about two years later when I met him again I found that he had completely changed to what I had seen in my vision! These things are thrown out in this way from the subtle world to the surface consciousness. Take another instance. I was in the past a great tea-addict; I could not do any work without my cup of tea. Now, the management of the tea was in the hands of my... been known as Gandhibaba. Do you think it possible to do such things? SRI AUROBINDO: It is difficult to know if the smells are all materialisations or subtle smells projected into the physical or on the senses. Many people have experiences of subtle realities. Paul Brunton told us he was always aware of some Presence accompanying him but could not identify it. When he saw my photo it did not at all... aunt asked Vishuddhananda, "What will happen to our Auro?" He replied, "The Divine Mother has taken him in her arms: nothing will happen to him. But he is not your Aurobindo, he is the world's Aurobindo and the world will be filled with his perfume." Narayan Jyotishi also, who did not know me, foretold my three trials, my white enemies and my release. When my horoscope was shown to him, he said there ...
... and talk even when I am working, it does not prevent me.... You see, for these visits I need not give an appointment or fix the place, the day and all that, it goes on continually before me in the subtle world. Whereas to come physically before me, the place has to be indicated, instructions have to be given, I have to choose the time in between my work, only then will I be able to see him, and that too... is not worth spending my time uselessly here below if my presence does not help the decisive progress of humanity. I do not have time to spend uselessly, I have many important things to do in other worlds; but it is because my presence helps that I am still here, otherwise I would have left earlier. Yes, Mother, it is because this helps that I want to Page 163 come to... was a family, and the lady was full of devotion. It was A who had brought this family. Then a strange thing happened.... This is to show you how the divine entities or else the beings of the other worlds visit us. For me it was nothing exceptional, because there is always someone who visits me from time to time. This time it was Durga Page 164 Terrace Darshan — February ...
... interfere with the images rising in you. It does not matter whether they are mental or psychic. One must have experience not only of the true psychic but of the inner mental, inner vital and subtle physical worlds or planes of consciousness. The occurrence of the images is a sign that these are opening and to inhibit them would mean to inhibit the expansion of consciousness and experience without which... "improved"—in the right way—by this time; if not, please write and keep us informed of your state of health. Above all, do not harbour that idea of an unfit body—all suggestions of that kind are a subtle attack on the will to siddhi and especially dangerous in physical matters. It has been cropping up in several people who are doing the Yoga and the first business is to expel it bag and baggage. A ...
... of the gross material world, 13 of its truths and errors, is not dealt with in Book II. This Book begins with his experiences of the Kingdom of Subtle Matter, described in Canto 2. Here, as elsewhere in this Book, the poet is not interested in an abstract characterisation of these worlds; he gives a description of Aswapati's experiences in these worlds. Each of these worlds holds for Aswapati an... Page 277 The real purpose of art is to push us beyond the limits of the gross physical and let us have a glimpse of the subtle world and its beauty and mystery. Another path to the subtle world lies through Hatha Yoga. It takes us to the subtle world as the link between pure matter and pure spirit. The aim of Hatha Yoga and its attraction to many people seems to be this promise... to the description of Savitri's Yoga. Book II is organised as follows: Canto 1: The World-Stair: we have already reviewed this canto above. It is introductory in nature and describes the varied worlds which Aswapati sees as an immobile worlds pile, a huge column of worlds upon worlds rising from the plinth of Matter and ascending into the unknowable summits of the Spirit, and also ...
... within—we discover that most of them have an affinity with or a habitual open- ing to the beings and forces of the subtler worlds; and it is these forces and beings that influence or impel their movements to their own advantage. Men are thus used as puppets by the subtle forces of the invisible worlds. Because they are ignorant of their true Self, the secret, eternal reality of their existence, because their... qualities, but the sole Sovereign of the worlds and the sole Master and Ruler of all creatures. If there is wealth in the worlds, if there is splendour and magnificence, where have they come from, if not from the Divine ? If Matter is from the Divine, then material wealth is also from Him; only, as says Sri Aurobindo, it is usurped here, in the material world, for the uses of the ego or "held by Asuric... heels of marauders and vampires. It may be argued that money is the source of much evil, but so are all forces in the world. One never thinks of eschewing fire because it burns, or water because it drowns. It is the use to which a force is put that determines its character. A world- shunning spirituality instinctively shrinks from the forces of life and has not the courage to look them in the face ...
... I can't say it was a "vision" because it was very... it was lived. It was lived in the subtle physical world, which is symbolic of Reality (the forms are symbolic of Reality, they express Reality, and at the same time they are self-existent). Almost every night I spend some time with Sri Aurobindo in that world, and things are always happening that are indications. 1 But that night, it was quite... Perfectly true. Some things were revelations about other people—not many people; not many, but those who have a true relationship with me for the work. And very different relationships, in different worlds, on different levels and for different activities. But they aren't very numerous, and it was very precise. And then I saw that what I had seen for you was perfectly correct, and that he is HERE, you... you understand: to do the work, he is with you. When I told you he was in your book, it's an absolute fact. That was one of the things I had decided to tell you one day, because... It's a world in which things are true. True, and of a reality other than the humanly conceived reality: everything becomes just an appearance; often a false appearance, false in its division, anyway. ( silence ) ...
... clear, very clear, and sharp, you know: sharp perceptions. And the body quite has the impression of being educated, of learning things—"learning" not things: learning everything. It [this subtle physical world] is like a lining, but a lining that would be more conscious. The light is very clear, the shapes very precise. ( silence ) Three or four days ago, after lunch (I rest before going... him, saying, "See how interesting it is!" And awake, I don't know what it is.... There would seem to be a whole LIFE like that—a whole life, a whole activity going on, yes, very near, probably in the subtle physical, but very near. Very, very concrete, not at all the impression of a dream. Thoroughly concrete, with sensations. And a continuity: even when I am not conscious of it, it continues, and when... not a reversal of consciousness as it usually is: it's almost imperceptible, as though intermingled ( Mother slides the fingers of her right hand between those of her left hand to show how the two worlds interpenetrate ). I see all kinds of people whom I generally didn't use to see. For instance, I didn't use to dream of P., I never used to see him at night; now I see him often, but... (how to ...
... while here, the form is the result of... ( Mother laughs ) we could say of all the falsehood spread about in the consciousness. People who see me at night (those who have this vision in the subtle world) don't see me like this ( Mother points to her body ): they see me as I am, and they tell me—they say, "Oh, but you are like this, like that...." But for the one to take the place of the other... everybody's influence. At night, for instance, the body is taller, and it's active, it does things (it's this subtle body that does things, is active and has an existence of which it is wholly conscious), and it's different from this ( Mother touches the skin of her hands ), but in the subtle physical it's a PHYSICAL body, and it's already something permanent, in the sense that you REMAIN the same, you... that in tiny details, all the time: as soon as it feels it's "something" and the Force is "something else," there's a pain here, a pain there, this goes wrong, that goes awry.... A world... a complex and thoroughly ugly world. And when it has a movement... (how could I put it?), the opposite of condensation, like a dilation, something like a dilation in the consciousness, then limits grow dim, they fade ...
... action. And such a question ought not to be answered in a narrow spirit or under the obsession of some single idea which does not take into account the many-sidedness and rich complexity of this subtle world of Nature. The law of Karma can be no rigid and mechanical canon or rough practical rule of thumb, but rather its guiding principle should be as supple a harmonist as the Spirit itself whose will... evil evil, which is a proposition of undoubted truth, though also we see in this complicated world that evil comes out of what we hold to be good, and again out of evil disengages itself something that yet turns to good. Perhaps our system of values is too rigidly precise or too narrowly relative; there are subtle things in the totality, minglings, interrelations, cross-currents, suppressed or hidden ... cosmic reflection of our limited average human intelligence, but rather the law of a greater spiritual wisdom, a means which behind all its dumb occult appearances embodies an understanding lead and a subtle management towards our total perfection. The ordinary current conception of law of Karma is dominantly ethical, but ethical in no very exalted kind. Its idea of karma is a mechanical and materialistic ...
... perfection and pleasure, however evil and perverse. Once I found myself to be not a full subtle body but a sort of pigmy with a semi-idiotic consciousness, a funny squeak and an irresponsible hurried movement. We seem to have odd beings within ourselves. Last night I was glared at by some people in the subtle world and they closed in upon me. I managed to escape back to my physical sheath, but there... to it; but the return is always possible." (22-12-1943) * * * (You know that for many years I have been in the habit of leaving my physical body and making exploratory tours in my subtle body. I leave the physical from the region of the waist. Slipping out into the other planes while I am living in Bombay, I find that I mostly get into planes that are not of a very high nature. Sometimes... my spine and when I woke up I found myself awfully sick with a peculiar broken feeling in the back. I wondered what I should do. No doctor could have helped me. Then it struck me that this sort of subtle attack can only be remedied by bringing vibrations of the highest possible consciousness into my being. So I opened Sri Aurobindo's Savitri at the passage in which he describes the avatar-like nature ...
... spent hours together in the subtle physical world "where the material life gets reorganised". It was a strange, yet coherent world; was it the creation of her memory of earthly forms, or was it "really like that"? For there were both correspondences and differences. Earlier, during her visits to the Overmind world of the Gods, she had felt similar uncertainties. The subtle physical was a curious place... actions in the subtle physical world what was striking was that one has not the sense of time, it is not the same sense - it is the content of the action that matters... and I am at many places at the same time! And so there she met almost all her disciples, only most couldn't remember. And it is well that on waking up, the majority forget their experiences in the subtle world, else they would... gave it "a kind of smiling peace". But it would be satisfied only "when truly there will be divine bodies, divine beings dealing with the world in a divine way"; but that would not happen immediately. The deeper cause of the body's dissolution, was a subtle current of disorganisation which prevented "the cohesion necessary for the cells to constitute an individual body". When the central consciousness ...
... it was something physically seen, with our eyes open, like the same world beneath our crust. A physical world within the physical world. And after calling it "subtle" physical, Sri Aurobindo and Mother went on to call it "true physical," then "true Matter." It was there, just behind that "veil of unreality." It was the real world, the real earth, without the web. And recently I unexpectedly came across... One day, we shall see. And we will not see mysterious and psychic worlds, but the earth itself, as it is. Although perhaps it is also psychic! It is the supramental earth. And we understand also why Sri Aurobindo called it "supramental": it is a world in which mental laws no longer apply. A world without the mental cage. A world where you do not think of "dying "! You quite simply are alive, but... life—or perhaps, in the other way of looking at it, when we know that That only exists. When we have nothing but a memory of beauty. And really, that "subtle physical" world, as They at first called it, seemed to be an absolutely free world. The same world, minus our laws. The same beings, minus the memory of our laws. But not beings "in vision garbs," not "apparitions," no: physical beings—Peter, John ...
... "Haven't you got beyond that!" And I let myself flow into the thing. Then I had a series of nights with Sri Aurobindo... so marvelous! You understand, I see him constantly and I go into that subtle physical world where he has his abode; the contact is almost permanent (at any rate, that's how I spend all my nights: he shows me the work, everything), but still, after this translation of Savitri he seemed... play: This whole wide world is only he and she. ( I.IV.62 ) What a marvelous work! He goes into a completely different region, so much above thought! It's constant vision, it isn't something thought out—with thought everything becomes flat, hollow, empty, empty, just like a leaf; while this is full, the full content is there, alive. It's an explanation of why the world is as it is. At the... everywhere—why change!? This is why the Force that had been in me for so long for the world to progress further made me reject precisely all that legitimized things as they are by putting you into contact with the inner joy of living—as he puts it, His Joy is there, everywhere, so nobody wants to leave the world.... In short, I was able to see the situation from above, a little higher than the creative ...
... the big fun ! And they don't in the least see that they are puppets. Not last night but the night before, I again spent the whole night with Sri Aurobindo, at least four hours in that subtle physical world. He has quite a beautiful abode there! It's magnificent— Page 267 magnificent. And it's not fluid: it's very concrete, yet at the same time not fixed! It has a suppleness that adapts... of letters): "...It is obvious that the solution lies in the Truth." So why the delay? "Because the Truth is supremely destructive of Falsehood and ill will; were It to act at once on the world as it is, little of it would remain.... It is patiently preparing its advent." It's true, I feel this: the resistance is so TOTAL that were "That" to go like this ( gesture of descent on the earth... enveloping gesture ). And the body's aspiration is just, "May That alone exist." All the rest... oof! it's nothing at all, a nuisance. "May That alone exist.... If That alone existed, what a marvelous world this would be!" That's how it feels. All the rest is either a bother or deeply ridiculous. Oh, often it's so ridiculous! At any rate, so flimsy, so dry, like a bad performance. And what becomes quite ...
... tantamount to the very well-known spiritual experience that the world as it appears to us is a vesture or symbol of an inner order of reality out of which it has been broadcast— sah paryagat —and the true causes of things are not on the surface, the so-called antecedents, but behind in the subtler world called therefore the causal world, karana jagat. Even Eddington is not so absurd or impossible... absolutes of Nature, that is to say, facts and laws governing facts that do not depend for their existence upon anything but themselves. The purely objective world without any taint of an intruding subject was the field of its inquiry. In fact, the old-world or Mediaeval Science—there was a Science even then—could not develop properly, did not strike the right line of growth, precisely because it had a strong... and velocity are two absolute determinates for alt scientific measurement, and Science after all is nothing if not a system of measurements. Now, in the normal size world, the two are easily determined; but in the sub-atomic world things are quite different; only one can be determined accurately; the more accurate the one, the less so the other; and if both are to be determined, it can be only a ...
... concerned only with the earth). Because this is always there, too: the possibility of escaping by going elsewhere. Lots of people did that in fact: they went off elsewhere, into another, more or less subtle world. Of course, there are millions of ways to escape—there is only one way to stay, and that's to truly have courage and endurance, to accept all the appearance of infirmity, the appearance of powerlessness... Aurobindo made such an effort to bring that: "This is all I can do." It seems there was a sense of tremendous effort ( laughing ): "This is all I have managed to do." The world isn't ready. That's the worst part. The world isn't ready. So then, if it is Kali, it means everything back to the melting pot, and with the means at their disposal, that may mean having to start the whole civilization... for the Divine and the other against, nothing of all that old business is there any longer: there is the complete acceptance of the Divine, but the sensation of not being ready—the sensation that the world isn't ready (it wasn't at all an individual affair, not at all, it was a terrestrial consciousness). And you clearly feel in this struggle (which lasted the whole night and the whole morning—yesterday ...
... tantamount to the very well-known spiritual experience that the world as it appears to us is a vesture or symbol of an inner order of reality out of which it has been broadcast-sah paryag ā t-and the true causes of things are not on the surface, the so-called antecedents, but behind in the subtler world called therefore the causal world, k ā rana jagat. Even Eddington is not so absurd or... absolutes of Nature, that is to say, facts and laws governing facts that do not depend for their existence upon anything but themselves. The purely objective world without any taint of an intruding subject was the field of its inquiry. In fact, the old-world or Mediaeval Science – there was a Science even then – could not develop properly, did not strike the right line of growth, precisely because it had a... position and velocity are two absolute determinates for all scientific measurement, and Science after all is nothing if not a system of measurements. Now, in the normal size world, the two are easily determined; but in the sub-atomic world things are quite different; only one can be determined accurately; the more accurate the one, the less so the other; and if both are to be determined, it can be only a ...
... magnificent peacock was taking shape (it's the symbol of victory here in India) and its tail opened out, and on it a construction appeared, like this construction of an ideal place.... It's a pity this subtle world can't be photographed! There ought to be photographic plates sensitive enough to do it. It has been tried. It would be interesting because it moves, it's like a movie. All right, then. What did... state of consciousness is habitually associated with the experience of the unreality of the world as we know it, Sri Aurobindo tells us that this perception of the world's unreality need not exist for the supramental consciousness: only Falsehood is unreal , not the world. And this is most interesting—the world has its own reality, independent of Falsehood. I suppose this will be the first effect... creation, bypassing the process of ordinary Nature. Then through them the true supramental beings will be born, who will necessarily have to live in a supramental world. But how would contact be made between these beings and the ordinary world? How to conceive of a transformation of nature sufficient to enable this supramental creation to take place on earth? I don't know. Of course, we know that such ...
... towards little me of his endless grace on the physical plane, I have had clear indications of his caring to stoop from his superb Himalayan height to show the same intimacy in various ways from the subtle world closest to the earth, where, according to the Mother and also some dream-glimpses by her disciples, he has taken his stand - until, as the Mother has declared, his work of earth-transformation... earth-scene - that my soul suddenly came to you. It could not have been the mental being on a visit, for then the soul would have projected itself more calmly, more ethereally. Nor could it have been the subtle-physical's France-ward sweep, for then some of the marked characteristics of the gross-physical would have lingered. I would have at least slightly limped and there would have been a soupcon of a... Realisation, according to Sri Aurobindo's insight into India's most ancient scripture? Some semblance of this Dawn appears to have called Sri Aurobindo's "Amal Kiran" ("The Clear Ray") to rush subtly to his dear friend's room far away at 5.30 a.m. to share in the birth of daylight. (10.9.1991) Page 238 Your sincere poignant letter has deeply moved me. I can see that Sri ...
... It was as if a veil had been removed and the reality of the subtle world from where, along with Sri Aurobindo, she watches and guides us had projected its bliss and beauty most concretely into our body's self-awareness. One may even affirm that it was as if she had put one foot forward Page 213 from that world into our earth-air and we could touch it not only with our inner... l Manifestation on 29 February 1956 in the subtle-physical layer of the earth her hopes took a still more concrete shape. No doubt, she did not envisage a quick change in general world-conditions and said on 5 September of the same year: "Before the effects of the supramental manifestation become visible and tangible, perceptible to the whole world, thousands of years have perhaps to pass." However... inner consciousness but also with the very brain-mind that deals with the physical world. A vast opening took place in hundreds of us, blending the body-sense itself with her radiant being. With every beat the heart went feeling, "She has come back." We could not see her. But a new life began under her subtle closeness. The entire being was conscious of an ecstatic melting — the sign of a ...
... 22, 1966 I saw Purani last night. It's the first time I have seen him since he went out of his body. 1 There were other people too. I saw him in a subtle physical world and he was all light blue and pink, and everything around him was pink and luminous ( Mother makes a dancing gesture ). He was pleased, oh, so pleased, he said, "Now I am happy!" ( silence... forms of life, in all the worlds and at all times, are the expression of a choice: you choose to be that way. It's very hard to put it into words.... The sort of compulsion in which we think we have to live and to which we think we are subjected had com-plete-ly vanished, and there was a perfectly spontaneous and natural perception that life on earth, life in the other worlds, and all the types of life... life on earth, and all the types of life in the other worlds, are simply a question of choice: you chose to be that way, and you constantly choose to be this way or that, or choose that this or that is going to happen; and you also choose to think you are subjected to a Fate or a Necessity or a Law that compels you—everything is a question of choice. And there was a sense of lightness, of freedom ( ...
... c reasoning. Those ideas were to them as living, true, clear and manifest as a material object. They did not consider the subtle world visionary, rather they took the subtle world for the raison d'ître of the material world. So they found no difficulty in expressing the subtle concepts of their experiences through gross symbols. Even we, the moderns, at times do the same. For instance, in poetry the... a play of Power behind the world of phenomena which at once resolves itself into more and more subtle forms and evolves from the deepest level to the grosser manifestations. The seers of yore were wont to study the origin and nature of all the different stages. of subtle forms knitting them into a system. By virtue of their spiritual insight they discovered that the world consists of different levels... that travels from the most subtle to the most gross manifestation. So there is a parallelism in the nature of all the levels of existence. As for instance, when the Vedic seers speak of fire, they mean something of which the gross form is fire and which itself is tejas (luminous energy) in its subtle form. In the spiritual Page 85 world, in its subtler form it is called energising ...
... that she makes about a fight in the subtle world where you were the only one who did not desert her? Like all her children I felt that I had to do my inner and outer work properly and I have tried to execute my responsibility as well as I could. When her body rested she would often go out of her body and fight with adverse forces in the subtle world. Somebody was needed to take care... she left her body. What did she say about the World War II? About the Partition? During the Pakistan War? During the Bangladesh War? Mother has said and written many things on these topics. I do not remember them. But I remember her saying that the asuric force wanted to destroy the Divine's work and so there occurred the Second World War. The partition of India was a mistake. The Pakistan... have become leaderless in the material world. That has brought in certain difficulties, not yet so overwhelming, into our daily activities. There is nobody now we can turn to and confide in as regards our woes, both inner and outer, and seek for guidance. Mother's main work upon earth was to bring down the Supramental Consciousness in the material world so that physical transformation or the ...
... ancestors, 'pitriyana', it becomes smoke, night, etc., attains to the world of the fathers and finally to the lunar paradise. The Brahmasutra deduces from this that the soul takes with it all the elements, even those of the subtle physical, which will be needed in the next incarnation." So a question: "Is this correct? Is the subtle physical sufficiently conscious in that case?" We shall keep... necessary to follow this uncertain and hazardous process? Does not the soul directly animate the body with all the mental, vital and subtle physical elements organised around it and necessary for the next life? Does it take up the elements of the subtle physical world? If so, how do they harmonise with the hereditary Page 333 characteristics? Above all, must it pass through the body of... this is what happens, among many other possibilities: it leaves in each domain—in the subtle physical, in the vital, in the mental domain—the corresponding beings; it leaves them with a sort of link between them, but each one keeps its independent existence, and it itself goes into the zone, the reality, the world of the psychic proper, and enters into a blissful repose for assimilation, until it has ...
... overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle world—Words-worth's "recollected in tranquillity"—and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds... ious levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have .each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known... than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turvya.) And then one can be quite unconscious, as in samadhi— that can be sushupti or tunya— or partially conscious—in swapna, for example, ...
... your face as soon as the mysteries of the other worlds are revealed to you. It is so beautiful, that in comparison, all the rest that you see in the physical world or even the best paintings will seem to you dull and without life. You understand? Oh! What forms, what beauty, what colours, what movements and what marvels are found in the subtle world. What precision, what exactitude, what variety and... reality … this is the essence. This is the truth behind things. It is in the subtle world that the truth of things is found. Everything … everything, everything is in movement. Everything advances towards this, imperceptibly, towards the goal — that is why it is in movement…. When one concentrates, one enters into the subtle world and then there is also a moment when nothing exists anymore…. Yes, it... which instils itself in the heart, the mysteries of these worlds, — not by the vision alone, but by the state of the consciousness which traverses these regions of beauty. It is this and more which one can hardly express in words. It carries you, it seizes you by the multitude of colours, by the similitude of forms, its variety of subtleness, the states of emotion and the profound sentiments. It is ...
... are resemblances, there are categories, families, churches, ideals also, that is, a certain collective way of approaching the Divine, which creates a kind of church, not materialised but in a more subtle world—there are all these things—but for the details of the path, the details of yoga, it will be different according to each individual, necessarily, and conditioned physically by his present bodily... remains in the world, so long as he chooses to work for the Divine, he will progress. Only if he withdraws into the psychic world and refuses to continue doing the Divine Work or renounces it, can he remain in a static condition outside all progress, because, as I have told you, only upon earth is there progress, only in the physical world; it is not acquired everywhere. In the psychic world there is a... by the necessity of coming upon earth, it will have completed its development and will be able to choose freely either to consecrate itself to the divine Work or go elsewhere, that is, in the higher worlds. But generally, having come to this stage, it remembers all that has happened to it and understands the great necessity of coming to the help of those who are yet struggling in the midst of difficulties ...
... rambles several years ago and the sensation was as if the spine had been smashed. But there was no physical injury left. Sri Aurobindo in Savitri has written of how a spiritual worker in the subtle world Assaults of Hell endured and Titan strokes And bore the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal. But I think that in the Ashram's history the case I have reported is the... 18 The Mother and the Beings of the Vital Plane The Mother and Sri Aurobindo did not work only on the physical plane. Behind the physical are subtle realms with influences good, bad and indifferent. The Victory Day of 24 November 1926 brought the Overmind Gods into direct alliance with our Gurus' purpose of earth-transformation and rendered... to fantastic actions which yet proved triumphant. He used to come to Hitler clad in a silver cuirass and with a silver helmet from which a plume-like flame shot forth. Taking the same form in her subtle body and exteriorising her consciousness, the Mother went to the Fuhrer Page 169 and commanded him to launch on the most fantastic-seeming action of all: an attack on Stalin's ...
... overlapping and practically simultaneous. First, there is the withdrawal and the in-gathering of consciousness and then its reappearance into expression. The consciousness retires into a secret or subtle world – Words-worth's "recollected in tranquillity" -and comes back with the riches gathered or transmuted there. But the purity of the gold thus garnered and stalled in the artistry of words and sounds... infraconscious levels also; that is to say, he can enter into and identify with the consciousness involved in life and even in Matter; he can feel and realise his oneness with the animal world, the plant world and finally the world of dead earth, of "stocks and stones" too. For all these strands of existence have each its own type of consciousness and all different from the mode of mind which is normally known... than the mind and reason, he has what may be called the overhead consciousness. (Apart from the normal consciousness, which is named jagrat, waking, the Upanishad speaks of three other increasingly subtler states of consciousness, swapna, sushupti and turiya.) And then one can be quite unconscious, as in samadhi – that can be sushupti or turiya – or partially conscious – in swapna, for example ...
... physical body, he could move freely everywhere in the world and in all worlds, in many subtle bodies simultaneously. ‘He is as it were multiplied.’ But this encounter was special, completely new. It happened because the supramental Power had entered her body. The supramental world where Sri Aurobindo has his home was very near to the material world, and like the latter it also existed in the physical... wall between the two ‘rooms’ or worlds. (‘Magically’ is a word we use for a phenomenon of which we do not know how it actually comes about.) The Mother said from her very first bodily meeting with the supramental world that she found herself to be in the ‘subtle physical’. The more she became familiar with that world, the more she described it as concrete — ‘that subtle physical is very concrete’ —... surrounding and penetrating strata through which the interchange between the higher worlds and the physical world takes place.’ 4 The term ‘subtle physical’ is also sometimes used in connection with the substance of the vital and mental worlds because it so strongly evokes everything that is too ‘subtle’ to be perceived by our senses — in connection, that is to say, with everything that ...
... to the Light and Truth. The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealt with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration to the Divine. If the peace or silence is once absolutely established... peace [ in the physical as in the vital ]—but is felt materially in the material substance, concretely in the physical mind and nervous being, as well as psychologically in the mind and vital or subtly in the subtle body. I presume that [ feeling peace concretely between the lobes of the brain ] would mean that the peace had become or was becoming very material and solid and physically tangible—"peace... Yogins recognise as the realisation of self at once individual and universal) is the basis for harmonising the inward and the outward. It will come. Peace is never easy to get in the life of the world and never constant, unless one lives deep within and bears the external activities as only a surface front of our being. Passive Peace Passive peace is not supposed to do anything. It is by the ...
... and to such a deep aspiration the world of subtle matter would only be a "brilliant courtyard". Aswapathy, therefore, "left that fine material Paradise" because he had to rise to other higher and greater worlds. Page 172 CANTO III THE GLORY AND FALL OF LIFE Having left the limits of the physical mind Aswapathy entered the world of life, the plane of vital being... OF SUBTLE MATTER Having crossed the boundaries of this gross material cosmos Aswapathy came to a world of subtle material existence where "All shapes are beautiful and all things true". This world of subtle matter is really the origin of our gross earth. In fact it is the "brilliant roof of our descending plane" and it serves to protect the material world from the operation of subtle forces... great dull barrier is removed awhile, "And we grow vessels of creative might." Ordinarily, man imitates material and vital shapes from the subtle material and vital worlds. As long as he imitates the forms of subtle matter and subtle vital planes he succeeds in giving them some kind of shape in gross matter. But when he tries to embody things beyond the range of the earth-consciousness ...
... replaced by the old habit. 85 And all of a sudden, we wonder if this formidable, indisputable “scientific” materiality of the world is anything more than a habit, an old habit of seeing things. People who see me at night (those who have this vision in the subtle world) don’t see me like this [and Mother pointed to her outer bark] : they see me as I am, and they tell me—they say, “Oh, but you are... what makes the very death and separates the two sides. It is in the body that death can be conquered, it is in the body that the veil tears. It is the body that has the key to the junction of the two worlds as in ONE—it is that that makes “Satyavan” return. The mystery of the transformation is not really the mystery of a marvellous growing young again of the bodies, nor even of the glorious change of... nucleus from its electrons. ( Red Giants and White Dwarfs: The Evolution of Stars *(Harper, 1967). always be a world like the one we know?... We can readily imagine a world where you would live in a new state which would develop according to its own laws. But would the existence of such a world cancel out this one?... So you see, here we face a problem that has yet to be solved. 89 And She was already ...
... come to be self-contained and unwilling to express themselves in life or to use the physical means prescribed for the Earth and her processes. It is as if we were living in another, a larger and subtler world and had no divine hold, perhaps little hold of any kind, upon the material and terrestrial existence. But still each must follow his nature, and there are always difficulties that have to be... these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world. Therefore the first rule of action laid down by the Gita is to do the work that should be done without any desire for the fruit, niṣkāma karma . A simple rule... This is also the only true freedom possible to man,—a freedom which he cannot have unless he outgrows his mental separativeness and becomes the conscious soul in Nature. The only free will in the world is the one divine Will of which Nature is the executrix; for she is the master and creator of all other wills. Human free-will can be real in a sense, but, like all things that belong to the modes of ...
... direction of one's head and feet. It takes a while before one realises one's orientation. I asked the Mother once about this. She told me: "During sleep, the soul often goes out and wanders in the subtle world. When it reenters the body it is indeed true that one does not know where one's head or one's feet are."' * Today is a Darshan day. Someone asked: 'Dada, what is the significance ...
... was of matter, for there was sight, touch, hearing. But hearing doesn't need to be very material: the sounds of the subtle physical life, its vibrations can be heard very well; and quite strangely, it is hearing and smell which seem to be the most permanent in the subtle physical world, more so than the perception of form—and also a certain sense of contact which is very, very concrete. Only, this heavy... outlines for us there is not only a subtle physical force but a subtle physical Matter intervening between life and gross Matter and to create in this subtle physical substance and precipitate the forms thus made into our grosser materiality is feasible. It should be possible and it is believed to be possible Page 128 for an object formed in this subtle physical substance to make a transit... already been done? Yes. Not as far as the most material plane; as far as the perceptible subtle physical—perceptible by the intermediary senses, between the physical senses and those of the subtle physical; for instance, like a breath felt as a gentle breeze, like certain perceptions of smell, like subtle perfumes. Naturally, those who have an inner vision can see, but for the most material senses ...
... more complete and much more powerful than the physical we are familiar with. She also said that the two worlds existed separately and inside one another. ‘I think that [the true physical], now that the Supramental has descended, will become more and more active on earth. For it is in the subtle physical [which in this case in the true physical] that the new creation will be formed before it descends... those who have that vision in the subtle world, do not see me like this [the Mother points at her body]. They see me like I am and they say: “Oh, but you are like this, you are like that.” But for the one to take the place of the other … ?’ 19 July 1969: ‘The physical seems to be less imperative. Before, one had the impression, well yes, that [the subtle physical] was not a “dream” like people... the supramental being … It looks like … it is even certain that the substance which will constitute this intermediary world, which is in course of being elaborated, will be a substance that is richer, more powerful, more luminous, more resilient, with certain new qualities, more subtle, more penetrating. That substance will have a sort of inherent capacity of universality, as if its degree of subtlety ...
... realisations. And a single decision: that the work for hastening the descent of the Supramental world would be done faster if He left the body in order to work more effectively in the subtle physical. And at once He left His body behind and launched Himself to conquer this domain of the subtle world which still resisted. It was not the perception of the unreality of life that made Him leave His body... if my whole body were being torn apart …and it was always Sri Aurobindo who was there to guide me. Since He left His body so many years ago, He has been working in the subtle physical to prepare the descent of the Supramental world. He has arranged everything so that this work of transformation is accomplished upon earth. And now I realise that without His help, how miserably the work of transformation... that, phou ! ( gesture ) Mother, is there a difference between Your subtle body and Your physical body? Seems to be. For the human eyes, it seems there is a difference. But… Mother, once X saw You in a dream, in a luminous body… Maybe X saw my subtle body which is transformed. The mental, the vital and also the subtle physical do not take so long to be transformed; but the physical, the ...
... we can interact with the whole Page 139 world and the Infinite Consciousness. With the help of each chakra we come into contact with a different plane. It is like the doors and windows in a house. By opening a door or a window you get into touch with a particular part of the outer world. These chakras too are all subtle centres of being, the centroids of consciousness as it... * Dada was sitting that day as if lost in thought. Very quiet. Then Chandranath asked very gently: 'Dada, you surely have to fight against all sorts of things in the subtle world?' 'Yes, it does happen,' Dada replied. 'All kinds of adverse forces, evil formations. Once I saw that someone had grabbed me from behind and was trying to stab me with a dagger through my chest... dirt and dust, Sterling pure your soul must be, As a flower washed in morning dew Your life renew for eternity. Now listen to the second song: Hail! O Lord of the world! O Life of the world, we hail. ' As it rises in the sky, , The new Sun, we hail! Behold! Thy glorious Rays ' Pervade the earth, we hail! Nature sings with me, Thy ...
... ss at present is stored the world map and the picture of the earth globe, and since recently the magnificent photos taken from space capsules and satellites of that slightly misty blue ball: the material body of our Mother the Earth. Things have not always been like that, however. During the whole of humankind’s history as known to us there were many worlds in the world, totally distinct from each... between that moment, when that was an accomplished fact, and the moment it became translated in the material world on earth? [The occult experience] took place in 1915 and the liberation in 1947 — thirty-two years.’ In this instance it took thirty-two years for an occult fact in a subtle world to become material reality on Earth. Next Sri Aurobindo asked her how the liberation would be accomplished... spiritual ideal could maintain itself in its most absolute purity.’ 3 ‘India is the Guru of the world. The future structure of the world depends on India,’ 4 wrote the Mother, and also: ‘India must be saved for the good of the world since India alone can lead the world to peace and a new world order.’ 5 Statements of this kind — and there are many more — will strike some as exaggerated, to ...
... adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealt with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration to the Divine." So?... Sweet Mother, what are the adverse powers of the subtle physical? What are the adverse forces? There are as many of them as there are elements in the world. Only, unless they express themselves... thoughts. There are good ones, there are bad ones; and behind that there are all the formations of the vital world, a world essentially hostile to the Divine. Only the vital in man, under the psychic influence, can change and become a collaborator in the divine work. Otherwise, the vital world is essentially formed of beings hostile to the divine work, and those who open themselves to these forces... mind is just a mode of activity, whereas there is a mental substance as there is a vital Page 306 substance and physical substance. And as there is a substance, there is a corresponding world with an autonomous existence, that is to say, there can be a mind without any physical support. The physical body may disappear and the mind can continue to exist. It is here that it is important to ...
... I have kept of those, are the three she opened on 29 July 1993 — perhaps because by then she seemed to be withdrawing pretty fast, to quietly fade away into the more ‘real’ world the Mother has prepared in the subtle world. At any rate, these three seem significant if not prophetic. The first was that of August 17, 1913: O Lord, Master of our life, let us soar very high above all care... I was not afraid. Then they went away." Who were those ‘surgeons’? Why six, because each was the god of a particular region, plane, kosha? Did they prepare her for that ‘Ashram’ in the subtle world set up by Sri Aurobindo and Mother, we are told — that place where...? It seems appropriate to paraphrase here Nayana’s experience as described in his biography I have been quoting from: ... cauldron of soup. Thereafter, each one would go to the Mother with his cup into which she would pour some soup. In this way, writes K.D. Sethna, Mother gave to each participant "her own luminous subtle-physical substance and energy — a most concrete transference of spirituality into the physical stuff". In Madras, while Amma had never shirked her duties, she felt more attuned when attending ...
... But sometimes, when the general doubt came and assailed her, in front of her body’s impotence, She had a cry: Lots of people did that in fact: they went off elsewhere, into another, more or less subtle world. Of course, there are millions of ways to escape—there is only one way to stay, and that's to truly have courage and endurance, to accept all the appearance of infirmity, the appearance of powerlessness... fruit juice. A central NO. But the whole world was in it. It was the problem of the world, not the problem of a yogic and dietetic tour de force. And could one take that leap forward if nothing followed? What is the point of being the new species all alone? And the triple acceleration accelerated more and more. More and More, More and More... The world, too, was following its accelerated curve... which, if you got hold of it without being wholly on the true side in one second you could be the cause of a frightful catastrophe. Something like a dissolution of the world. 21 Is it that that will allow the screen of the world to be suddenly lifted, one day, when everything is ready? And it is not a “power,” really: one is the whole earth, as one is one’s own body, without fuss or even sensation ...
... Sleep and Dreams The physical is not the only world; there are others that we become aware of through dream records, through the subtle senses, through influences and contacts, through imagination, intuition and vision.... In sleep we leave the physical body, only a subconscient residue remaining, and enter all planes and all sorts of worlds. In each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happenings... meaning which is difficult to find and not very much worth knowing even if it is found. Other dreams are either simply happenings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds or else belong to the wider mental, vital Page 240 or subtle physical planes and have a meaning which the figures of the dream are trying to communicate. Letters on Yoga, p. 1491 It is a very small number... and nothing remains except the surface self and the outward world — much as the veil of the sunlight hides from us the vast worlds of the stars that are behind it. Sleep is a going inward in which the surface self and the outside world are put away from our sense and vision. But in ordinary sleep we do not become aware of the worlds within; the being seems submerged in a deep subconscience. On ...
... The Synthesis of Yoga. Paul Richard also contributed with The Eternal Wisdom, a selection of the finest thoughts of the world's seers, saints and savants, and the Where fore of the Worlds in which he commenced a fundamental enquiry into the origin and evolution of the worlds. Mirra helped with the translations from the Arya for the French Revue, took care of the accounts, maintained in her own... formulated in the Arya and which, with the passage of time, have gained increasing acceptance. Moreover, the fact that the Arya appeared at a time when the First World War broke out cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence. In the subtle world of thought the Arya represented a counterpoise of spiritual knowledge and harmony against the vibrations let loose by the senseless destruction of the war. ... much.' Mirra had a natural disposition for occult experiences and by the time she was twelve she was practising occultism as a conscious discipline. She would go out of her body and enter strange worlds which were not always pleasant. But she was fearless. Talking about her experiences of this time she later said, 'But I must say I had no fear — I feared nothing. One goes out of one's body, one is ...
... or some meaning which is difficult to find and not very much worth knowing even if it is found. Other dreams are either simply happenings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds or else belong to the wider mental, vital or subtle physical plane and have a meaning which the figures of the dream are trying to communicate. It often happens that when something is thrown out of the waking... happenings of other (not physical) worlds and yourself in sleep go there and act there. Very often these things have an importance for the sadhana. So you need not regret seeing all this when you sleep or meditate. But in no case should you fear. The fact that you were able to destroy the beings that fought with you (these were beings of a hostile vital world) is very good, for it shows that in... people, not known in the physical life or not belonging at all to the physical world. In the waking state you are conscious only of a certain limited field and action of your nature. In sleep you can become vividly aware of things beyond this field—a larger mental or vital nature behind the waking state or else a subtler physical or a subconscient nature which contains much that is there in you but ...
... this gross material world and resolves everything into the monism of gross Matter, the Vedanta, which is perfectly aware that gross matter can all be resolved into a single principle, does not pause at this discovery; it has pursued its investigations into two other worlds which surround & interpenetrate ours like two concentric but larger circles, the psychic or dream world of subtle Matter and the spiritual... from a far vaster universe of forms built out of subtler matter than our senses can either show or imply to us. And when she has entered into that subtler world with fit instruments of observation and analysis, that too she will relentlessly resolve into mere images of the subtler ether out of Page 379 which it is born. Behind that subtler universe also there looms a profounder and vaster... consciousness, as the unmanifest world of that something more elemental than thought (may it not be causal, elemental Will?), in which Shakespeare's imaginations lie as yet unformed and undifferentiated; then he comes to a surface of consciousness visible to Shakespeare as the inwardly manifest world of subtle matter or thought in which those imaginations take subtle thought-shapes Page 388 ...
... physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds." (Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 635) "... there are all the difficulties of ignorance of the different states of being, to which are added the endless malice and the unbounded cunning of the hostile forces in the world." (The Mother, Questions and Answers 1950-51, M C W, Vol. 4, pp.... difficulties, stumbles or falls." (Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed., p. 1731) By the way, it should not be thought that all the subtle forces belonging to the supraphysical realms are invariably forces of darkness and try to perpetuate the reign of evil in the world. There are beings and forces of Light too which are very much helpful to the sadhaka' s sadhana and co-operate with the action of the... victory of King Shaddai. Does it mean then that we, in our spiritual sadhana, have to confront not only the common weaknesses and obstacles of our lower Nature but also the more devious and subtle oppositions of Page 332 invisible hostile forces and evil-intentioned beings who try to frustrate our spiritual advancement? Yes, such is the experiential testimony given by the ...
... orange or red-gold light is the light of the Supramental in the physical, and the whole effort of the Master and the Mother is to emanate into our outer material world the Supermind's Truth-luminosity which is theirs in this world's inner subtle-physical background where they have now joined their forces. Page 133 ... august accountant, keeps her roll. All around me now the Titan forces press; This world is theirs, they hold its days in fee; I am full of wounds and the fight merciless. Is it not yet Thy hour of victory? Even as Thou wilt! What still to Fate Thou owest, O Ancient of the worlds, Thou knowest, Thou knowest. 1 1 Collected Poems, SABCL, Vol. 5, Page 130... Aurobindo had been seen by me at the end of 1950. The side-by-sideness which it first glimpsed in that purse presaged the sight of her after she had discarded her body and taken up her position in the subtle world with Sri Aurobindo who had discarded his body twenty-three years earlier. The sequence of number 2, which the glimpse completed and culminated, meant for the newly seeing eye a final look at ...
... and felt by people to be thoughts of their own mind. When one practises Yoga and observes the thoughts, one sees that they come from outside, from universal Nature, from the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds etc. The proper thing is then to stand back from these thoughts, voices or suggestions, to reject them or else control them, to make the mind free and quiet and open only to the divine light... distinct, sometimes unformed and then they are given shape somewhere in us. The principal business of our mind is either a response of acceptance or refusal to these thought-waves (as also vital waves, subtle physical energy waves) or this giving a personal-mental form to thought-stuff (or vital movements) from the environing NatureForce. It was my great debt to Lele that he showed me this. "Sit in meditation... consciousness, force,—that is the triple secret. Thought and Knowledge Thought is not the giver of Knowledge but the "mediator" between the Inconscient and the Superconscient. It compels the world born from the Inconscient to reach for a Knowledge other than the instinctive vital or merely empirical, for the Knowledge that itself exceeds thought; it calls for that superconscient Knowledge and ...
... cremation ground], and then it's fire in the mouth—FULLY conscious. I have lived this in recent days. I have seen it. Last night or the night before, I spent at least two hours in a world—the subtle physical world—where the living mingle with the dead with no sense of difference, it makes absolutely no difference there. For instance, when Mridu 1 was in her body I used to see her at night maybe... It is quite remarkable that it was the body-consciousness that discovered—nine years after his passing—Sri Aurobindo's abode (experience of July 24-25, 1959 ). The world where Mother went is thus a material world, not an "inner" world. The other Matter, the true Matter? We recall that in her very last Playground class, on November 28, 1958 , Mother said: "Through each individual formation, physical... it were about to explode. So I said, "All right now, let's go see Sri Aurobindo and ask him what to do." Immediately everything became utterly calm... and I woke up in Sri Aurobindo's house in the subtle physical—a very material sensation, with everything Page 378 quite concrete. So I arrived, or rather not I but the body-consciousness arrived 2 and started explaining to Sri Aurobindo ...
... condition in order to let You know about it.) There are thieves in the subtle world just as in the outer world. But you must close to them the doors of your thoughts and feelings as carefully as a prudent man bolts the doors of his house. These suggestions of sadness, despair and suicide come from them (the thieves of the vital world), because it is when you are depressed that they are best able to rob... You must not lose patience or courage; everything will turn out all right. The condition you were in while embroidering the "Silence" flower 1 cannot return as it was before, for in this world things never repeat themselves in exactly the same way—everything changes and progresses. But the state of mental peace you have known is nothing compared to the one—much deeper and completer—which... seem to be saying that I like to see you suffer; but this is so absurd that I cannot believe it is what you mean. When with all my will I am working for the disappearance of suffering from the world, how could I want, much less like, one of my children to suffer! It would be monstrous. 7 January 1933 Page 73 Dear Mother, For the past two days I have felt a great despair ...
... to get the true helpful experiences and avoid the wrong ones. If one seeks mainly after experiences, his Yoga may become a mere self-indulgence in the lesser things of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds or in spiritual secondaries, or it may bring down a turmoil or maelstrom of the mixed and the whole or halfpseudo and stand between the soul and the Divine. That is a very sound rule of sadhana... basis that has to be laid; to get that is much more important in the beginning than to get a glimpse of the supraphysical worlds or to have visions, voices and powers. Purification and calm are the first needs in the Yoga. One may have a great wealth of experiences of that kind (worlds, visions, voices etc.) without them, but these experiences occurring in an unpurified and troubled consciousness are usually... are far from the limit yet—so no reason to despair. Do not be over-eager for experience,—for experiences you can always get, having once broken the barrier between the physical mind and the subtle planes. What you have to aspire for most is the improved quality of the recipient consciousness in you—discrimination in the mind, the unattached impersonal Witness look on all that goes on in you ...
... that each of the Mother’s gestures evoked. Her way of talking, Her way of looking, in fact everything She did had such graceful beauty and tenderness, that even today it directs us to some distant, subtle world. How can one forget the memories of those days? Why, you too have grown up in the shadow of the Mother’s Love. The Mother’s laughter, the Mother’s words have illumined your treasure-house of... embodies her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force. A third is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace. The fourth is equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate... The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding Personalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through whom she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces. For the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis that ...
... travels along with its subtle physical, vital and mental sheaths into different worlds which are other than the world of physical existence; after this intermediary travel, having shed the subtle physical sheath in the subtle physical world, vital sheath in the vital world, and mental sheath in the mental world and rest in its own world, which Sri Aurobindo calls the Psychic world, it gets reborn into... plane), Bhuvar (world' of Life), Swar(world of Illumined Mind), Mahas (world of Supermind), Janah (world of Delight), Tapas (world of Consciousness-Force) and Satyam (world of Pure Existence). These worlds are connected among themselves, each one having its own influence and pressure. A special feature of' the earth plane is that it is evolutionary in character, while other worlds are typal and... and which Sri Aurobmdo also confirms is that above the physical world, there is a Vital world, above that is a world of the Mind, and then there are several planes between the Mind world and the world of the Super-mind; these are worlds of Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive Mind and Over-mind. On the top level, there are worlds of the Super-mind, of Bliss, of Consciousness and of Existence. In ...
... he will have a better life in the next birth. Some years ago the Mother said in connection with another cancer case that was referred to her from outside, that cancer has been conquered in the subtle world and the conquest will soon materialise here. Another complicated illness I was confronted with during this period was that of a sadhak. A typical Englishman, stiff but polite, a cultured, sensitive... the old ceiling. This shows how the Mother guarded against all eventualities, inner as well as outer, and gave as little handle as possible to so-called accidents. She knew very well that shrewd and subtle occult forces were actively engaged in causing them grievous harm. Who could have imagined that Sri Aurobindo would meet with a serious accident in his own room at an unwary moment? He had asserted... in another context which involved certain hardships, if she put people to test. She replied, "Never! people have already enough difficulties, why should we add more? But there are inner tests." Too subtle, swift and mysterious are her ways to be grasped by our human mind; so I will refrain from going into the matter. On our birthdays she used to invite us specially to play a set with her. The joy that ...
... will and is capable of acting upon it, there is a ninety-nine per cent chance of not finding the true and complete remedy. The microbe is a very material expression of something living in a subtle physical world and that is why these very microbes (as I have said there 2 ) that are always around you, within you, for years together do not make you ill and then suddenly they make you fall ill. There... and if your self-control does not increase along with your sensibility, all kinds of untoward things may happen to you. But that is not the only thing. Unhappily there is much bad will in the world, and among the different kinds of bad will there is the small type that comes from ignorance and stupidity, there is the big type that comes from wickedness and there is the formidable one that is the ...
... this link of bondage snaps and the 'dead' man begins his journey proper in the other worlds. The very first region he enters into is an unpleasant one which the Mother has named "domaine de la Mort", "the domain of death". This region lies on the border between the subtle physical plane and the lower vital world. The Mother has spoken extensively about this "Death-domain" in two of her evening c... the "postmortem" supraphysical worlds, what do the ego-being and the subtle physical-vital-mental constituents of a departed person do and where do they travel to? Third Line of Inquiry. - What happens to the discarded residues of the "envelopes" of the "dead" man, of his mind and vital, once these have been finally rejected by the psychic being in the other world as useless stuff? Along... spheres of existence, the earthly-physical world and the supraphysical worlds, bring their own separate significant contributions. Now, just as in the case of an individual human being there are planes of consciousness like the physical, the vital, the mental and others, so also in the cosmic field there exist beyond the physical-material world other worlds like the vital, mental, etc. And what is ...
... surroundings: She was "human upon earthly soil" in the night, in "rain-swept woods" in the "rude cottage". The subtle, divine world withdrew from her. She sat "in the deep lotus home" in her own natural being— "on concentration's marble seat", "calling the mighty Mother of the worlds" to descend into her, "to make this earthly tenement her house". The divine Mother descended into her heart and... for now these feelings were "among her bosom's guests". When she looked at the future she found blank night and the ignorant and smiling world go happily by,—she "wondered at the careless lives of men". These two worlds were quite apart,—she in knowledge, the world indifferent. She fully realised "the fragile happiness" of "mortal love". Savitri, though intensely... thou die." "The Serpent of the threshold" that was guarding the entrance of the inner worlds, "hissing rose". But Savitri had no fear, her will remained "unshaken" and so her being "entered into the inner worlds". She had some difficulty in forcing her way "through body to the soul". In the inner world where she entered "all was there but nothing in its place". It was all a region of the vague ...
... manifestation of spirit; the idea of a sole material world becomes immediately untenable. Spirit must be capable of basing its manifestation on the Mind principle or on the Life principle and not only on the principle of Matter; there can then be and logically there should be worlds of Mind and worlds of Life; there may even be worlds founded on a subtler and more plastic, more conscious principle of Matter... idea-forces; these potent images may take form and body, endure in some subtly materialised world of thought and react on their creator: if so, we might suppose that the other worlds are buildings of this character. But if that were so, if a subjective consciousness can thus create worlds and beings, it might well be that the objective world also is a myth of Consciousness or even of our consciousness, or... the Inconscient below, with the material world created out of it, and the issue, the return back would then be a similar abrupt or precipitous transit from a material embodied world-being into the transcendent Silence. There would be no intermediate powers or realities other than Matter and Spirit, no other planes than the material, no other worlds than the world of Matter. But this idea is too trenchant ...
... view the gross material world, but this world seems to bring out into her gross forms the beauty and delight of the subtle material world. The spirit that gradually approached the creation of form in the subtle material kingdom is able to overcome the resistance of gross matter and bring out into expression some of its beauty in this gross material world. Above this subtle material plane comes the... with the kingdom of the lower and the higher vital worlds of the Spirit. Similarly the mental world when it manifests here on earth gets connected with the worlds of higher Mind and its powers and beings. The Master takes us from these mental realms to the centre of this creation and from there to the realms of the Eternal from where a Truth- world governs the whole movement of the cosmos, waiting for... times we have a total vision of all the worlds,—the whole cosmos given in a few lines which is one of the marvels of poetical expression: "He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile Erect like a mountain chariot of the Gods Motionless under an inscrutable sky. As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds Climbing with foam-manned waves ...
... Nishikanta seems to have put himself into contact with an inexhaustible source of flowing word and rhythm —with the world of sound-music, which is one province of the World of Beauty. It is part of the vital World no doubt and the joy that comes of contact with that beauty is vital—but it is a subtle vital which is not merely sensuous. It is one of the powers by which the substance of the consciousness can... understood who those beings were as he could feel the fragrance of their subtle presence and he embraced Nishikanto and said: “Do you know whom you have seen? They were none other than Lord Chaitanya and Nitai! When I saw you for the very first time I understood that your eyes were rare. You could catch glimpses of the subtle world.” Years later the Mother would remark about Nishikanto: “He has the eyes... light of his vision. His poetry achieved quality not only because of these experiences as a spiritual seeker, but also because they are combined with his subtle sensibility proper to an artist and his literary technique. This imagist has seen the world and life through the eyes of a mystic, a visionary.” [30] Sri Aurobindo on Nishikanto’s Poetry Sri Aurobindo was quite appreciative of Nishikanto’s ...
... associated with it in the physical world and lapsing into a quite different substance of which the forms and motions were much more vague, subtle, elastic and volatile than any of which the physical world is aware. This new world of matter they called subtle matter and analysed the subtle as they had analysed the gross until by a similar procession from denser to subtler they came to a finest condition... condition of all which they described as subtle ether. Out of this subtle ether a whole world of subtle forms and energies are evolved which constitute psychical existence. Beyond subtle ether matter lost its subtle characteristics and lapsed into a new kind which they could not analyse but which seemed to be the matrix out of which all material evolution proceeded. This they termed causal matter. In the... characteristic qualities distinct and unblended in the world of subtle matter. The five elemental states of gross matter are impure; they are formed out of subtle matter by the combination of the five subtle elements in certain fixed proportions, that one being given the characteristic name of ether, air, fire, water or earth in which the subtle ethereal, gaseous, igneous, fluid or solid element prevails ...
... Saint 551-2 Virgil 485, 633 Visvamitra, Rishi 92 Vivekananda, Swami 15 Werner Haubrich (Saumitra) 674 ,. The Wherefore of the Worlds 110, 120, 127 Wilson, Margaret see Nishtha Wilson, President Woodrow 398 Wordsworth, William 5-6, 111, 484, 514 World Union 573, 685-6, 755 Wretched of the Earth, The 773 Yogic Sadhan 91 Yoga Sutras 192 Younghusband, Sir Francis 409 Zen... 1966 740 experiences 'consciousness of dead on earth' 741 direct perception of inner reality of people 741 cells becoming conscious 749 the T: not within, not above 750 in the subtle-physical world 750 vision of earth's effort 752 effect on her children 752-3, 805 (cf525, 636) Terrace Darshan: 24 November 1967 753 concrete experience of the cells 766 the 'creation of eq... Presence 14, 66 studies Hindu scriptures 15-6, 32, 82, 192 occultism sleight-of-hand 17 going out of her body 18, 23, 136, 148, 152, 402, 773 makes nights conscious 20 in the region between subtle-physical and the material vital 20-1, 139 (cf 750) joins the Cosmic Movement 21, 46 with the Théons in Tlemcen 21ff, 834-6 quells the storm 23 crossing boulevard St Michel 25 plays a ...
... all that was in Itself, the worlds were created, representing the immense rainbow-coloured scale of Being in its endless variety, each peopled with myriad beings incarnating the degree of omnipotent, omnipresent and all-joyous being in which they live immortally. In this way was manifested the world of Existence, of Consciousness, of Bliss, and so came into being the worlds of the Supermind, the Tru... the higher worlds] and the relativities of the physical world, and Thy constant presence in our midst is a token of Thy active collaboration.’ And then follow four lines which will reverberate through the rest of her earthly life, the ‘Thou’ here representing the incarnated Great Mother: The Lord has willed and Thou dost execute: A new light shall break upon the earth. A new world shall be born... vital worlds corresponded to this awakening of the vital powers inside humanity. ‘Monstrous forces have swooped down upon the Earth like a hurricane,’ wrote Mirra in her diary on 8 August, when the nations were jockeying for positions in the ‘War Game.’ 39 And the Mother would say many years later: ‘The First World War was the result of an enormous descent of the forces of the vital world – the ...
... Light and Truth." "The forces that stand in the way of sadhana are the forces of the lower mental, vital and physical nature. Behind them are adverse powers of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds. These can be dealth with only after the mind and heart have become one-pointed and concentrated in the single aspiration to the Divine" Bases of Yoga. Drive away, my friend, from your mind... your last letter you have referred to the "essential nature" of man. This essential nature or Svabhava is the nature of the psychic being which evolves by means of the inner mind, inner life and subtle or inner physical and seeks to express itself in the outer nature of the mind, life & body of man. It is not the nature of the ego. Arjun was not aware of his essential nature, he was being led... * * * What Northrop is fervently preaching and some others are also advocating and propagating is only an idea, a pale and broken reflection in the mind of what is taking shape on the subtler planes of consciousness. A mental idea or ideal, however brilliant or beneficial, doesn't possess the power to realise itself fully in life, It can only give a new orientation to the thought of a few ...
... It could almost be ... it's almost like being on the borderline between two worlds. It's the same world, and it's completely different — are they two aspects of this world? I can't even say that. And yet it's the SAME world. But the amphibian lands on the same world, it is not another earth. ... And it's so subtle: if you go like this (Mother tilts her hand slightly to the right) , it's perfectly... be hit — there is no contact, they are like two worlds, one within the other. A world of physical truth and a world of physical falsehood. A world of physical freedom and a world of physical slavery. A world of physical laws and a world outside of illusory laws — which may be striking or not, fatal or not, gravitational or not... depending on whether you are here or there. Another position in matter... is possible — they are different worlds. One is a world of truth and the other is a world of falsehood. And this world of truth is PHYSICAL, it is material: it's not up above, it is material. And that's what must come to the fore and take the place of the other. (Question:) The “true physical” Sri Aurobindo spoke of? The true physical, yes. A material world where accidents, illnesses, death ...
... fullness or sovereign extreme. Overmind thus gives to the One Existence-Consciousness-Bliss the character of a teeming of infinite possibilities which can be developed into a multitude of worlds or thrown together into one world in which the endlessly variable outcome of their play is the determinant of the creation, of its process, its course and its consequence." ¹ "[In the Overmind] each God knows... way. At the rate of one chapter per day, the book was finished in a week or eight days. On the last day it seemed to Sri Aurobindo that a figure that looked like Rammohan Roy disappeared into the subtle world near the comer of the ceiling of the room. It was inferred that Rammohan Roy had dictated the book. The Editor's Epilogue added after the last chapter was written by Sri Aurobindo himself. The editor's... the book Yogic Sadhan ." ¹ V. Ramaswamy Iyengar, later known as "Va-Ra" in the Tamil literary world, had come to Pondicherry with K. V. R. Iyengar. He afterwards came and stayed with Sri Aurobindo for some time. A remarkable thing about this was that Sri Aurobindo had seen V. Ramaswamy in the subtle vision before he actually met him. He once mentioned this and another prophetic vision in a letter: ...
... spiritual beings who surround you and live upon your experiences and enjoyments" [ p. 1377 ]. What are these "spiritual beings"? They are powers, forces or beings of the mental, vital or subtle physical worlds. There are some that simply want to utilise, there are others that want to possess, oppose or destroy and are known by us as "the hostile forces". 14 April 1936 What does the author... the psychic being after it has shed its vital and other sheaths and is resting in the psychic world. Before that it passes through vital and other worlds on its way to the psychic plane. I would like to know whether it is possible to come into direct touch with those who have departed from this world. Yes, so long as they are near enough to the earth (it is usually supposed by those who have... Personalities are put out in front of her for the action and she sends down emanations of them into these lower worlds to intervene, to govern, to battle and conquer, to lead and turn their cycles, to direct the total and the individual lines of their forces" [ pp. 34-35 ]. Does this imply that the World War or the Bolshevik Revolution or the Satyagraha movement were in some manner arranged by the Mother? ...
... possession of wealth is a great obstacle and it is also a supreme opportunity. In our aim of Yoga we have to conquer the world for the Divine and if we can bring some force of wealth from the rule of vital worlds on our side, it is worthwhile. At present these forces are held by the vital world. We should win them for the Divine. 16 April 1923 Pondicherry, 16th April 1923 My dear Barin, I... interfere with the images rising in you. It does not matter whether they are mental or psychic. One must have experiences not only of the true psychic but of the inner mental, the inner vital and subtle physical worlds or planes of consciousness. The occurrence of images is a sign that these are opening and to inhibit them would mean to inhibit the expansion of consciousness and experience without which this... creation. In the case of Krishnashashi some influences from these worlds certainly entered into the cause of his collapse. I shall write about Rathin directly to his father for I don't know how long you are staying in Gauhati. I shall only say just now that it will not be good for the boy if he merely changes the control of one kind of vital world for that of another. He must become healthy normal first and ...
... great effort to climb from the gross to the subtle. Thanks to the minute investigation of the material world and Page 288 the determination of its laws by the Western scientists, the plains surrounding the path of the ascent have been cleared. The savants of the West are taking the first step into the immense kingdom of the subtle world, and many of them are allured by the hope of... ed lotus in full bloom in India's Manasarovar?... Our Aurobindo is unique in the world. In him shines the divine glory of Sattwa in snow-white purity. Vast and great is he - vast in the amplitude of his heart, and great in the magnanimity of his Swadharma as a Hindu. You will not find his peer in the three worlds - such a whole and genuine man, fire-charged like the thunder, and yet as graceful... of India and her historic role of bringing the divine Light to the benighted world. He was, however, great as a political leader and commanded the respect of the whole nation by his sincerity and self-sacrifice. Bepin Chandra Pal Bepin Chandra Pal was a versatile scholar, an eloquent speaker, a deep and subtle thinker68, and a consummate theoretician and propagandist. But as an organiser ...
... he is the builder of a new world. Indeed, what is the point of changing our consciousness if the world around us remains as it is? We would be like Hans Christian Andersen's emperor walking naked through the streets of his capital. Thus, after exploring the outermost frontiers of worlds that were not unknown to ancient wisdom, Sri Aurobindo discovered yet another world, not found on any map, which... gentle, dreamy, fatalistic people, detached from the world, only describes the effect, not the cause. "Strange" is indeed the word, because spontaneously, in their very physical substance, without the least "thought" or even "faith," Indians sink their roots very deeply into other worlds; they do not altogether belong here. In them, these other worlds rise constantly to the surface; at the least touch... devilish and "negative" names through the world's spiritual history, as if their sole aim were to damn the seeker and give decent people a Page 67 hard time. The reality is somewhat different, for where is the devil if not in God? If he is not in God, then there is not much left in God, because this world is evil enough, as are quite a few other worlds, so that not much would remain that is ...
... it must be of all the powers raised to their highest and harmonised together. All the non- evolutionary worlds are worlds of a type limited to its own harmony like the life-heavens. The Earth, on the other hand, is an evolutionary world, not at all glorious or harmonious even as a material world (except in certain appearances), but rather most sorrowful, disharmonious, imperfect. Yet in that imperfection... to get the true helpful experiences and avoid the wrong ones. If one seeks mainly after experiences, his Yoga may become a mere self-indulgence in the lesser things of the mental, vital and subtle physical worlds or in spiritual secondaries, or it may bring down a turmoil or maelstrom of the mixed and the whole or half-pseudo and stand between the soul and the Divine. That is a very sound rule of sadhana... hand and this material world of forms on the other. Beyond this nothing. It is true his verses depict some ideas and perceptions in between, but he himself looks upon these as creations of his imagination—phantasy that is. His religious belief is powerfully tinged by Brahmoism (or rather brahmo-prabhāv). The result is that he finds himself unable to admit the Devas and their worlds which are supraphysical ...
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