301)   Altruism is the human endeavour to excel the Divine in benevolence. T

302)   An arduous route that is the longest is the shortest one.  E

303)   Practical net result depends upon the immediate relationship and the attitudes therein. You are able to produce results not based on what you are but how others treat you. T

304)  The mind can get agitated. If it is overwhelmed with emotion or comes into contact with the psychic, the agitation will stop. E

305)   Man is never going to find the secret to a goal that is not REAL to him. When it is REAL,  it is not certain he will ever find it. It is GRACE that he finds the key to the secret. T

306)   To seek final fulfilment in anything other than the Lord is ignorance.

To seek fulfilment in money or power is a vital hallucination.

To seek the same fulfilment in marriage is a social illusion of the man of yesteryears.

To seek fulfilment in friendship is psychological delusion.

Biological men seek marriage, psychologically unevolved men seek friendship. T

307)   Any impulse will be transformed if consecrated each time it rises. E

308)   Mind is never satisfied because it seeks satisfaction in the existing conditions which means trying to construct a whole in conditions of the part. T

309)   Satisfaction is the saturation of the most developed skill with energy. T

310)   Fulfilment is the saturation of the most developed value with employment. T

311)   Unconsciousness becoming conscious is revelation. T

312)   Body cures itself by releasing the physical power which is the first stage. Supramental transformation takes place when the body releases the power of the spirit which is the ninth stage. E

313)   Capacity to know the obstacle — value of existing endowments is the capacity to receive the endowments of opportunity. E

314)   The physical is inert. The physical in movement is the vital expressing in the physical. Skill of the physical is Mind expressing in the body. Spirit expressing in the body is tejas, the light shining through the skin. Supermind expressing through the body is body’s capacity to express power and accomplish without moving. E

315)   Friendship — family — life — personality — partnership.

By valuing profit more than the partner, the partner is lost.

Mercenary motive nullifies the friendship. When sadness colours life, it loses its charm.

The advent of hesitation neutralises personality.

Admiration of the heart going to another dissolves wedlock. T

316)   From surface to the depth of the being.

Mind, vital, and physical exist on the surface and in the depths. If the analogy of cleaning can be resorted to, going from the surface mind to the depth is like sweeping the house. It is like replastering the house when you move so in the vital. The physical admits us to its depths only when the walls are replaced. T

317)   For MAN to move matter through spirit, says Sri Aurobindo, he must seek an inner perfection of conscious universal integrality of Ananda. In a smaller way, this is the formula for social success. E

318)   Such a mastery is attained through, among other things, values.
To be fully conscious of our work is the mental value.
To be happy about it is the emotional value.
To have all the skills needed is the physical value.
Not to take outward initiative is the spiritual value. E

319)   We know the reality, not its process.
We know the process, not its essence. T

320)   Knowing the reality, you can blindly aim at it. Knowing the process, you can manipulate the circumstances. Knowing the essence, you can have an entire mastery over it. &

321)   Humour is at the expense of a person or an event.
At its height humour opens up possibilities of thought that issue joy or delight, thereby becoming a creative imaginative faculty of the mind. E

322)   Constant attempts to enjoy the results that have come by denying enjoyments is the struggle of mortal mind. E

323)   To identify the cause of any failure in one’s own self is Purna Yoga. As someone or something else is always related to our work, it is always possible to identify the cause of our failures in external events or others. &

324)   To identify the cause of our failures in external events is the sure way to escape self-correction. E

325)   To identify the same in another is the way the ego constantly builds itself. E

326)   Desire when successful, gives satisfaction. It coarsens the satisfaction because of its quality. Desirelessness gives fulfilment which raises the level of consciousness to a refined expansive sweetness. T

327)   Concentration:

The maximum intensity of one’s concentration is determined by his mental belief, vital urges and physical poise.
Ordinarily, one whose thoughts are running is concentrated in his running thoughts.
Mind is purified only when the running thoughts cease, pragmatic will is not exercised and reason’s moves are denied.
Pure mind reached as a result of mental concentration leads to pure spirit, moksha.
Psychic concentration is possible only when the available concentration is expended on consecration, the process of relating nature to spirit.
High-pitched mental concentration while one is talking or vital concentration while feeling or physical concentration while acting is only possible for the spiritual term of each plane.
Concentration for liberation is the concentration on the surface by the surface, while concentration for transformation is the concentration of the psychic in each plane. E

328)   Mother’s birthday is the birthday of every living being into the higher consciousness. &

329)   Frankness is of several levels:

Frankness in          — information
                             — understanding
                             — motives
                             — subtle information, understanding and motives. T

330)   By overcoming good and evil, man is ushered into the psychic realm. He finds it very difficult. But socially he has overcome the evil of the past generation and now treats it as good, thus overcoming the distinction between good and evil. T

331)   A project or work is to be initiated only in its plane. It can never be started in another plane. E.g. an emotional work like service cannot be begun either by thinking or by planning. A spiritual work like dhyana cannot be initiated by serious thought. Yoga is spiritual and can be started only in the spiritual plane, i.e. by concentration or consecration, not by discussion or thought or puja or ceremony. E

332)   Mind taking initiative to think of a thing or a person is indicative of the presence of desire for that object. Desirelessness is indicated by the objects moving towards us on their own. T

333)   Conceptual understanding is only part of a full mental understanding. It is made possible by the linguistic meaning of the words used. Fuller mental understanding requires the grasp of words from their origin, the grasp of concepts from the first principles. T

334)   Understanding can be classified under mental understanding, vital understanding, physical understanding  and spiritual perception.
They are all parts of the UNDERSTANDING of the BEING which issues out of identity. T

335)   The right to tyrannize over another is human justice. T

336)   Social emotions are for the masses; personal emotion is for the unevolved. Spiritual emotion is bhakti. At its height, emotion even as knowledge shades off into intuition. T

337)   Blind FAITH is materially rewarded by Mother Earth. Intelligent faith is copiously rewarded by Life. Spiritual FAITH is its own reward. T

338)   To know the difference between mind, ego and desire in actions, impulses, and motives is a yogic perception. E

339)   Successful negotiation is to use the argument of strength; failure here is the reasonableness of the weak. T

340)   Great results, great benefits, and great income come, not necessarily because of great endowments. They can issue out of the atmosphere because of one little advantage. T

341)   Therefore, the greatest strategy for luck lies in drawing upon the potentials of the atmosphere. T

342)   Those who receive rewards in proportion to their endowments are builders of the atmosphere like nation builders. T

343)   Those who are ashamed of repeating 100 times, are not ashamed of a thought repeating in their minds hundreds of times. They are even proud of it. Some cherish it too. That is the stupidity of the surface mind. T

344)   The Presence of the CALL is indicated by Man stumbling on God in several ordinary events repeatedly till he recognises THAT. E

345)   Self-awareness:

To know oneself evolutionarily, we should know the evolutionary process. Prior to that one needs to have psychological and sociological self-awareness. T

346)   When you decide not to cut worldly or family relationships but start the first step of yoga viz. consecration, you will see a big chunk of people moving away from you. They are to be shed. Among those who cling to you there will be three categories:

1) those who are meant for yoga;
2) those who are inimical to yoga, and
3) those whom you are not able to give up. T

347)   Presence of desire is indicated by the impulse to possess, ego by dualities and mind by the partial human vision. T

348)   In all matters that are based on PERFECTION like honesty, loyalty, chastity, integrity, there is no beginning even at the lowest level if the value is NOT perfect. This being a yoga of Self-Perfection, it can be started only on the basis of a perfect yogic value, viz. consecration. T

349)   Consecration is the indispensable first step but it cannot be initiated unless the concentration that precedes it is perfect, in the sense it is all-inclusive leading to a wide massive opening. E

350)   Three levels of graded effectivity in consecration — acts, thoughts and impulses. E

351)   Thinking is mental desire.

As the vital reaches through the desire what it does not possess, the mind reaches through thinking what it does not understand. T

352)   All yogas concentrate on the individual moving from prakriti to purusha and then seek various levels of liberation for the Purusha.

         Purna Yoga concentrates on the soul in prakriti and endeavours for its evolution from spiritual awareness to spiritually creative power through spiritual force, i.e. from the psychic to the Supramental through the spiritual transformation. E

353)   Each plane evolves the next higher plane till the evolution is complete. The last stage is the TRUE and is called the true physical or true vital etc.

E.g. the material physical plane has its subtle part as each plane has its own subtle part. The physical evolves the vital and mental and finally the spiritual. When the spiritual term in the physical is evolved overriding the earlier rulers of the mental, vital and physical, the plane becomes the TRUE PHYSICAL. This is also subtle, but is of a different order than the subtlety of the first level. E

354)   What prayer accomplishes for the moment, organisation of consciousness ensures automatically. E

355)   A powerful beginning of consecration is possible only when the WILL is stronger than the urge for thought or sensation. T

356)   Men lose all their energies in responding, rather reacting to those around, i.e. their meaningless personal attendants. Capacity to FULLY ignore them psychologically helps achieve in life. T

357)   The highest aspiration that can be realised in a man is indicated by the greatest enjoyment he seeks. T

358)   Man grows only in Freedom. That it is Freedom is confirmed by the ability of others around him to grow. That ability is brought out by his relationship with others. The relationship expresses Freedom when it encourages others to express themselves. Others tend to be expressive, if they find the listener can receive from them. The listener is able to encourage others when he spots in the speaker an area from where he can learn. That comes from true humility. T

359)   True humility is to be aware of the divinity in others which tries to teach you through ignorance.

Humility is the awareness of Ignorance behind our knowledge and Jnana behind others’ Ignorance. T

360)   Caustic jokes, remarks, and conversation scorch the initiative of others and are expressive of the opposite of humility, the Ego.

Not to be aware of one’s caustic nature is unconscious Ego. T

361)   Sri Aurobindo’s writings are of cosmic dimensions. To grasp that, the intellect must be exercising itself in that dimension. E

362)   As the asuras possess the money when spiritual seekers shun it, in human relationship the gap between any two if not filled in by Truth, is filled in by Falsehood, i.e. when the man of truth out of politeness restrains, the man of falsehood asserts. E

363)   Man of Truth asserting positively in relationship with a false man is not to allow him to assert by the silent expansion of his personality. T

364)   Calling in Mother into a problem brings in all the Divine energies required to solve it even as a repairman brings all the tools and skills needed to set right a broken machinery. E

365)   The physical can do only one thing at a time. It concentrates on details. The mental can handle several things at the same time because it handles the essentials. T

366)   The human maximum is reached when the personality opens up, moves into the depths and integrates with the work on hand which is now found in parts in world leaders of thought or action. T

367)   The human maximum is the devotee’s minimum. T

368)   The devotee reaches his maximum in LIFE when he integrates himself at his maximum with Mother’s consciousness in LIFE. T

369)   The devotee’s maximum is the sadhak’s minimum. T

370)   The sadhak integrates with Mother for HER in Yoga as Life and not in life for individual purposes. E

371)   The sadhak’s maximum is Mother. E

372    Man feels a fullness when his energies overwhelm him excited about something. Spiritual fullness is for one who is excited about God.  E

373)   There are people to whom a good act done will at once lead to several life responses of similar nature. There are others to whom a bad turn delivered will release equally a chain of good life responses. And these people may be anyone, from a distant acquaintance to a family member. The extreme case is one’s own self. T

374)   The constitutional Ignorance breaks down when we move to the psychic centre. &

375)   God walking on earth would be witnessing HIS own Lila and would not disapprove of anything HE sees. Lila is done by the Immanent God in men and matters whose atmosphere maintains the equilibrium. HIS physical Presence changes the atmosphere in favour of Good or Evolution. Either HE acts or the atmosphere activated by HIS Presence acts in favour of Good or Evolution. E

376)   Unless the entire mind is ready for consecration in some measure, a single act cannot be fully consecrated. E

377)   Man acts from his vital mostly. For him to make a progress, he must  cease to act vitally and act mentally. This is a process we know. Can we raise this to act from above the mind, the intuition or the Supramental Consciousness? E

378)   For a mental man the logical step of progress is to try to act from the higher mind, i.e. to understand without thought. E

379)   Mother offers to those who have faith in Her, the capacity to act from HER consciousness, i.e. the Supramental consciousness, if they call Her and concentrate on Her and deny their own impulses. It may last only a few seconds, but She makes it possible. E

380)   In making the progress, it does not seem to be so difficult to commission the higher power as to willingly give up the mentality, the vitality, the physicality. E

381)   Process of Progress:

— A work must be earmarked for progress.
— Our usual impulses must be understood as a block.
— Decision must be there to readily give them up.
— Willingness must be there to call in Mother.
— One must be Sarvarambha parityagi.
— The length of this determination is the measure of his progress. E

382)   A practically useful point of beginning.
HE says the greatest joy lies in self-concealing.
Can we identify the practice of it just now, in a daily activity of ours such as learning to cook a new dish, trying to work a new machine. Here the self-concealing is unconscious. E

383)   Discovery of self-concealing in fresh minor adventures is the beginning of self-discovery. E

384)   Moving from unconscious self-discovery to conscious self-concealing completes the movements. E

385)   Mother offers the highest point to start with. It may be short-lived. Starting lower may be wide spread. But the point of discovery of self-concealing is the beginning. E

386)   Symptoms of self-discovery:

Irritation:  unwillingness to give up the present faculty
Joy of energy:  sign of sense of discovery
Joy of expansiveness:  joy of discovery
Conscious awareness:  crossing the border  E

387)   The experiment is best done at the border line. The borderline is indicated by habits not insisting. E

388)   Completing the experiment all along the border line is serious interest in yoga or self-discovery. E

389)   To understand ‘yo yach shraddhaha’, one should understand what he now aspires for and how he has come to this station in life. E

390)   Jnana helps us to know what to seek after. Yoga helps us to know how to find the soul. When the soul becomes aware, it is Atmajnana. Seeking Ananda through consecration is total jnana. E

391)   To have any positive fulfilled in a negative is the first glimpse of realisation of knowledge. E

392)   The power to convert pain into Ananda does not lie in the mind but in the consciousness behind the mind. E

393)   We do see man converting Ananda into pain by an entrenched attitude not merely of the mind but deeper still in the consciousness. E

394)   Man is not really disturbed by people of low consciousness at his own plane, but by people outside his plane. T

395)   Man seeks Silence in other yogas. Here Silence seeks man. &

396)   Just as the most stupid man is deeply convinced of his great intelligence, we often think of one most unyogic quality as our yogic capacity. T

397)   Luck comes as gratitude. T

398)   Surrender to Mother is surrender to the values important for Her. T

399)   He who comes to break his yoga too often is doing his best. T