... It is this situation which necessitates the study of varieties Page 60 of yogic experience with a more searching and critical sense. And even though this subject is very vast and very difficult, we need to bring forth although briefly, certain facts in regard to the varieties of yogic experience. Let us first of all, admit that when we attempt to put ourselves into conscious relations... in the yogic experience of the difference between the self and the forms of self , one may come to regard the Self as a containing an immanent reality, and one may admit the truth of omnipresent spirit, and yet the forms of the spirit, the moulds of its presence may affect us not only as something other than it, not only as transient, but as unreal images. There is also the yogic experience of the... immutable and ever-containing in his vision the Page 62 multiplicity of the universe; there is also the yogic experience of the separate, of the simultaneous or the coincident experience of the divine immanent in our selves and in all creatures. There is also another yogic experience in which one sees all things as the very Divine, not only that Spirit which dwells immutable in the universe and ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation A Synoptic Note Quest of Yoga Yoga is the expression of the flame of aspiration that rises upwards in order to bum and bum steadily, constantly and ever-increasingly, to grow in leaps of fire in order to bum away all that tends towards extinction, to build our inner being and all members of the being... part-time preoccupation. Yoga, to be properly practised, must be taken as a sovereign and central occupation and must govern and permeate every aspect of life and every pursuit. Varieties of Yogic Experience If experience is a means of knowledge, of growth, of ennoblement of character and personality, of expansion, deepening and heightening of consciousness and will-force, then yoga stands out... think or to feel that I am doer of action, similar to the ignorance that a dog has when it moves under a moving cart, that cart is moving because of its own movement (dog's movement). The yogic experience one can attain is that of the vision of the vast universe and principles which are involved in the vast world movement. In Indian philosophy, this experience is that of the vast and universal ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation 6 Yogic Experience (a) Experiences in Hatha Yoga Yoga has often come to be exclusively identified with physical exercises of Hatha Yoga. Actually, the entire system of Hatha Yoga is only one of the systems of yoga. It aims at a complete mastery of the body and the life and a free and effective... consciousness where these powers as also 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... dog commits when it thinks while running under a moving cart, that because of its own movement the cart is moving and Page 26 that it is the carrier of the load of the cart. The yogic experience one can attain is that of the vision of the vast universe and principles which are involved in the vast world movement. In Indian philosophy, this experience is recognised as that of Prakriti ...
... impersonal Brahman or of the self does not usually come at the beginning of a sadhana or in the first years or for many years. It comes so to a very few; mine came fifteen years afte1' my first pre-Yogic experience in London and in the fifth year" after I started Yoga. That I consider extraordinary quick, an express train speed almost—though there may no doubt have been several quicker achievements. But... At any rate I am glad the experience has come back again-— it has come as the result of your effort and mine for the last days and is practically a reminder that the door of entry into yogic experience is still there and can open at the right touch Page 162 you taxed me the other day with making a mistake about your experience of breathing with the name in it and reproached me... the whole of possible experience of true surrender into that formula or announce on its strength that one must wait till one loves perfectly Page 167 before one can surrender. Yogic experience shows that the surrender can also be made by the mind and will, a clear and sincere mind seeing the necessity of surrender and a clear and sincere will enforcing it on the recalcitrant members ...
... Vedic and Upanishadic experience as also the Sankhyan account of the liberation of the individual Purusha from Prakriti, need to be clearly grasped, if we are to understand the richness of the yogic experience that is described in the Gita. The Gita restates the Vedic and Upanishadic concepts of the ultimate integral reality and while it admits the Sankhyan position in several respects, it modifies... other hand, admits the reality of the individual but it declares its utter dependence on the supreme Purusha and its inalienable unity with all the Purushas or individuals. The Gita's integral yogic experience is therefore articulated in a larger framework. The first important new element that we find in the Gita is in the conception of Purusha itself. According to the Sankhya, Prakriti conducts... and Prakriti is quite different from that found in the Sankhya. The Gita admits that wherever there is the movement of Prakriti, there is always behind it the will of the Purusha; in the highest yogic experience which is described in the Gita, this relationship between Prakriti and Purusha is affirmed, but not only between the Prakriti and the individual Purusha, but more fundamentally between, — and ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation 7 Recapitulation: Some Questions and Answers What has been stated so far is only a glimpse of the varieties of yogic experience, and what is stated is far too inadequate even to serve as a preface to the descriptions of yogic experiences available in the history of relevant literature. A few broad... brought forth as one of the central subjects that must be pursued by all sincere seekers of truth and of the highest welfare of civilisation. 1. One general statement that can be made is that yogic experience runs everywhere on the same lines, even though it should be admitted that there are, not one line, but many. Still the broad lines are the same everywhere and the intuitions, revelations, inspirations... street but also not easily seizable even by many cultivated intellects or because their methods are more difficult than those of ordinary sense or reason. 6. It is true that the field of yogic experience, if it is seized on by unripened minds, it lends itself to the most perilous distortions and misleading imaginations. In the past these distortions and misleading imaginations have encrusted a ...
... the seer. It may be true to a certain extent of the precise form or transcription given to the experience in certain domains; but even here the difference is superficial. It is a fact that Yogic experience runs everywhere on the same lines. Certainly, there are, not one line, but many; for, admittedly, we are dealing with a many-sided Infinite to which there are and must be many ways of approach;... ideas which are as much a priori as any acceptance of a spiritual truth or experience can be. Your idea that surrender can only come by love is a point in instance. It is perfectly true in Yogic experience that surrender by true love which means psychic and spiritual love is the most powerful, simple and effective of all, but one cannot, putting Page 384 that forward as a dictum arrived... ordinary reason, shut up the whole of possible experience of true surrender into that formula or announce on its strength that one must wait till one loves perfectly before one can surrender. Yogic experience shows that surrender can also be made by the mind and will, a clear and sincere mind seeing the necessity of surrender and a clear and sincere will enforcing it on the recalcitrant members. Also ...
... place to discuss philosophical issues involved in various statements of Page 124 the supra-terrestrial theory, but the integral theories of yogic experience and even some other exclusive theories, which are based on yogic experience and knowledge, admit that every individual soul is immortal and that through a protracted series of births in the terrestrial plane, every soul is required... methods after methods, and taking recourse to the yogic methods contained in every major religion, including Christianity and Islam, he verified that each of these religions had at its roots a valid yogic experience and realization and that therefore all of them can be united by admitting the truths of all religions in the light of the yogic experiences by which their truths can be verified. Happily, Swami ...
... with perfect accuracy of ensemble & detail to one of the commonest experiences of Yogic fulfilment. In both these passages the faithful adherence to the intimations of language, Vedantic idea & Yogic experience have shed a flood of light, Page 103 illuminating the obscurity of the Vedas, bringing coherence into the incoherence of the naturalistic explanation, close & strict logic, great depth... full sum of knowledge. The language is so precise, once we understand the Vedic terminology, that I do not think we can be mistaken in this interpretation, which, moreover, agrees perfectly with Yogic experience and the constant theme of Madhuchchhandas. He is describing the first dawn & development of the higher knowledge in the mind, still liable to attack & obstruction, (yujam vritreshu vajrinam), ...
... the Yoga. Here the choice is still open whether to follow the very mixed guidance one gets in the midst of these experiences or to accept the true guidance. Each man who enters the realms of Yogic experience is free to follow his own way; but this Yoga is not a path for anyone to follow, but only for those who accept to seek the aim, pursue the way pointed out upon which a sure guidance is indispensable... learn to know one from another. The true lights however are by their clarity and beauty not difficult to recognise. The current from above and the current from below are familiar features of Yogic experience. It is the energy of the higher Nature and the energy of the lower Nature that become active and turned towards each other and move to meet, one descending, the other ascending. What happens when ...
... what valid tests you propose to make the ordinary reason the judge of what is beyond it. 20 A Victorian agnostic objection to the claim that yogic knowledge is scientific states that yogic experience is subjective and purely individual; such experience, which is coloured by the individuality of the seer cannot be said to achieve ultimate truth. To this Sri Aurobindo replies: One ... the seer... may be true to a certain extent of the precise form or transcription given to the experience in certain domains; but even here the difference is superficial. It is a fact that yogic experience runs everywhere on the same lines. Certainly, there are, not one line, but many; for, admittedly, we are dealing with a many-sided Infinite to which there are and must be many ways of approach; ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation 2 Yoga: Its Distinguishing Features Yoga as distinguished from religion is primarily a shastra and not system of beliefs, ceremonies, rituals and moral and spiritual disciplines related to the system of beliefs and prescriptions. As a shastra, it is a growing body of knowledge of truths, principles... any religion, even though spiritual disciplines of religions may coincide with or may adopt or recognise for their own aims some or other aspects of this shastra. Page 7 3 Yogic Experience of the Flame of Aspiration In its inmost nature, yoga is, according to the yogic shastra, the expression of the flame of aspiration that rises upwards in order to bum and bum steadily, constantly ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation I A Preliminary Note If experience is a means of knowledge, and even of higher and the highest degrees and kinds of knowledge by identity in which the subject and the object of knowledge are united, and if such experiences are a means of growth, of ennoblement of character and personality, of expansion... this latter peculiarity connects mystical states with certain phenomena such as prophetic speech, automatic writing, or the mediumistic trance. It may be remarked that in the strict path of yogic experience, a distinction is made between subliminal experience or experience proper to occultism, and spiritual experience, — a distinction, which William James does not offer in his book. Strictly speaking ...
... spoke of the "Daemon" which always warned him against doing anything that deviated from virtue and the good; the ethical experience speaks of inner conscience and of categorical imperative; the yogic experience has discovered the psychic or soul personality, the competent architect of self-being that Page 24 overcomes the ignorance of the self. It is this overcoming of ignorance which c... Emphasis on the power of mental silence The secret of all learning is concentration, and concentration is best developed by cultivating quietude, tranquillity, silence and peace of the mind. Yogic experience affirms that knowledge is best gained in the state of silence, and it is in the state of inner peace that the soul blossoms and the entire life and environment become alive and vibrant with inner ...
... rose to address the meeting the idea flashed across my mind and then all of a sudden something spoke out. That was my second experience from Leie. It also shows .that he had the power to give yogic experience to others. When I was in Bombay, from the balcony of a friend's house, I saw the whole busy movements of Bombay city as a picture in a cinema show – all unreal, shadowy. That was a Vedantic... parts with an understanding of their limitations then they may serve very usefully the object of this yoga. As I say, they must all admit a higher working in them. A Disciple related the yogic experience of a student. Sri Aurobindo : - It is no use hurrying about psychic experiences and realisations. One must prepare the physical mind, the intelligence by common knowledge as well as knowledge ...
... its extreme forms left the theologians tongue-tied. “The hostile forces exist and have been known to yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times”, wrote Sri Aurobindo. 988 Yogic experience composed a much more detailed and complete repertory of the forces which have established their domain on ...
... poetry not for its own sake but to express his spiritual realisations more and more adequately in terms natural to poetry. He put himself at the service of the supreme truths compassed by his Yogic experience and not at the service of the merely poetic imagination which would give voice to whatever stirred it and would not make it a point to go in always for the mystical: your "world of conflict and... n. There toe you may mistake him, for he has said that he is one who has employed intellectual language just to put together in a systematic form the comprehensive world-vision his many-sided Yogic experience has brought him. The sole difference is that in this context he has said Page 113 that he never was a philosopher: he has not anywhere said he never was a poet. There was ...
... Calcutta Statesman. Arthur Moore writes to Dilip that he will pay Rs.100 per article if Sri Aurobindo writes in his paper on world events in the light of Yogic experience. SRI AUROBINDO (bursting into laughter) : In the light of Yogic experience! And what reply is Dilip going to give? NIRODBARAN: He has asked me to get your reply. SATYENDRA: S also offered good money to Dilip to write articles ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Preface If the Spirit is One, why do the reports of the experience of the Spirit differ so widely? The fact is that there is a variety of spiritual experience, and this phenomenon has to be understood and explained. Spiritual experiences can be sporadic, or they can be attained by pursuing a methodised effort... effort leading to the union of the individual with the universal and the transcendental spiritual reality. When the experience is attained by methodised effort, it can be called yogic experience. When we study the records of the experiences of those who have practised yoga, we find that they give different and even conflicting accounts of their experiences of the Spirit. This book attempts at ...
... Non-Being. This is not the place to discuss philosophical issues involved in various statements of the supra-terrestrial theory, but the integral theories of yogic experience and even some other exclusive theories, which are based on yogic experience and knowledge, admit that every individual soul is immortal and that through a protracted series of births in the terrestrial plane, every soul is required ...
... not absolutely sure that there was a God at all...." ³ Once, in a letter to a disciple, 4 he referred to a pre-yogic experience in London, but he did not describe its nature. The experience he had at the Apollo Bunder can, therefore, be taken as the first authentic yogic experience that came his way - unbidden but decisive - as a gift of Grace, a bounty of Mother India. Sri Aurobindo returned ...
... will be a seeing and hearing and touching of the Divine everywhere and in all beings and objects. Our senses are the external material means of contacting the objects of the world, but, as yogic experience shows, they are not indispensable, our mind can see and hear and touch the objects even without the help of the outer senses. It is for this reason that the mind is called the sixth sense—it... outer senses. It is only habit that has made the mind dependent upon Page 454 the physical senses and circumscribed by their natural limitations. But the mind also, as a higher yogic experience reveals, is not the supreme and original sense; it too is an instrument and a habitual convenience. The real and original sense is beyond the mind, which it uses as a medium, it is "a direct ...
... were in the physical body inhibited by the anaesthetic and therefore non-existent; that in the illiterate servant-girl heard and retained accurately the words of an unknown language and could, as Yogic experience knows, by a higher action of itself understand those superficially unintelligible sounds. To return to the Vedantic words we have been using, there is a vaster action of the Sanjnana which ...
... The language here is taken bodily from the Upanishads. × Yogic experience shows in fact that there is a real psycho-physical truth, not indeed absolute in its application, behind this idea, viz., that in the inner struggle between the powers of the Light and the powers ...
... consciousness in the sadhana. 4 November 1936 Yoga and Literary Expression Suppose you had not studied English literature; would it be still possible for you to say something about it by Yogic experience? Only by cultivating a special siddhi, which would be much too bothersome to go after. But I suppose if I had got the Yogic knowledge (in your hypothetical case) it should be quite easy to ...
... impersonal Brahman or of the Self does not usually come at the beginning of a sadhana or in the first years or for many years. It comes so to a very few; mine came fifteen years after my first pre-Yogic experience in London and in the fifth year after I started Yoga. That I consider extraordinarily quick, an express train speed almost—though there may no doubt have been several quicker achievements. But ...
... that . This is my present state. More I cannot say. 24 May 1962 Page 138 × A particular yogic experience which took place on 13 April 1962 . ...
... begins naturally what we call the transformation of the nature. The phrase [ "stuff of consciousness" ] simply means "substance of consciousness", the consciousness in itself. As the Yogic experience develops, consciousness is felt as something quite concrete in which there are movements and formations which are what we call thoughts, feelings etc. Page 12 ...
... All ways of spiritual seeking are agreed on that. Purification and consecration are two great necessities of sadhana. It is not a fact that one must be pure in heart before one can have any Yogic experience at all, but those who have experiences before purification is done run a great risk. It is much better to have the heart pure first, for then the way becomes safe. Nor can the Divine dwell in ...
... successive births of things is a rise into waking and larger and larger light of a consciousness shut into the first hermetic cell of sleep of the eternal Energy. There is a parallel in the Yogic experience of the Kundalini, eternal Force coiled up in the body in the bottom root vessel or chamber, mūlādhāra , pedestal, earth-centre of the physical nervous system. There she slumbers coiled up like ...
... intrinsic power of awareness and action inherent in the being,—as the being is self-existent, so the consciousness self-existent in the being, the Purusha. This is the realisation we have of it in Yogic experience, eternal reality of consciousness inherent in the eternal reality of existence, as in the concept and experience of Sachchidananda. This is the crucial point in the question, what is consciousness ...
... Yoga - I Chapter III The Hostile Forces and Hostile Beings The Existence of the Hostile Forces The hostile forces exist and have been known to Yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and Chaldea and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times. These things of course cannot be felt or known ...
... things are ready. When the time comes for the definite opening and removal of the purdah between the inner and the outer man, I think I can promise you that you will find your power of Yoga and Yogic experience at least as unexpectedly complete as you, and others, have found your power for poetry—though necessarily its working out will take time, because it is not a detail but the whole life and the ...
... work and keeping the necessary outer activities one can still live within in the fullness of the inner life and experience. Rely on the Mother always. These things are the first beginnings of Yogic experience and the difficulties of the mind and vital (which are not the old ones you had but simply the ordinary difficulties of the adjustment and harmonisation of the different parts of the being) will ...
... and memories left in the subconscient from the past. Dreams of this kind [ in which old vital movements occur ] arise from the subconscient. It is one of the most embarrassing elements of Yogic experience to find how obstinately the subconscient retains what has been settled and done with in the upper layers of the consciousness. But just for that reason these dreams are often a useful indication ...
... this identification each in its own way. A mental intuitive vision or a spiritualised mental sight, a psychic vision, an emotional vision of the heart, a vision in the sense mind are parts of the Yogic experience. If these seeings are purely mental, then they may but need not be true, for the mind is capable of both truth and error, both of a true and of a false representation. But as the mind becomes ...
... philosopher: he stood on the threshold of mysticism. Sri Aurobindo would be miserably served if he were placed under the category of "philosopher" alone. Just because he has philosophised his Yogic experience he cannot be kept out of the company of the supreme revealers. Can Shankara or Plotinus, just because of their philosophising, be kept outside the sacred circle of spiritual adepts? And Sri Aurobindo ...
... with the practice of pr ā n ̣ā y ā ma or breath control. This practice became irregular when he started his political career in 1906 and by the end of 1907 he suffered a "complete arrest" of yogic experience. In January 1908 a yogi named Vishnu Bhaskar Lele showed him how to silence the activity of his mind. This led to the experience of the static Brahman or Nirvana. A few months later, in Alipore ...
... aspect and an outer. About the inner in Sri Aurobindo's verses we can only say that it is a thrill of realisation on a plane of consciousness that appears to be divine, a plane of vast superhuman Yogic experience: this thrill embodying itself in the outer rhythm fills the sound with a potency to rouse in us some presence of that plane. The outer rhythm admits of more specific analysis. The first line has ...
... the life forces, mind. Because these evolutionary gradations correspond to the cosmic gradations, the human being is rightly called a “microcosm.” The gradations are concretely expressed in what yogic experience has called the “chakras,” lined up in the subtle body along the backbone. Through the chakras, the human being is tuned to the universal forces, even though unaware of it. “All the time the universal ...
... this body-plus-mind may be added a soul, although the Western philosophers and theologians have generally identified the soul with the mind, both being “non-material.” According to the common yogic experience, however, a human being consists of several bodies or sheaths, material, vital, and mental, contained in each other. At the center of this complex being sits the soul or psychic being, which has ...
... the yoga. Here the choice is still open whether to follow the very mixed guidance one gets in the midst of these experiences or to accept the true guidance. Each man who enters the realms of yogic experience is free to follow his own way; but this yoga is not a path for anyone to follow, but only for those who accept to seek the aim, pursue the way pointed out upon which a sure guidance is indispensable ...
... of the nature of the guidance he gave on such occasions I may adduce here which will explain itself. After one such attack he wrote to me: "The hostile forces exist and have been known to yogic experience ever since the days of the Vedas and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times. These things of course cannot be felt or known so long as one ...
... of the spine ). As I once told you, the old system always proceeds from below upwards, while Sri Aurobindo pulls from above downwards. This becomes very clear in meditation (well, in yoga, in yogic experience): for those who follow the old system, it's invariably the kundalini at the base [of the spine] rising from center to center, center to center, until the lotus ( in an ironic tone ) bursts open ...
... decoction in the ritual: researchers now hold it to be a preparation from the plant Ephedra. The esoteric view takes this preparation to be a symbol for an inner or higher immaterial Reality. But Yogic experience in exceptional moments discovers that the decoction was merely a substitute in external ceremony for something which was also material, though in a secret way, something which was an authentic ...
... Yogic teaching and still more by his influence and example but by a power to communicate his own experience to others." (Sri Aurobindo and His Ashram) "Each man who enters the realms of yogic experience is free to follow his own way; but this yoga is not a path for anyone to follow, but only for those who accept and seek the Page 319 aim, pursue the way pointed out upon which ...
... range denoted as "gnostic" in general,¹ although. in the background are all the detailed distinctions of this range² and in the years anterior to 1950 a particular division of the developing Yogic experience of the Overmind into three possible strata - first, that which takes up the Illumine Mind and Higher Mind and even the intellect to form a rental Overmind, next an uplifting of these lower ...
... Letters on Yoga, p. 331 The terms Manas, etc. belong to the ordinary psychology applied to the surface consciousness. In our yoga we adopt a different classification — based on the yogic experience. What answers to this movement of the Manas there would be two separate things — a part of the physical mind communicating with the physical-vital. It receives from the physical senses and transmits ...
... form the heights became A playground of the living Infinite. 21 It would be out of place to deal in detail here with Savitri. But the publication of Savitri raises the question: Can yogic experience form the subject-matter of poetry? Dante took the Christian mystical experience and made an attempt to grasp the inner unity through a traditional myth. The result was an epic of wonderous pictorial ...
... thematic elaboration or expansion to this disproportionate size, merely for the sake of self-blissful indulgence. The existence of the World-Stair is not entirely new to the Page 542 Yogic experience. But Aswapati's exploration of these worlds, his moving through them, putting upon their breast his footsteps is an occult action and has an occult meaning and purpose. It is not just the journey ...
... spiritual realizarions. Sankhya views Existence as made up of two principles— Purusha (Soul or Conscious Being) and Prakriti (Nature). Explaining these two principles of existence in terms of yogic experience, Sri Aurobindo states: When we come to look in at our selves instead of out at the world and begin to analyze our subjective experience, we find that there are two parts of our being which ...
... . All ways of spiritual seeking are agreed on that. Purification and consecration are two great necessities of sadhana. It is not a fact that one must be pure in heart before one can have any Yogic experience at all, but those who have experiences before purification is done run a great risk. It is much better to have the heart pure first, for then the way becomes safe. Nor can the Divine dwell ...
... criticisms or non-appreciation of Anāmi and my own poetry and Arjava's. That is the way they make a case—and very often a pretty strong case too. The hostile forces exist and have been known to yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and Chaldea and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times. These things, of course, cannot be felt or known ...
... the state of universality and harmony, conflict and clash do not enter, there is in the experience of that rain, experiences of love and joy which are imaged as honey ( madhu ). In that state of yogic experience, the body, vital forces and the mind undergo a refreshing bath of purity and wideness and joy of fulfillment. The life-powers range with the voice of truth"-seeking thought in physical consciousness ...
... the Gita and it is intended for a poetic and revelatory symbol. It is best to present this great yogic vision of the universal Purusha, viśvarūpa darśana, as an extremely important record of yogic experience, confirmable and verifiable in yogic life of yogic sādhanā . Sri Krishna replies, first, that what Arjuna was to see cannot be grasped by the human eye. There is, according to Sri Krishna ...
... Culture (PHISPC). Currently, he is Education Advisor to the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Other Titles in the Series The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Significance of Indian Yoga - An Overview A Pilgrim’s Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads The Gita and Its Synthesis ...
... be reversed, so that the supramental consciousness which is concealed in the heart of the inconcience is manifested. None of the powers of the mind or even of the Overmind can, according to the yogic experience of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, accomplish this task. Only a process of an ascent and descent that involves three steps can effectuate and accomplish this task. The first step is to arrive at ...
... Gujarat. Page 103 Authored by Kireet Joshi on Synthesis of Yoga and Allied Themes The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Significance of Indian Yoga - An Overview A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda Synthesis of ...
... rational argument can be supported by a vast fund of yogic knowledge that can be verified by following a scientific rigour through the methods which have been developed and tested. Thus Reason and yogic experience support each other. And it is on the same grounds that Sri Aurobindo concludes that "the Force that builds the world is a conscious Force, the Existence which manifests itself in them is conscious ...
... (PHISPC). Currently, he is Education Advisor to the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Other Titles in the Series The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Significance of Indian Yoga - An Overview A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda Synthesis of Yoga in ...
... to be experienced and realized as infinite and eternal, both as the highest possibilities of extensions of consciousness and that which lies beyond all extensions. Even if, on a certain line of yogic experience, there is a farther attempt at transcendence, and even if, what is attained in the state of utter transcendence is described intellectually as Non-Being, the one inescapable truth of that experience ...
... n of the scriptures and trying to wean them away from the rather sterile ritualistic practices which were then prevalent. In place of these practices, he attempted to show them a pathway to a yogic experience, and helped them to arrive at a rational understanding of the same. During his travels throughout the length and breadth of the country, Shankara founded four mutts or centres of learning ...
... Minister of Gujarat. Authored by Kireet Joshi on Synthesis of Yoga and Allied Themes The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Significance of Indian Yoga - An Overview A Pilgrims Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda Synthesis of ...
... Authored by Kireet Joshi on Synthesis of Yoga and Allied Themes The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Significance of Indian Yoga - An Overview A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda Synthesis of ...
... demanding a rational process familiar to the ordinary physical mind from a suprarational thing like Yoga. Yoga has its processes, but they can only be understood and detected by those who have Yogic experience. But you refuse to accept that experience as valid; you want everything to be explained according to your own field of reason which is that of the ignorant physical mind. If you persist in that ...
... anybody with knowledge speaks of it. That would have been impossible to me before. Suppose you had not studied English literature; would it be still possible for you to say something about it by Yogic experience? Only by cultivating a special siddhi, 20 which would be much too bothersome to go after. But I suppose if I had got the Yogic knowledge (in your hypothetical case) it would be quite easy ...
... spiritual light manifested in the physical consciousness. The lunar fire is also the fire of the stars, the stars, mythologically, being the consorts or powers of the moon and they symbolise, in Yogic experience, the intuitive thoughts. The fire of the life-force has its symbol in lightning, electric energy being its vehicle. Agni in the physical consciousness is called grhapati, for the body is ...
... would be a part of it. It would make its descent possible in others also. Disciple : We hear that great Siddhas used to cure the sickness of others by mere touch, Ramakrishna gave even yogic experience by a touch. Sri Aurobindo : There are different kinds of powers by which these things are done; they are miracles. But the power to perform miracles is not necessarily a sign of spirituality ...
... As soon as the door opened, Sri Aurobindo started to speak. SRI AUROBINDO ( to Nirodbaran ): You have to take this extract back to Dilip and tell him I have read it. Say that it is a big yogic experience—a psycho-spiritual one. It shows a going through the psychic down into the vital being and finding there the unitarian principle, the principle of oneness with everybody. Huxley speaks of "dark ...
... writings alone. And the subjects toe were so difficult that they have earned me the title of 'philosopher', though I have never studied philosophy! Actually, whatever I wrote was the result of my yogic experience, otherwise it certainly could not have been easy to write 64 pages of a journal every month." "Really, it seems so incredible, when one thinks about it. We always believed that a great ...
... redoubled force. 'She had been doing Yoga since her childhood, and with her - as with ;Sri Aurobindo - all life was Yoga. If she cultivated music and painting, they too were but channels of her yogic experience and realisation. A reference was made earlier to the effect the Mother's organ music had on Sunil Kumar Bhattacharya when he heard it for the first time, and he has attributed any success that ...
... V Philosophy In 1934 Sri Aurobindo wrote: "I am supposed to be a philosopher, but I never studied philosophy—everything I wrote came from yogic experience, knowledge and inspiration." 56 Again, declining an invitation to contribute to a volume on 'Contemporary Indian Philosophy', he said that it was "quite impossible for me to write philosophy ...
... Maharaja once at his request; an attempt was made, perhaps, to detach Sri Aurobindo from active politics, but it couldn't make him swerve in the least from his chosen course. No doubt, the Yogic experience of Nirvanic calm caused a profound change within, but his outer activities seemed to go on as before except that all thought, speech and action now acquired a strange power of spontaneity and ...
... meetings of the Richards with Sri Aurobindo and discussion between them was the decision to launch a philosophical magazine, Arya that should give to the world a grand synthesis of knowledge and Yogic experience, and project with all the lineaments of logical exposition Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future. Page 398 The decision was taken on 1 June, but the first monthly issue was ...
... waiting secretly behind the clamour and conflict raging in the outer being of man. India's greatness in the past arose, according to Sri Aurobindo, from her possession of the hidden Spirit by Yogic experience. The Spiritual Background, however, was not his whole objective. In India's finest hours the contact with the outer being was never lost. Sri Aurobindo sought for something more than ...
... motive force is finished by the Purusha who in perfect equanimity 'looks with far eyes of calm' and 'turns the dream-mystery of gold and gray'. In the last stanza the poet describes his yogic experience: After the rise and fall of a myriad days, My vision merges now with his wide gaze And through all changing cry of colour sees One single beauty born of deathless peace ...
... this identification each in its own way. A mental intuitive vision or a spiritualised mental sight, a psychic vision, an emotional vision of the heart, a vision in the sense-mind are parts of the yogic experience. If these things are purely mental, then they may but need not be true, for the mind is capable of both truth and error, both of a true and of a false representation. But as the mind becomes ...
... in the physical body inhibited by the anaesthetic and therefore non-existent; that in the illiterate servant-girl heard and retained accurately the words of an unknown language and could, as Yogic experience knows, by a higher action of itself understand those superficially unintelligible sounds. The Upanishads, pp. 192-94 The Deeper View of the "New" Psychology and its Limitations ...
... she could herself change the verse. P. S. I shall answer about your sparkles and sounds—which are not an optical or any other kind of illusion, if you please. Why drag in Science! into a Yogic experience? December 27, 1930 I send you my version of your version of your poem, Dān Lilā. I have no time to write it out fair, but I suppose you will be able to piece my alterations ...
... of and compassion for human nature... and then, subjectively, because it can hardly be gain-said that had I been by nature less intractable than I was, I might indeed, have been richer today in Yogic experience, but should I not have been poorer in my intimate knowledge of that human side of him which is so infinitely precious to me?" The same Dilip who brings out his Guru's humour and humanity is ...
... in the world there is always a mass of invisible forces at work unknown to the outward minds of men.’ 10 He cautioned an anonymous disciple: ‘The hostile forces exist and have been known to yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times.’ 11 And he warned Nirodbaran: ‘Man, don’t talk lightly ...
... ready. When the time comes for the definite opening and removal of the purdah between the inner and the outer being, I think I can promise you that you will find your power of Yoga and yogic experience at least as unexpectedly complete as you, and others, have found your power for poetry —though necessarily its working out will take time because it is not a detail but the whole life and the ...
... touch only the surface of the matter"). And then, subjectively, because it can hardly be gainsaid that had I been by nature less intractable than I was, I might, indeed, have been richer today in Yogic experience, but should I not have been ever so much poorer in my intimate knowledge of that human side of him which is so infinitely precious to me: the human in the Divine that made Krishna what He was ...
... comment that they "are sheer revelation", what in fact that preceding 32-page essay on The Supermind's' Descent and the Mind of Light tries to present with a due weight of learning and Yogic experience. Towards the close of his masterly exposition, Sethna writes: "Yes, the Mind of Light as its supreme and in its absolute orb, is what was realised in the descent into earth's ...
... It is a purely mental philosophy, unlike Plato's. 9 October 1933 Plotinus I find Plotinus very interesting. Yes. Plotinus was not a mere philosopher,—his philosophy was founded on yogic experience and realisation. 11 October 1933 Plotinus says [according to Weber, p. 171]: "Intelligence is the first divine emanation.... Creation is a fall, a progressive degeneration of the divine ...
... Samadhi becomes superconscient, but this is not an annullation of our conscious being, it is only its self-exceeding, the going beyond its present level and normal limits. So far, then, all Yogic experience is agreed. But Religion and the Yoga of Bhakti go farther; they attribute to this Being a Personality and human relations with the human being. In both the human being approaches the Divine by ...
... Maho Arnas Sarasvati prachetayati ketuna dhiyo visva virajati is to the Yogin a profound and at the same time lucid, accurate and simple statement of a considerable Yogic truth and most important Yogic experience. The psychological theory & principle involved, a theory unknown to Europe and obscured in later Hinduism, depends on a map of human psychology which is set forth in its grand lines in the Upanishads ...
... Samadhi, even if one wants it, it is only the result of a long sadhana in a consciousness prepared for it—it is no use thinking of it when the inner consciousness is only just beginning to open to Yogic experience. Relaxation and Concentration There are two different states, that which the consciousness takes in concentration and that which it takes in relaxation—the latter is the ordinary consciousness ...
... phenomenon, but the first opening of an inner subtle vision which sees things that are not physical. At a later stage a descent of Light is one of the capital phenomena of the opening of the greater Yogic experience and of the working of the Divine Power on the adhar. (3) What does he mean by chitta when he speaks of the force? Chitta as opposed to Chit or Vijnana etc. is only the basic mind-life consciousness ...
... so many contrary ways, open or subterranean, slow or swift, volcanic or coralline,—passing even from one to the other—and he does not use the surface reason but the eye of inner knowledge and Yogic experience. There is no contradiction between my former statements about the sunlit path and what I have said about the difficult and unpleasant passages which the Yoga has to pass through in its ...
... to you. At this moment she does not remember. 27 April 1933 When is one said to be ready to hear the Mother's voice from within? When one has equality, discrimination and sufficient Yogic experience—otherwise any voice may be mistaken for the Mother's. Can one rely solely upon the voice from within from the beginning? If it is the Mother's voice; but you have to be sure of that. ...
... first with a few young men from Bengal. Afterwards they were joined by a handful of others from different parts of the country. By 1926 the household had some two dozen members. After a major yogic experience in November 1926, Sri Aurobindo stopped seeing or speaking with visitors and most members of the community that had grown around him. Around this time, this community became known as Sri Aurobindo's ...
... a Grace he does not want at all and kicks at. The First Responses of the Divine What you describe in your letter as the response of the Divine would not be called that in the language of Yogic experience—this feeling of greater peace, light, ease, trust, difficulties lessening, certitude would rather be called a response of your own nature to the Divine. There is a Peace or a Light which is the ...
... ible. At any rate I am glad the experience has come back again—it has come as the result of your effort and mine for the last days and is practically a reminder that the door of entry into Yogic experience is still there and can open at the right touch. You taxed me the other day with making a mistake about your experience of breathing with the name in it and reproached me for drawing a big inference ...
... 5 May 1935 Yesterday evening I went to bed at 9.30. When I lay down, suddenly my heart stopped for a second and I felt a shock, as if I had fallen down from up above. Is this some kind of Yogic experience or is it due to some weakness of the heart? (I went to Dr. X, but he found nothing wrong with the heart.) Page 40 A feeling like that of the shock and the stopping of the breath for ...
... of the seer. It may be true to a certain extent of the precise form or transcription given to the experience in certain domains; but even here the difference is superficial. It is a fact that Yogic experience runs everywhere on the same lines. Certainly, there are, not one line, but many; for, admittedly, we are dealing with a many-sided Infinite to which there are and must be many ways of approach; ...
... and process of the evolution of consciousness, and offers a potent tool for the transformation of consciousness. The concept of the psychic thus ranks among the outstanding contributions made by yogic experience to psychological thought and spiritual practice. What is the Psychic? Sri Aurobindo, who uses the term "psychic" for what is popularly and often vaguely called the soul, dis ...
... mixed guidance one gets in the midst of these experiencesor to accept the true guidance. Each man who enters the realms of Yogic experience is free to follow his own way; but this Yoga is not a path for anyone to follow, but only for those who accept to seek the aim, pursue the way pointed out upon which a sure guidance is indispensable ...
... But it is at its most effective when it carries those large unfathomable reverberations which rise into the mantra and which he calls "overhead" because the afflatus then is a power felt in Yogic experience to be descending from above the mind-level in the brain. The "overhead" afflatus is, among all inspirations, the most genuinely progressive: it is the sign of the next stage in our psy ...
... ordinary opposite drifts but must be interpreted with the old Vedic and Vedantic insight newly disclosed. To this insight, all life without God-realisation is Death, and Immortality connotes a Yogic experience of the eternal and infinite bliss of the Divine in this very body of ours, and that Immortality is the true Life variously manifesting in our world, secretly present even in so-called death. ...
... has declared that he is not a philosopher in the current sense but one who has employed intellectual language to put together in a systematic form the comprehensive world-vision his many-sided Yogic experience has brought to him. K.D.S. Page 48 AE and Yeats also, I think, would naturally like. But the poem ["This Errant Life"] I selected for especial praise had no striking ...
... a supreme specialist in English. He was acquainted with several modern Indian tongues, including Tamil. His knowledge of Sanskrit was consummate and was further enlightened by his direct Yogic experience of all that the Sanskrit scriptures of India express of the highest and widest spirituality. Further, his was a most sensitive literary sensorium, capable of insight into the fountainheads ...
... tries to write from 'above'." 10 What Sri Aurobindo here terms writing from "above" is generally spoken of by him as "overhead" poetry and described as an inspiration that is felt in yogic experience to be descending from some ether of self-existent consciousness extended boundlessly beyond the brain-clamped human mind. This overhead inspiration can come even when one is not a practising ...
... them. The universal Vasudeva plays many roles according to the situation presented each moment by the many-sided phenomenon of a world moving under multiform aspects. Once one has realised in Yogic experience Vasudeva's unity and multi- Page 217 plicity, sameness and difference, openness and disguise, friendliness and enmity, one discerns by an inner light the proper mode of action ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Appendix I Here is another document, even more definite in character, which, the writer being a Swiss, I translate from the French original.¹ "I was in perfect health: we were on our sixth day of tramping, and in good training. We had come the day before from Sixt to Trient by Buet. I felt neither ...
... of the demands that can legitimately be made by the intellect in its pure search for truth and truth alone. But the scope of our study here is limited to a primary effort to study the data of yogic experience as they are available to us in their original purity, and to underline those crucial data of yogic experiences which are related centrally to the synthesis of yoga. The synthesis of yoga that ...
... For the sake of greater clarity, it may be mentioned that each of the words Purusha, Brahman, Ishwara and Page 122 Purushottama, has a specific meaning corresponding to a specific yogic experience. Firstly, the experience of immobility is termed the experience of the Brahman; but for the same experience the phrase akshara purusha is also used. Secondly, the experience of the same Brahman ...
... Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Notes and References 1. Rig Veda, 1.10.1,2 2. Rig Veda, V.19.1 3 The nature of the crisis that Arjuna underwent is described vividly in Chapters I &. II of the Bhagavad Gita, and the relevant portions are appended in Appendix XV (p. 192) 4. Sri Aurobindo, ...
... descending stairs of manifested existence is commanded and the position of the freed power of ascent and descent becomes a spiritual prerogative. Again, there are three important varieties of yogic experience on the basis of which the rival philosophies of Vedanta have come to be formulated; these are found to be, in the supramental consciousness, reflections that are obtained during the transition ...
... Culture (PHISPC). Currently, he is Education Advisor to the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Other Titles in the Series The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation Significance of Indian Yoga - An Overview A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda The Gita and Its Synthesis of Yoga ...
... Teacher •Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man •Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga •Sri Aurobindo and The Mother •The New Synthesis of Yoga-An Introduction •Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation •Significance of Indian Yoga-An Overview •A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best •Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda •Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads ...
... Philosophy of Evolution for the Contemporary Man •Sri Aurobindo and Integral Yoga •Sri Aurobindo and The Mother •The New Synthesis of Yoga-An Introduction •Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation •Significance of Indian Yoga-An Overview •A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best •Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda •Synthesis of Yoga in the ...
... Upanishads If the Veda gave us the first types and figures of man, Nature and God and of the powers of the universe as seen and formed by an imaged spiritual intuition and psychological and yogic experience, the Upanishads broke through the Vedic forms, symbols and images, without entirely 'abandoning them and revealed in unique kind of poetry the ultimate and unsurpassable truths of self and God ...
... field of inquiry, rigorous quest and cumulative body of knowledge. In the course of the history of the development of yoga, it has been discovered that each of the major religions is based upon yogic experience, and even in recent times the yogic quest undertaken by Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, as also by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, has verified the yogic truths of religions like Buddhism ...
... myself. I didn't think the hostiles would attack me. That was my mistake.' Explaining what is meant by 'hostile forces' Sri Aurobindo writes: 'These hostile forces exist and have been known to yogic experience ever since the days of the Veda and Zoroaster in Asia (and the mysteries of Egypt and the Cabbala) and in Europe also from old times. These things, of course, cannot be felt or known so long as ...
... increased tenfold. What I wrote with some difficulty, often great difficulty, I now write with ease. I am supposed to be a philosopher, but I never studied philosophy—everything I wrote came from Yogic experience, Knowledge and inspiration. So too my greater power over poetry and perfect expression was acquired in these last days not by reading and seeing how other people wrote; but from the heightening ...
... that tells. You have said: "To hear and recognise the Mother's voice within is not easy." When is one ready? When one has equality, discrimination and sufficient yogic experience, — otherwise any voice may be mistaken for the Mother's. On several occasions I seemed to listen to people's thoughts. What being in me did this? It is not a being ...
... and solid to be altogether penetrated, turned into light, transformed by the intuitive mind or even by the still higher Overmind. It is not easy to bring about the ascent to the Overmind; the yogic experience shows that a high and intense individual opening upwards is not sufficient; to that vertical ascent, there must be added a vast horizontal expansion of the consciousness in some totality of Spirit ...
... methods after methods, and taking recourse to the yogic methods contained in every major religion, including Christianity and Islam, he verified that each of these religions had at its roots a valid yogic experience and realization and that therefore all of them can be united by admitting the truths of all religions in the light of the yogic experiences by which their truths can be verified. Happily, Swami ...
... Quest for the Highest and the Best -10_Limitation of the Mind as an Instrument of yogic Experience.htm 9 Limitations of the Mind as an Instrument of yogic Experience In this movement, realization adds itself to realization. In other words, the process of this Yoga is progressive. The reason for this progressive movement is that the instrument which is used ...
... Currently, he is Education Advisor to the Chief Minister of Gujarat. Page 109 Other Titles in the Series The New Synthesis of Yoga - An Introduction Varieties of Yogic Experience and Integral Realisation A Pilgrim's Quest for the Highest and the Best Synthesis of Yoga in the Veda Synthesis of Yoga in the Upanishads The Gita and Its Synthesis ...
... Supermind, moving toward creation of the mind, passes through an intermediate stage called the Overmind. The ascent from mind to the Supermind cannot be sudden. Sri Aurobindo found in his Yogic experience that the mind cannot ascend directly to the Supramental consciousness. It is, too big, too long a jump. To get into Supermind directly from mind would be too sudden and too much of a change for ...
... n. October Leaves Cambridge. Takes lodgings at 6, Burlington Road, London. In London, takes part in the formation of a secret society called the "Lotus and Dagger". Has first "pre-yogic" experience, the mental experience of the Atman. November Disqualified for the Indian Civil Service due to his failure to take the riding examination. December Obtains employment in the ...
... not have a keen desire to find Him. But, when will I find God? 0 God! Show mercy on me! Give me Thy refuge! Give me pure knowledge,, devotion and love." Each man who enters the realms of yogic experience is free to follow his own way, but guidance from a guru is indispensable. The guru can show the path for the contact with the Divine. Champaklal has absolute trust in Divine Grace as reflected ...
... 37. She and Paul Richard, her husband, remained in Pondicherry. Sri Aurobindo was persuaded to start a philosophical magazine in order to give to the world his grand synthesis of knowledge and yogic experience in terms of a rational exposition. It was decided to start the review, which was called the Arya , on the fifteenth of August, Sri Aurobindo's birthday. In order to spread the idea in France ...
... and bases all its findings on experience; mental intuitions are admitted only as a first step... they must be confirmed by being translated into and justified by experience.... It is a fact that Yogic experience runs everywhere on the same lines. Certainly, there are, not one line, but many; for, admittedly, we are dealing with a many-sided Infinite.... 33 Mystics of ancient, medieval and modem ...
... October Leaves Cambridge. Takes lodgings at 6, Burlington Road, London. In London, takes part in the formation of a secret society called the "Lotus and Dagger". Has first "pre-yogic" experience, the mental experience of the Atman. November Disqualified for the Indian Civil Service due to his failure to take the riding examination. 1892 — December Obtains employment in ...
... inalienable freedom," he said elsewhere. I counted. Nationalism recurs ... twenty-two times in the speech! That was "my second experience from Lele. It also shows that he had the power to give yogic experience to others." Then when he was parting from Lele he asked him what he should do. "Before parting I told Lele: 'Now that we shall not be together I should like you to give me instructions about Sadhana ...
... to call these yogic experiences. The word 'yoga' evidently comes from the same root as jungo in Latin, to unite; and the aim of yoga is to effect the union between the one (the individual) and the many (the All). This sense of union can come in many ways. It may come as an experience of intimate partnership, father-son or lover-beloved relationship; it may come as the experience of a personal... Sri Aurobindo's own yogic experiences and realisations may, for the sake of convenience, be said to have occurred roughly at four points in his life. No doubt what he experienced suffused his whole life, the Becoming flowed from the Being and returned to It; but these four shining land-marks in his spiritual life have also their particular significances. First came the experience of utter silence... any way affecting the deeper inward peace. 102 Second came, not many months afterwards in his solitary cell in the Alipore Jail, his experience of the omnipresent Deity in the form of Narayana, Vasudeva. As he described his experience later in the course of the celebrated Uttarpara Speech delivered on 30 May 1909: I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was ...
... to Dilip, gave a comprehensive account of his pre-yogic spiritual experiences. Recalling the effect on him of Max Müller's books during his college days, Sri Aurobindo put forth how "all can be turned into a first means towards the realisation of the Divine. A philosophic statement about the Atman is a mental formula, not knowledge, not experience; yet sometimes the Divine takes it as a channel of... temple town was not so very far from Swami Brahmananda's place. Both Page 182 Chandod and Karnali are places of pilgrimage. "Once," Sri Aurobindo said describing one of his pre-yogic experiences, "I visited Ganganath after Brahmananda's death, when Keshava-nanda was there." Ganganath, on the banks of the Narmada, is about two kilometres from Chandod. It was Swami Brahmananda's Ashram;... Mother's Chronicles - Book Five 18 The Invasion of the Infinite It was here in Srinagar that Sri Aurobindo had an experience about which he spoke often. It was the experience of the Infinite. Atop the nearly 300-metre high Shankaracharya Hill — also called by Muslims Takht-i-Suleiman, meaning the seat of Solomon —there is a temple. The temple ...
... which it is moving, still it must be clearly pointed out that Sri Aurobindo was first a yogi and then a philosopher. For on his own admission the materials of his philosophy were provided by yogic experiences obtained by the practice of certain psychological disciplines and not by speculative thinking. What then is yoga? Normally, practices such as physical postures, breath control, meditation, repeating... admirably. And here I will say a word about the main difficulty in understanding the philosophy and the yoga on which it is based. Sri Aurobindo had to find many technical terms to describe his yogic experiences and to formulate them philosophically. But apart from the novel nomenclature devised by him to explain the different levels of consciousness in the universe and their corresponding levels in human... widening it. These are not empty notions but actual facts discovered and effectuated by yoga. Sri Aurobindo has said that real psychology is the science of consciousness. But consciousness in his experience is not only xii mental intelligence and feeling. For mind is only one level of the multi-level reality called Consciousness. This brings us to the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. The basic ...
... Aurobindo and the Mother is not speculative in character, but it is based upon the results that they obtained through a rigorous experimentation in the domain of yogic experiences and realizations. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, having made detailed yogic study of consciousness and of the methods of their operations in the material world and in the worlds that lie beyond the material world, arrived at the ... earth conditions and in the physical consciousness of the human body itself. The resultant spiritual theory of evolution is experimental in character and involves a long process of Page 15 yogic development and research.15 An important discovery that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother had made is that various systems of yoga can best be understood as accelerated processes of evolution and that ...
... Paradise Lost —there were other formative influences as well, and some of these too deserve mention and even some scrutiny. The primary inspiration flowed no doubt from the fount of his own Yogic experiences and realisations; the 'overhead aesthesis' canalised this rush of afflatus into a blank verse that was Upanishadic in its packed clarity and Kalidasian in its light-glancing unhurried movement; ...
... Second Part, so did Savitri in its final revised form. These additions to Savitri and the new accent given to her character owe their origin, as already pointed out, partly to Sri Aurobindo's Yogic experiences and the philosophy that he outlined on their basis, and partly also to his association with the Mother during the last thirty years of his life. What Karl Breul says in his 'Introduction' to the... Peacock, "to human experience over many centuries, since Goethe includes later in his play a deep vista of ancient culture and a sense of historical evolution. 127 Just as Faust tries to go beyond books and magic to explore the deep perennial springs of human life, so also Savitri, by exploring the "inner countries of the mind and heart", covers the whole gamut of possible human experience and penetrates ...
... Aurobindo on mantric poetry, 303-304; on overhead poetry, 309-310; overhead influence in Sri Aurobindo's poetry, 317-322; Sri Aurobindo's aims in writing Savitri, 323-325; his yogic experiences, 327-328; Sri Aurobindo on mystic poetry & his blank verse line, 339-349; Sri Aurobindo' similes in Savitri,349-355; his style in Savitri, 355-361; his preoccupation with the dawn idea... in, 285-290; difficulties in understanding the poem quickly, 293-294; mystic explorations in, 305; description of overhead poetry in, 308; Sri Aurobindo's aims in the composition of, 323-325; yogic experiences imbedded in, 325; occult fields described in, 330-331; descriptions of spiritual-awakenings in, 334; 'struggle' theme in, 337-338; visionary element in, 338-339; mystic element in, 339-340; metre ...
... has come to be called Integral Yoga. This book does not dwell on philosophical issues, but its interest is in the descriptions of the yogic experiences that we find in the Gita as also in the description of the methods by the application of which the yogic knowledge contained in the Gita can be arrived at and can also be confirmed by process of verification by any seeker who wishes to have the... question as to what are the affirmations of the yogic knowledge aid what have been the methods by which the yogic knowledge can be confirmed, modified and expanded, as we do in respect of every discipline of science. In this book special effort has been made to show how the knowledge of the Vedas and the Upanishads is confirmed by the processes of yogic methods, and how that knowledge has been expounded... syntheses have taken those which preceded them for their starting-point, so also must that of the future, to be on firm ground, proceed from what the great bodies of realised spiritual thought and experience in the past have given. Among them the Gita takes a most important place." (Essays on the Gita Vol. 13, SABCL, p8) Sri Aurobindo has also summed up the argument of the Gita in the following ...
... precision as to in what respects yogic experiences and realizations show agreement among themselves, in what way there are wide divergences among them, and whether these divergences can be bridged. In our study of the Vedic yoga, we have seen that the Page 39 Veda is a record of numerous yogic experiences and realizations, that these experiences and realizations do not pertain to... of yogic methods, which can be employed for repetition and verification and for possibilities of modification and enlargement. These experiences and realizations can also be compared with the experiences and realizations which have been recorded in the other Upanishads, as also which have been recorded in the Veda as well as those recorded in those religions and other books where data of yogic experiences... experiences can be discerned. Such a comparative study of yogic experiences and realizations is necessary, particularly because these experiences and realizations claim to have discovered the essence and nature of reality or realities of both subjective and objective existence. A great difficulty that confronts the seeker is that these experiences and realizations do not always appear to harmonize among ...
... his Savitri —taken up for revision so often before but not brought to the actual point of publication—a wholly new orientation, to turn the 'legend' also into a 'symbol', in the light of his Yogic experiences, his newly formulated philosophy of the Life Page 413 Divine, and also his newly evolved theory and practice of 'overhead' aesthesis. The role of Beatrice in the Commedia... Aurobindo's poem. 107 That Sri Aurobindo 'used' a philosophy which he had himself evolved, partly no doubt in consonance with India's philosophia perennis but partly also in the light of his own Yogic realisations, whereas Dante had been content to 'use' the Thomist philosophy that was ready to hand doesn't essentially affect the parallelism between Savitri and the Commedia, for in one as in ...
... d to show that as 'overhead' poetry involves, first 'thematic content', second 'language' or verbal expression, and finally 'rhythm', in Savitri the 'content' is mainly Sri Aurobindo's own yogic experiences (including the journey in consciousness and the spiritual struggles in the mystic's 'Dark Night of the Soul'), the language is symbolic, often drawing upon the Vedic symbolism, and the rhythm'... study is but an illusion, but I hope, an illusion not wholly unrelated to the Reality! Savitri is poetry and philosophy, and is based on Sri Aurobindo's own yogic experiences and realisations. The appreciation of a poem like Savitri must accordingly involve special difficulties. In the 'Preface' to his thoughtful work, Dante the Philosopher, M. Etienne Gilson writes:... left me often despairing whether I would ever be able to bring my project to some sort of conclusion. I was for a while quite lost in Aswapati's 'Worlds', and the 'Descent into Night' was a terrible experience. But I persevered and my father was always there to help me whenever I floundered. The collateral studies took me to vast new oceans of knowledge. There were Sri Aurobindo's own works, formidable ...
... We know of worlds – vital worlds – which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. Many have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic experiences or unconsciously in nightmare. They bear testimony to the stark monstrosity of these worlds – the gloom, the fear, the pain and torture, the doom and damnation that reign there. That entire inner... this attempt Page 215 to prolong it, to refuse to accept the present difficulties and disadvantages? The reason is that life requires time to grow in consciousness, to acquire experiences, to assimilate and utilise them so as to transform them into powers of being, time, that is to say, to build and forge the instrument so that it may house the higher consciousness and existence.... considerable reduplication in this natural process, one has to repeat the stage of babyhood and immaturity, a retempering of the instrument till it is capable of newer uses. True, some-thing of the experiences, their essence, is stored up somewhere in the depth of the being; but it is not utilised fully, it is not an effective element in the normal consciousness. And although one always bases oneself upon ...
... pit. We know of worlds—vital worlds—which are made of the most unimaginable horror and ugliness and devilry. Many have contacted such domains either consciously in the course of their yogic experiences or unconsciously in nightmare. They bear testimony to the stark monstrosity of these worlds—the gloom, the fear, the pain and torture, the doom and damnation that reign there. That entire inner... or old age. Instead, why this attempt to prolong it, to refuse to accept the present difficulties and disadvantages? The reason is that life requires time to grow in consciousness, to acquire experiences, to assimilate and utilise them so as to transform them into powers of being, Page 5 time, that is to say, to build and forge the instrument so that it may house the higher co... considerable reduplication in this natural process, one has to repeat the stage of babyhood and immaturity, a retempering of the instrument till it is capable of newer uses. True, something of the experiences, their essence, is stored somewhere in the depth of the being; but it is not utilised fully, it is not an effective element in element in the normal consciousness. And although one always bases ...
... existence of the Earth depended upon the work to be done by Sri Aurobindo. A prodigious task. A whole lot was at stake. Following the Command Sri Aurobindo came to Pondicherry. There his yogic experiences multiplied, intensified. He had left behind his novitiate days. As we know, a Yogi has to learn to handle an intense and exceptional use of powers. Now, our universe is full of powers or... where he is experimenting. Sri Aurobindo who was always methodical handled his Yogic methods quite scientifically. He did not form his methods out of the blue, but upon a knowledge developed and confirmed by regular experiment, practical analysis ... and constant result. "True knowledge cannot do without experience, as true science can't do without experiment," he said. True science is a continuous... it systematically. The severe scientist of Yoga that he was, Sri Aurobindo was going to put each and every experience of his to repeated tests, till he could reproduce it in minutest detail, before he would accept the truth of anything. He always based himself on his own experiences, never on a blind adherence to traditions which he considered to be the greatest obstacle to truth. The spiritual ...
... the afternoon." Interesting also are his notings of the 29 th . "The afternoon & evening taken up by R's visit, Bh's [Bharati's] 8c translation of Rigveda 11.23 8c 24. Bh. has fresh Yogic experiences,—this time of the voice of God 8c miraculous cure____ "Bj. [Bejoy] gets the vision of the colour-body with regard to R—behind the physical body—yellow in blue, then red, red Page... Page 418 mountains—it was all there. The splendour of sunlight on the Himalayan peaks. "After that half-hour I hadn't the slightest wish to go! "I'd had the FULL spiritual experience of the Himalayas. "It was a grace given to me—a gift." This was Mother's first visit to India. On 7 March 1914 Mirra and Paul Richard had boarded the Japanese liner Kaga Maru... energy." For election work, on April 13 Paul Richard had gone to Karikal with Mirra. Nolini records, "In this connection the Mother had to pay a' visit to Karikal once. This was her first direct experience of actual India, that is, what it is in its crude outward aspect. She gave us an amusing description of the room where she was put up, an old dilapidated room as dark as it was dirty and a paradise ...
... ascending movement of consciousness. But in all cases it is the release of the Yogic consciousness which is shut up in the chakras and its ascent to meet the Divine Consciousness above. It is this and the corresponding descent from above that make Yogic experiences and realisations possible. It [ the Kundalini ] is the Yogic force asleep in the Muladhara and covered up in the other centres by the... Kundalini is the latent power asleep in the chakras. The Energy in the Kundalini is the Mother's. Page 461 I am afraid the attempt to apply scientific analogies to spiritual or Yogic things leads more often to confusion than to anything else,—just as it creates confusion if thrust upon philosophy also. Kundalini coiled in the Muladhara is asleep, plunged in the inconscience, supporting... there was an intervention at a critical moment and that the call to it whenever needed is likely to be effective. In the experiences proper related in your first letter there is absolutely nothing that should have disturbed you—all was quite normal, the usual experiences of the Yogin at such a juncture and very good and powerful, such as do not come except by the grace of the Divine. Probably the ...
... feels also the splitting of the head in two or the bursting of. NIRODBARAN: Why can't the experiences come in quietly? SRI AUROBINDO: They do come in quietly but then you make a row. If your physical body or head were being split, you could object; but you ought to know by now that all these Yogic experiences are in the subtle body. NIRODBARAN: I also once or twice had such a fear as the lady speaks... FEBRUARY 1939 NIRODBARAN: A sadhika has written a letter. She relates in it her experience: losing consciousness and the mind floating about, as it were, lightning strokes in the head, feeling some Presence. But she says that all these experiences give her a terrible fear, and she complains of bad health. The experiences have come to her at the very start of her practice of Yoga. SRI AUROBINDO: You... whether I have told you of an experience of mine. After my meeting with Lele, I was once meditating at Calcutta felt a tremendous calm and then it seemed as if my breath would stop. A silly fear or rather an apprehension caught hold of me and said, "If my breath stops, how shall I live?" At once the experience ceased and never came back. There are all sorts of experiences. What, for instance, would ...
... My Pilgrimage to the Spirit by Dr. Govindbhai Patel is the book of his experiences in sadhana in Sri Aurobindo Ashram as well as in his life outside, while following an ideal of Sri Aurobindo—"All life is Yoga." The book therefore is significantly divided mainly in two parts. The first part covers his Yogic experiences and visions guided by the Divine Grace in the form of letters by the Divine... of visions and experiences. This continued for years. But the pressure increased and he had to seek a change into a relaxed pace. He returned to Gujarat to normal life. But in fact it was a return upon life with a measure of Yogic preparedness. The touch of the Grace he continues to receive is nothing but the Yoga applied to life in normal circumstances. The author's experiences in the Ashram are... of the Spirit have variously related their experiences and made various claims in all the ages. This has led man to a variety of beliefs, cults and religions. The descriptions come mixed with fantasy. They draw criticism and disbelief more easily than credibility. The present volume is a compilation of Dr. Govindbhai's experiences. But to have experiences is one thing, to describe, analyse and interpret ...
... naturally lead to the Truth we seek, the total Truth. But with the two experiences I have had, the experience of the outer life (with universalization, impersonalization—all the yogic experiences you can have in a material body) and the experience of total and perfect union with the Origin... now that I've had those two experiences and something has happened—something I can't yet describe—I know that... knowledge believed in it as an absolute truth, thus closing the door to the other approach. In this respect it is fatal. From my own experience, though, I could say to all those who believe EXCLUSIVELY in the spiritual approach, the approach through inner experience, that this—at least if it's exclusive—is equally fatal. For it reveals to them ONE aspect, ONE truth of the Whole—but not THE Whole. The... Page 159 like.... It is so far beyond any intellectual state that I can't manage to put it into words. I know the words will come, but they will come through a series of lived experiences, experiences I haven't had yet. ( silence ) It dawned on me that that approach, which used to be so useful to me, so convenient, helping me do my yoga and giving me a grip on Matter, is simply a ...
... the Worlds. He shall then be pitrarājastām bhagavān , the beneficent King-Father and Lord of Creatures, as Vyasa would say. Sri Aurobindo utilizes this legend to give mantric form to his yogic experiences and realizations, to his avataric work. His Savitri is therefore not only a legend and a symbol, a symbol describing the conquest of death. It is also a double autobiography. In it the... in the terrestrial process. But the story, although it is sufficiently careful to drop the necessary hints, does not go into the multiple aspects that operate in Time's dynamism. Nonetheless, the yogic vision behind it is the Vision of the Future, even if it might not spell out the means and the details to make it a reality upon earth. In fact we have in it both the symbolic and legendary aspects ...
... AUROBINDO: The images I have used are, of course, not of a mental nature. What has been seen or realised is yogic through experience or vision, I have tried to express inner symbols. All the images are symbols of inner experience. And in these poems I always use yogic symbols. These experiences and visions have a form; the images have been used to give as correct a description of these forms as possible ...
... stages, maps out the worlds travelled, the depths sounded, the heights scaled. Not every poet could do this. The experiences described are supra-normal; and besides the inspiration of the Vedas and the Upanishads, Sri Aurobindo has also had to draw very largely upon his own Yogic experiences. A few verses in the original poem became a "small passage" in the early drafts of Page 257 ... confrontation of apocalyptic visions, all with their source of inspiration in Vedas and Upanishads and with ample corroboration from Sri Aurobindo's and his spiritual collaborator, the Mother's own yogic strivings and realisations. No wonder this part of the epic spans over about 125 pages, or nearly 4,000 lines. Finally, and most important of all—for the rest are but a preparation, a... from his tapas is the solution of no personal problem or the answering of no personal need, but the sundering of earths fetters, the shattering of man's prison-house. At the culminating point of his yogic realisation, Aswapati incarnates all the world's agony of desire and thereby "compels" Savitri's birth. In the Aurobindonian conception, then, Savitri is not merely the gift of the Goddess ...
... had. the experience of the outer life (with universalisation, impersonalization — all the yogic experiences you can have in a material body) and the experience of total and perfect union with the Origin ... now that I've had those two experiences and something has happened — something I can't yet describe — I know that knowing and uniting the two is what is ... in the making. The third thing is what... only the fabrication of something that was the subject of her yogic research at that time, i.e.. May 24, 1962, would give that assurance that is required for the unshakable synthesis of science and spirituality. From the" context in which this conversation takes place, it can be said Page 126 that the subject of her yogic research at that time was that of fabricating the supramentalised... the results that have been accomplished in the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Both, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, look upon yoga as Science, and, as Sri Aurobindo points out, "Yogic methods have something of the same relation to the customary psychological workings of man as has the scientific handling of the natural force of electricity or of steam to the normal operations of ...
... result in a systematic and fruitful presentation of the aims of Yoga, methods of Yoga, and the criteria that emerge for testing the verities of yogic experiences and realisations. ______________________________________ ² Sri Aurobindo: The Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. 20, Centenary Edition, pp. 399-400 Page 138 ... inquire whether there are authentic texts where we can find answers to the follows questions: • What is Yoga? • What are Yogic methods? • How can Yogic methods be applied? • What are the Claims in respect of the results of the application of Yogic methods? • Can these claims be verified? • Have these claims been verified over a long period of history? • What are the... cover not only the Indian history of yogic science but also the study of yogic methods and their results as we find in the esoteric core of a number of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and even in Systems like the Chinese Taoism. Our Intention should be to bring to ourselves the treasures that are available in the records of yogic knowledge, so that our efforts result ...
... Today's experience has thrown a clear light on many expressions in the Veda especially in relation to Indra and the Rudras." Sri Aurobindo did not note in his Yoga diary all the various literary work he was simultaneously doing. Bhagavat Purana, for instance, which he was translating into English. But those were early days yet. With the passage of time, as his Yogic experiences evolved... 1-2) "It is an extraordinary passage expressing perfectly a spiritual experience. Indra is the Divine Mind and as one ascends higher and higher in it or on it, all that has to be done becomes clearly visible. One who has that experience can at once see how perfectly true it is and that it must have been written from experience and not from imagination." Again from the Rig-Veda (V.19.1): ... this way it will be proved that India is the centre of the religious life of the world and its destined saviour through the Sanatana Dharma. "2. On the basis of Vedic knowledge, to establish a Yogic Sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but prepare a perfect humanity and help in the restoration of the Satya Yuga [the Age of Truth]. That work has to begin now but it will not be complete ...
... a record of Yogic experiences of our leading forefathers. He considers these experiences to serve as the seeds of the later developments of the Indian Yoga, including hi-s own Integral Yoga. And when we study profundities of Integral Yoga and its relevance to our contemporary times, we cannot fail to appreciate the decisive presence and influence in it of the lofty and rich experiences of the Vedic... s of European scholarship both as to religious and historical as well as ethical sense of the Vedic hymns. It was only after his arrival in Pondicherry in 1910 that in the course of his yogic experiences, his thoughts seriously turned to the Veda. We must remember that by the time he had arrived in Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo had already been firmly established in two basic realisations of yoga... Swami Vivekananda for a fortnight and received the knowledge of planes of consciousness between the mind and the supermind. After his acquittal from the jail, Sri Aurobindo continued the inner yogic development, which led him to leave Calcutta under the direct command of the Divine, and arrive at Pondicherry, after a short sojourn Page 51 at Chandernagore. At Chandernagore, Sri Aurobindo ...
... But the Aurobindonian theory of 'overhead' poetry is no question-begging phrase that these others are, for his theory is intimately linked up with his philosophy and his own yogic experiences and poetic experiments and achievements during the latter half of his life. His aesthetics chimes perfectly with his metaphysics and his psychology, and hence his theory of overhead aesthesis... try to anatomise the poetry. It would, perhaps, be wiser on the whole to surrender to the poem instead of dissecting it, for, when the sahrdaya properly responds to the poem, he cannot fail to experience a feeling of freedom and joy. As Charles Morgan writes, "In a great style there is pressure behind the form. As you read, you are made aware of this pressure. You feel that all the heavens of ...
... phenomena by the employment of the same methods, even so, in the science of yoga, the validity of yogic knowledge is obtained by verification of repeated production of the spiritual phenomena by the employment of the same and identifiable methods. In both the cases, the knowledge is objective; yogic experiences and realizations cannot be dismissed as mere subjective phenomena. page - 53 ... become attainable by rigorous and continuous employment of the relevant methods and processes. Validity of Yogic Knowledge It will be seen that, in the light of the body of the knowledge of the methods and results obtained through the processes of the methods, spiritual experiences are not or need not remain occasional or random or sporadic phenomena. Just as in physical sciences, validity... -05_System of Yoga, Methods of yoga and Verifiability of Yogic Knowledge.htm 4 Systems of Yoga, Methods of Yoga and A study of different systems of yoga such as Raja yoga, Hatha yoga, Bhakti yoga, Jnana yoga and Karma yoga, will reveal to us the effectivity of yogic methods, and the results obtained by the pursuit of these methods can be compared with ...
... outward. Before that whatever change is done in the outer nature has to be done by the psychic. Do you think that I remained too much in the higher consciousness and in the yogic experiences ? That I really never thought enough of bringing all that down to change my human nature? Page 262 Your tendency was to go up and to leave the higher consciousness to deal... the experience at the beginning is often very powerful, so powerful that the resisting elements remain quiescent — afterwards they rise up. The experience has then to be brought down and settled in these parts also. In one place you say, "The experiences prepare the different parts of the being for loving in the right way." Somewhere else you write that the higher experiences leave... the lower consciousness. There are stories in the old scriptures, Puranas, that some great yogis were tempted by the Apsaras (fairies of other worlds). Then some of them left their yogic tapasya and even married them. Are these really facts or mere religious fables? These things are possible but they do not usually happen — because it is difficult for beings of the subtle ...
... Life-Poetry-Yoga (Vol 2) 14 You have asked me: "Is it wrong to tell one's yogic experiences to an intimate friend?" My answer is: 'True intimacy means constant thought by friends of each other's welfare both outward and inward, an identification by one with the other's triumphs as- well as troubles - a hand immediately goes forth either... pervasiveness of the Divine Action is not difficult to perceive. A beautiful experience of one is a matter for rejoicing by the other: the jealous look is never cast. So it is perfectly right to share with an intimate friend one's happy uplifting experiences." I like the way you have put your morning experience: "A thin layer of darkness still enveloped the sky. One could hear a faint footfall... automatic participation in joy takes place. Not a single twinge of envy at one's companion's good fortune occurs. It is because of jealous reactions that it is advisable not to share one's precious experiences with people. Through the envious eye of the hearer the hostile forces attempt to snatch away the benefits of our self-deepenings. Not many realise that our goal here is the Divine Mother's victory ...
... spiritual authenticity when we are not in touch with the truth of inspiration behind it. It will be presumptuous on our part even to speak of fidelity to the text charged as it is with yogic experiences. Sri Aurobindo considered Savitri as his main work in the context of his great avataric objective. It is not only the record of a seeing, but is also a supreme revelation of his e... creative effort then each composition will carry in it the soul of the particular artist himself. Each one will then have his own Savitri , each sculptor a bust of his own goddess, each doer of yogic tapasya a characteristic aura of hers. Therefore what we are having here is just one piece of art in a poetic form, suggesting that there will follow many more in the course of spiritually vibrant... pleasure from them, or stand rather a-gape looking at these mini-wonders, or savour the new and strange preparations, or offer pleased silence in their appreciation, one ought to immediately experience some unfaltering quality of inspiration behind them. In their thematic presentation they may seem pretty well digested and the heavenly Muse might have even pressed her sparkly or miraculous ...
... yoga. He made test after test and accumulated experience upon experience. He frankly told his intellectual disciples that testing Yogic experiences by the ordinary reason won't do. "For I am unable to see by what valid tests you propose to make the ordinary reason the judge of what is beyond it." Because, he explained in his precise way, "the experiences of Yoga belong to an inner domain and go according... wrote to one of them in 1931, "mentioned by you as recent experiences were already enumerated as long ago as the time of the Upanishads as signs accompanying the opening to the larger consciousness. If I remember right your sparks come in the same list. The fact has been recorded again and again in Yogic literature. I had the same experience hundreds of times in the earlier part of my Sadhana. So you... and all our physical experience daily tell us —so the spiritual search passes beyond the domain of scientific or rational enquiry and it is impossible by the aid of the ordinary positive reason to test the data of spiritual experience and decide whether those things exist or not or what is their law and nature. As in Science, so here you have to accumulate experience on experience, following faithfully ...
... of twelve books running into twenty-four thousand lines. In the process it acquired the significance of a symbolic transformative legend which is also the luminous medium for presenting yogic-spiritual experiences and realisations of the Author. Several versions in the form of manuscripts and typescripts add up to about eight thousand sheets; with repeated drafting and revisions the poem continued ...
... Besides discussing day-to-day political problems Sri Aurobindo interpreted in both these papers the spiritual significance of Indian Nationalism on the basis of his Yogic experiences. Publication of his jail experiences in Bengali in Suprabhat, a Bengali monthly of Calcutta, which later appeared in book form under the title Kara Kahini. September: As leader... vision of Sri Krishna everywhere and in everything. Attained mastery over the functions of the body as a means to its perfection. Never afterwards suffered from any serious illness, overcoming by Yogic force whatever chronic ailments he had. Discovered noble traits in hardened convicts and Jail officials. Saw in fellow under-trials pioneers of a new race in Bengal. Wrote four articles on the philosophy... February: In response to an Adesh (Command) from the Divine Sri Aurobindo secretly left Calcutta and came to Chandernagore where at the house of Matilal Roy he spent a month and a half in Yogic contemplation, after which, again commanded by the Divine, he came to Pondicherry on April 4 by the steamer Dupleix. Thirty years ago a Tamil Yogi had predicted the coming to south India of a Yogi ...
... keep quiet, quiet for years and years, which I am trying to do. But, Sir—! According to the affirmation of people acquainted with the subject, the preliminary purification before getting any Yogic experiences worth the name may extend to 12 years. After that one may legitimately expect something. You are far from the limit yet—so no reason to despair. November 10, 1936 What do you think... criticised, Lawrence goes red etc. It's the mark of the tribe. What about yourself in your pre-yogic days? I hear that James Cousins said about your poem "The Rishi" that it was not poetry at all, only spiritual philosophy. I wonder what your poetic reaction was! James Cousins does not date from my pre-yogic days. I never heard that. If I had, I would have noted that Cousins had no capacity for... two ago had the experience of the ascent above and of the wideness of peace and joy of the Infinite (free from the bodily sense and limitation) as also the descent down to the Muladhar. She does not know the names or technicalities of these things, but her description which was minute and full of details was unmistakable. There are three or four others who have had this experience recently so that ...
... the Bulletin … you will see that it has begun.” 12 In the issue referred to, the Mother published Some Experiences of the Body Consciousness and New Experiences of the Body Consciousness. Without the titles these experiences would read just like other “psychological” yogic experiences. The difference, nevertheless, is enormous. This was no longer a Yoga in which the consciousness located in... beginning of the formation of overman. 5 Secondly, in the Mother’s Entretiens, her “questions and answers” at the Playground, she sometimes talked on appropriate occasions about her personal yogic experiences and progress. The word that crops up time and again in those brief glimpses of her inner life and work is “cells”: their consciousness, aspiration and transformation. Might Sri Aurobindo have... are not metaphysicians. As to me, I like it!” 45 When she said this, she had just had a mighty experience, on the 3rd of February, of which these reflexions were the result. Experiences she had by the dozen, not to say by thousands, for her whole life was one uninterrupted flow of experiences. Only, it so happened from time to time that an external or internal occasion, in herself or in “the ...
... that we cannot be close-minded in our approach towards it. The precaution that is necessary is to avoid criticism for the sake of mere criticism; also, engaging ourselves just in discussions of yogic experiences by taking them as problems of metaphysics for their own sake can hardly be the right method of looking at Jnaneshwari . There are in Marathi at least three hundred books published on it covering... spiritual ambience, its overhead quality of expression have remained alone and unsurpassed. Its spell is cast on all writings that have nobility of thought and feeling and aesthetic delight. Jnaneshwar’s yogic excellence,—and later Tukaram’s household yet deeply experiential poetry,—is the accomplishment which no time can wane. Since then there has been a steady flood which in the overflowing of psychic-lyrical... write something about it. The wonder of wonders is that Jnaneshwari always provides him the need0ed impulsion or gives inspiration that can take him to higher levels. That is indeed the power of yogic enterprise itself and living in it is to profit from it in an endless way. That is why it proves to be enduring. In it all the diverse as well as profound demands of the seekers and learners of spiritual ...
... with a changed and new poetic sensibility clutches the poem to his heart. 3: Symbolic Images—their Types Savitri abounds with countless symbolic expressions of Sri Aurobindo's yogic experiences in language and images that have never been used in poetry before. Symbols and symbolic expressions form the very texture of the epic's poetic speech. Depending on their vastness and depth of the... In the fifth category of symbols in Savitri there are many cantos that wholly, from the first line to the last, describe symbolically the poet's yogic vision. Many are the images in these cantos that suggestively convey these experiences. Of such cantos only three shall be taken up here. They describe the Descent into Night, the World-Soul, and the Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of... truth or inward vision or experience of things, so inward, so subtle, so little belonging to the domain of intellectual abstraction and precision that it cannot be brought out except through symbolic images,— the more these images have a living truth of their own which corresponds intimately to the living experience they symbolise, suggest the vibration of the experience itself, the greater becomes ...
... Spiritual Knowledge: Charges and their Refutation I. Argument: Spiritual experiences are individual and have no general validity independent of the individual seeker's supposed testimony. Critique: This statement arises out of a complete misreading of facts as they stand. For the truth is that yogic experiences run everywhere on the same lines. "Certainly, there are, not one line, but many... themselves, but only when they have acquired the capacity or can follow the inner methods by which that experience and verification are made possible." 26 III. Argument: Since Yogic exploration does not adopt the methodology of Science, it is unscientific and its so-called findings presumably untrue. Critique: Modern man has been led to believe that "one is either in Science or outside... tribunal of the common mentality which has no experience of these things and takes its own absence or incapacity of experience as a proof of their invalidity or their non-existence. All reality, all experience must indeed, to be held as true, be capable of verification by a same or similar experience; so, in fact, all men can have a spiritual experience and can follow it out and verify it in themselves ...
... spiritual or psychic or even occult, that is an experience (in the technical Yogic sense), for there are of course all sorts of experiences which are not of that character. The feelings themselves are of many kinds. The word 'feeling' is often used for an emotion, and there can be psychic or spiritual emotions which are numbered among Yogic experiences, such as a wave of pure bhakti or the rising... resist nothing as stubbornly as suffering and agony, self-pity, and despair. For I have noted times out of number, that my mind experiences only a deep discomfort to see anybody suffer or groan or writhe in agony. How can I then help wondering whether your ascending peak of Yogic consciousness has not made you somewhat aloof, perforce, from what really happens down in our plains of blood and sweat .and... force as when I learnt my first deep lesson in spiritual humility. The occasion, in the context of my humiliation, will stand out as a landmark in the history of my Yogic evolution in retrospect. I may as well relate it here as the experience did border on the miraculous and I have witnessed very few miracles uptil now.* _____________ *That is, till the end of 1950, for during the next decade I ...
... finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one's own yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative. 14 Any approach to the epic has to keep in mind this fact that it is Sri Aurobindo's yogic consciousness that is transmitting mystic experiences that have been seen and felt. His attempts to set them in mantric poetry have often succeeded... money, was startled. 30 In our epic also we find that Aswapati ha$ ceased to think of his own dynasty, his Madra kingdom, his personal hegemony over a portion of the earth. After the yogic experiences he has been through, his vision has embraced all creation. He now addresses himself to the task of saving the entire human race and transforming it, and avoid the mistake of Pururavas who had... combination" of existing methods of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo says in this volume what the synthesis must be: It [the synthesis] must therefore be effected by neglecting the forms and outsides of the Yogic disciplines and seizing rather on some central principle common to all which will include and utilise in the right place and proportion their particular principles, and on some central dynamic force ...
... times, always dreaming of new adventures and discoveries in the most exotic places of the globe. She began talking to him on every subject under the sun, including her own past and her ongoing yogic experiences. When Satprem realized the importance of these conversations, he began recording them on tape, and from 1964 onwards published, with the Mother’s consent, some passages in the Bulletin of Physical... the Mother went through one of the severest ordeals of her life. This up-and-down movement occurs so frequently in her and Sri Aurobindo’s yoga that it seems to be phenomenon proper to it. After each yogic gain, each climb to formerly unconquered heights, each ascent beyond the previously known, acquired and established, there is a step backward, a sliding down lower than before, more daunting and dangerous... something she had postponed doing for ten years: she opened with great care the access to her inner psyche, where she lived in eternal unity with him. We recall that she had closed this access by a yogic act at the time of his departure, in order to prevent her automatically following him. How many realized that, from 1959 onwards, they were in the presence not only of the Mother but also of Sri Aurobindo ...
... descend into these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will. The utility of the psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other Yogic experiences is not to be measured by our narrow human notions of what may be useful for the present physical life of man. In the first place, these things are necessary for... at least glimpses of psycho-spiritual experiences and a promise even of the supramental awaiting its time for manifestation. I shall, if I make time, write separately my comments on his experiences and if he understands and follows he may proceed more rapidly in his Sadhana. What you say about your Sadhana is probably the right interpretation of your experiences. The two things of which you speak are... development and experiences and then the strength behind them becomes asset. It is also evident from what you say about his past experience of the voice and the vesture that there is, as I thought a physical something in him Waiting for and on the verge of spiritual awakening. I understand that he is waiting for intellectual conviction and to bring it some kind of assurance from the inner experience. To that ...
... supramental transformation would not be possible. How to understand all this? Actually it is not a matter of understanding, for we can neither understand it nor can we understand most of her other yogic experiences – we can only try to follow the story of the Mother’s life in order to have a glimpse, a notion of what she has been through, in order to acquire some insight into the importance of her and Sri... for twelve hours of misery,’ ‘some seconds of paradise for hours of hell,’ ‘a few marvellous minutes for hours of terror.’ But there was that ‘Solicitude which doses’ the experiences, however extreme. And there was the yogic seesaw effect we know of, and her reports of progress that were sometimes spectacular. For the Mother was building a new, supramental body within her old, material body, along... live a life essentially divine but who renounce all religions whether they be ancient, modern, new or future. It is only in experience that there can be the knowledge of the Truth. No one ought to speak of the Divine unless he has had experience of the Divine. Get experience of the Divine, only then will you have the right to speak of it. The objective study of the religions will be a part of the ...
... lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will. Page 336 The utility of psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other yogic experiences is not to be measured by our narrow human notions of what may be useful for the present physical life of man. In the first place these things are necessary for the... and experience and then the strength behind them becomes an asset. It is also evident from what you say about his past experience of the voice and the vastness that there is, as I thought, a psychic something in him waiting for and on the verge of spiritual awakening. I understand that he is waiting for intellectual conviction and, to bring it, some kind of assurance from an inner experience. To that... or even the vital being proper. The seat of the harm is evidently in the physico-vital and the physical being. The physico-vital dazzled by the experiences began to think itself a very interesting and important personage and to histrionise with the experiences and play for that purpose with the body. This is a frequent deviation of Yoga observable even in some who are considered great Sadhakas. It is ...
... doubtless intimations of an intellectually formulated world-view, but this is merely ancillary or antecedent to the satisfying world-view to be reared on the sure foundations of his mystic or Yogic experiences. The section entitled 'Nine Poems' in the second volume of Collected Poems and Plays (1942) occupies roughly a middle place in the evolution of Sri Aurobindo's poetic art, and several of the... thought-structure in the poem; there is only a succession of vision and experience, it is a mystic poem, its unity is spiritual and concrete, not a mental and logical building."56* What this mantric poem does to us is to revive the vision and reproduce the experience. If in Thought the Paraclete, the theme is the experience of the flight from; Here to Eternity, in pieces like Musa Spiritus... idea of man's unity with man and man's intimate relationship with Nature, the psychic responses and experiences on the basis of this intellectual idea, and experiments in the use of language elastic and powerful enough for the expression or recordation of the idea and the responses and the experiences, - these things some of the "recent" poets had given us indeed; but for the trend to culminate in a ...
... imposed. Still the atmosphere & habit of resistance still remains. The afternoon & evening taken up by R's [Richard's] visit, Bh's [Bharati's] & translation of Rigveda II. 23 & 24. Bh. has fresh Yogic experiences,—this time of the voice of God & miraculous cure. Aiswarya operated today consecutively & with small resistance in the flight of the bird. This has happened before, but then as an exceptional... opposition, less powerful even when, by a greater exertion, it produces the same result of failure. There are also striking results of immediate effectuality by vashita & effective vyapti in awaking Yogic realisations & psychological changes in those around me. In the aishwarya, the servant bhava, having no separate personal interest in the result but only the Master's interest, is now becoming finally... play on the basis of unfaith. Nor does the Jiva at present wish to renounce the unfaith, owing to the persistent experience of self-delusion in the past & the determination not to be a willing party to self-delusion in the future. To everything therefore that is not yet proved by experience, there is only a provisional faith given if any, ie a mixture of faith & scepticism, an "It may be" or at most ...
... of the Worlds. He shall then be pitrarājastām bhagavān, the beneficent King-Father and Lord of Creatures, as Vyasa says. Sri Aurobindo utilises this legend to give mantric form to his yogic experiences and realisations, to his avataric work. His Savitri is therefore not only a legend and a symbol, a symbol describing the conquest of death. It is also a double autobiography. In it the... through the various drafts of Savitri developed. But as these are spiritual experiences in the nature of a poetic record we will have to observe some caution also; their sequence cannot be taken strictly as that of an event-by-event account. Yet an archival approach in dating these can shed interesting light vis-à-vis the yogic accomplishments. It seems that the prime seeds of these consequential de... Autobiographical It is well known that Savitri is the poetic record of spiritual experiences of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In this connection we may recall what the Mother told Mona Sarkar: All this is his own experience, and what is most surprising is that it is my own experience also. It is my sadhana which he has worked out. Each object, each event, each realisation, all ...
... Pondicherry that has sprung up around him is a scene of multifarious activity, a field for a hundred talents and aptitudes - men of diverse types developing by a series of inner Yogic experiences and the expression of those experiences in outer life. The Ashram is a glowing focus of India's innate spirituality, fraught with immense possibilities of irradiating the entire life of the nation. Some... he referred to Narayan Jyotishi, a Calcutta astrologer, who had made the prediction that Sri Aurobindo would prolong his life "by Yogic power for a very long period and arrive at a full old age", and added as if in corroboration: "In fact, I have got rid by Yogic pressure of a number of chronic maladies that had got settled in my body." 68 In other words, it appeared as though the length of... formed an "army of liberation" or the Indian National Army, Nehru felt overtaken by events and enacted the role of an * Writing on 'Foresight' in February 1950, the Mother too has said: "By Yogic discipline one can, not only foresee destiny, but can alter it, change it almost wholly." Page 705 Indian Hamlet. The question of questions was: Were Indians now at least to cooperate ...
... and The Secret of the Veda, Page 384 and The Synthesis of Yoga - all three embodying the philosophical, the mystical, and the psychological and spiritual expressions of his Yogic experiences. The Secret of the Veda gives an entirely new mystical interpretation of the symbolic verses of the Veda and throws a new light on the history of ancient Indian spiritual culture. It should... the supreme and eternal Witness. 26-6-1915 Letters of Sri Aurobindo to The Mother: The experience you have described is Vedic in the real sense, though not one which would easily be recognised by the modern systems of Yoga which call themselves Yogic. It is the union of the "Earth" of the Veda and Purana with the divine Principle, an earth which is said to be above our... and promised to bear the cost of publishing the book, Yogic Sadhan . 8 7. A.B. Purani: Evening Talks, 2nd series. 8. For the first three months of their stay at Shankar Chetty's house, they used to have Seances of an evening, in which automatic writing was done both as an experiment and an amusement. The book, Yogic Sadhan, was written during some of these Seances. Sri ...
... descend into these lower centres so as to transform the emotional and vital and physical being as well as the mental thought and will. The utility of the psychic experiences and knowledge of the invisible worlds as of other Yogic experiences is not to be measured by our narrow human notions of what may be useful for the present physical life of man. In the first place, these things are necessary for... at least glimpses of psycho-spiritual experiences and a promise even of the supramental awaiting its time for manifestation. I shall, if I make time, write separately my comments on his experiences and if he understands and follows he may proceed more rapidly in his Sadhana. What you say about your Sadhana is probably the right interpretation of your experiences. The two things of which you speak are... development and experiences and then the strength behind them becomes asset. It is also evident from what you say about his past experience of the voice and the vesture that there is, as I thought a physical something in him waiting for and on the verge of spiritual awakening. I understand that he is waiting for intellectual conviction and to bring it some kind of assurance from the inner experience. To that ...
... the infinitudes of the Spirit. It was in this last way that I myself came by the mind's absolute silence, unimaginable to me before I had its actual experience. 31 This is a most important point indeed. For we might think that these yogic experiences are all very nice and interesting, but that they are far beyond our ordinary human grasp; how could we, such as we are, ever get there? Our mistake... upon thousands of them, containing all kinds of practical indications about yogic experiences, difficulties, and progress. But most importantly, over a period of thirty years, he would write and rewrite his extraordinary 28,813-line epic poem, Savitri , like a fifth Veda – his message, in which he describes the experiences of the higher and lower worlds, his own battles in the Subconscient and Inconscient... one experiences an ascending Force (called kundalini in India), which awakens rather brutally at the base of the spine and rises from level to level until it reaches the top of the head, where it blossoms into a sort of luminous and radiating pulsation, bringing a sensation of immensity (and often a loss of consciousness called ecstasy), as if one had forever emerged Elsewhere. All yogic methods ...
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