The Pilgrim’s Progress : in two parts, by John Bunyan (q.v.): progress a devout Christian through life, once almost as popular as the Bible.
... that he could ‘get a fix’ on himself vis-à-vis this place and settle down to this life. A voyage, with three false starts since 1920, had at last arrived at a midway point. The next leg of the pilgrim’s progress was about to begin. How did I miss Kameshwar — all these many years? We had much in common. He was quite close to me and my family. I was indebted to him in other ways (I’ll speak of it ...
... Ananda or what prepares it is an obstacle to the divine union? As for despondency, it is surely a terrible burden to carry on the way. One has to pass through it sometimes, like Christian of the Pilgrim’s Progress through the Slough of Despond, but its constant reiteration cannot be anything but an obstacle. The Gita especially says, “Practise the Yoga with an undespondent heart, anirvinnacetasa ...
... perennial strangeness, the adventurousness, and the sinuous forward movement of the inner life." 134 It is not true in all cases that an Odyssey is better than an Iliad, a Pilgrim's Progress better than a Holy War. Besides, as Dr E.M.W. Tillyard points out, by way of retort, "the pilgrimage subject encourages diffuseness and endless episodes, whereas the martial subject encourages ...
... is referred to here? No, certainly not. From that point of view the sadhaka has to mercilessly dispense with all his inner dependence upon other human beings and be austerely alone in his 'Pilgrim's Progress' to the divine Goal. Is it not asserted by the mystics of all ages that it has to be sternly "a flight of the alone to the Alone"? Did not the dying Buddha admonish his beloved disciple Ananda ...
... with the expectation that it may kindle interest for a more serious and recognitive appreciation. If there is a motive behind this selection, it is surely to highlight the unique literary pilgrim's progress on the sunlit path that has been made available to him, to bring in focus his endeavour in the aesthetics of the spirit given to us by Sri Aurobindo. — Editors Page 38 ...
... the morning Sun. For the rest, he has avoided heavy or cumbersome mythology Death is referred to as Death throughout, not as Yama. The worlds, the powers, the symbol kingdoms—almost as in The Pilgrims Progress —have tell-tale names: Subtle Matter, Little Life, Greater Life, Pigmy Thought, Night, Falsehood, Life-Gods, Little Mind, Greater Mind, Heavens of the Ideal, World-Soul, and so on. What is seen... Krishnaprem again, Savitri... is neither subjective fantasy nor yet mere philosophical thought, but vision and revelation of the actual inner structure of the Cosmos and of the pilgrim of life within its sphere—Bhu, Bhuvar, Swar: the Stairway of the Worlds reveals itself to our gaze—worlds of Light above, worlds of Darkness beneath—and we see also ever-circling life... inadequacy of the English language. It has been plastic enough in the past to succeed in expressing all that it was asked to express, however new: it must now be urged to a farther new progress. 191 It was a challenge which Sri Aurobindo felt bound to accept, and Savitri is the astonishing result. The title itself, at any rate to Hindu ears, is charged with untold ...
... 88 Browning, Robert, 71 Buddha, 34, 57-8, 130, 133, 242, 267, 274, 277-9, 281-3, 298, 304 Buddhism, 242, 276-8, 280, 282-3 Page 371 Bunyan, 68 -The Pilgrim's Progress, 68 CANADA, 284 Cezanne, 152 Chandidasa,221-2 Char, Rene, 207 "Chanson des Etages", 206 Chattopadhyaya, Harindranath, 69n -The Strange Journey, 69n -"Blue Profound"... 279n Diocles, 108, 109n Dionysus, 182-3 Dirghatama, 162-6 Discabolo, 170 Donne, 74, 80 -Divine Poems, 80 ln -"Annvnciation", 81n -"The Litanie", 80n -The Progress qf the Soule, 80n Douve,217 Dryden, 85 Duncan, 170 Durga,180 ECKHART, 131 Edgar, 171-3 Egypt, 298 Einstein, 300 Eiseley, Loren, 295n - The Immense Journey, 295n ...
... Buddha, and Satan the Force of Darkness tendered in the desert diabolical advice to Jesus the Son of God? It is not well known that the saintly writer John Bunyan, the famous author of The Pilgrim's Progress, composed another spiritual allegory whose significant title is The Holy War of King Shaddai upon Diabolus. Shaddai is here, of course, the Divine; and Bunyan's book minutely deals with the... difficulties and ordeals; and all this is due to the fact of these adverse forces and beings mounting almost a ceaseless attack on the sadhaka' s consciousness. So it is very much essential for the smooth progress of sadhana that every sadhaka should know the ways of attack of these hostile forces, their ruses and stratagems, and how not to respond to them but rather drive them away each time they try to turn... adverse or hostile forces. But notwithstanding their evil intention, the fact remains that, through divine dispensation, their action, apparently negative and deleterious, becomes conducive to the progress of the sadhaka if he knows how to take advantage of these attacks. Page 338 But how do these hostile forces attack? What are their modes of action? And how to distinguish between ...
... Ananda or what prepares it is an obstacle to the divine union? As for despondency, it is surely a terrible burden to carry on the way. One has to pass through it sometimes, like Christian of The Pilgrim's Progress through the Slough of Despond, but its constant reiteration cannot be anything but an obstacle. The Gita specially says, "Practise the Yoga with an undespondent heart", anirviṇṇacetasā . ... it becomes more possible to make it permanent. It is true that if one has the true basis, then after every attack one finds oneself farther advanced in progress. Yes, a great progress should only spur one on to a greater progress beside which the first will appear as nothing. Yes, that is so. Each victory gained over oneself means new strength to gain more victories. The Certitude... chase of the magnified and distorted shadow of his own ego or for some other distortion of the nature produced by a wrong egoistic misuse of the Yoga. A mere appearance of inability or obstruction of progress in the outer being, a covering of the inner by the outer, even if it lasts for years, has no probative value, because that happens to a great number, perhaps to the majority of aspirants to Yoga. ...
... allegory is never mysticism. There is more mysticism in Wordsworth, even in Shelley and Keats, than in Spenser, for example, who stands in this respect on the same ground as Bunyan in his The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Wordsworth as a Nature-worshipper, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. 1 or Wordsworth the Pagan, Have sight of Proteus rising... faithfull Virgin,.... Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd; yea thou art now Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother; 1 "They Are All Gone". * "The Litanie"—Divine Poems. * The Progress of the Soule, VI. Page 308 Thou'hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome, Immensity cloystered in thy deare wombe. 1 Blake's powerfully pregnant lines ...
... allegory is never mysticism. There is more mysticism in Wordsworth, even in Shelley and Keats, than in Spenser, for example, who stands in this respect on the same ground as Bunyan in his The Pilgrim's Progress. Take Wordsworth as a Nature-worshipper, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.¹ or Wordsworth the Pagan, Have sight of Proteus rising... faithfull Virgin,.. . . Whom thou conceiv'st, conceiv'd; yea thou art now Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother; ¹ "They Are All Gone". ²"The Litanie"-Divine Poems. ³ The Progress of the Soule, VI. Page 80 Thou 'hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome, Immensity cloystered in thy deare wombe.¹ Blake's powerfully pregnant lines are ...
... "Symbols may be of various kinds, there are those that are concealing images capable of intellectual interpretation but still different from either symbolic or allegorical figures". Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory. Arthurian legends may be the type of concealing images capable of intellectual interpretation. Prometheus Unbound of Shelley can be taken as a symbolic figure. With regard ...
... It can make us realize again the great power of humorous writing as a social force. Books of tears move the world as did Uncle Tom's Cabin, books of ecstasy enthrall the soul as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did, but Cervantes's book helped to return to sanity the mind of a continent still a little delirious." 2 And an attentive student of the development of the spirit of Indian Nationalism... satire was carried to perfection in Dryden's Absolm and Achitophel. The Horatian style reached its perfection in France in the satirical writings of Boileau. Alexander Pope in England showed great progress along the line. We should not forget either the names of Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift. The 18th century was indeed the age of satire. Voltaire was really a superb master in the field. Byron... on that! "And what next? It is too early to say. This much only is certain that a new stage begins in the struggle between democracy and bureaucracy, a new chapter opens in the history of the progress of Indian Nationalism." 10 II. On matters "cultural" Introduction: The following pieces have been selected from Sri Aurobindo's well-known book, The Foundations of Indian Culture ...
... literary work. There have been many famous literary gaolbirds, the two best known perhaps being the Spaniard, Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote, and the Englishman, John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim's Progress. I am not a man of letters, and I am not prepared to say that the many years I Page 384 have spent in gaol have been the sweetest in my life, but I must say that reading and... and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. And yet if we take such a dismal view we have not learnt aright the lesson of life or of history. For history teaches us of growth and progress and of the possibility of an infinite advance for man. And life is rich and varied, and though it has many swamps and marshes and muddy places, it has also the great sea, and the mountains, and snow ...
... unknown process of transformation that has been started by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother during their lifetime, that is continuing now, and that will continue for a long time to come. It is a “pilgrim’s progress” into the miraculous. Overman Sri Aurobindo, continuously occupied with completing Savitri and with the urgency of his avataric task, did not write essayistic prose any more in the... chance in an accidental universe, and that it is not progressive. Consequently the appearance of the human being is purely a matter of luck. Stephen Jay Gould, for instance, “was adamantly opposed to progress, speaking of it as ‘a noxious, culturally embedded, untestable, nonoperational, untractable idea‘ that must be replaced if we wish to understand the patterns of history.” “It is a delusion engendered... What this yogic, or rather avataric, master-act actually meant, we cannot even guess. But its result was that only six years later the Supramental Manifestation took place, and the evolutionary progress was guaranteed forever. After a lifetime of unprecedented spiritual effort for humanity, Sri Aurobindo had seen that the result of his and the Mother’s Work was not assured. Not intending “to give ...
... By Light we live and to the Light we go." 87 And we are in the inevitability of the destined process "To eternal light and knowledge meant to rise." 88 Thus the 'Pilgrim's Progress' cannot stop short with the vision-less mind's circumscribed gaze and sooner or later, today or tomorrow, we must come out of "...the confines of thought To where Mind motionless... nescient sleep of Night, is still lying in the womb of the future, although the crimson signs of its imminent advent are already caught by the discerning eyes. But, in the meantime, for the individual pilgrims the journey continues along "the road that winds towards the Sun"; for, "Night is not our beginning nor our end; We came to her from a supernal Light, By Light we live and to the... 89 And once we outgrow the "mortal mind's half-look on things", 90 we are sure to encounter on our ascending climb a series of hierarchised luminous planes of consciousness that offer the pilgrim soul an ever hightening and deepening power of sight. These planes, "Exposed to the lustre of Infinity," 91 are in the ascending order: (i) the Higher Mind, whose action, in terms of the Vedic ...
... obstructs the inner light is a matter of general experience. The Gita says expressly, "Yoga should be practised persistently with a heart free from depression"— anirviṇṇacetasā . Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress symbolises it as the Slough of Despond, one of the perils of the way that has to be overcome. It is no doubt impossible to escape from attacks of depression, almost all sadhaks go through these... peace, but this must change. One should certainly not overestimate one's progress, but not underestimate it either. I don't know whether dwelling on the defects and weaknesses is very wholesome. To know that they are there is one thing, to keep them always before the eye may be depressing and retard the progress. There was nothing wrong in helping with the cooking. But if there were a... then the instrument is in a healthy condition. But if you become restlessly eager to do nothing but japa and think of nothing but the Divine and of the "progress" you have or have not made (Ramana Maharshi says you should never think of "progress", it is according to him a movement of the ego), then all the fat is in the fire—because the system is not yet ready for a Herculean effort and it begins ...
... striving towards the mutation of human species, which is bound to be the most important preoccupation of humanity of today and of tomorrow, it is hoped that this book will be found useful to all pilgrims of progress who aim at untiring pursuit of the highest and the best. Page 56 ... inner mental Purusha and at the same time so open plastically to the progressive action of the Infinite that the soul no longer needs to dissolve the old form of mind and create a new one in order to progress. Similarly, the vital being can also attain immortality, if it becomes similarly individualised and integrated and at the same time becomes open on the surface consciousness to the inner vital Purusha... decay and destruction could be overcome and at the same time it could be made so plastic and progressive in its structure and its functioning that it would answer to each change demanded of it by the progress of the inner Person. The physical being must be able to keep the pace with the soul in its formation of self-expressive personality, its long unfolding of a secret spiritual divinity and the slow ...
... Ananda or what prepares it is an obstacle to the Divine union? As for despondency, it is surely a terrible burden to carry on the way. One has to pass through it sometimes, like Christian of The Pilgrim's Progress through the Slough of Despond, but its constant reiteration cannot be anything but an obstacle. The Gita specially says, "Practise the Yoga with an undespondent heart", anirviṇṇacetasā . ... definitely renounced and one waits, quietly open, for whatever may be (or for the time not be) given. But so often when you are preparing for a greater progress in the true devotion the habit of this vital element stands up and takes hold and interrupts the progress made. The joylessness also comes from the vital. It is partly due to the disappointment but not solely, for it is a very common phenomenon when... Supramental Yoga Even if things were as bad as you say, I don't see how going away would help you in the least—(it would certainly not make you non-human); some have tried before this device of progress by departure and it has never succeeded, they have had to come back and face their difficulty. Why do you always come back to this notion of going away or entertain it at all? It is quite meaningless ...
... obstructs the inner light is a matter of general experience. The Gita says expressly, "Yoga should be practised persistently with a heart free from depression"— anirvinnacetasā. Bunyan in The Pilgrim's Progress symbolises it as the Slough of Despond, one of the perils of the way that has to be overcome. It is no doubt impossible to escape from attacks of depression, almost all sadhaks go through... case is the note of despair in the vital which responds to the cry you speak of—that it will never gain the Divine because it has not yet got the Divine or that there has been no progress. There has certainly been a progress, the greater push of the psychic, this very detachment itself from other things always growing somewhere in you. The thing is to hold on, not to cut the cord which is pulling... P. S. I must repeat also that each case differs—one rule for all is not practical or practicable. What is needed by each for his spiritual progress is the one desideratum to be held in view. November 11,1936 On the contrary, much progress has been made in the change of the nature—only it seems to be covered over and forgotten when there is the difficulty and the whole attention ...
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