The Great Gods : “are in origin & essence permanent Emanations of the Divine put forth from the Supreme by the Transcendent Mother, the Ādya Shakti; in their cosmic action they are Powers & Personalities, each with an independent cosmic standing, function & work in the universe. They are not impersonal entities but cosmic Personalities; although they can & do ordinarily veil themselves behind the movement of impersonal forces. But while in the overmind & the triple world they appear as independent beings, they return in the Supermind into the One & stand there united in a single harmo¬nious action as multiple personalities of the One Person, the Divine Purushottama.” – “The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses & large extensions of space & time & relation, globally; it creates & acts in the same way – it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators. Only, each creates in his own way; he sees all but sees all from his own viewpoint. There is not the absolute supramental harmony & certitude. These, inadequately expressed, are some of the differences.” ― “Any godhead can descend by emana¬tion to the physical plane & associate himself with the evolution of a human being with whose line of manifestation he is in affinity. But these are things which cannot be very easily under¬stood by the mind, because the mind has too rigid an idea of per¬sonality – the difficulty only disappears when one enters into a more flexible consciousness above where one is nearer to the ex¬perience of One in all & All in one.” ― “There are no planes of manifestation without forms – for without form creation or manifestation cannot be complete. But the supraphysical planes are not bound to the forms like the physical. The forms there are expressive, not determinative…. As to the gods, man can build forms which they will accept but these forms too are inspired into man's mind from the planes to which the god belongs. All creation has the two sides, the formed and the formless, – the gods too are formless and yet have forms, but a godhead can take many forms, here Maheshwari, there Pallas Athene. Maheshwari herself has many forms in her lesser manifestation, Durga, Uma, Pārvati, Chandi, etc. The gods are not limited to human forms – man also has not always seen them in human forms only.” [SABCL 22:383-84; 24:1154; 22:385; 22:389]
... on, perhaps a little worse, but still it did. The background was just a year earlier — the descent of what Sri Aurobindo has called the Overmind. The Overmind, as you all know, is the world of the Great Gods and also the unity of these Gods in an all-covering Godhead. Sri Aurobindo says that so far all the spiritual inspirations have had their source in the Overmind, which is a plane of infinite diversity... miraculous power behind it. But here it was an open display of extraordinary phenomena, because at that time the process of sadhana, according to the information I have gathered, was to bring down the Great Gods of the Overmind into human receptacles. And when such a constant descent takes place all kinds of wonderful things occur. The only wonderful thing the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had not quite foreseen... Sri Aurobindo, the Mother blew it away as if it were a bagatelle! And, once it was stopped, the entire process of sadhana seems to have undergone a change. Instead of bringing down the Great Gods, the effort now was to start from the bottom, not from the top — to dig, as it were, into the subconscient and gradually prepare the purification of the human consciousness and nature and bring ...
... these words signified was explained in the letter cited in the preceding section - namely, that Krishna the Anandamaya Being, the supreme Deity, working through the Overmind plane (the plane of the great Gods), had come down into Sri Aurobindo's body. Krishna's identification with the bodily presence of Sri Aurobindo was taken to prepare the subsequent embodiment in him of Supermind. Sri Aurobindo... four Maha-Shaktis, aspects of the Divine Mother: Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. Below the Supermind and behind the universe of Mind, Life and Matter is the world of the Great Gods. They receive light from the Supramental. It is they that govern our universe. Hindu culture represented these Gods as Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva in the Puranas. What the Puranas describe as the... through all human illuminations. Also, Sri Aurobindo has accepted the essence of the great basic realisations of old - Nirvana, the All-Brahman, the Ishwara-Shakti, the Cosmic Consciousness, the great Gods and Goddesses, the Jnana, Bhakti and Karma Yogas, the Tantra. The Mother accepts this essence just as much, though she may not employ the ancient Indian terminology as easily. In the stress on ...
... inspired by him, called the Divine Mother. There was no organised life among them before this date. The occasion marked the spiritual event known as the descent of the Overmind, the world of the Great Gods, the plane of Krishna-consciousness, into the physical being of Sri Aurobindo. It is named the Victory Day, for it gave him the prospect of the culminating descent of the Highest Reality, the Supermind... A ray returning to its parent sun. In the period before we came, the Ashram-life had passed through its brightest phase — in the sense that marvellous experiences filled every hour. The Great Gods of the Overmind were felt descending and the Mother could bring out most- markedly into her physical being something of the Page 96 powers and personalities which Sri Aurobindo ...
... due process the great Gods were created. 4 These Gods wanted a habitat and sustenance: "Command unto us an habitation that we may dwell secure and eat of food." 5 The Spirit first formed animal kinds and brought them unto the Gods, but these latter found them to be altogether insufficient vehicles, no'yamalam. The Spirit finally created the form of man upon which the great Gods exclaimed, "O ...
... perfectness of joy and peace, He, like the sunflower sole of all the year, Images the divine to which he tends: So thou, sole among men. And thou today Hast a high deed perfected, saved from death The great Gods of the solar world the first, And saved with them the stars; but her today Without whom all that world would grow to shade Or grow to fire, but each way cease to live. And thou shalt gather ...
... IOLAUS Is it so? My little wind-tossed rose Andromeda! I shall be glad indeed if Heaven intends this. ANDROMEDA Where is he? IOLAUS Do you not know, little rose-sister, The great gods visit earth by splendid moments And then are lost to sight? Come, do not weep; He is not lost to Syria. Page 365 ANDROMEDA Iolaus, Why did you take the two poor foreign men ...
... rose! Vast over thee the noon is everywhere: An upward tunnel opens through the sun To expanses that have never known a name Nor broken with the faintest gossamer wing. All the great Gods are waiting thy finger-flames To rise and reach and taste with ten white tongues. Straight runs the shaft of the flawless infinite hour From pinnacle to abyss in a sheathed Now. ...
... However mighty, whatever thy secret name Uttered in hidden conclave of the gods, Thy heart's ephermeral passion cannot break The iron rampart of accomplished things With which the great Gods fence their camp in Space. Whoever thou art behind thy human mask... The cosmis Law is greater than thy will. Even God himself obeys the Laws he made: The Law abides and never ...
... this spiritual empire lasts Become the saviours of the rest." "O thou endowed with every grace And every virtue,—thou whose soul Appears upon thy lovely face, May the great gods who all control Send thee their peace. I too would give One favour more before I go; Ask something for thyself, and live Happy, and dear to all below, Till summoned to ...
... that are as yet unreached by mental man and whose manifestations in him have been rare and sporadic so far. At the top of the gradation which they form is what he calls Overmind, the world of the great Gods who are essentially One Existence and who, from the utterly divine and till now unmanifested Supermind, draw a delegated dynamism for their cosmic functions. The poetic word hailing from the Overmind ...
... little more than a year after November 24,1926, the Siddhi Day, the Day of Victory marking the descent of what Sri Aurobindo has called the Overmind, the Krishna Consciousness, the plane of the Great Gods, into the physical being of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This Victory was to prepare the descent of the supreme divine dynamism that has never directly worked in the world and that Sri Aurobindo ...
... that Agni himself takes form in us. The Divine Will becomes present and conscient in a human mind and enlightens it with the divine Knowledge. Thus it is that man can be said to form by his toil the great Gods. The Sanskrit expression is here ā kṛṇudhvam . The preposition gives the idea of a drawing upon oneself of something outside and the working or shaping it out in our own consciousness. Ā kṛ ...
... एह वक्षि ॥९॥ 9) The many Rays well governed in their course, grow passionate for the great Horse, the many-hued Bull. O divine Priest of the call, rapturous, awaking to knowledge, bring here the great gods and earth and heaven. पृक्षप्रयजो द्रविणः सुवाचः सुकेतव उषसो रेवदूषुः । उतो चिदग्ने महिना पृथिव्याः कृतं चिदेनः सं महे दशस्य ॥१०॥ 10) The swift-running dawns have shone opulently bringing ...
... greatness with the prayers of our desire for his fuel. नमो महद़्भयो नमो अर्भकेभ्यो नमो युवभ्यो नम आशिनेभ्यः । यजाम देवान् यदि शन्कवाम मा ज्यायसः शंसमा वृक्षि देवाः ॥१३॥ 13) Obeisance to the Great Gods! obeisance to the lesser! obeisance to the young! obeisance to them who are (old?) keen and swift! may we do sacrifice to the gods to the utmost of our capacity, may our self-expression not be ...
... unblown rose! Vast over thee the noon is everywhere: An upward tunnel opens through the sun To expanses that have never known a name Nor broken with the faintest gossamer wing. All the great Gods are waiting thy finger-flames To rise and reach and taste with ten white tongues. Straight runs the shaft of the flawless infinite hour From pinnacle to abyss in a sheathed Now. ...
... year is generally called the Siddhi Day or the Day of Victory, and this is understandable since the Overmind's descent forms the firm base and promise of the final step. The Overmind, the World of the Great Gods, may rightly be considered the Supermind's delegate, constituting the door to the Supreme Dynamic Divine. The ultimate Siddhi, of course, was still in the future and it was so as late as 1950 in ...
... are Gods in heaven. And this is the bliss of the Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire touches not. A hun dred and a hundredfold of this measure of bliss of the Gods of work/ is one bliss of the great Gods who are Gods for ever. And this is the bliss of the Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire touches not. A hundred and a hundredfold of this measure of divine bliss, is one bliss of Indra, the ...
... me. (4) I know these two are my sons, the twins, Kuśa and Lava; let her chastity be acknowledged by the world and let my love be restored to me." (5) Knowing the intention of Śrī Rāma, all the great gods, came for the oath-taking of Sītā. (6) Having Brahma at their head, the Ādityas, Vasus, Rudras, Viśvadevas, the hosts of Maruts, all the Sadhya gods, all great sages, the Nāgas, Suparnas and the ...
... Research (SAIIER), Auroville Parvati's Tapasya Nala and Damayanti The Siege of Troy Alexander the Great Homer and the Iliad — Sri Aurobindo and Ilion Catherine the Great Gods and the World joan of Arc The Crucifixion Other titles published by SAIIER and Shubhra Ketu Foundation The Aim of Life The Good Teacher and the Good Pupil Mystery ...
... discriminations. The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally; it creates and acts in the same way it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators. Only, each creates in his own way; he sees all but sees all from his own view-point. There is not the absolute supramental harmony and certitude. These, inadequately expressed ...
... unknown script. In the midst of this ignorant condition man feels the need of finding the solution, he feels an aspiration within him for perfection. And, in this task and search he is helped by the great gods who live in their higher planes unaffected by all the difficulties, oppositions, and conflicts of the human being "Immaculate in self-knowledge and self-power, Calm they repose on ...
... suggestion, his human-seeming limbs Brightened with a soft splendour: luminous hints Of the concealed divinity transpired. But soon with a slight discontented frown: "So much I can, as even the great Gods learn. Only with death I wrestle in vain, until My passionate godhead all becomes a doubt. Mortal, I am the light in stars, of flowers The bloom, the nameless fragrance that pervades Creation: ...
... their pleasaunce to wander unfriended, Flung down the walls and over the debris written 'tis ended. Now, and I know not yet wherefore, the Mighty One suffers you near Him, But in their coming the great Gods hesitate seeming to fear Him. Thought returns to my soul like a stranger. Sweetness and feature Draw back appalled to their kind from the frozen vasts of my nature. Turn back you also, angels ...
... mentality,—and impossible to the animal man. The dog & crow who reason from their senses, do not stand in awe of inanimate objects, or of dawn & rain & shine or expect from them favours. But the great gods of the Veda belong to a higher order than these beings who attach themselves to the individual object and the particular movement. They are great world-powers; they support the wide laws & universal ...
... are Gods in heaven. And this is the bliss of the Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire not toucheth. A hundred and a hundredfold of this measure of bliss of the Gods of work, is one bliss of the great Gods who are Gods for ever. And this is the bliss of the Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire not toucheth. A hundred and a hundredfold of this measure of divine bliss, is one bliss of Indra, the ...
... make them undifferentiated. The world of the Asuras is prior to the evolution, so are the worlds of the mental, vital or subtle physical Devas—but these beings are all different from each other. The great Gods belong to the Overmind plane; in the Supermind they are unified as aspects of the Divine, in the Overmind they appear as separate personalities. Any godhead can descend by emanation to the physical ...
... or foundation of immortality & did not reject it as an obstacle to salvation. 1 (15) The world being one in all its parts every being in it contains the universe in himself. Especially do the great gods contain all the others & their activities in themselves, so that Agni, Varuna, Indra, all of them are in reality one sole-existent deity in many forms. Man too is He, but he has to fulfil himself ...
... extensions of space and time and relation, globally, in wholes; it has the universal touch not only in spirit but in its manner. It creates and acts in the same way—for the Overmind is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators. But each Godhead creates in his own way; he sees all but that all is seen from his own divine viewpoint. There is not the absolute supramental harmony and certitude. These ...
... now the human creature enjoys by that wideness of the light. आ ये विश्वा स्वपत्यानि तस्थुः कृण्वानासो अमृतत्वाय गातुम् । मन्हा महद्भिः पृथिवी वि तस्थे माता पुत्रैरदितिर्धायसे वेः ॥९॥ The great gods set their steps on all things that have fair issue, making our path to immortality. Earth stood wide in her greatness by the great Ones and the Mother Infinite came with her sons to uphold her ...
... preach inaction; but as for those who preach inaction, I am not of the opinion of those weaklings." Na me matam tasya durbalasya . But the action he holds up as an example, is the action of the great Gods, even as Goethe speaks of the action of the great natural forces, disinterested, unwearying, self-poised in bliss, not inert with the tamas, not fretful with the rajas, not limited even by the ...
... serially. In 1926 — that is, 12 years later — there was the descent, into Sri Aurobindo's body as well as into the Mother's, of what Sri Aurobindo has termed Overmind. Overmind is the World of the Great Gods, diverse aspects of the one Divinity. It is the Plane of Krishna-Consciousness, the highest unified power of the Divine known in the past. With its descent the preparation was made and the foundation ...
... of the dynamic play of the Lord, His play of the beginningless and endless Bliss. I realised the supreme Lord with His Shakti Uma as the Two-in-One in the vast Golden Realm of Truth, which even the great gods fail to see. I realised Him as the Lord of my soul and self, present everywhere and bestowing His Grace on the devoted faithful in the depth of their hearts. I saw the supreme Lord, realised ...
... which made a special milestone on the path of the Aurobindonian Yoga. On that date in 1926 there was the descent of the Consciousness of the plane Sri Aurobindo calls "Overmind" or the plane of the great Gods, into Sri Aurobindo's body. According to him the Overmind is the highest step of the Cosmic Ladder, the top of the series of the Worlds, from where the transcendent is to be attained. This descent ...
... seekers. And here the actual glories of the Overmind are themselves responsible too. What Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have said must not lead us to look down on the Overmind. It is the plane of the Great Gods who are aspects of a single Godhead representative of the Supramental Divinity. Both the Mother and Sri Aurobindo have here declared that there has not been any Yogi who, having gone into the Overmind ...
... that are as yet unreached by mental man and whose manifestations in him have been rare and sporadic so far. At the top of the gradation which they form is what he calls Overmind, the world of the great Gods who are essentially One Existence and who, from the utterly divine and till now unmanifested Supermind, draw a delegated dynamism for their cosmic functions. The poetic word hailing from the ...
... the perfect Moral Consciousness) and, again, Krishna (the Divine as the "Overman", openly exemplifying a more-than-mental Consciousness, what Sri Aurobindo calls the Overmind, the world of the Great Gods) and, later, Buddha who shoots beyond the cosmic formula to the sheer Transcendent but to that Transcendent's absolutely immobile aspect (Nirvana, an indescribable Permanence void of all that ...
... evolution that has its beginning in Inconscience. Ours is not a typal world. A typal world is a world of fixed forms and possibilities,— as is, for instance, the world of the gods. The world of the great gods, the Overmind world, is no doubt splendid; but it stays as it is, is tied to its own kind. From it no other aspects of the multifold Transcendent can emerge, no change or progress is possible in ...
... Agni himself takes form in us. The Divine Will becomes present and conscient in a human mind and enlightens it with the divine Knowledge. Thus it is that man can be said to form by his toil the great Gods. "The Sanskrit expression is here ā krnudhvam. The preposition gives the idea of a drawing upon oneself of something outside and the working or shaping it out in our own consciousness ...
... unconditional power of love. The divinity of love appears there in the form of Kama, but Kama himself is realistically diffident about what he can do against death: So much I can, as even the great Gods learn. Only with death I wrestle in vain, until My passionate godhead all becomes a doubt. Mortal, I am the light in stars, of flowers The bloom, the nameless fragrance that pervades ...
... of a wick-lamp; one may offer water as oblations to the sea with the small measure of palms; one may even ridicule such attempts. Yet these are the very methods and means by which we can worship the great gods. Howsoever defective this whole enterprise of putting the Gita Page 111 in Marathi may therefore appear to be, yet it has its own intrinsic and enduring worth. Then, there is the ...
... swift discriminations. The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally; it creates and acts in the same way — it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators. Only, each creates in his own way; he sees all but sees all from his own viewpoint. There is not the absolute supramental harmony and certitude. These, inadequately expressed ...
... are Gods in heaven. And this is the bliss of the Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire touches not. A hundred and a hundredfold of this measure of bliss of the Gods of work, is one bliss of the great Gods who are Gods for ever. And this is the bliss of the Vedawise whose soul the blight of desire touches not. A hundred and a hundredfold of this measure of divine bliss, is one bliss of Indra, the ...
... feature in the religious culture of the ancient world, and similarly even wood-gods, river-gods, mountain-gods, house-gods, tree deities, snake deities peopled the world of ancient India. But the great gods of the Vedas, as well as the Olympians belonged to a much higher order. They were great powers, supporting universal laws and functions, and were not bound by life and matter. In Greece ...
... swift discriminations. The overmind sees calmly, steadily, in great masses and large extensions of space and time and relation, globally; it creates and acts in the same way—it is the world of the great Gods, the divine Creators. Only, each creates in his own way; he sees all but sees all from his own viewpoint. There is not the absolute supramental harmony and certitude. These, inadequately expressed ...
... blossoms fed the liquid voice of the love maddened coil ...... __________________ 11 Book I. Canto 4 12 p. 277 13. p. 288 Page 104 - - - The sunlight was the great gods golden smile All Nature was at beauty's festival." "Whoever is too great must lonely live ' Adored he walks in mighty solitude; Vain is his labour to create his kins, His only comrade ...
... harmonies in which there is no wound nor hurt; conceiving and holding the highest by the power of the illumining word, he would aspire to an increase in that plane, the proper home of the gods. Let the two great gods create in his being that wide world of their divine strength and vastness; let them bring to him its plenitude and felicity in the dawning of the divine light and the divine force.] ... × The gods. Swar is the "own house" of the Gods. × The divine force of the Truth-conscious being, called in the next verse "the force of the gods"; the Vast, bṛhat , is the constant description of that plane or "wide world",—the... पडि्भर्धावतं नरा बिभ्रतावर्चनानसम् ॥७॥ 7) To me, O lords of sacrifice, in the breaking of the dawn, in the flashing of the ray, in the force of the gods, to my wine pressed out as if 9 by men with hands come racing with your trampling steeds, O gods who bring,—to the pilgrim of the Light. 10 Page 528 × ...
... his life, increases them by the hymns and the wine and forms perfectly—as a smith forges iron, says the Veda—their great and luminous godheads. Page 25 All this Vedic imagery is easy to understand when once we have the key, but it must not be mistaken for mere imagery. The Gods are not simply poetical personifications of abstract ideas or of psychological and physical functions of Nature.... herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. Three great Gods, origin of the Puranic Trinity, largest puissances of the supreme Godhead, make possible this development and upward evolution; they support in its grand lines and fundamental energies all these... a stern warrior, he must force open and storm and sack city after city, win kingdom after kingdom, overthrow and tread down ruthlessly enemy after enemy. His whole progress is a warring of Gods and Titans, Gods and Giants, Indra and the Python, Aryan and Dasyu. Aryan adversaries even he has to face in the open field; for old friends and helpers turn into enemies; the kings of Aryan states whom he would ...
... Vishnu and Lord Brahma. Narada met the two who were but too willing to oblige him, for an opportunity to listen to Shiva singing came but rarely. The event took place with the two great Gods as well as all the other divinities and the Gandharvas and the Gandharvis constituting the grand audience. As Shiva started singing, spring came over the region, all were splashed with wonderful... might have been a few unknown and unsung), but at the collective plane the example had played an invaluable role in inspiring faith in man, in man's capacity to stick to truth despite adversity and great suffering. Or take the example of Sir Philip Sidney and his immortal last words - "Thy need is greater than mine." Nobody (or could there be some?) who had read or heard of the episode could... civilisation it is not the realisation or the promise of a cultured humanity. Therefore upon even the European civilisation of the nineteenth century with all its triumphant and teeming production, its great developments of science, its achievement in the works of the intellect we pass a certain condemnation, because it has turned Page 289 all these things to commercialism and to gross ...
... relation to the Supreme by incarnating in a human body, all the other worlds have been influenced, and influenced in an extremely interesting way. 8 I have been in contact with all those gods, all those great beings, and for the most part their attitude has changed. And even with those who didn't want to change, it has nonetheless influenced their way of being. Human experience, with this direct... God within. 10 Well, this aspect of rapport with the Supreme could exist ONLY WITH MAN, because man is a special being in universal History—the divine Presence is in him. And several of those great gods have taken human bodies JUST TO HAVE THAT. 11 But not many of them—they were so fully aware of their own perfect independence and their almightiness that they didn't NEED anything (unlike man... merely terrestrial effect but an effect on all the other worlds as well—and particularly on the gods.) None of those beings, those gods and deities of various pantheons, have the same rapport with the Supreme that man has; for man has a psychic being, in other words, the Supreme's presence within him. These gods are emanations—independent emanations—created for a special purpose and a particular action ...
... beings from other worlds, gods, various degrees and kinds of gods, great gods and small gods – disembodied or unbodied beings jostling with embodied human creatures. They had a great fascination for this meditation. They must have been tempted in view of some profit they would gain by it, as in our human cases we too expected some benefit; apart from that, there was a great fascination for this meeting... nature, not absolutely or wholly by herself, but some other great musician from another world has given his version of the Mother's music. Our Sunil's music is a peculiar case: it is exquisitely human music Page 4 grafted on the Mother's Divine music – a blend of the two. It was a great mystery, and a great, as I said, a great phenomenon, this free interchange between the physical world... speaker sometimes announced himself saying he was such and such a person. Sometimes great historical persons also came, as for example, I have described in my Reminiscences, the famous leader of the great French Revolution, Danton. In a terrible voice he cried out: I am Danton, terror, red terror, etc. Once a great politician of the ancient days, of the Greek times, appeared and started to give lessons ...
... beginning, this flame will be seen as no larger than the thumb of a man. One can even describe that flame as a Dwarf that sits in the center. It will also be found that this Dwarf is adored even by great gods like Agni, Vayu, Indra and others. Page 29 This flame is immortal and it always is. This flame grows bigger and bigger, but its growth takes a very long time. As it grows bigger and... the truth. In answer, Yama said: "This matter was debated even by the gods in olden times. It is not easy of knowledge, since very subtle is the law of it. 0 Nachiketas, choose another boon; do not ask me, do not urge me; give up this question." But Nachiketas answered: "Sure, this was debated even by the gods, and thou thyself hast said that it is not easy of knowledge. Forgetting this... also the mother of all that exists in the world. Aditi is also the mother of the gods. When one comes in contact with the inner flame, he comes to know also that that flame is immortal, and even when man dies that inner flame remains unextinguished. When one comes to know the Jiva, one also comes to know that gods are also immortal. Finally we find that everything in the world, all things, ...
... types, each of them a great people occupying its own province or state of the total human nature. But there is also the absolute Aryan who would conquer and pass beyond these states to the transcendental harmony of them all. It is the supramental Truth that is the instrument of this great inner transfiguration. That replaces mentality by luminous vision and the eye of the gods, mortal life by breath... gifts into his life, increases them by the hymn and the wine and forms perfectly—as a smith forges iron, says the Veda—their great and luminous godheads. All this Vedic imagery is easy to understand when once we have the key, but it must not be mistaken for mere imagery. The Gods are not simply poetical personifications of abstract ideas or of psychological and physical functions of Nature. To the Vedic... herds, to transform all our existence; for so comes to us the possession of the Truth, by the Truth the admirable surge of the Bliss, in the Bliss infinite Consciousness of absolute being. Three great Gods, origin of the Puranic Trinity, largest puissances of the supreme Godhead, make possible this development and upward evolution; they support in its grand lines and fundamental energies all these ...
... men's days with the throng of the brilliant presences near them: Gods from the wood and the valley, gods from the obvious wayside, Gods on the secret hills leaped out from their light on the mortal. Oft in the haunt and the grove they met with our kind and their touches Seized and subjected our clay to the greatness of passions supernal, Page 76 Grasping the earthly virgin... their souls as they listened. Veiled are the high gods always lest there should dawn on the mortal Light too great from the skies and men to their destiny clear-eyed Walk unsustained like the gods; then Night and Dawn were defeated And of their masks the deities robbed would be slaves to their subjects. "Children of Immortality, gods who are joyous for ever, Rapture is ours and... Light has been helper to death and darkness increases the victor. So shall it last till the. fallen ages return to their greatness. For if the twilight be helped not, night o'er the world cannot darken; Night forbidden how shall a greater dawn be effected? Gods of the light who know and resist that the doomed may have succour, Always then shall desire and passion strive with Ananke ...
... fulfilled, the bright-surfaced purified mind widely extended without flaw or crevice as the seat of the gods in their sacrificial activity, the taste of the wine of immortality, the freedom from attachment, the increasing force of ideal Truth in the human being, then it is impossible for the great divine Powers to fling wide open for us the doors of the higher Heavens, the gates of Ananda, the portals... probability, be a spiritual protection against spiritual dangers & spiritual foes. The second verse neither confirms as yet nor contradicts Page 73 this initial suggestion. These three great gods, it says, are to the mortal as a multitude of arms which bring to him his desires & fill him with an abundant fullness and protect him from any who may will to do him hurt, rishah; fed with that... the very foundation of our hypothesis that the Vedic sacrifice is only a material symbol of a great psychological or spiritual process. The divine children of Infinity lead 1 the sacrifice on the straight path to the goal of the ritam; under their guidance it progresses to their goal & reaches the gods in their home, pravah sa dhítaye nashat.What is sacrifice which is itself a traveller, which has ...
... irritated at this irreverent attempt to bring discord into their happy ménage (made sacred and legitimate by solemn wedlock) and don't give you an indigestion in revenge, it is all right. But such great gods ought not to be so lightly treated. If you had written a passionate lyric or a noble epic on the subject, that would have been something. January 4,1937 (How we laughed at your... founder of a new trend of poetry, impressionist and symbolist, followed in varying degrees and not by any means in the same way by Verlaine, 89 Rimbaud, 90 both of them poets of great fame—Verlaine is certainly a great poet and people now say Rimbaud also, but I have never come across his poetry except in extracts—and dev- eloping in Valery and other noted writers of today. It seems that all these... his wounded heart with a dignified but sorrowful calmness. It is rather astonishing to learn that Tagore objected to Ramakrishna's being regarded as a great man! It is good that he should have changed his mind under whatever influence. But great men make such blunders in their estimate of con- temporaries that it is after all not so astonishing perhaps as it looks at first sight! March ...
... roll and wash of the Aegean around the isles of Greece. What he has not, is the unfailing poetic beauty and nobility which saves greatness from its defects—that supreme gift of Homer and Valmiki—and the self-restraint and obedience to a divine law which makes even the gods more divine." Thus, in Sri Aurobindo's estimate, Whitman, with the help of his modern intellectualism, is a pioneer of things... deific. When Hera says that Zeus's sons Apollo and Ares forget the supreme purpose, he replies: "Hera, queen of the heavens, they forget not, but choose to be mindless. This is the greatness of gods that they know and can put back the knowledge; Doing the work they have chosen they turn not for fruit nor for failure. Griefless they walk to their goal and strain not their eyes towards... instinct of powers beyond man. There is then a pressing forward to a large picture of Heaven's dealings with earth. Apart from the passage about the Gods joining the mellay and a few others, perhaps this sense comes closest to us in the declarations of Gods and Goddesses when Zeus summons them together in Book VIII. Apropos of Zeus himself Sri Aurobindo says: Page 129 Red, intolerable ...
... flight. Therefore, their idea of the gods was a conception of great divine Beings manifesting or born, as they said, variously in all the kingdoms of being. Surya is manifest as creative solar Light in the material world, he is Savitri, the Father; he is manifest in his own home, the Truth-principle, as the divine Light that illuminates our liberated being. To all the gods this parallelism applies and it... meanings of दृश् . Gr. δέρχoμαɩ, I see, δράχωνd (tearer, biter), δράχσσoμαɩ, to seize, are formed from this root. The plural is used, because Vayu is only considered as the leader of the quaternary of great Gods whom the seer is addressing. इमे । These. ए, the old plural termination, added to इम् , this; now used as the plural of अयम् , an alternative form of इम्. सोमाः । Juices of immortality... uphold our delight in the Soma outpoured. (7) O all gods who are kindly & uphold the actions of the Page 359 doer, arrive, divide the Soma-offering of the giver. (8) O all gods who are active and swift, come ye to the Soma-offering, like the cows to their stalls (like the powers of light to the places of delight). (9) O all gods who stumble not but are wise in your might and do no hurt ...
... s in Bengal who put themselves to great tortures. Perhaps their idea is that they will earn more Punya, merit, by doing so. Sri Aurobindo : The , Indian ascetic idea of torturing the body is not exactly the same as the Christian idea of _______________ 1 This does not refer to the true gods; it should he noted that there are gods – little & great gods – on many planes of consciousness... thus tries to approach the power of the Gods. Disciple : Humanity is badly off between these Gods and Asuras, because the perfection of the Divine world cannot be realised here on this earth as it is not the law of our plane, and on the other side there are the Asuric impulses and tendencies. Sri Aurobindo : That is the old conflict between Gods and Titans symbolised by all the religions... coming from there. But if you want I manifest the Truth here, you have to climb above some still higher plane from where the world of the Gods and the Asuric world derive their truth. When I am speaking of the Divine world I am not speaking of "the greater Gods". Both Daivic and Asuric world deviate the Sadhaka from the straight spiritual climb 1 Disciple : You spoke about the increase of power ...
... to piece them together in the best way possible. Recalling the time when he first went to the Ashram (December 1927), K.D. Sethna has said recently: Instead of bringing down he Great Gods, the effort now was to start from the bottom, not from the top - to dig, as it were, into the subconscient and gradually prepare the purification of the human consciousness and nature and bring ... something very significant had happened. The Master went into a deeper retirement, and the Mother took full charge of the Ashram. It was popularly assumed that the world of the Overmind (or the world of the gods) had come down even to the physical plane. Sure enough, in the ensuing days, weeks and months, the sadhaks had striking experiences - "minute-to-minute miracles", as K.D. Sethna describes them. Some... or inertia-ridden physical base: an open invitation to sudden eruptions with their disastrous consequences. Sri Aurobindo therefore ordained that the tenuous new connection between the overmental gods and the disciples should be cut, and that the sadhaks Page 590 should do the yoga of transformation at the material or physical base - the emphasis now being on Karmayoga in its ...
... increasing into greatness. एभिर्भव सुमना अग्ने अर्कैरिमान्त्स्पृश मन्मभिः शूर वाजान् । उत ब्रह्माण्यङगिरो जुषस्व सं ते शस्तिर्देववाता जरेत ॥१५॥ 15) O Fire, become great of mind by these hymns of illumination, by our thinkings touch these plenitudes, O heroic Flame, so take joy in the words of knowledge, O Angiras, let our speech expressing thee come close to thee, enjoyed by the gods. एता... raining light; yoking the ruddy-shining pair thou movest between you Gods and the mortal peoples. अर्यमणं वरुणं मित्रमेषामिन्द्राविष्णू मरुतो अश्विनोत । स्वश्वो अग्ने सुरथः सुराघा एदु वह सुहविषे जनाय ॥४॥ 4) Aryaman for them and Mitra and Varuna, Indra, Vishnu and the Maruts and the Ashwins do thou well-horsed, well-charioted, great in the joy of achievement, bring now, O Fire, for the giver of... mighty bringer of increase, what to Rudra great in sacrifice, giver of the offering? What seed of things to wide-striding Vishnu, or what, O Fire, to vast doom? कथा शर्धाय मरुतामृताय कथा सूरे बृहते पृच्छयमानः । प्रति ब्रवोऽदितये तुराय साधा दिवो जातवेदश्चिकित्वान् ॥८॥ 8) How when they question thee wouldst thou answer to the host of the Life-Gods in their Truth, or to the Sun in his vastness ...
... who can appreciate true music." Narada winced, more and more humiliated. Back he went to Brahma and Vishnu and brought them to Kailash. As soon as the two great gods were Page 165 seated, Mahadeva 1 began his great song. Over the still face came a quiver and a colour of crimson flame. Listening with his whole being to the song of Rudra 1 the Destroyer, Vishnu entered... consciousness, Art could be a wonderful instrument for spiritual progress, she happened to make an observation, "This world of creation is also the world of the gods; but the gods, I regret to say, don't at all have a taste for artistic creation." The gods protested. Page 161 "As soon as you had gone, they came," Mother reported to Satprem the next time they met. "In fact, it's not that... anthem). The picture remained deeply engraved in my heart. Decades later, it suddenly dawned on me: Greatness. Who else but a truly great person could bow like that to a child? What else but Greatness has that simplity? And Rabindranath was great enough to recognize greatness in others. That his admiration for Sri Aurobindo knew no bounds is universally known. Page 71 ...
... larger than the thumb of a man. One can describe that flame as a Dwarf that sits in the center. It will also be found that this Dwarf is adored even by the Great Cosmic gods like Agni, Vayu, Indra and others, since it is the function of these gods to aid that growing flame in its fuller and fuller growth. This flame, according to Kathopanishad, is immortal and it always is. This flame grows bigger and... is the Sacrificer at the altar of the sacrifice, which is the upward journey, and is also the Guest in the vessel of the drinking of the elixir of immortality: He is in man and in the Great Ones who are the cosmic gods, and His Home is in the law that ordains and unites all in unity, and His dwelling is in the supreme power of manifestation: he is omnipresent, and he is all that is born of water and... of It which is thou, that of It which is in the gods, this thou hast to think out. I think It known".15 The means of knowledge are, we are told in effect, to get back behind the forms of the universe to that which is essential in the cosmos, and that which is essential is twofold: (i) the gods in Nature, the cosmic functionings through which the gods act, namely, mind, life, speech, senses, body ...
... Quick were men's days with the throng of the brilliant presences near them: Gods from the wood and the valley, gods from the obvious wayside, Gods on the secret hills leaped out from their light on the mortal. Oft in the haunt and the grove they met with our kind and their touches Seized and subjected our clay to the greatness of passions supernal, Grasping the earthly virgin and forcing heaven on... in their souls as they listened. Veiled are the high gods always lest there should dawn on the mortal Light too great from the skies and men to their destiny clear-eyed Walk unsustained like the gods; then Night and Dawn were defeated And of their masks the deities robbed would be slaves to their subjects. "Children of Immortality, gods who are joyous for ever, Rapture is ours and eternity... gift of a foeman. Sons of the ancient house on whom Ilion looks as on Titans, Chiefs whom the world admires, do you fear then the shock of the Phthian? Gods, it is said, have decided your doom. Are you less in your greatness? Are you not gods to reverse their decrees or unshaken to suffer? Memnon is dead and the Carians leave you? Lycia lingers? But from the streams of my East I have come to you ...
... of versification measured by the number of letters in each foot. 3. System of versification in which the number of letters and not the sounds is taken into account. 4. Great fighters. Page 141 gods are symbols, I suppose, but in that sense everything and everybody is a symbol, including the said surrenderful apologists themselves (...) January 4,1932 I am not... attempt to influence the future did not materialise. Now perhaps in your hands it will—even apart from songs. Sorry about your nose. But after all a nose cannot be like Tennyson's brook—"Gods may come and Gods may go but I run on for ever." A running nose is essentially a temporary phenomenon, its run [?] is brief—while Shiva is supposed to be immortal. October 22, 1932 Absence of love... religions, the most narrow and stupid even, and in all non-religions also there are great minds, great men, fine characters. I know little about Russell, but I never dreamed of disputing the greatness of Lenin, for instance, merely because he was an atheist—nobody would, unless he were an imbecile. But the greatness of Lenin does not debar me from refusing assent to the credal dogmas of Bolshevism, ...
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