The Tantra : a yogic system devoted to the many aspects of Shakti. The Shāktas are divided into two: Dakshīnāchāris (right-handed) & Vāmāchāris (left-handed).
... action, and tamas is transformed into unfathomable repose. Contribution of the Tantra An extremely important element in the fund of the spiritual knowledge accumulated in the past related to the theme of liberation and perfection consists of the aims and Page 79 methods of the Tantra. The Tantra aims at integration of the heightened perfections of the powers of the instruments... experience Her as Nature or energy that is seen to be active in body, life and mind. The distinction of the method of the Tantra is to raise the nature of Shakti that is dormant in man so that it manifests itself as the unveiled power of the Spirit. The important point of the synthesis of the Tantra is that it is the whole nature that Tantra gathers up for the spiritual conversion. It includes, therefore, in... of the operations of the subtle body and subtle elements of consciousness; here the Tantra aims at purification of the operations and at the unification of these operations by the processes of meditation and concentration by the utilization of the methods of Raja yoga so as to attain to the states of Samadhi. The Tantra also aims at purification and development and perfection of the intellect, will-force ...
... The Vak itself is the vehicle on which the gods come in response to the prayer of the Rishi. Adopting this Vedic theory of Vak into its system, the Tantra has developed this line with an eye on practical utility so much that the Tantra is popularly known as mantra shāstra and acclaimed as a great sadhanā shāstra, practical science." 13 Apart from researches in linguistics... and different utilities. 1 Thus not only do we learn a good deal about the traditionally demarcated paths of Karma, Jnana, Bhakti, Raja, and Hatha, but we also gain a deep insight into the Tantra Yoga. Sri Aurobindo makes a clarifying statement on the bases of these Yogas quite early in the volume: In all the lord of the Yoga is the Purusha, the Conscious Soul that knows, observes... distilled and presented in evocative poetry by Sri Aurobindo. The occult siddhis are not brushed aside as fraudulent but accepted by him as part of Sat, the Existence. He also points out that whenever the Tantra Yogin seemed to get out of control because of the nature of the siddhis, the Supreme as the Conscious-Soul steps in and applies the needed correctives: Her dangerous moods and arbitrary ...
... human level, we experience it as Nature that is seen to be active in body, life and mind. The method of the Tantra is to raise nature (Prakriti or Shakti) in man into manifest power of the spirit, and the important point of the synthesis of the Tantra is that it is the whole nature that the Tantra gathers up for the spiritual conversion. It includes, therefore, in its system the Page 4 ... ego, who is vast and incalculable and yet inevitable in His workings. As Sri Aurobindo points out, the synthesis of his yoga starts from the method of Vedanta to arrive at the aim of the Tantra. 5 The Tantra accepts that there are two poles of being whose essential unity is a secret of existence. These two poles are Purusha and Prakriti or Brahman and Shakti. Shakti is the power of Brahman or... though it includes the aims of the Tantra, lays its initial stress upon the method of Vedanta, where the raising of human consciousness towards its heights is sought to be effected by the operation of the Purusha consciousness or Brahman consciousness; and with the progression of the yoga, the principle of progressive surrender to the Shakti which is so central in the Tantra, also becomes central, — but ...
... God and against modern ignorance generally the image-worship which the Tantra in common with other Hindu systems makes part of the first stage in religious progress. On both points we are in general agreement with his standpoint, though we do not hold that religious evolution must necessarily follow the line laid down by the Tantra. Human conceptions of the Divine divide themselves first into the... by brief but numerous notes. Mr. Avalon has made a principle of submission to the authority of the Hindu commentators and learned men whom he has consulted or taken as his guides in the study of the Tantra. He writes, "It is necessary to study the Hindu commentators and to seek the oral aid of those who possess the traditional interpretation of the Shastra. Without this and an understanding of what... aid, availed myself of the Commentaries of Nilakantha on the Mahabharata, of Gopala Page 569 Chakravarti and Nagoji Bhatta on Chandi, and of Nilakantha on the Devibhagavata. As regards the Tantra, the great Sadhana Shastra, nothing which is both of an understanding and accurate character can be achieved without a study of the original texts undertaken with the assistance of the Tantric gurus ...
... Vedas and Upanishads faded with time—especially because we almost forgot the language used and the real meaning of the words—later on other Indian Yoga systems continued their inner explorations. The Tantra in particular made a thorough study of the subtle body. It also defined the worlds from which we get our emotions and feelings and sensations: our higher and lower moral qualities (vritti) —courage... asleep. Muladhara, at the base of the spine, is the physical centre. In our subtle body we have centres of consciousness which are normally quiescent. Through certain yogic processes formulated in the Tantra, the sleeping Kundalini 1 can be awakened. Then she rises up and carries the consciousness upward, opening and purifying all the chakras up to the Brahmarandhra.' 2 There she meets the Brahman... though my head were knocking at the ceiling quite some five metres above my head! It was only later that I learned it was the Kundalini. Others feel the action of the Force in different ways. In the Tantra each lotus or chakra is depicted in a particular colour. The number of petals of each one is fixed. On each petal a letter from the Sanskrit alphabet is inscribed, that too in a certain colour. The ...
... somehow, different." Can it then be said that the epic's "Book of Yoga draws a major portion of its material from the Tantra"? But this may be considered more as a part of integral Tantrism entering into operation of the occult-spiritual. Just as we recognise the deities of the Tantra to embody their powers in us, to experience their living presence in us, to grow in them, the world of Savitri also... 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." 7 Such is Gayatri in the language of what we may call the Tantra in the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. The lower world, more specifically this mrityuloka, is the great concern of Savitri. She is the power of the ever-expanding divine creation in an ... is one seamless Ananda." Aswapati's invocation to the Divine Shakti and her response, that she shall descend carrying all mights and greatnesses in her, are sufficiently indicative of the role of the Tantra in the efficacy of the Integral Yoga. To effect transformation in all the details, including even our obdurate physical constitution, she incarnates herself here. She is bom as a daughter ...
... favourable to his growth. (11) The Yajna has two parts, mantra & tantra—subjective & objective; in the outer sacrifice the mantra is the Vedic hymn and the tantra the oblation; in the inner the mantra is the meditation or the sacred formula, the tantra the putting forth of the power generated by mantra to bring about some successful spiritual, intellectual, vital or mental activity of which the gods... their perfect form & clearness. This psychology, this physics, this cosmology persist almost unchanged through the whole history of Hinduism. We meet them in the Puranas; they are the foundation of the Tantra; they are still obscurely practised in various systems of Yoga. And throughout, they have rested on a declared Vedic foundation. The Pranava, the Gayatri, the three Vyahritis, the five sheaths, the... spiritual force or result, the filling of the soul (brahma) with the idea & name of the god of the mantra, the use of the mantra for effectuation of the external object or the activity desired. (13) The tantra is composed of neshtra, savanam, potra & hotra, the intensifying of the vasu or material (internal or Page 35 external) so as to prepare it for activity, the production of it in a of ...
... Page 41 conflict among themselves. That conflict has continued right up to the present time. In the Tantra, however, the synthesis that was attempted was in a certain way more bold and forceful than the synthesis of the Gita, although it was less subtle and spiritually profound. The Tantra seized upon the obstacles to the spiritual life and compelled them to become the means for a richer spiritual... with the divine knowledge, divine works an enriched devotion of divine Love, the secrets also of the Hatha Yoga and the Raja Yoga. Thus the Tantra seeks to use the body and mental askesis for the opening up of the divine life on all its planes. Moreover, the Tantra grasps at that idea of divine perfectibility of man, which was possessed by the Vedic Rishis but thrown into the background by the intermediate ...
... Significance of Indian Yoga v (a) The next great synthesis after the Gita is that of the Tantra. 79 The literature concerned with the Tantra Shastra or Agamas appears to have been written and completed very largely during the Gupta period, although the traditions, practices and even texts are considered to have existed from very early times. A number... pursues the aims of discipline, mastery, perfection, liberation and beatitude. Instead of drawing back from Manifested Nature and its difficulties, he converts them, seizes them and conquers them. The Tantra emphasises one very important Page 55 aspect of the truth, namely the worship of the Energy, Shakti, as the effective force for all attainments. Tantra raises nature in man into manifest... energies, elements and potentialities. In the way of Ananda, nature in man liberates itself by joyous existence in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities. But the history of the Tantra shows that in both paths there was in the end an obscuration of principles, a deformation of symbols and a fall. Page 57 ...
... the Nature-Soul is his executive Energy. 20 If the two poles of reality are Brahman and Shakti - Spirit and Nature - Being and Page 558 Becoming - then the method of the Tantra is not the ascetic's denial, nor an attempt to flee from life and nature into the Bliss of Brahman, but rather is it a bold confrontation and mastery of the forces and processes of life and nature... purification, meditation and concentration, the triple leverage of will-force, knowledge and devotion derived from the 'paths' of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti, all are taken into the synthetic system of the Tantra. But all this is no haphazard assembly of the powers and methods of the different Yogas but a psychologically satisfying integration, constituting a decisive advance on the earlier Yogas: ... all the process of becoming moves only towards the power and the glory of His Being and His Purpose in the phenomenal world. And śuddhi, siddhi, mukti, bhūkti - the ascending series of terms in the Tantra; in other words, purification, puissance, liberation, enjoyment - these too would seem to have divine origin, divine sustenance, divine sanction and divine participation. Page 561 ...
... quickening the pace in comparison with the past. Remember always the supreme necessity of mauna in Tantric practices. In Vedantic & Puranic exercises expansion is not dangerous, but the goddess of the Tantra does not look with a favourable eye on those who from pride, ostentation or looseness blab about the mantra or the kriya. In Tantric sadhana secrecy is necessary for its own sake. Those who reveal... don't be over-eager; let nothing disconcert, discourage or perplex you. Eagerness, anxiety & discouragement are all different faces of one defect. I shall write to you on all matters connected with the Tantra after the Psalmodist arrives. Also about the Vedanta. If he does not come soon, I shall write all the same. Bejoy was to have seen Ramchandra in Calcutta & given you news of us, on his way to... the reasons of your failures are so obvious that I am surprised you should attribute it all to the Goddess and not to the unpardonable blunders we have all been making in our Yogic Kriya. Kali of the Tantra is not a goddess who is satisfied with mere tamasic faith & adoration. Perfection in Kriya is indispensable or at least a conscientious and diligent attempt at perfection. This has not been made; ...
... relative reality. Prakriti is considered as maya, the illusory consciousness, the ignorance. Page 181 Purusha is the Brahman, the Conscious Being, the One Absolute Pure Reality. The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with consciousness... Mayavada. Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality. The Vedanta ends in Ananda, it is a static unitary Ananda. The Tantra posits a dynamic Ananda, a dual Ananda between Ishwara and Ishwari, Shiva and Shakti. The Vaishnava takes a further step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love. An earlier... the Supreme is worshipped as the Father (pita no asi). It is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. Ii brings out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine Mother holding the universe in her arms. The individual worships and adores the Supreme Prakriti as a human child does ...
... status of relative reality. Prakriti is considered as m ā y ā , the illusory con-sciousness, the ignorance. Purusha is the Brahman, the Conscious Being, the One Absolute Pure Reality. The Tantra comes next in the scale. Tantra does not consider Prakriti as absolutely separate from Purusha and opposite in character. Prakriti is not unconsciousness (Achit); it is instinct with consciousness... Mayavada. Tantra equated Consciousness with Energy; for it Conscious Energy or Consciousness-Energy is the indivisible Mother-Reality. The Vedanta ends in Ananda, it is a static unitary Ananda. The Tantra posits a dynamic Ananda, a dual Ananda between Ishwara and Ishwari, Shiva and Shakti. The Vaishnava takes a further step and transmutes Ananda into Love, a terrestrial humanised love. An... Supreme is worshipped as the Father (pit ā no asi). It is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. It brings out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine Mother holding the universe in her arms. The individual worships and adores the Supreme Prakriti as a human child ...
... Works, arises from the integral nature of the Ultimate Reality. The Tantrik Synthesis of Yoga Sri Aurobindo speaks of another synthesis, the Tantric, and acknowledges how the aims of the Tantra are synthesized in the integral aims of his synthesis of yoga. According to Sri Aurobindo, the Tantric synthesis is less subtle and spiritually profound, but it is even more bold and forceful than... opening up of the divine life on all its planes, to which the Gita gives only a passing and perfunctory attention." 65 Divinization of Life on the Earth According to Sri Aurobindo, the Tantra grasps at the idea of the divine perfectibility of man, —the idea which was possessed by the Vedic Rishis but thrown into the background by the intermediate ages. But this idea of the divine per... real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the Sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the page - 121 release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. 2. Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine ...
... towards this path and if he gets any experiences by which a call to it becomes evident, then I can reconsider his case. 13 February 1930 May I ask if you have published anything (in English) on the Tantra? For at least ten years I have been getting symbols and instructions in the sleep-state, but only within about one year have I been able to see at all (with the Inner Eye) while awake.... But... lines Page 554 or give me any hints as to higher development than that which I have, I will be greatly under obligation to you. 1) Sri Aurobindo has written no book in English upon the Tantra. 2) Mention The Mother and give her the address of the publishers. 3) For the rest, say that Sri Aurobindo does not usually care to intervene in the sadhana of others even by such hints and ...
... it all to me. I do not know how to tell you how luminous and good this man is, he is a very great soul. He is also giving me Sanskrit lessons, and little by little, each evening, speaks to me of the Tantra. His action upon you is to continue for another five days, after which he is positive that you will be entirely saved. According to him, it is indeed a magic attack originating in Pondicherry... it has been terrible, but my confidence in the outcome has not wavered—for I know you are in good hands. I am so happy that X is taking good care of you, teaching you Sanskrit, speaking to you of the Tantra. It is just what I wanted. His action here has been very effective and really very interesting. I still do not know whether someone has really done black magic, and the 'villain' has yet to appear ...
... if the Vedic knowledge, as developed through the Upanishads and the Gita, gets related to these later developments. It is also significant that although the synthesis of yoga that is found in the Tantra has, behind it, a history in which non-Vedic ideas seemed to have played a role, recent studies made by Kapali Shastri and M.P. Pandit have traced the origin of the Tantric concept of Shakti to the... Yoga, Kriya Yoga, and many others. Buddhistic yoga and the yoga of Jainism are also specialized systems of yoga. Page 24 Synthesis of Yoga in the Systems of Vedanta, Purana and the Tantra It is remarkable that each one of these specialized systems of yoga developed greater subtleties and each one fathomed deeper profundities of specialized lines of yoga. It is also important ...
... of Sri Aurobindo in the Light of the Gospel (1959) O'Malley, L.S.S. (Ed.). Modern India and the West (1941; 1969) Pandit, M.P. Light from Sri Aurobindo (1970); Sri Aurobindo on the Tantra (1967); All Life is Yoga, 6 Parts, (1967-70); The Call and the Grace (1969); Highways of God (1969); Dictionary of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga (1966); Sadhana in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga (1964); ... Seed of Grandeur, Commentary on Thought the Paraclete', 'Rose of God' and The Symbol Dawn' (1972) Sastry, T. V. Kapali. Lights on the Upanishads (1947); Further Lights: The Veda and the Tantra (1951); Lights on the Ancients (1954); Gospel of the Gita (1960); Lights on the Fundamentals (1950); The Way of Light (1963); Sadhana (1969) Satprem. Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure ...
... Mother]. Aditi is the indivisible consciousness force and Ananda of the Supreme; M, its living dynamis, the supreme Love, Wisdom, Power. Adya-Shakti of the Tantra = Parabrahman Fourth Absolute—Parameswara of the Gita = Parameswari of the Tantra Page 1349 The Manifestation I First Absolute— The concealed Avyakta Supreme, self-involved Sachchidananda, Parabrahman (Par ...
... real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. Page 22 Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine... Upanishadic spiritual knowledge. It places the Bhagavadgita's synthesis of the triple path of love, knowledge and works as something central in its processes. It also acknowledges the synthesis of the Tantra and utilises the methods of tantric Yoga for purposes of its new aims. It also acknowledges the Tantric idea of the divine perfectibility of man, which was possessed by the Vedic Rishis but was thrown ...
... existence. The Supreme is tad ekam and sah of the Veda; it is parat para higher than the highest, of the Upanishad; it is Purushotamma of the Gita; it is the Supreme Lord of the Shakti of the Tantra. It is unknowable to our mental consciousness but self-evident to knowledge by identity of which the spiritual being in us is capable. It is That which is known to us when it is manifest Page... g power of expression of that Supreme Reality. It is the Divine Maya and Aditi of the Veda; it is Haimavati Uma of the Upanishad; it is the Para Prakriti of the Gita, it is the Supreme Shakti of the Tantra. Supermind is also termed as Real-Idea, for in Supermind knowledge the Idea is not divorced from Will in the Idea, but one with it — just as it is not different from being or substance, but is one ...
... real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. 2. Because the object sought after is not a an individual achievement of divine realisation... of the great theistic religions of India and of the world and a recovered sense of the meaning ¹. All the Puranic tradition, it must be. remembered, draws the richness of its contents from the Tantra. ². The Cosmic Play Page 91 of Buddhism, but to take full account of the potent though limited revelations of modem knowledge and seeking; and, beyond that, the remote and dateless ...
... evolution than the generality of mankind, and it is these that will lead in the future evolution. In addition, the race has a mighty will-power which comes from the long worship of Shakti and practice of the Tantra that has been a part of our culture for many centuries. No other people could have revolutionised its Page 365 whole national character in a few years as Bengal has done. The Bengali ...
... new study, rehabilitation, resort to old disciplines and old authorities and scriptures,—we may note that Vedanta, Veda, Purana, Yoga, and recently the same thing is being initiated with regard to the Tantra, have each in their turn been brought back into understanding, if not always yet to a perfect Page 25 understanding, to practice, to some efficacy on thought and on life; there has been ...
... receive its solution and not only the soul but Nature herself find her deliverance. This is the Truth which has been seen in flashes, in more and more entirety of its terms by the line of seers whom the Tantra would call the hero-seekers and the divine-seekers and which may now be nearing the point of readiness for its full revelation and experience. Then whatever be the heavy weight of strife and suffering ...
... in the whole body. Similarly the descent of the higher consciousness is not felt necessarily or usually through the chakras but as occupying the whole head, neck, chest, abdomen, body. In the Tantra the centres are opened and Kundalini is awakened Page 460 by a special process, its action of ascent is felt through the spine. Here it is the pressure of the Force from above that awakens ...
... these in our consciousness and receiving a descent of their energies that it is possible ultimately to reach the supermind. This is the psycho-physical method which is elaborately systematised in the Tantra. In our Yoga it is not necessary to go through the systematised method,—for this psycho-physical process is only a part of the movement of the Yoga and it takes place spontaneously according to need ...
... developed force of consciousness, is prior in creation; the more developed human consciousness, in which there is a greater force of kinetic mind energy and light of perception, is a later creation. The Tantra Page 869 speaks of a soul fallen from its status passing through many lacs of births in plant and animal forms before it can reach the human level and be ready for salvation. Here, again ...
... agree either with your understanding of 'Eastern mysticism'. What you say may apply to a good deal of Hindu mysticism and to the views of Sri Aurobindo, but there are other views to be found in the Tantra and especially in Mahayana Buddhism which are much nearer to Capra's view. I find that most people in the West find Buddhism far more congenial than Hinduism as a philosophy of life. So ...
... varied vitality we mean the culture whose initial significances and original splendours are to be found in the Rig Veda and whose wide and luminous developments are in the Upanishads and the Gita and the Tantra and whose culmination and complete outburst of light we find today in the poetry and prose of Sri Aurobindo. This is not a narrow religion that cramps and divides: it is a profound synthesising ...
... control the Prana and calm the Manas. Through all these instruments immortalise the body. That is the real yoga, the Mahapantha, that is the true and only Tantra. The Vedanta starts with Buddhi, the Tantra with Shakti. What the Will is you have heard. It is Shakti, it is not Vasana, it is not Cheshta. Vasana and Cheshta are the negation of will. If you have desire, that means you doubt the power ...
... attained with difficulty through the ages. This slowly attained human life it took to be the key of release from the baffling circle of the enigma. After some eighty and more lakhs of births, says the Tantra, a soul reaches the human form and consciousness and sooner or later finds the secret of escape from birth in time into the birthless and deathless Eternity from which it came. These two discoveries ...
... had no recipe to offer as to how to become a seer. A commentator of Rimbaud's poetry has an Indian theory for it. But the "derangement of senses" by the severe practices of five forbidden things of the Tantra, by avoiding meat, fish, wine, mudra - a hallucinogenic seed - and not indulging in sexual intercourse, as is at times suggested, cannot take us to the drunken boat for a felicitous literary voyage ...
... Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness [Supermind] attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the Sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. “2. Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the ...
... as in the case of the Vaishnavas, nor with the possession of a post-mortem 'pneumatic' body of Pauline conception. For, this Yoga aims not at a release from embodied existence (as even the Tantra and Vaishnavism do at the end), at a departure out of the world into some supraterrestrial world of bliss and spiritual enjoyment, but at a change of earthly life and existence, at a divine ...
... to his Integral Yoga and who sets up no barrier to the claims and capacities of the true soul whether in the Occident or the Orient, goes back only to the Vedas and the Upanishads and the Gita and the Tantra for his spiritual antecedents? He was himself more Westernised than any Indian of a comparable calibre - but he came to see, as soon as he plunged into the ocean of spiritual realisation, that nowhere ...
... other is about two million years old. The modern form was approached at least 20,000 years ago. Surely, there had been time enough for each of us to attain the human level by the Ramayana epoch. The Tantra calculates that three lakhs of lives had to be passed through before the soul could have a human embodiment. Earth's long history amply allows time for our pre-human past. You and I are certain to ...
... 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 the psychic being, Sri Aurobindo is on a par with her from a ...
... and different utilities. 1 Thus not only do we learn a good deal about the traditionally demarcated paths of Karma, Jnana, Bhakti, Raja, and Hatha, but we also gain a deep insight into the Tantra Yoga. Sri Aurobindo makes a clarifying statement on the bases of these Yogas quite early in the volume: In all the lord of the Yoga is the Purusha, the Conscious Soul that knows, observes ...
... Vedanta, culmination of the Veda. Again, the Gita is a confirmation of both the Veda and the Upanishad, but also an advancement, in some respects, over both of them. The same thing can be said about the Tantra, and many other yogic developments, such as we find in Sri Chaitanya, and even up to the present day, in the mighty yogic endeavour of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, and in the Yoga of Sri ...
... corroborated and confirmed by the description of the integral reality and supramental consciousness that we find in the records of the synthesis of yoga in the Veda, Upanishads and the Gita, and in the Tantra. But Sri Aurobindo and the Mother go farther and determine a new integral aim of life''"1 which can be fulfilled by new methods of their integral yoga. Let us elucidate this important point in some ...
... g tendency has been to combine, assimilate, harmonise and synthesise. In the past, there have been at least four great stages of synthesis, represented by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and the Tantra. And, in modern times, we are 'Yoga is a comprehensive system of concentration, passive and dynamic, leading to a living contact, union and identity with realities or Reality underlying the ...
... Page 106 × All the Puranic tradition, it must be remembered, draws the richness of its contents from the Tantra. × The Cosmic Play. ...
... into a psychical form and, so changed, they became the elements of a mystic capture of the Divine through the heart and the senses and a religion of the joy of God's love, delight and beauty. In the Tantra the new elements are taken up and assigned their place in a complete psycho-spiritual and psycho-physical science of Yoga. Its popular form in the Vaishnava religion centres round the mystic apologue ...
... receive its solution and not only the soul but Nature herself find her deliverance. This is the Truth which has been seen in flashes, in more and more entirety of its terms by the line of seers whom the Tantra would call the hero seekers and the divine seekers and which may now be nearing the point of readiness for its full revelation Page 104 and experience. Then whatever be the heavy weight ...
... recognize its action. You first have to be able to Page 116 remain unblinded by appearances to see the deeper truth of things.¹ *** There is an element in the Vedic yoga and in the Tantra, which Mother found to be essential at this stage of the Sadhana of the body. This element is that of the japa or repetition of the mantra. 'Mantra' is a sound—or rather the inevitable sound of the ...
... He came into this world. His inner being was on the surface; He knew 46Both were artists in the Ashram. They joined the Ashram in the thirties. 47A Tantric sadhu is one who follows the Tantra path of yoga. Tantrics appeal to the Shakti aspect of the Divine to give them liberation from the clutches of ignorance. It is a very bold system that does not shy away from the obstacles in the ...
... is incantation may be taken for granted. But incantation is of two kinds. The moderns follow the incantation of the left-wing tantriks. The ancient poets took to the Vedantic and the right-wing of the Tantra as the best. Yat te daksina-mukham tena mam pahi nityam. (Protect me, O Rudra, by your right aspect.) Page 142 ...
... One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal ( pasu bhava), the heroic (vira bhava) and the godly or divine {deva ...
... sometimes the Sadhaka acts and the Guru helps – which means that the Higher Power helps and the Guru is made only an instrument. Page 121 10-9-1926 Disciple : In the Tantra there seems to be symbolism. There are different Chakras – centres – which open one after another. Sri Aurobindo : There is no fixed rule as to which opens first. The heart is the psychic ...
... Organise by all means, but there must be scope for freedom and plasticity. In India, even in spirituality they allowed all sorts of experiments, including the Vama Marga, the left-hand path of the Tantra, and you see how wonderfully Indian spirituality has developed. NIRODBARAN: Sometimes people justify both totalitarianism and imperialism. Shaw, for instance, justifies Italy's conquest of Abyssinia ...
... One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pasu bhava), the heroic (vira bhava) and the godly or divine (deva ...
... One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of grow and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. 1 It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of spiritual discipline: the animal (pa ś u bh ā va) the heroic (V ī ra bh ā va) and the godly or divine (deva ...
... 206 27. Ibid., p. 212 28. Ibid., p.30'J 29. Ibid., p. 388 30. Ibid., p. 400 31. T. V. Kapali Sastry, Further Lights: The Veda and the Tantra (1951), p. 72 32. Ibid., p. 79 33. Sri Aurobindo, Vol. 10, pp. 213,214 34. Ibid., p. 113 35. lbid.,p.2S2 36. Ibid., p. 283 37. Ibid ...
... there was something lacking in their ideal itself. Perhaps they did not bestow on the nether bases of life the same amount of attention as they bestowed on its radiant peaks, or, as in the case of the Tantra, in their exploration of the submerged regions of human consciousness, they let go their hold on the light of the peaks and floundered in the reeking swamps. Perhaps many of them failed to command ...
... found in the fading memories of the Babylonian, Egyptian,. Assyrian and Chinese traditions of the Mother-cult, or the creative feminine principle. Sri Râmakrishna's combination of the Vedânta and the Tantra was a prophetic achievement of supreme importance,—it, was, in truth, a combination of the Absolute and the cosmic manifestation, of Heaven and Earth, of Spirit and Matter. Is this transcendent ...
... welfare. Page 11 × All the Puranic tradition, it must be remembered, draws the richness of its contents from the Tantra. × The cosmic Play. ...
... Chakra further stimulated my curiosity. With this connection between the Sri Chakra and the yoga of Sri Aurobindo in mind, I approached Madhav Pandit, a scholar in the Ashram known for his writings on the Tantra. His immediate advice was to meet Panditji, a Tantric yogi in Rameshwaram who had often met the Mother, and whom Mother had recommended to many sadhaks for help in certain areas of difficulty. He ...
... the "dark right" of forces opposed to human evolution, whose presence and influence is confirmed by Sri Aurobindo in numerous letters and poems as well 20 T.V. Kapali Shastri, Lights on the Tantra. 21 Savitri, p. 202. Page 134 as here. Sri Aurobindo did not have to search history or mythology for images of hell. Our own time has provided them in abundance. The gas ...
... (conceived of as the Divine Mother) as the Supreme Reality; its method of discipline is to raise Nature in man into manifest power of Spirit. Tantrik —relating to Tantra; a follower of the Tantra system of philosophy and yoga. tapas , Tapas — the essential principle of energy. Transcendence, the Transcendent — the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in ...
... real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. ‘2. Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the ...
... because he was there. His contact was delightful, conversation illuminating and faith in Hinduism inspiring. I was wont to listen with rapt attention when he discussed the Vedas, the Gita, the Tantra etc. — notably with a savant, Sri Jagadish Chatterji. When the "intellectuals" were not there, I put questions to him which he answered with his luminous clarity and charm. I often kept notes of ...
... not at a departure out of the world and life into Heaven or Nirvana, but at a change of life and existence, not as something subordinate or incidental, but as a distinct and central object … Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. 2. Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realization for the sake ...
... other, is about two million years old. The modern form was approached atleast 20,000 years ago. Surely, there has been time enough for each of us to attain the human level by the Ramayana epoch. The Tantra calculates that three lakhs of lives had to be passed through before the soul could have a human embodiment. Earth's long history amply allows time for our pre-human past. You and I are certain ...
... developed force of consciousness, is prior in creation; the more developed human consciousness, in which there is a greater force of kinetic mind-energy and,light of perception, is a later creation. The Tantra speaks of a soul fallen from its status passing through many lacs of births in plant and animal forms before 11. Vie Life Divine, pp. 74546. Page 89 it can reach ...
... present world-view of science and evolution in an hour which was new and unprecedented. Amal finds Sri Aurobindo also relating to the past - to the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and the Tantra - but, in his case, to corroborate and enrich the profession of his own understanding. Teilhard appears "mentally head and shoulders above every one of his Christian commentators" but is, ...
... receive its solution and not only the soul but Nature herself find her deliverance. This is the Truth which has been seen in flashes, in more and more entirety of its terms by the line of seers whom the Tantra would call the hero-seekers and the divine seekers and which may now be nearing the point of readiness for its full revelation and experience. Then whatever be the heavy weight of strife and suffering ...
... in its nature synthetical and starts from a great central principle of Nature, a great dynamic force of Nature; but it is a Yoga apart, not a synthesis of other schools. This system is the way of the Tantra. Owing to certain of its developments Tantra has fallen into discredit with those who are not Tantrics; and especially owing to the developments of its left-hand path, the Vama Marga, which not content ...
... we have been following, another clue of principle has been pursued which is derived from another view of the possibilities of Yoga. This starts from the method of Vedanta to arrive at the aim of the Tantra. In the Tantric method Shakti is all-important, becomes the key to the finding of spirit; in this synthesis spirit, soul is all-important, becomes the secret of the taking up of Shakti. The Tantric ...
... the highest and most meditative kind, as soon as it commenced to turn at a sharp incline from its first large and free synthesis, had moved with an always increasing preponderance. The Gita like the Tantra and on certain sides the later religions attempts to preserve the ancient balance: it Page 527 maintains the substance and foundation of the original synthesis, but the form has been ...
... soul of humanity. The ancient Indian idea which refused to separate nature of man from the universal Nature or self of man from the one common self, accepted this consequence of its seeing. Thus the Tantra assigns eighty millions of plant and animal lives as the sum of the preparation for a human birth and, without binding ourselves to the figure, we can appreciate the force of its idea of the difficult ...
... The Mother, the Divine and the Lower Nature The Mother with Letters on the Mother The Mother in the Tantra The experience of the Mother being the Supreme is the Tantrik experience—it is one side of the Truth. The Tantrics used to invoke Shakti in their sadhana. Was it the same Force and Consciousness that is in the Mother here? It depends on ...
... him, and thereby free the atmosphere from its influence. Anyway, this trip to Pondicherry would not take place in the near future, and it would be easy to give him an official excuse: seminars on the Tantra Shastra that will interest all the Sanskritists at the Ashram. Moreover, X's work would be done quietly in his room when he does his daily puja. From here, from Rameswaram, it is rather difficult ...
... my utter bewilderment 312Madhav Pandit was a Konkani Ashramite and scholar. He was the author of many books expounding Sri Aurobindo's yoga and philosophy. He also wrote books on the Tantra and the Vedas. 313A rhetorical device. The Sanskrit word means decoration, beautification, ornamentation. 314 Karmayoga is the dedication of all one's actions to the Divine, by practicing ...
... such as telepathy, telekinesis, foreknowledge and allied or cognate operations. But in India, there are schools which specialised in the study of this range of consciousness. And, in the system of the Tantra, we have a remarkable body of the application of the knowledge of the subliminal or occult consciousness. The subliminal has to be distinguished from the subconscious. The subconscious is the ...
... g tendency has been to combine, assimilate, harmonise and synthesise. In the past, there have been at least four great stages of synthesis, represented by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and the Tantra. And, in modern times, we are passing through the fifth stage, represented by a new synthesis, which is in the making. It is impossible to describe Indian spirituality and religion by any exclusive ...
... spirit and the processes of the integral yoga can properly be understood and practised; and, again, it is against this background that the processes of the Jnana yoga, Karma yoga, Bhakti yoga and the Tantra as also all other processes of yoga which are incorporated in the integral yoga need to be modified and expanded; but most importantly, the necessity and processes of the yoga of self-perfection ...
... corroborated and confirmed by the description of the integral reality and supramental consciousness that we find in the records of the synthesis of yoga in the Veda, Upanishads and the Gita, and in the Tantra. But Sri Aurobindo and the Mother go farther and determine a new integral aim of life 56 which can be fulfilled by new methods of their integral yoga. Let us elucidate this important point in ...
... assimilate, Page 40 harmonise and synthesise. Four great systems of synthesis in the history of Hinduism are clearly discernible, and they are represented by the Vedas, Upanishads, Gita, and the Tantra. In modern times, Hinduism is passing through the fifth stage of synthesis, represented by a new synthesis which is in the making. It is remarkable to notice how through various stages of historical ...
... tendency has been to combine, assimilate, harmonize and synthesize. In the past, there have been at least four great stages of synthesis, represented by the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, and the Tantra. And, in modem times, we are passing through the fifth stage, represented by a new synthesis, which is in the making. It is impossible to describe Indian spirituality and religion by any ...
... me", yat te daksnia-mukhamh tena mam pahi nityam. Vedanta is the path of Knowledge and of one who has the Knowledge; it is a Path of the awakened and enlightened intellect. Tantra, especially the Tantra of the Left-hand Path, has sought to guide and train man through another kind of discipline, along the lines of the vital, even the physical-vital movements that are common to all menthe natural ...
... One can have the religious or spiritual experience on each of these planes, representing various degrees of growth and evolution according to the plane to which it is attached. It is therefore that the Tantra refers to three gradations of spiritual seekers and accordingly three types or lines of Page 54 spiritual discipline: the animal (pashu bhava,) the heroic (vira bhava) and the ...
... evolution than the generality of mankind, and it is these that will lead in the future evolution. In addition, the race has a mighty will-power which comes from the long worship of Shakti and practice of the Tantra that has been a part of our culture for many centuries. No other people could have revolutionised its whole national character in a few years as Bengal has done. The Bengali has always worshipped ...
... and together these commentaries constitute Sri Aurobindo's monumental attempt to correlate past spiritual experiences and philosophical formulations - along with other intervening syntheses like the Tantra - with his own inner realisations and their intellectual formulation in the work simultaneously in progress. The Life Divine. While his own realisations gave him the central inspiration and ambience ...
... me that they were in conformity with the Vedic tradition. As for certain occult practices, he told me that they were fully Tantric. At that time I knew nothing, absolutely nothing of the Veda or the Tantra." 1 All the different traditions treat the common theme of the creation and its destruction. "The traditions tell you that a universe is created, then it is withdrawn into pralaya, then a ...
... Yoga of Sri Aurobindo CHAPTER XI The Purification of Nature PURIFICATION has a special sense in the Integral Yoga. In the other Yoga's except the Tantra, it means the simplification or stilling of most of the functions of antaḥkaraṇa, which comprises citta or the basic consciousness, manas or the sense-mind, buddhi or the intelligence, ...
... 66. 79 Tantra" has been used in various senses in the Sanskrit literature. Apte has given 31 meanings in his Sanskrit-English dictionary. Tantra is so-called because it gives a body of "acts", which are required for the realisation of the highest. Tantra is so-called also because it provides the means or methods of realising the supreme objective. Madhavacharya has said that tantra is that by which... upakarah yena sakrit pravartitena tat tantram. Among the agamas, those which are called Shaktagamas, are particularly called Tantra. In Agamatattvavilasa, there is a list of 64 tantras. According to some, the original number of books relating to tantras was more than one lakh. Some Tantra books belong to the period of 1st century B.C. Page 72 80 These six chakras are: muladhara, svadhishthana, ...
... Aurobindo : The principle of Tantra may be as old as the Veda but the known Tantras are later. Disciple : The Vedas are considered the highest authority in India, so everything in India wants to peg itself on to the Vedas – not only Tantra; but art, dancing etc. Sri Aurobindo : I don't understand this passion for antiquity. What does it matter when a thing took place; Truth is truth... : It is said that the Tantras are derived from the Vedas. Disciple : There is nothing in the Veda to justify their claim except one solitary Sukta, called the Vak; Ambhrani Page 142 It is a Valkhilya. There Ambhrani speaks of herself as the creatrix of the Gods. Of course one can take Aditi, the Infinite divine consciousness as the root of Tantra if one likes. Sri Aurobindo ...
... Hindu perceiving many truths of Veda surviving in Purana & Tantra & Itihasa, already present in the deeper passages of the Brahmanas,—will not easily believe that the European scholars’ is the last word & that in this modern rubbish of Nature-worship & incoherent semi-savage poetry we have the secret of that Veda from which Vedanta, Purana, Tantra, Itihasa, Yoga&Brahmana spring, that Veda which was so ...
... which is the goal of human life. The task to which Tantra addressed itself was immense and infinitely difficult, and its failure far outweighed its slender success, but it evoked into activity a possibility of perfection which, since the days of the Vedas, had lain latent and overlooked in the human consciousness. This was the great contribution of Tantra. Its ideal was, not the self-annihilating merger... all, including even Tantra—have been more or less swayed by the ascetic and renunciatory tendency, initiated in the Upanishadic times and fostered and developed by later extremist spirituality, and envisaged the turīya or the transcendent Unthinkable as the ultimate goal of the being of man. Jnânayoga, Bhakti yoga, Karmayoga, Râjayoga,. Page 45 Hathayoga, Tantra, all have fixed upon... credit of the Yoga of love and delight that it has made the highest union a feasible realisation, and its ineffable ecstasy of joy the crest of divine fulfilment. Another line of Yoga, the mighty Tantra, concerned itself with the spiritual purification and preparation of life and its will. It was a very daring adventure, which necessitated a descent into the dark, subconscious regions of the being ...
... helps it to come about and to perfect itself. This force is the Yoga shakti. It is here asleep and coiled up in all the centres of our inner being (chakras) and is at the base what is called in the Tantras the Kundalini Shakti. But it is also above us, above our head as the Divine Force—not there coiled up, involved, asleep, but awake, scient, potent, extended and wide; it is there waiting for manifestation ...
... rocketed upward and made to strike as it were at the back of the lower masses of the mind. Now where to find this fire, this mounting tongue of a living flame? That is what the Page 325 Tantras have imaged in the concept of the Kundalini Shakti. There is a force, a mighty energy coiled and concentrated at the base of the spine holding it and supporting at its top, first, the subliminal region... illumining all the inferior and denser regions of consciousness till it pierces through and enters into the head, and then goes beyond, into the supreme solar light. That is the image given in the Tantras calling it sat-chakrabheda. The inferior parts of the brain are denser and darker than the superior. The lower it is, the denser and darker it becomes. I do not know if physically it is so, but ...
... wife 196 Front page of Vijaya, a Tamil daily edited by Bharati 209 Dancing Ganesha, a painting by Frederic Joos 243 V. V. S. Aiyar 322 The seven chakras of Tantra, drawing by Maryse Prat 349 Raghavan Chetty House (Abhay Singh's coll.) 388 The Guest House (Abhay Singh's coll.) 391 Sri Aurobindo with Amrita at the Guest House (Abhay Singh's ...
... the path of the Sushumna, on the mountain of matter, blow, blow upon, inflame, inflame, illumine, illumine. He am I, I am He, Swaha. (Translation by I. K. Taimni) M. P. Pandit: Studies in the Tantras and the Veda , pp. 134-35. ॐ पृथ्वि त्वया धृता लोका देवि त्वं विष्णुना धृता। त्वं च धारय मां देवि पवित्रं कुरु चासनम् ॥ ॐ ह्रीं चण्डिकायै नमः। om pṛthvi tvayā dhṛtā lokā devi tvaṁ viṣṇunā ...
... a force of fire is rocketed upward and made to strike as it were at the back of the lower masses of the mind. Now where to find this fire, this mounting tongue of a living flame? That is what the Tantras have imaged in the concept of the Kundalini Shakti. There is a force, a mighty energy coiled and concentrated at the base of the spine holding it and supporting at its top, first, the subliminal region... illumining all the inferior and denser regions of consciousness till it pierces through and enters into the head, and then goes beyond, into the supreme solar light. That is the image given in the Tantras calling it ṣ a ṭ -chakrabheda. The inferior parts of the brain are denser and darker than the superior. The lower it is, the denser and darker it becomes. I do not know if physically ...
... union. Tantra has also discovered the Page 23 power of the mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic- formula, and with the aid of mantra, Kundalini-shakti can be awakened and new states of consciousness which rise can be stabilised and strengthened so that they can effectuate important results which are considered to be miraculous. Tantra as a Synthesis of Yoga Tantra is, in... many others manifest spontaneously and work themselves out without the need of maintaining them by methodical processes of these siddhis. (c) Yogic Experience of Tantra There is a system of Yoga which is known as Tantra, which contains many elements which are founded on the knowledge relating to Kundalini. It takes into account the psychical or mental body of which the physical is a sort... Eight Accomplishments of Yogic Discipline These powers are not peculiar to Raja Yoga alone; they Page 20 are attained even by other methods, methods of Hatha Yoga, methods of Tantra and even the methods of Karma Yoga, Jn ā na Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and others. In the Indian yogic language, these powers or accomplishments are famous eight accomplishments, aṣṭa siddhi. These siddhis ...
... requires. It is varishtha, the best or highest, because it goes beyond the triple Brahman to the Purushottam or Most High God; it is secret, because even in the ordinary teaching of Vedanta, Purana and Tantra it is not expressed, it is always followed by the saints, the initiates. The santah or saints are those who are pure of desire and full of knowledge, and it is to these that the secret knowledge ...
... Sāmkhya 21, 44 Satprem's biography of the Mother 77 sattva 29 Savitri 3, 15 s ā yujyamukti 47, 90 (The) Secret of the Veda 47 shakti 45,49, 74, 75; of Tantra 48 shūnya (nihil) 45 siddhis 11, 21,30, 39w., 84,86,96; the Tantric view of 46; Yogic 28 soul-instrumentation 15 soul-personality 63 spirit 15,29,30,36,37,65,66... superconscient 59; the advent of 38; transformation 15, 36 (The) Supramental Manifestation on the Earth 3, 15, 38 supra-physical things 57 supreme reality 11, 43 tamas 29 Tantra 21, 48, 87 Tantric (the) 91,95 Tantric Yoga 47 thought-mind 67 time-eternity 24 traiguny ā tītya 49 transformation 27, 28-33, 38,52; triple 15 transcendental ...
... metaphysical philosophies. In the fixed tradition of thousands of years they have been revered as the origin and standard of all that can be held as authoritative and true in Brahmana and Upanishad, in Tantra and Purana, in the doctrines of great philosophical schools and in the teachings of famous saints and sages. The name borne by them was Veda, the knowledge,—the received name for the highest spiritual... as much of the origins of the Puranas. It will explain and Page 8 justify rationally the whole ancient tradition of India; for it will be found that, in sober truth, the Vedanta, Purana, Tantra, the philosophical schools and the great Indian religions do go back in their source to Vedic origins. We can see there in their original seed or in their early or even primitive forms the fundamental ...
... deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by his own name but called Mayamoha. The Purana says, "Buddhasya, Buddhasya", which evidently refers to Buddha. The principle of Tantra may be as old as the Vedas, but the known Tantras are a later development. PURANI: The Vedas are regarded as the highest authority in India. So everything wants to peg itself on to the Vedas SRI AUROBINDO: Why is there ...
... (Overmind-Force or Vidya-Avidya), and took it for the supreme creative power. In so stopping short at what was still a half-light they lost the secret of transformation- even though the Vaishnava and Tantra Yogas groped to find it again and were sometimes on the verge of success. For the rest, this, I think, has been the stumbling-block of all attempts at the discovery of the dynamic divine ...
... –Viziers of Bassora 385 Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, 32n Srotas, 330 St. Augustine, 290, 338 Stone Age, 155 SunahsheIta, 318 Surra, 221, 327 TAGORE,97 Tantras, the, 182-3, 326 Tertullian, 290n – De Carne Christi, 290n Troy, 399 UNITED STATES, THE, 362 Upanishads, the, 188, 221, 246, 272-3, 27.5, 284, 297, 310-11, 320, 334, 340,371,377 ...
... and collective perfection. In this new departure, there is a new synthesis based on a new discovery. This synthesis takes into account not only all the orthodox Vedantins of different schools and Tantra and the adherents of the theistic religions of the past and the present as also Buiddhism and Jainism and even the vast and catholic teachings of the Gita and the loftiest spiritual knowledge of the... day, including the potent though limited Page 110 revelations of modern knowledge and seeking. Basing itself on the past synthesis of the Veda, of the Upanishad, of the Gita, of the Tantras, the synthesis effected by Sri Aurobindo proposes to meet squarely the vast and all-embracing crisis of today's humanity. This synthesis recovers the Vedic knowledge of the Supermind, of the Vedic ...
... doesn't. Does it mean that the outsider is more receptive? SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, in that particular respect. PURANI: Krishnaprem's distinction is rather strange, because Tantra implies just the opposite of what he says. Tantra makes the female the active part. SRI AUROBINDO: There are two ways of seeing it. In one, the masculine is active and the feminine is passive, while, in the other, Prakriti ...
... Sharira): The subtle body. sv ā dhisth ā na: See cakra. tamos: One of the three gunas, fundamental qualities or modes of Nature; the principle of obscurity and inertia in Nature. tantra: A path of spiritual discipline based upon the principle of Consciousness-Power (conceived as the Mother) as the supreme Reality. tap as: Energy of Consciousness - the principle of spiritual ...
... life-force, far from the body we must ultimately go if the Supreme is to be our unchanging and everlasting home: this has been the master-message of every system of spirituality. Even Vaishnavism and Tantra, which attempted to lay reshaping hands on embodied existence, knew how short they fell of the power of true transformation: even they pointed in the end to an earth-exceeding Within or a world-forgetting ...
... Remember that Tantra is not like Vedanta, it is a Yoga for material gains, that has always been its nature. Only now not for personal gains, but for effectivity in certain directions of the general Yoga of mankind. The earlier decadent stage of Tantra, he added, exists now "only in a scattered way ineffectual for any great aid of humanity". The second stage, "our new Tantra [which in this... themselves on a reasonable basis. Sri Aurobindo's letter to Motilal Roy referred to one other important matter as well: the relationship between Vedantic Yoga (or the Yoga of knowledge) and Tantra Yoga (which meant, in this context, the Yoga of Action). Page 101 Since his plunge into politics about a decade earlier, Sri Aurobindo had successfully combined Vedantic Yoga and n ...
... Indra and Python, Aryan and the Dasyu. In the Puranas and Tantras also life is conceived as a struggle and battle between Devas and Asuras, Devas and Rakshasas' between the armies of Gods and God- desses and the armies of Asuric, Rakshasic and Paishachik adversaries. The vedic goal of achieving immortality recurs also in the Puranas and Tantras, where we have symbolic story of the search after the nectar... but it extends even to the popular mind, which has been permeated by the force of the thoughts, images, traditions and cultural symbols not only of the Veda and Vedanta but also by the Purana and Tantra. There is in the Indian mind a pervasive synthetic monism, many-sided Unitarianism, and large cosmic universalism. This is not to deny the fact that there have emerged in the Page 102 ... knowledge have opposed the claims of the path of action and devotion and vice-versa; but there have been powerful systems of the synthesis, such as those of the esoteric Veda, Upanishads, Gita and Tantra. Even in later times, in the movements of saints and bhaktas there is a marked turn towards synthesis, and even in our own times, in the yogic life of Sri Aurobindo's integral yoga we have the latest ...
... in a deep trance or Samadhi of union. Tantra also has discovered the power of the mantra, sacred syllable, name or mystic- formula, and with the aid of mantra, Kundalini-shakti can be awakened and new states of consciousness which rise can be stabilised and strengthened so that they can effectuate important results which are considered to be miraculous. Tantra is, in fact, a synthesis of yoga, which... only when they come or when the divine within moves one to use them. These powers are not peculiar to Raja Yoga alone; they are attained even by other methods, methods of Hatha Yoga, methods of Tantra, and even the methods of Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and others. In the Indian yogic language, these powers or accomplishments are famous eight accomplishments, aṣṭa siddhi. These siddhis... powers as also many others manifest spontaneously and work themselves out without the need of maintaining by methodical processes of these siddhis. There is a system of Yoga which is known as Tantra, Page 92 which contains many elements which are founded on the knowledge relating to Kundalini. It takes into account the psychical or mental body of which the physical is a sort of r ...
... the synthetic yogas of the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagvadgita and Tantra, that the aim of the supramental manifestation on earth is sought to be realised. Page 296 Sri Aurobindo equates the Vedic "truth-consciousness "with the supermind, with the Gita's concept of paraprakriti and with the supreme Shakti of Tantra, and builds up a path to the ascent to the supermind and of the ...
... presence of the apricot, the melon, the peach, the pineapple and is, to Europeans, suggestive even of turpentine! What is more, we learn from the same writer that in the Hitopadesha and Pancha Tantra it is regarded not only as the medicine par excellence for humans but also as the food of the Gods. It is, therefore, the emblem of the spiritual delight which is said to sustain the celestial ...
... of Divine knowledge), Bhakti Yoga (Yoga of Divine Love), etc. There are also many other systems of Yoga like Mantra Yoga, Kriya Yoga and others. Another very important system of Yoga is that of Tantra. In India, there have been many attempts at synthesizing various systems of Yoga. The earliest synthesise of Yoga is to be found in the Veda, which combined the processes of knowledge, action, and ...
... Prakriti, Spirit and Matter, the One and the Many. The Vedic Yoga, grown obsolete and somewhat obscure, survives in some of its lingering vestiges only in some forms of Paurânic Bhakti Yoga and Tantra, it is the Sânkhya that holds the field; and it is no exaggeration to say that most of the post-Upanishadic Yogas in India have more or less been imbued with the spirit of Sânkhya. Even Jnânayoga... Jnânayoga, which does not subscribe to the pluralism of the Sânkhya, accepts its fundamental dichotomy, and tends towards the silent immobility of the Purusha or Brahman. Even Bhaktiyoga and ' Tantra envisage as their ultimate goal a supracosmic consummation and not the divine union and manifestation in life and on this earth, which the Vedic Yoga seems to have sought to achieve. We shall see in our ...
... all the substance but the main bulk and the existing shape of the Puranic writings. Whatever may be our ultimate judgement on the significance of the Puranas, it can be observed that Puranas as also Tantras which belong to this age contain in themselves the highest spiritual and physical Page 94 truths derived from the lofty realisations of the Veda and the Upanishads. These truths are not... today, once again the theme of continuity and change has become extremely important. We need to understand once again the inner heart and soul of the Veda, the inner heart and soul of the Puranas and Tantras, and also inner heart and soul of the post- Puranic age with its great movements of Bhakti and multisided Yoga. And we have to open ourselves to make the treasures of the past as our support for unfinished ...
... (OvermindForce or Vidya-Avidya) and took it for the supreme creative power. In so stopping short at what was still a half-light they lost the secret of transformation—even though the Vaishnava and Tantra Yogas groped to find it again and were sometimes on the verge of success. For the rest, this, I think, has been the stumbling-block of all attempts at the discovery of the dynamic divine Truth; I know ...
... Giants, Indra and Python, Aryan and the Dasyu. In the Puranas and Tantras also life is conceived as a struggle and battle between Devas and Asuras, Devas and Rakshasas, armies of Gods and Goddesses and those of Asuric, Rakshasic and Paishacik adversaries. The Vedic goal of achieving immortality recurs also in the Puranas and Tantras, where we have symbolic story of the search after the nectar of i... thinkers, but extends even to the popular mind, which has been permeated by the force of thoughts, images, traditions and cultural symbols not only of the Veda and Vedanta but also of the Purana and Tantra. There is in the Indian mind a pervasive synthetic monism, many-sided unitarianism, and large cosmic universalism. This is not to deny the fact that there have emerged in the long course... have opposed the claims of the path of action and devotion and vice-versa but there have also been powerful systems of synthesis, such as those of the esoteric Veda, Upanishads, Gita and Tantra. Even in later times, in the movements of saints and bhaktas there is a marked turn towards synthesis, and even in our own times, in the yogic life of Sri Aurobindo and his integral yoga we ...
... Veda Stories of the Upanishads and their Yogic Import Evolution and the idea of the Avatar The Great Greeks and Romans Augustus and World-Unity Puranas and Tantras The Bhakti Age of India Renaissance and Leonardo da Vinci Ideal of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: A Call to Yoga in World-Action Ideal of Nationalism and Internationalism... below: Psychology and Yoga as Applied Psychology Psychology of Nature, Psychology of Life Life and Yoga Systems of Yoga: Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Tantra Yoga, the Synthesis of Yoga Analysis of Personality; Parts of the Being; Inconscient, sub-conscient, physical, vital, mental, subliminal, psychic, superconscient Ego, Memory,... Indian Schools of Psychology and Yoga. Higher Reaches of Yoga and Psychological knowledge. Detailed Study of the Systems of Yoga: Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Yoga of Tantra, Kundalini Yoga, Synthesis of Yoga. Knowledge, Understanding, Concentration, Meditation, Contemplation, Purification, Renunciation, Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana ...
... with Hindi translation), Gita Press, 1969, Gorakhpur, Reprint. Keith, A.B., Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, 2 Vols., H.O.S, Reprinted, Delhi, 1925. Kumārila Bhatta, Tantra-Vārtika, translation by Ganganath Jha, Shri Satguru Publication, 1983, Delhi, II Edition, Reprint. Lipner Julius, The Face of Truth: A study of meaning and metaphysics in Vedantic theology of ...
... also actively associated in the work of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education. The World Union had him as its Chairman. An erudite scholar, he has written about a hundred books on Yoga, Tantra, Vedas, Upanishads, etc. He Page 17 had a large number of admirers, a good number of them looking to him for guidance on inner problems and on worldly problems. He passed away in ...
... to philosophic thinkers nourished on the high sublimities of the Veda and Vedanta, It permeates the popular mind nourished on the thoughts, images, traditions, and cultural symbols of the Purana and Tantra; for these things are only concrete representations or living figures of the synthetic monism, the many-sided unitarian ism, the large cosmic universalism of the Vedic scriptures. "Indian ...
... indispensable, but what is decisive, what is finally aimed at is the resulting descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment of life. (2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the... transformation and I put that as the aim at once of my Yoga and of the terrestrial manifestation. I am quite unaware that any of the old Yogas hold this as the aim before them. Even Vaishnavism and Tantra are in the end other-worldly; mukti is the aim of their efforts and anything else could be only incidental and secondary or a result on the way. If my view is correct, then my statement was not an ...
... the law of self-nature that one inevitably follows; it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is heroic, the path of Dharma is of the gods, godly. (Cf. Virabhava and Divyabhava of the Tantras.) The principle of Dharma then inculcates that each individual must, in order to act, find out the truth of his own being, his true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely and integrally ...
... inevitably follows, it is easy, spontaneous, delightful. The path of duty is heroic, Page 62 the path of Dharma is of the gods, godly (cf. Virabhava and Divyabhava of the Tantras). The principle of Dharma then inculcates that each individual must, in order to act, find out his truth of being, his true soul and inmost consciousness: one must entirely _nd integrally merge ...
... after Buddha, that holds this view of the acceptance of life. The Hinayana school does not. SATYENDRA: Everybody finds things in The Life Divine according to their own predilection. Somebody found Tantra and Krishnaprem finds Buddhism. SRI AUROBINDO: Especially as he is in a Buddhistic phase now. NIRODBARAN: Sisir says that the reviewers should give quotations from the writers. That is the modern ...
... must be applied to all the Scriptures of the world. Take all the Scriptures that are or have been, Bible and Koran Page 92 and the books of the Chinese, Veda and Upanishads and Purana and Tantra and Shastra and the Gita itself and the sayings of thinkers and sages, prophets and Avatars, still you shall not say that there is nothing else or that the truth your intellect cannot find there is... from the Master of all knowledge, the knower of the eternal Veda. Page 93 × The systems of the Puranas and Tantras are full of the ideas of the Sankhya, though subordinated to the Vedantic idea and mingled with many others. × ...
... is manifest and bodied, on the tongue of man." This terminology embodying a fundamental principle has had many commentaries and explanations. Of these the most well-known is that given by the Tantras. They have named the fourfold words as (1) parā, supreme; (2) paśyantī, the seeing one; (3) madhyamā, the middle one or the one within and (4) vaikharī, the articulate word. In modern language ...
... spit on your Vedanta." But logically the Vedantin was right. So long as you believe everything is Maya, you can do as you like. PURANI: What is the truth in the Vama Marga, the left-hand path of Tantra? SRI AUROBINDO: I don't know. It must have been prescribed with the idea of taking up the lower forces and pulling them high up. But to go back to our original point about the law of Nature, ...
... experienced turning it to the soul's uses, in this Hinduism we find the basis of the future world-religion. This sanātana dharma has many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita, Upanishad, Darshana, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the Bible or the Koran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we shall ...
... ecstasy in the approach to the secrets of Nature; but there is a luminous Apollonian as well as an obscure and sometimes dangerous Dionysian mysticism, a Dakshina as well as a Vama Marga of the mystic Tantra. And though no partaker in or supporter of any kind of rites or mummery, Heraclitus still strikes one as at least an intellectual child of the Mystics and of mysticism, although perhaps a rebel son ...
... detail. The Vedic message of human life as a field of battle in which every individual is called upon to make a sacrifice for attaining victory and immortality is also retained in the Puranas and Tantras, which provided the people with a basis of generalised psycho-religious experience from which man could rise to the highest absolute status. The Purano-Tantric stage is the second stage of the ...
... spiritual seeking is to find out what is eternally true, not what is new in Time. From where did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the sadhaks of this Asram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated Jivan-muktas, free from ego and ignorance? If not, why then do you say, "it is not ...
... one is manifest and bodied, on the tongue of man." This terminology embodying a fundamental principle has had many commentaries and explanations. Of these the most well-known is that given by the Tantras. They have named the fourfold words as (1) parā, supreme; (2) paśyantī , the seeing Page 12 one; (3) madhyamā , the middle one or the one within and (4) vaikhar ī , the ...
... The companion who is with you and helps you through the journey is your inner deity represented here as the sea-elephant. This is a familiar image in the orthodox Tantra. It also represents the Purusha-Prakriti play. Tantra speaks of the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna where one is to seize by violence the divine damsel. Sri Aurobindo refers to the same dual phenomenon as "aspiration... spoken of in the Tantras; vide also poem No. XIV. Page 286 3. Moon = Soma; immortality. Waters = streams of immortality. 4. Northern pole: the summit of being or consciousness, the southern pole being the lower end corresponding to sahasrara at the top and muladhara at the bottom, of the Tantras, Sumeru and Kumeru ...
... later writers, their language is a laborious and deliberate though a powerful and beautiful construction and appeals only to an erudite audience, a learned elite. The religious writings, Purana and Tantra, moving from a deeper, still intensely living source, aiming by their simplicity at a wider appeal, prolong for a time the tradition of the epics, but the simplicity and directness is willed rather... their works have no chance of forming part of the intimate religious and ethical mind of the people as did the Ramayana and Mahabharata. The stream of religious poetry flows separately in Purana and Tantra. The great representative poet of this age is Kalidasa. He establishes a type which was preparing before and endured after him with more or less of additional decoration, but substantially Page ...
... experienced turning it to the soul's uses, in this Hinduism we find the basis of the future world-religion. This sanatana dharma has many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita, Upanishad, Darshana, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the Bible or the Koran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we shall ...
... recover the ancient spiritual knowledge in its fullness, in its amplitude — this is the first task. And this means of course, basically, the recovery of the Veda, Upanishads, the Gita, the Puranas and Tantras. This is, one might say, the basic stuff of what can be called the ancient spiritual knowledge of India. I underline the word "knowledge" because, usually, though this knowledge is contained in what... revelations which were made once for all and have to be accepted unquestioningly. Therefore, philosophers do not accept them as bodies of knowledge. The Vedas are Scriptures; the Upanishads, the Gita, Tantra, Puranas are Scriptures; but they must still be considered as books of knowledge, because India does not regard them as revelations made for all times which cannot be repeated or which cannot be verified... come to the Bhagavad Gita, which is regarded to be the quintessence of the Veda, it also mentions that the Veda is a book- of knowledge. The Puranas also claimed that Veda was a book of knowledge. Tantra also regards Veda as a book of knowledge. Indian schools of philosophy regard Veda as an authority, and it is a tradition in Indian philosophy that if your conclusions of philosophical thought do not ...
... divine or human, through those who are perfect or realised Beings, for the supreme good of the world. This is what is called Tantric Process. Page 151 Thus in the path of Tantra, widely extended as it is through the long tradition of its preceptors; the meditative concentration on the image, the repetition of the sacred formulas, Mantra-Japa, and other various methods mentioned... the fundamental Truth and principle which remains always the same. And this is called Sri Vidya which is the essential substance of all the sacred Scriptures, the essence of the four great steps of Tantra (Charya, Kriya, Jnana and Yoga) expounded in all its precepts. This High Knowledge (Vidya) has been very secretly taught by the different branches of Yajurveda in their hymns and their U ... his inner fitness. He must finally settle himself in the wideness of the Highest Consciousness, from where there is no beyond, and thus move freely and blissfully. This is the highest truth of Tantra which can only be attained by the Grace of the Guru. This has been expounded by Yogishananda Nath Nilakantha Sharma Joshi, the disciple of Sri Amba Nanda Nath, as commanded by the Mother, the incarnate ...
... synthesis. The conflict that arose in Indian thought as a result of the growth and development of Buddhism was sought to be resolved by the composite philosophy that we find embedded in the Puranas and Tantras. Still later, when the conflict between the various schools of Vedanta became acute, we find in Sri Chaitanya a profound and subtle synthesis. At the same time, the coming of Islam in India provided ...
... described in the Veda' Upanishads, Gita, and lastly, in Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga, which reaffirms the integral experience as recorded in the texts of the Veda, Upanishads and the Gita as also those of Tantra, but which has affirmed the possibility and actualisation of the integration and synthesis of Matter and Spirit under the sovereignty of the Spirit. According to Sri Aurobindo, — and all experiences ...
... seeking is to find out, what is eternally true, not what is new in Time. From where did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the sadhaks of this Ashram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated Jivan-muktas, free from ego and ignorance? If not, why then do you say, "it is not ...
... his conceptual ideation. But both are unable to surpass the boundary of the brain and the intellect. The true spirituality lies in exceeding this limit – in piercing through the six centres, as the Tantras would say. The amor intellectualis Dei of Spinoza may signify the theism of the scientist, but it has not reached the status of spirituality. We do not know how many have given due regard to this ...
... intimately connected with the earth and the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras—the navel centre). Indra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic... can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Maruts—this seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations—the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you ...
... facile and vulnerable. In Egypt and the East this line of knowledge arrived at a greater and more comprehensive endeavour: this ampler maturity can be seen still intact in the remarkable system of the Tantras; it was not only a many-sided science of the supernormal but supplied the basis of all the occult elements of religion and even developed a great and powerful system of spiritual discipline and se ...
... foundations) were now stirred in man to awake and to receive the Light. Finally remains the physical, the most material to be worked upon and made conscious and illumined. That was the task of the Tantras. Viewed in that light one can easily understand why especial stress was laid. in that system upon the esoteric discipline of the five m's (pancha makāra), all preoccupied with the handling and... through a purification and opening into the consciousness of the Divine Mother, the transcendent creatrix of the universe. The dynamic materialising aspect of consciousness was what inspired the Tantras: the others forming the Vedantic line, on the whole, were based on the primacy of the static being, the Purusha, aloof and withdrawing. The Indian consciousness, we say, presented the ...
... foundations) were now stirred in man to awake and to receive the Light. Finally remains the physical, the most material to be worked upon and made conscious and illumined. That was the task of the Tantras. Viewed in that light one can easily understand why especial stress was laid in that system upon the esoteric discipline of the five m's (pancha makara), all preoccupied with the handling and harnessing... force through a purification and opening into the consciousness of the Divine Mother, the transcendent creatrix of the universe. The dynamic materialising aspect of consciousness was what inspired the Tantras: the others forming the Vedantic line, on the whole, were based on the primacy of the static being, the Purusha, aloof and withdrawing. The Indian consciousness, we say, presented the movement ...
... intimately connected with the earth and -the earth-principles (it can be compared with the Muladhara of the Tantras). Next, second in the line of ascent is the Vital, the centre of power and dynamism of which the Rudras are the deities and Indra the presiding God (cf. Swadhishthana of the Tantras-the navel centre). lndra, in the Vedas, has two aspects, one of knowledge and vision and the other of dynamic... can be connected with Tantric Ajnachakra. The fourth is the domain of Soma and the Maruts-this seems to be the inner heart, the fount of delight and keen and sweeping aspirations-the Anahata of the Tantras. The fifth is the region of the crown of the head, the domain of Brahma and the Sadhyas: it is the Overmind status from where comes the descending inflatus, the creative Maya of Brahma. And when you ...
... sympathy and intuition and a close appreciative self-identification: that gives us work like Sister Nivedita's Web of Indian Life or Mr. Fielding's book on Burma or Sir John Woodroffe's studies of Tantra. These are attempts to push aside all concealing veils and reveal the soul of a people. It may well be that they do not give us all the hard outward fact, but we are enlightened of something deeper ...
... perfected, and we would then have the Yoga of Works (Karma Yoga), the Yoga of Knowledge (Jnana Yoga) and the Yoga of Love or Devotion (Bhakti Yoga). There are other yogas too like Raja, Hatha, and Tantra, etc. These are really so many 'paths' leading to God or the Life Divine. Aurobindo took these and other ideas from the older yogas and evolved a dynamic and truly multiform yoga of ...
... eternal self-conscious Existence, which the orthodox Vedântin envisages as the final object of his spiritual endeavour; we know Him as an infinite and eternal Consciousness-Force, which is the goal of Tantra and the Yoga of divine works; and we know Him as an infinite and eternal Self-Bliss, ānanda, which is the supreme status, param pada or param dhama of the yoga of love and devotion. The integral ...
... the essence of the integral divine perfection of the human being.”¹ The three highest forms of union aimed at respectively by the three great schools of Indian Yoga, Jnanayoga, Bhaktiyoga and Tantra,—Sayujya, Samipya and Sarupya—are fused into one all-comprehending union which combines the rapt ecstasy of the embrace of the Eternal with the thrilled dynamism of His self-expression in Time. All ...
... to discern, from time to time, from place to place, an "intuition" that something else is possible: in the Vedas, for instance (the injunction to descend deep into the cave of the Panis ); in the Tantras also ... a little light burning. I may add that you could adopt as motto for your first project this quotation of Sri Aurobindo: "We do not belong to the past dawns, but to the noons of the ...
... St. Teresa, 150 St.. Thomas Aquinas, 150 Stalin, 106, 125 Sumeria, 223 Sun-yat-Sen, 242 TACITUS, 87 Tagore, Rabindranath, 195, 197-8, 200-1 Tantras, the, 63, 216, 248 Thales, 329 Thebes, 91 Thor, 201 Tibet, 177n Times Literary Supplement, the, 254 Toynbee, Arnold, 238, 242n Trethowan ...
... The three highest forms of union aimed at respectively by the three great schools of Indian Yoga, Jnanayoga, Bhakti- 1 Letters of Sri Aurobindo, Vol. IV Page 11 yoga and Tantra,—Sayujya, Samipya and Sarupya—are fused into one all-comprehending union which combines the rapt ecstasy of the embrace of the Eternal with the thrilled dynamism of His self-expression in Time. All ...
... National College saw his serene figure, glowing with a mellow lustre. These two aspects were fused into one in Sri Aurobindo as in the third eye of Shiva. 1. An acknowledged authority on Tantra, the Swami had collaborated with Sir John Woodroffe in his exposition on Tantric sadhana. Our text is derived from Rishabhchand. Page 334 "From among the days when I came into close ...
... Perfect as crystal, thunder-strong and, lastly, Delivered from the siren Maya's bondage, Live in the forest, for long years vowed to silence And comtemplation and philosophy, Embodied in the Tantras, Vedas and Gita, Page 97 Before we can glimpse Him? Do we not all Know to our cost that He smiles never on our Manifold flaws and foibles of the flesh? Your puerile, sentimental... just now. I mean We have no wish to be hard on you. But ... er ... I mean ... you must learn to bow down to your elders, Nor presume to ridicule the wise, our Sanskrit Vedas and Tantras and the holy rites. We only evolve in light through living in light And not in the primitive world of our blind instincts And impulses of the untutored mind. Besides, an unlettered... your verdict on my humble self. I own I am an ignorant, unlettered woman Unversed in the Vedas, innocent of Sanskrit. Only I cannot help but wonder how Can an intensive study of the Vedas Or Tantras liberate us from our chains Of worldly attachments? How can, sires, a mental Philosophy lead us to the One who baffles The mind and senses ? And how shall scriptures Memorised heal the cravings ...
... able to discern, from time to time, from place to place, an 'intuition' that something else is possible; in the Vedas, for instance (the injunction to descend deep into the cave of the Panis); in the Tantras also... a little light is burning. 3 31 March 1967 Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history. Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation. Page ...
... afterwards by Time and circumstance and of which modern Hinduism presents us only some preserved, collected or redeveloped fragments; I shall suppose that the real meaning & justification of Purana, Tantra, Itihasa & Yoga can only be discovered by a rediscovery of their old foundation and harmonising secret in the true sense of the Veda, and in this light I shall proceed, awaiting its confirmation or ...
... plane 209 Sufi 70 sukshma sharira 116 Sun of Truth 38,86 Supermind 51,58 Supernature 12,128,208,273,315 Swinburne 42,127 T Tagore, Rabindranath 34, 70 Tantra 273 Tennyson 66,216,259 Thibaudet 62 Thompson, Francis 20,22,27,108 transformation power of true 273 translation 210 true soul 28,160 Truth-Consciousness 51 ...
... 201 Surya,166 Syria, 284 TAG ORE, RABINDRANATH, 53, 62n., 64, 66, 97-102, 222-3, 226-30, 288 -Balaka, 228 -Gitanjali, 99n -"The Golden Boat", 64n -"Salutation", 266n Tantras, the, 28-9, 165 Terence, 239n The Eternal Wisdom, 131 Theocritus, 86 . The Times Literary Supplement, 62n., 126n Thibon, Gustave, 126-7 Thompson, Francis, 143 -"The Hound of ...
... We may also note that the peculiar system of images and the complexity of its thought and symbolised experience which began in the Veda. reappeared constantly in later Indian writings, in the Tantras and the Puranas, as also in the figures of the Vaishnava poet. It is also notable that a certain element of this tradition appears even in the modern poetry of Tagore. Just as the Vaishnava poetry ...
... find that the heart of the Bengalis is full of diverse inspirations. They have curiosity in all areas. In their soul there is a harmonious union. In Bengal there flows the stream of love and strength. Tantra is prevalent in Bengal; but the truth of Vedanta, too, is present therein. This is why Bengalis utter, Tara Brahmamayi, "the Mother of power" who is but one with the absolute Brahman. There is emotion ...
... tremendous difficulty of its endeavour. It is fully ¹The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo. ² ibid. Page 206 aware of the fate that overtook the powerful and prodigious experiment of Tantra. But it has hitched its wagon to the supramental Sun, and, by a perfect use of the right relation between the two natures, promises to achieve its end, which is the inevitable end of evolution itself ...
... it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric—and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras. So very probably there was a tradition anterior to both. I have recollections (for me, these are always things I have LIVED), very clear, very distinct recollections of a time that was certainly ...
... solitary object of his Page 337 love and devotion from the very beginning of his yogic life. It is not that the Mahāśakti enfulfs or eclipses the Divine, as we see in some forms of Tantra. It is rather the Divine that fronts the sâdhaka as Mahāśakti , ,the all- loving, all-redeeming, all-transforming and all fulfilline Mother of all beings. Overflowing His fatherly solicitude it is ...
... unfettered self-existence. Jnânayoga aims at a union with the Infinite and Eternal in Its ineffable transcendence; Bhaktiyoga with the infinite and eternal Lord of Love and Bliss and Beauty; and Tantra, first with the infinite and eternal Mother of the universe as the supreme Shakti, and, as the culminating movement of its Yoga, with the infinite and eternal Brahman beyond all names and forms. ...
... and the Supermind, which is the reason why they got confused about Maya (Overmind-Force), took it for the supreme creative power and lost the secret of the transformation—although the Vaishnava and Tantra Yogas groped to find it again and were Page 298 sometimes on the verge of success. For the rest, this, I think, has been the stumbling-block of all attempts at the discovery of the dynamic... spiritual seeking is to find out what is eternally true, not what is new in Time. From where did you get this singular attitude towards the old Yogas and Yogis? Is the wisdom of the Vedanta and Tantra a small and trifling thing? Have then the sadhaks of this Asram attained to self-realisation and are they liberated Jivan-muktas free from ego and ignorance? If not, why then do you say "it is not ...
... Mind cannot discriminate & put these details into their place except, imperfectly, by the aid of memory—the habit of the [mind] of sensations. Like the women imprisoned in the magic forests of the old Tantra the mind is a prisoner in the circle of its own sensations wandering round & round in that narrow area and always returning to the original source of its bondage,—its inability to go beyond its data ...
... manifestation on earth is sought to be realised. Sri Aurobindo equates the Vedic truth-consciousness with the supermind, with the Gitā's concept of parāprakriti and with the supreme Shakti of Tantra, and builds up a path of ascent to the supermind and of descent of the supermind right up to the mental, vital and physical parts of the being, the climax of which is reached when the supermind is ...
... its highest movement, Sri Aurobindo envisages illumination of the whole physical consciousness and a divinizing of the law of the body. The yogic literature, particularly relating to Hatha yoga and Tantra, speaks of physical siddhis acquired by some opening up of the law of the subtle or a calling down of something of the law of the spiritual body. Normally, the method consists of opening up of the ...
... restricted. If in return for this loss we gain another life in another world within, the mental, the dynamic, these results could have been acquired through other systems, through Rajayoga, through Tantra, by much less laborious methods and held on much less exacting terms. On the other hand the physical results, increased vitality, prolonged youth, health, longevity are of small avail if they must ...
... ecstasy in the approach to the secrets of Nature; but there is a luminous Apollonian as well as an obscure and sometimes dangerous Dionysian mysticism, a Dakshina as well as a Varna Marga of the mystic Tantra. And though no partaker in or supporter of any kind of rites or mummery, Heraclitus still strikes one as at least an intellectual child of the Mystics and of mysticism, although perhaps a rebel son ...
... Ancient Indian knowledge and modern scientific knowledge: some striking examples. Page 57 Systems of yoga: Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Tantra, Integral Yoga. Aids for the Development of the Yogic Consciousness and Experience Need for the systematic knowledge of the principles and methods of yoga. Need for the Teacher: the ...
... helps it to come about and to perfect itself. This force is the Yoga-Shakti. It is here coiled up and asleep in all the centres of our inner being (Chakras) and is at the base what is called in the Tantras the Kundalini Shakti. But it is also above us, above our head as the Divine Force - not there coiled up, involved, asleep, but awake, scient, potent, extended and wide; it is there waiting for man ...
... complicated time-problem: the date of Kumarila Bhatta, a notable contemporary of Shanikara's, with whom that eminent Adwaitin had a famous debate. Kumarila Bhatta is known to have quoted in his Tantra-vartika a verse from Kalidasa's Abhijnana Sakuntalam: Satam hi sandehapadesu vastusu pramanam antahkaranapravrttayah. So he must be later than the great playwright whose time is invariably taken ...
... into opposing philosophic systems, although attempt were made from time to time to recombine them into some image of the original intuitive unity. One of these attempts is the large synthesis of the Tantras. Sri Aurobindo has taken up again this unifying endeavour and reconciled opposing views of the three great Acharyas. He has shown that the main Vedantic conceptions of existence are not mutually ...
... the ripeness of its manhood, threw out so many original intuitions in science, created so rich a glow of aesthetic and vital and sensuous experience, renewed its spiritual and psychic experience in Tantra and Purana, flung itself into grandeur and beauty of line and colour, hewed and cast its thought and vision in stone and bronze, poured itself into new channels of self-expression in the later tongues ...
... great that they have been described as the bible of the Indian people. That is not quite an accurate analogy, for the bible of the Indian people contains also the Veda and Upanishads, the Purana and Tantras and the Dharmashastras, not to speak of a large bulk of the religious poetry in the regional languages. The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ethical idea and cultural practice; ...
... rejects, not for any human reason but for Her own reason. An dthat Reason is Her own Will, free and far above all our human considerations of worthiness or unworthiness. This is the sense of sarva-tantra-svatantra. 8 While the Mother was divine-human (divine in essence though human in form and outer activity), the disciples - some of them - were yet all too human, and the days followed one after ...
... pervasive sense of the genuine and the spurious in spiritual experience: a long historic background charged with realisation on realisation by numerous followers of various Yogas — Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Tantra — is responsible for this sense, so that, as the Mother said to the Aurovilians on 5 February 1972, a simple and ignorant peasant here is in his heart closer to the Divine than the intellectuals ...
... Page 590 A 18th century miniature depicting kundalini, coiled like a serpent at the base of the trunk. all the mountains and forests on it, so all the Tantras (Yoga practices) rest on the Kundalini (the vertebral column). When the sleeping Kundalini awakens by favour of a guru, then all the lotuses (in the six chakras or centres) and all the ...
... up, there would be no end to the perfection of the physical body—the infinite potentialities of the kārana or causal sheath would be automatically actualised in the gross. Hathayoga, Râjayoga, Tantra etc. opened Tip some of these centres, but the highest ones still remained sealed, and the supreme principles of a dynamic divine perfection could not be brought down and established here in Matter ...
... The Veda with its symbol-pointers and seer-wisdom, the Upanishads with their lightning flashes and leaps of thought, the Gita with its high-arching reasoning and culminating revelation, Purana and Tantra with their more pronouncedly rich and complex appeal to the human psyche, all addressed themselves to the same elemental task of man's self-transcendence, only the changing times compelling a change... devoted to the Veda, the Upanishads and the two great epics - the Ramayana and the Mahabharata - respectively; the fourth, to Kalidasa and the poets of the Classical age, and the last, to Purana and Tantra, to the Tamil poets, and the minstrels of God all over the country. What Sri Aurobindo is attempting is nothing less than a bird's eye-view of a three-thousand-year old fairly continuous and reasonably... centuries and takes a sweeping glance at the many regional literatures. The cardinal notes everywhere are spiritual, intuitive and psychic. If the Puranas are essentially a true religious poetry, the Tantras outline "a complete psycho-spiritual and psycho-physical science of Yoga." The great period of Tamil literature was contemporary with the classical Sanskrit age, and there is brief mention of Tiruvalluvar ...
... experience, it is in fact the beginning of a form of symbolic or figurative imagery for the poetic expression of spiritual experience which reappears constantly in later Indian writing, the figures of the Tantras and Puranas, the figures of the Vaishnava poets,—one might add even a certain element in the modern poetry of Tagore,—and has its kindred movements in certain Chinese poets and in the images of the ...
... the desires of devotees and the remover of their distress. 57. If I am devoted to the bull-bannered lord, discarding all desires, may He be pleased with me. 58. If the mantra of the Narada Tantra, consisting of five syllables has been continuously repeated by me with great devotion may He be pleased with me. 59. If I am a devotee without aberrations of Siva, the lord of all, may He be ...
... Mother. If you can get into touch Page 469 with Her nearness and presence there in this manner, then you have already broken through the six centres, accomplished the end of Hathayoga and Tantra. There comes pouring into each limb not only a wide peace but also a strength and an illumination. This you may say is an easy simplified method of breaking through the centres. There is an enormous ...
... does not negate or invalidate any truth of spiritual realization, or give the lie to sane and substantial finding of metaphysical speculation. I luminous amplitude Vedanta joins hands with Sankhya, Tantra with Vaishnavism, Paganism with Christianity, and even Materialism finds its essential quest justified, rightly interpreted and enlightened, and itself united with spirituality in a happy wedlock ...
... Civilizations, 2004, New Delhi, Monograph series. Vol. 13, pp. 197 202. 31 The yogic science has been able to establish several states of realizations or Siddhis. In Hathayoga and Rajayoga, in Tantra as also in other systems of yoga, various Siddhis have been described. In all, siddhis are eight in number; two of them are siddhis of knowledge, three of power and three of being. The three siddhis ...
... bridge between the three? It is you (like all those who are conscious and consecrated) who are the bridge. 17.9.1967 Page 21 It is said that there are certain methods in the Tantras to open the chakras from below, whereas in the integral yoga the chakras open from above by the descent of the Mother's force. What is the difference between the results of the opening ...
... about the hymns: "In the fixed tradition of thousands of years they have been revered as the origin and standard of all that can be held as authoritative and true in Brahmana and Upanishad, in Tantra and Purana, in the doctrines of great philosophical schools and in the teachings of famous saints and sages. The name borne by them was Veda, the knowledge, - the received name for the highest ...
... the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the fulfilment of life. (2) Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of ...
... 35,39. 40(fn), 156,180,183, 195 Swaraj, 17,35,56,93.180,209 inner, 53 T Tagore, Rabindranath, 17,27, 193, 194,215 Tagore, Surendranath, 13 Tamil (language), 109 Tamil saints, 146 Tantra, 105 Taoists, 190 tapasyd, III taxes, 221 terrorism, 56, 93, 246 theosophy, 94, 200 Tibet, 251 -253 Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, Lokmanya, 17,132, 148, ISS , 160, 185, 195,246 tolerance, 179 Tolstoy ...
... discredit the field of occultism. But in Egypt and the East, occultism arrived at a greater and more comprehensive endeavor, and one can notice ampler maturity even today in the remarkable system of the Tantras. Occultism is, according to those who have studied it and its developments in Egypt and in the East, not only a many-sided science of the supernormal but it supplied the basis of all the Page 15 ...
... licentious labour of emendation. In the fixed tradition of the Veda, which extends in India over at least four thousand years, it has been held as authoritative and true in the Brahmans and the Upanishads, Tantra and Puranas, in the doctrines of great orthodox philosophical schools and in the teachings of famous saints and sages. The very term Veda means knowledge and by knowledge, the tradition means ...
... Someone asked Dada the other day: 'Why do tantriks do their tapasya in the total solitude of cremation grounds on the night of the new moon?' Dada answered: The very essence of Tantra is that one must not run away from the fearful and the perilous but face up to them and fight them. One must overcome them fearlessly and turn difficulty into opportunity. The Mother and Sri ...
... consciousness, which is that of my Yoga. 26 July 1935 We do not find the process of descent elsewhere—not in Patanjali or Sankhya or Hathayoga, not even in the Upanishads that I have read. In the Tantras there is the rising of the Kundalini but not the descent of peace or force. Why then do people not recognise the newness of your Yoga? They will perhaps say that there are "equivalents" in the ...
... Indian sciences and yoga. 3. Ancient Indian knowledge and modern scientific knowledge: some striking examples. 4. Systems of yoga: Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Tantra, Integral Yoga. II. Aids for the Development of the Yogic Consciousness and Experience 1. Need for the systematic knowledge of the principles and methods of yoga. 2. Need for the Teacher: ...
... An effort of this kind was the very force behind the most luminous and vivid of the later movements of India's vast religious cycle. It is the secret of the most powerful forms of Vaishnavism and Tantra and Yoga. The labour of ascent from our half-animal human nature into the fresh purity of the spiritual consciousness needed to be followed and supplemented by a descent of the light and force of the ...
... touchstone, the spiritual experience. “The ancient Indians through their yogic insight found the idea of similar evolution, which the modern scientists are finding out by observation and research. In the Tantras this kind of evolution has been described in detail,” writes Sri Aurobindo. And: “In the old Indian versions of this theory evolution, heredity and rebirth are three companion processes of the universal ...
... to philosophic thinkers nourished on the high sublimities of the Veda and Vedanta. It permeates the popular mind nourished on the thoughts, images, traditions and cultural symbols of the Purana and Tantra; for these things are only concrete representations or living figures of the synthetic monism, the many-sided unitarianism, the large cosmic universalism of the Vedic scriptures. Indian religion ...
... restorers, systematisers, wittingly or unwittingly, of good will or against their grain, have been stirred to their task by some vibration that reached them from those far-off ages. Our Darshana, Tantra and Purana, our Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism, our orthodoxy, heresy and heterodoxy, even when they have been the most perfect misunderstandings of each other, have always been imperfect unde ...
... Karma against Bhakti, and of Bhakti against Jnāna and Karma, trends of conflict between the Vedantic Yoga and the Yoga of the Buddhistic and Jain disciplines, sharp oppositions between Vedānta and Tantra. Among these conflicts, the one that came to be powerful and perilous has been the trenchant opposition between Yoga and Life itself. In the recent past, towards the close of the seventeenth ...
... obscure, draws its springs of life from these ancient and ever flowing waters. Conscious or unwitting each Indian religionist stirs to a vibration that reaches him from those far off ages. Darshana and Tantra and Purana, Shaivism & Vaishnavism, orthodoxy & heresy are merely so many imperfect understandings of Vedic truth & misunderstandings of each other; they are eager half-illuminated attempts to bring... mind, of men to the gods & the illimitable Master Soul to the souls apparently limited in bodies, have all their authority in the Upanishads. The philosophical analysis of Sankhya, the practices of Tantra, the worship & devotion of Purana, the love of the formed Divinity & the aspiration to the Formless, the atomic structure of Vaisheshika & the cardinal principles of Yoga,—whatever has been afterwards... the end we have decayed & brought ourselves to the verge of actual death & decomposition. We can preserve ourselves only by returning to the full & harmonious truth of our religion, truth of Purana & Tantra which we have mistranslated into a collection of fables and of magic formulae, truth of Veda which we have mistranslated into the idea of vacant & pompous ceremonial & the truth of Vedanta which we ...
... sentence Page 777 was deleted from the first edition: "We propose to deal hereafter with the most important of these publications, the translation of the Mahanirvana Tantra." "South Indian Bronzes". Published in the Arya in October 1915 and in Views and Reviews since 1941. "God, the Invisible King". Published in the Arya in July 1917 and in ...
... clearer and clearer aswe proceed. This view of life as well as Yoga, which is only the sublimation of life, as a struggle between the Devas & Daityas is one of the most fundamental ideas of Veda, Purana, Tantra and every practical system in Hinduism. Agni is par excellence the warrior whom theDaityas most dread, because he is full of the ahaituka tapas, against which, if properly used and supported by the ...
... conscious. When consciousness becomes all-powerful, shadow will no longer be necessary and will disappear. 4 September 1967 Page 367 It is said that there are certain methods in the Tantras to open the chakras from below, whereas in the integral yoga the chakras open from above by the descent of the Mother's force. What is the difference between the results of the opening of the ...
... up the results constitutes a "systematic study", then the Indian system of Hatha Yoga, at least, can claim to be scientific. As a matter of fact, each system of Yoga, such as Gyana, Karma, Bhakti, Tantra etc. has its own "'system" which prescribes practical methods, indicates the results and supplies tests to check up the achievement. The Indian standpoint in psychology assumes the spirit as the ...
... possibility and reality of the use of these powers by men with an advanced knowledge of these secret things or with a developed spiritual knowledge and experience and dynamic force and even, in the Tantras, an organised system of their method and practice. The intervention of the Yogi in bringing about a desired birth of offspring is also generally believed in and often appealed to and the bestowal on ...
... Jnaneshwari : 18.1133) By saying so Jnaneshwar has, we may mention en passant , almost suggested a synthesis of the various Paths of Yoga, of Bhakti, Page 88 Karma, Jnana and Tantra. He may not have fully worked out the several details and consequences of this synthesis, but the drift of his experiences and his expression is clear enough. However, it would turn out to be a synthesis ...
... ns and they have great literary merits. Atharvaveda has many Upanishads, and among these Upanishads there are some which are even non-Vedic, in the sense that they have connection with Purānas and Tantra. If the entire Upanishadic literature is taken into account, there are at least 250 Upanishads. Page 94 The important Upanishads and their connections with the Vedas may briefly be stated ...
... heroic courage, capacity for work, adventure, masterfulness, also such movements as sweeping violences, mighty hungers, and intense arrogances. The physical seat of this movement is, as perhaps the Tantras would say, the domain ranging between the heart and the navel. Lower down ranges the Lower Vital which consists of small desires, petty hankerings, blind cravings-all urges and impulses that are more ...
... heroic courage, capacity for work, adventure, masterfulness, also such movements as sweeping violences, mighty hungers, intense arrogances. The physical seat of this movement is, as perhaps the Tantras would say, the domain ranging between the heart and the navel. Lower down ranges the Lower Vital which consists of small desires, petty hankerings, blind cravings—all urges and impulses that are more ...
... of the use of these powers by men with an advanced knowledge of these secret things or with a developed spiritual knowledge and experience and dynamic force and Page 159 even, in the Tantras, an organised system of their method and practice. The intervention of the Yogi in bringing about a desired birth of offspring is also generally believed in and 'often appealed to and the bestowal ...
... rotations carry it forward." The psychical researcher and doctor Mary Scott is both right and wrong. I remember a statement of Sri Aurobindo to the effect that his Yoga does Tantra through Vedanta - a paradox at first sight. In Tantra the subtle centres - the chakras - are sought to be activated by the rising up of the coiled "Serpent Power", the Kundalini, at the base of the subtle-physical body's spine ...
... sciences and yoga. 3. Ancient Indian knowledge and modem scientific knowledge; some striking examples. 4. Systems of yoga: Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Tantra, Integral Yoga. II. Aids for the Development of the Yogic Consciousness and Experience: 1. Need for the systematic knowledge of the principles and methods of yoga. 2. Need ...
... He used to read the Arya from cover to cover as soon as an issue came out and, having fallen under its spell, he called on Sri Aurobindo in 1917. An adept in various branches of learning — Veda, Tantra, Ayurveda, Astrology etc., he was also a philosopher and poet. Later he joined the Ashram and was a widely respected figure. Let me now return to France briefly. In November 1915 the Mother left ...
... After calmly reviewing the situation, Sri Aurobindo cautioned the revolutionaries through Motilal Roy and as good as advised them to suspend such ('Tantric') activities. On 5 May 1914 he wrote: "Tantra for us is discontinued until further notice which can be only in the far future. " 39 As he was to explain to Ambalal Purani in December 1918 why he declined to permit a renewal of revolutionary ...
... Berhampur-house in my childhood. They would stay for a few days. One of them was Tapanand Maharaj. He had had all kinds of experiences in his life. In the earlier part of his life he even practised Tantra-sadhana. He had his own ashram in the Himalayas. He liked me very much and wanted me to go with him and look after the boys of his ashram. 'I will teach you the 'Dhanda' mantra (a mantra for wealth) ...
... of older Yogas, 555-56; Amitabha Buddha, 556; interdependence of Yogas, 557; Yoga of transformation, 557; Ramakrishna's Yogic versatility, 557-58; key to all Yogas, Bhakti Yoga, 555, 558; Vedanta & Tantra, 558; mukti and bhukti, 559; the nuclear analogy, 558, 559,560-61,566;Yogas as practical psychology, 560; jada, vaidyuta, saura Agni, 560-61; fundamental Agni, 561; sadhaks, sadhana, siddhi ...
... In these letters, which were subject to interception by the police, he could not of course write openly about revolutionary matters. He developed a code in which "tantra" meant revolutionary activities, and things connected with tantra ( yogini chakras , tantric books, etc.) referred to revolutionary implements like guns (see Arun Chandra Dutt, ed., Light to Superlight [Calcutta: Prabartak Publishers ...
... ts, & Veda, not only by historical continuity, but in real truth & substance is the parent & bedrock of all later Hinduism, of Vedanta, Sankhya, Nyaya, Yoga, of Vaishnavism & Shaivism&Shaktism, of Tantra&Purana, even, in a remoter fashion, of Buddhism & the later unorthodox religions. From this quarry all have hewn their materials or from this far-off source drawn unknowingly their waters; from some ...
... at spirituality and catalogue as asses and fools all who have attempted to rise beyond the human animal—all who have tried to follow the path of the Christ, the Buddha; stigmatise as folly Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, the way of the Jinas, Christ himself and Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, and any other pathfinder and seeker. On the other hand you write that in "the Avatar, the divinely-born Man, the real ...
... as between followers of the same path of Yoga and children of the Mother. 5 September 1936 The subtle sex centre awoke after some years of Pranava sadhana. Afterwards I understood what the Tantras meant by the relation between sadhaka and sadhika. The reality behind it is the duality of united Shiva-Shakti. Man's ordinary life is the wrong way of giving it expression. I am now able to transform ...
... principle of our Yoga is an integral, unreserved and co-operative surrender to the Mother, the Supreme Divine Shakti. There is no mention of the Mother in the Gita. It is the cardinal principle of Tantra, which dominated and directed Sri Ramkrishna's life, and was ultimately accepted by Sri Ramakrishna's Vedantic Guru, Totapuri. And it has been made the fulcrum of his integral Yoga by Sri Aurobindo ...
... at spirituality and catalogue as asses and fools all who have attempted to rise beyond the human animal—all who have tried to follow the path of the Christ, the Buddha; stigmatise as folly Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, the way of the Jinas, Christ himself and Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, and any other pathfinder and seeker. On the other hand you write that in the Avatar, "the divinely-born Man, the real ...
... experienced, turning it to the soul's uses, in this Hinduism we find the basis of the future world-religion. This sanatoria dharma has many scriptures, Veda, Vedanta, Gita, Upanishad, Darshan, Purana, Tantra, nor could it reject the Bible or the Koran; but its real, most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which the Eternal has His dwelling. It is in our inner spiritual experiences that we shall ...
... very resourceful. They know what they have to do, and then they learn by experience and experiment. 51 Page 544 It's all one - spider's web, Egyptian mummy, the Montessori method, Tantra sounds or Ananda consciousness: no subject is too trivial, _none too abstruse, but Sri Aurobindo's Light sets it in the right perspective and sheds the requisite clarity on it. It is the Supermind ...
... while those that have outlived their utility are rejected and dissolved. The basis of Indian culture goes back to the living spiritual experience embodied in the Vedas and Upanishads, the Gita, and Tantras and the Vedanta. Apart from the wide diffusion of spirituality in the consciousness of the masses, a traditional continuity of the practical process of self-realisation runs throughout the period ...
... while those that have outlived their utility are rejected and dissolved. The basis of Indian culture goes back to the living spiritual experience embodied in the Vedas and Upanishads, the Gita, the Tantras and the Vedanta. Apart from the wide diffusion of spirituality in the consciousness of the masses, a traditional continuity of the practical process of self-realisation runs through- out the period ...
... great that they have been described as the bible of the Indian people. That is not quite an accurate analogy, for the bible of the Indian people contains also the Veda and Upanishads, the Purana and Tantras and the Dharmashastras, not to speak of a large bulk of the religious poetry in the regional languages. Page 285 The work of these epics was to popularise high philosophic and ...
... more dangerous because he had a hypnotic hold on his numberless followers young and not so young, his writings were diabolically clever and often couched cunningly in the language of Vedanta or Tantra, and in his movements and actions he was altogether slippery like an eel. He talked of India resurgent, Asia triumphant, and Europe in frantic retreat. He spoke of individual salvation and of national ...
... knows the hostile forces also as the working of the Divine, the left hand of God, then the movement of exhaustion of these forces is very quick. Disciple : Was the principle of Vama Marga of Tantra similar to this idea of conquering hostile forces, by "taking them as the movement of the Divine? Sri Aurobindo : I have no direct knowledge of the Tantric Sadhana. But most probably the... withdrawn into it. And the popular idea is that it will be projected in the same way as before. Q : If dissolution is a fact, what is the relation between it and the new creation which follows? Tantra believes that after Maha Pralaya, the great dissolution, the new creation builds itself upon the Sanskaras – impressions and moulds of the past. Whether we believe in the scientific theory of ...
... in obedience to Western criticism to base ourselves on the Upanishads & Gita and put aside Purana and Veda as mere mythology & mere ritual, yet in practice we live by the religion of the Puranas & Tantras even more profoundly & intimately than we live by & realise the truths of the Upanishads. In heart & soul we still worship Krishna and Kali and believe in the truth of their existence. Nevertheless ...
... expressed through embracing and kissing ] 1 would then mean satisfying the sex-instinct with all—that would be a rather startling siddhānta , though there is something like it in the practice of Tantra of the left hand. But the left-hand Tantriks are more logical than you—for why should oneness, Page 491 if it is to justify sex-expression, support only the lighter and not the cruder forms ...
... desire to organise it here the Mayavadin would like to call an "illusion" – Maya. Sri Aurobindo : That way even the desire for getting away from the world is an illusion ! Disciple : In Tantra it is said that one should renounce even the desire for liberation. Sri Aurobindo : That does not help very much to renounce the desire to get liberation. Disciple : It is all right for ...
... psychical researcher and doctor, Mary Scott, who points out how little of ourselves we know, or of our world - that is 'we' as a materialist society - and she cites Sri Aurobindo as an exponent of Tantra rather than Vedanta, She goes at great length into the Tantric account of the 'sheaths' and the chakras - she has also written a book on these. I don't think it is any longer questioned, least of all ...
... August, 1914 In the fixed tradition of thousands of years [the Vedas] have been revered as the origin and standard of all that can be held as authoritative and true in Brahmana and Upanishad, in Tantra and Purana, in the doctrines of great philosophical schools and in the teachings of famous saints and sages. The name borne by them was Veda, the knowledge,—the received name for the highest spiritual ...
... may listen to Sri Aurobindo 1 who tells us that an immense and complex body of psycho-spiritual experience, supported by visual images, is embedded in the Purānas, though more loosely than in the Tantras and cast out in a less strenuous sequence. Sri Aurobindo goes On to say: "This method is after all simply a prolongation, in another form and with a temperamental change, of the method of the Vedas ...
... Vedanta to Kali worship and Sri Aurobindo from Shakti worship to Vedanta is fantastic. Vivekananda's instruction to Sister Nivedita does not constitute a proof that he had converted from Vedanta to Tantra. One cannot lose sight of the fact that Vivekananda was the chief disciple of one who was a lifelong devotee of Kali. Besides, Vedanta does not bar Kali worship. 22. Girija surmises that Sri Aurobindo ...
... the real thing. Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the sadhana. Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here the object is the fulfilment of life. 2. Because the object sought after is not an individual achievement of divine realisation for the sake of... transformation and I put that as the aim at once of my Yoga and of the terrestrial manifestation. I am quite unaware that any of the old Yogas held this as the aim before them. Even Vaishnavism and Tantra are in the end otherworldly: mukti is the aim of their efforts and anything else could be only coincidental and subordinate or a result on the way. If my view is correct, then my statement was not ...
... कोलकुणः bug कोलंबकः body of a lute काला, काली कोलिः jujube plant कोलाहलः, -लं uproar कोल्या long pepper कौलः a lefthand Tantric कौल्य कौलं lefthand Tantra कौल ancestral, hereditary, family कौलिक .. well-born. कौलीन, कौलेयक, कौल्य कौलकेय of good family bastard. कौलटिनेयः son of a female beggar .. bastard कौलटैयः, कौलटेरः ...
... will surprise everyone, unless one understands that He did all that to bless us. 47-48. He constitutes all the parts of Yajna — its location, time, materials for offering, Page 82 Mantra, Tantra, sacrificial priests, sacrificial fires, deities, master of sacrifice, the whole sacrifice and the fruits of sacrifice. He is verily Visnu Himself, the master of all Yogis, born in the clan of the ...
... father who used to visit Bharatvan during summer vacations. I underwent a systematic practice of various systems of Yoga,- Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Tantra. Living in Bharatvan was an exceptional process of education." I was greatly interested in Vishuddha's story but was curious to know what had happened to his state of disequilibrium which was ...
... and why. He is generally too busy to stop and explain as Krishna sometimes (but not by any means always) takes the trouble to do. It is true he is said to have spouted out the greater part of the Tantras to Parvati, but that was probably when he had nothing else to do. I am glad to see that this working repeats itself—for behind it is a great preparation of the consciousness which Is quite ind ...
... agitation 82 in India. He was a passionate lover of freedom. 81. Ram Mohan was initiated by a Tantric named Hariharananda Tirtha- swamy, and practised Tantric Yoga on the lines of Mahanirvana Tantra, a Tantric scripture of great authority. 82. "If religion is from God, is politics from the Devil?" — Ram Mohan Roy. Page 74 William Adams, bearing witness to his love of freedom ...
... construction, and to refuse to budge from there. For the individual as for the world, these rather ungracious forces are instruments of progress. "By what men fall, by that they rise," says the Kularnava Tantra in its wisdom. We protest against the apparently useless and arbitrary "catastrophe" that strikes our heart or our flesh, and we blame the "Enemy," but is it not possible that the soul itself – not... japa ), come into contact with the corresponding plane of consciousness. 199 This is the basis of an entire spiritual discipline, called "tantric" because it originates from sacred texts known as Tantra . The basic or essential sounds that have the power to establish the contact are called mantras . The mantras, usually secret and given to the disciple by his Guru, 200 are of all kinds (there ...
... view of his integral vision in his Essays on the Gita, The Synthesis of Yoga and The Life Divine. 146. The Swamiji is an acknowledged authority on Indian philosophies, and particularly on Tantra. He collaborated with Sir John Woodroffe in his masterly exposition of the basic principles and practices of Tantric sadhana. He is equally at home in philosophy and science, and shows a true insight ...
... was equivalent to three years of rigorous Sadhana under ordinary circumstances." "What kind of Sadhana was it?" "It included the disciplines of different Yogas, such as Rajayoga, Hathayoga, Tantra and so on." "Did Vivekananda come to you in your cell, as we have heard?" Page 174 "Yes, indeed. It was really an extraordinary experience. I never knew him before that. Of course, I ...
... And you will be hit on your heads until you have understood. It is you yourselves who open the door to the Enemy, in the name of spiritual unity, or the sacrosanct money-power or in the name of Tantra and all the sacred texts of India. But who wants Mother pure and simple, Sri Aurobindo pure? What force do you want, what protection do you want? That of Mother, Mother's mantra, or little tantric ...
... with Cunningham: 4 "Dr. Kern, in his preface to the 'Brihatsamhita' of Varāhamihira, p. 32, states that Varāha's chapter on Geography is taken almost intact but changed in form from the 'Parāsara-tantra', and must, therefore, be considered as representing the Geography of Parāsara, or perhaps yet more ancient works, and not as the actual map of India in Varāhamihira's time." So we may stick to our ...
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