Series I 601-700
701-800 801-900 901-1000
T = truisms of life the world
knows;
E = extension of their ideas applied to life situations;
&
= ideas known to be their own
601) Accomplishment
for us is spirit controlling matter. Presently matter controls spirit and mind. The
necessary first step of success for us will be matter not controlling spirit and mind. T
602) Before
we accomplish spirit controlling matter, we can try spirit controlling life or mind. Spirit
controlling mind or matter not controlling spirit are effective first steps of
accomplishment from either end. E
603) Its
extension in life and in daily activities will be,
the wife not
trying to dominate the husband,
subordinate not trying to influence the boss,
mind being incapable of desiring things to which it has no right,
man trying to take another man’s point of view,
not trying to get the better of a situation through a trick or strategy. T
604) Self-giving
is one giving himself to another so that the other may expand. Now man is expanding his
reign through ego. For him to realise that the Divine should expand in human life and for
that purpose his coming forward to give up his own enjoyment of thought or habit, is
self-giving for him. T
605) At
the point it is enjoyable it becomes self-giving. Until then it remains self-sacrifice. T
606) One
indication of our being in Mother’s Consciousness is to feel that all our sacred
sentiments, and all the values that we cherish are not only silly but truly a bar. In the
measure you are able to shrink before affection or loyalty or honesty, you have moved into
Her Consciousness. Man seeks satisfaction of his petty desires, whereas sticking to the
noblest of values will keep him away from The Mother.
E
607) Mental
interest in an idea, confusion, doubt, unsatisfied desire, unmet vital needs like spite,
will prevent SILENCE
settling as long as they are
there. Either they should be exhausted or dissolved. T
608) Aspiration
is not found in most, even in young age. What idealism finds is a sublimated version of
ambition. Crossing the youth, most people do not find even ambition in themselves. What is
found in middle age and after is mental occupation or preoccupation, nothing more. T
609) Trying
to create aspiration in such a man is like reviving a dead body. Life, as we know, does
not need aspiration for survival. Aspiration is like its other compeers faith, adoration,
concentration, patience, integrity, etc. Therefore it is non-existent in normal human
beings. T
610) What
is considered shameful in everyone’s eyes becomes a matter of pride and joy in view
of the exceeding personal gratification that overcomes the social emotion of shame. Such
an emotion towards the Divine is devotion consummated in spite of shame, rather by shame.
Acme of devotion turns shame into an enjoyable pride. T
611) People
who were at the feet of great souls often used to say about their shortcomings, “I
have been at His Feet for decades. Well, it is natural that a little dark spot is in me
still.” It will be rather appropriate to put it, “Having sat at HIS Feet all these years, it did give several
little openings into Light.” T
612) Freshness
is indicated by a surge of fresh energy in any part. T
613) Outside
the motive and its power, personality has very little else. That may be why the Gita asks
for the surrender of motives that combine knowledge, will and emotion. T
614) Without
giving up the preoccupation of the mind, concentration, consecration, surrender, and
aspiration will be short-lived. Giving it up voluntarily is not natural or possible. Mind
moving to a higher idea and developing concentration on it will enable the preoccupation
to give up its hold on it. T
615) The
psychic recognising the Divine in action and feeling the touch pleasantly, is Gratitude. E
616) Fullness
is a state where the sensations are overpowered by the incursion of excess energy. Coming
from an outer circumstance, it is a passing phenomenon. Rising from inside, it is an
abiding factor. E
617)
From outside it comes from an event. From inside it comes from a higher idea or a
deeper inspiration. T
618)
Fullness saturated is richness. T
619)
Spirit coming to the surface or discovery of Nature in the depth is Reality grasped
in a wider fashion. That makes for spiritual fullness. T
620)
Children and youth feel a fullness issuing out of excess physical energy that is
not fully absorbed by growth. A rising star experiences fullness because he is unable to
utilise all the energies released by the excess of social opportunities. Mental fullness
is from the new ideas that submerge the existing mental structure with fresh energy. T
621)
As Man exists in several layers — surface mind, depth, emotions, physical
centre, subtle parts, causal body, the ego, the psychic, the Purusha, the Ishwara, etc.
— Mother exists in all corresponding layers of Mother’s Consciousness. Her
response is to the depth and plane from where he calls. Also, having gone into a certain
depth, say the psychic, he still has the capacity to carry into it the habits of his
surface mind and call from it, thereby neutralising the opening he had by a flaw in the
mechanism of calling. E
622)
In the descent, knowledge seeks to become ignorance. In the ascent, ignorance
rediscovers the original knowledge it was. &
623)
Self-awareness reveals both these processes. The perception of any of the Purushas
or Jivatman will not reveal it because they are largely silent. The psychic that collects
the essence of our experiences can reveal it. E
624)
It hurts our sentiment to be happy or smiling in an atmosphere of sadness. In
truth, sadness and the smiling happiness are physical sensations in the opposite
direction. The human atmosphere permits one, not the other. There is no sadness in the
psychic, nor the happiness of the physical sensation. In an otherwise sad situation, the
psychic feels a sweet, quiet attitude, which does not express as an inappropriate smile. E
625) Surface
life: All our thoughts, feelings, and
movements constitute our surface life. Ours is a surface personality. Its life is surface
life; the body and all its existence belongs to the surface. E
626) There
is a subtle part belonging to our thoughts, feelings and sensations. They belong to the
subtle life. The subtle life and life in the depth are different. Though thought itself is
subtle, it has two parts, gross and subtle. E
627) Fullness
is not given to parts, unless it is the fullness of the part. It is the Absolute that is
Full in the unmanifest state. A greater fullness which is our seeking is the FULLNESS OF THE ABSOLUTE IN MANIFESTATION.
E
628) It
is made possible by the vibration of LOVE and the principle of surrender. E
629) Japa
is oral, rather the physical part of the mantra. Those who cannot rise above the physical
resort to japa. The truth of the mantra when felt as an emotion begins to work which is
aspiration. Rising further and conceiving the mantra in the mind, moves the physical
organisation that governs the world, making things happen at once. This way we release the
mind from the overburden of physicality. [Mother’s
resort to japa is to handle the physical material after the mind and the vital are
transformed]. E
630) The
customary neutrality of life is disappearing, says Mother. The least positive efforts
produce great results while the smallest lapses, catastrophes. We know that if we are not
progressing, we start decaying. In the initial stages of a plane, life admits of positive,
neutral, and negative sectors while at the final stages either you are here or there,
never in the middle. Either you are married and are part of the society or fall out of it;
never is there a neutral zone. &
631) For
those who sincerely feel that the Divine is the only solution, calling for a few minutes
produces miraculous results. To initiate such a call, one should move to the Divine in
himself. Being in the surface mind, one cannot voice such a call nor can he feel that the
Divine is the only solution. &
632) Substance
has become denser and more concrete than Matter. Life has lost its neutrality. These are
two symptoms of the Supramental Consciousness acting on earth. [Peace has become Golden
Peace. Individuality has become Nothingness.]
633) Fullness
is reached when man resists the irresistible. Indulgence in petty desires given up makes
for fullness. Sealing
the leakage of energy at the bottom helps in filling up the plane we are in, thus enabling
the fullness to gather in momentum. E
634) Jnana
yoga or Rajayoga base themselves on concentrated pure energy withdrawn from the outgoing
movements through the senses. The enormous energies that accumulate inside, because they
are purified, lead man from pure mind to pure spirit.
Purna Yoga’s base is all-inclusive concentration, wide massive opening,
dissolution of ego by surrender. Their general expression is fullness. Stopping
the expenditure of energy in a lower plane is giving up dissipation. This enables fullness
to collect in the plane we are in. Purifying the energy so collected by consecration and
surrender brings in richness. Saturation
of richness opens the next higher plane which is evolution. Thus fullness, purification,
richness and intense aspiration to rise are the components of Purna Yoga. &
635) The
above is man’s part which he does not come forward to do or when he does come forward
finds it too much. Mother helps even here. When you call HER, the call includes the fullness, richness and
intensity. It summarises the whole yogic effort. That call is from the surface, overcoming
the ego. Hence it is an effort. This call maturing slips into the inner being and depths
and very slowly it rises by itself. That is a fuller call, a higher order of self-giving.
By its intensity it becomes the Supramental vibration. It passes through several stages of
inner being, the subtle being, the subliminal, the subconscious. Stated
differently, it moves from the surface to the depth to the psychic and rises through the
grades of the spiritualised mind. It can be mind, vital, physical and each stage has its
consciousness and substance. Thus the physical matter is the very last. At each plane the
original difficulty repeats in the same order in greater intensity. Agenda describes
Mother’s moving into the physical consciousness and later into the material substance
itself. E
636)
Each aspect of dissipation has its counterpart in every part of our being. Sensation
in the physical has its version in the mind as thought, in the values as impatience and
expectation, etc. To control the physical sensation effectively one has to control thought
and impatience necessarily. E
637)
“Skill in works is yoga.” “Intuition
is involved in the act.”
“Masterword of the Superconscient is Light. Intuition is there directly.”
Vedantic Jnana pleads for the bridging of the intuition above and intuition below.
Works done with perfect
skill release intuition from the act.
Knowledge understood
correctly reveals the Light as Intuition.
Reason exercised without the encumbrance of senses is intuition.
So, perfect skill reaches perfect knowledge through reason freed from the senses. E
638)
Skill is to work what knowledge is to Light. E
639)
Mother says mind has gone and when the old ways come back, they come again.
What we do decides the plane in which we are. Thinking keeps us in the mind,
feeling in the vital. Thought ceasing to exist, we go out of Mind, into the Supermind. It
must cease in all forms, even as drishti. E
640)
Elimination of thought in any form eliminates mind. From there one can move into
consciousness. One who wants to touch the Absolute must be able to undo in himself the
forms and forces of manifestation and then destructure the substance which expressed as
forms and forces. Done through pure mind and pure spirit, one reaches the Absolute
unmanifest. Done through Supermind and Ishwara, one can land in the Absolute in
Manifestation. E
641)
The Absolute in manifestation and the Absolute unmanifest are not separated in
space or time. They co-exist, rather both are the same revealing differently to our
different perceptions. That is why He says, a change in our view can transform Matter. &
642) Our
moving to the psychic from the mind is as difficult as a man possessed by desire resisting
it and resorting to thinking of that desire and its consequences. T
643)
Gods, when pleased, give us what we ask for. Brahman permits us to aspire and
acquire anything we are capable of. Mother is anxious to give us ALL that we can RECEIVE. E
644)
Let Thy Will be done, not my will, is the most powerful formula to arrest the
surface being and turn it to the depth. It is most effective when we have a prayer to make
and we discard the prayer, resorting to this, because it is in context. E
645)
The quality of one’s accomplishment can be described as the way in which he
meets the demands of his lowest impulses.
Physical impulses being the lowest and meeting their demand being through marriage,
we can say the married life and its quality are indicators, if not the full determinant,
of his social accomplishment. E
646)
When more energy than can be deployed by our life rises by itself, it turns out to
be the overwhelming urge. Directed towards the seeking of the Divine, it is aspiration. E
647)
Even when aspiration is fully present at one level, say the mental, moving towards
the other levels of vital aspiration and physical aspiration, it is exhausted at a point. E
648)
Beyond that point, one has to consciously create the aspiration which is labour.
Mind simply forgets the aspiration at that point. If forced, it replies with a moral
notion, “It is wrong to push further” or a neutral resistance of “I do not
understand. It is not comprehensible.” E
649) Vital is furious if pressed to aspire beyond the
point of exhaustion and has varieties of responses. First it loses energy and goes limp.
Another response is to find its environment unhelpful or hostile. A stronger response is
to disrupt the work or impede the health. E
650)
The physical cannot simply be forced. It turns dumb, makes the minutes appear
hours. All efforts may meet with partial success with the physical consciousness, not with
the material substance below. E
651) What resists in all these planes is our will of passive existence which dumbly becomes an occupation or preoccupation. And it is all-pervasive and is the final determinant. “What You will” releases us from it and ushers us into bliss. Our maximum available energy will be exhausted in a few seconds invoking “What You will." E
652) To
sum up, to be able to say, “What You will” and feel the Bliss is the acme of
human surrender. E
653) Mother
says God is there behind the desire.
God is there behind the foremost point of human activity.
SHE found God behind the vital purusha and the
Vedic Rishis found HIM behind the physical purusha. Purna Yoga
requires us to evolve to the psychic being and discover God behind the psychic not by
giving it up, as in the case of the vital being, but by evolving it further. E
654) Men
do make real advances in the journey towards the Divine but the leading motive being
egoistic, they subordinate the gains of the real advancement to the purposes of the ego.
Thus the progress even when it is there, serves the opposite purpose. E
655) If
done rightly, “Thy Will be done” , etc. will dissolve the ego, says Mother.
What is the right method?
As there is a sincerity in speech, motives, a sincerity towards the Divine is
required to aspire for His Will to be done. Repeated orally, it becomes a sound and soon
tires. Repeated from the depth without the accompanying sincerity, it is frustrating and
soon we forget it. We must know at each moment our will appears as an opinion, preference,
urge, or impulse. To invoke the Divine we must first disinherit our will and as against
our will, there must be an inner preference to the Divine Will and then it will be right. Such a
repetition will touch the inner divine sincerely and evoke a response. E
656) We
work with the hands, understand with the mind. As the one who works with the mind is
better than the one who works with the hands, we must learn to work with the spirit
inside. Instead of working for external results, if one works for inner growth, the vista
of endless progress opens up. E
657) Repetition
of ‘Let Thy Will be done’ can give an unconscious opening and even then there
will be unconscious response in all planes — glorious vision of Mother in the subtle
vision, mind relenting more, vital losing its old force, the brute physical splitting into
positive and negative forces and their appropriate versions in the material plane like the
object of our will being removed afar in the physical, its unheard of refractory response,
a new understanding in the society, or in us, or in the plane of the object. Persistence,
aspiration, curiosity for original understanding can make them gradually conscious
responses whose culmination is “The world is a Marvel.”
658) The
process of unconscious awakening and transition from the unconscious into the conscious
will find itself fully reflected in outer events, mental thoughts, vital urges and
physical sensations as if Life is holding a mirror to the inside. E
659) Reasoning is a bar to accomplishment. Accomplishment
issues when the Force of accomplishment saturates the vital. Reasoning draws away part of
the essential energy. The right place of reasoning is long after the accomplishment, not
prior to it. E
660) He
speaks of conscious evolution of the Spirit.
Evolution is the final term of a scale of which the first term is survival.
Survival—Growth—Development—Evolution,
is the full scale. This scale applies equally to every member of our being, the physical,
vital, mental, spiritual. What are we presently
aware of? We are aware of the survival of the body. We are not aware of its growth,
because growth of the body is subconscious in us.
From a status of not being aware of the growth of the body, man should move to the
conscious evolution of the spirit to do this yoga. E
661)
It is better we comprehend all the four terms of survival, evolution at least in
one level of our existence. It is most easily done in social evolution, the vital plane.
That will be a real beginning. E
662)
A perceptive conscious Intelligence can very well see the movements of the
organised society as governed by the laws of the land which an unconscious citizen often
misses or fails to perceive. To see that humanity
is moved generally by its conscious awareness led by its organised entity of public
conscience, a greater penetration is required. Only the Poet can excel here whereas the
philosopher may do duty in the first two stages. A Poet, especially a great Poet, if he is
also philosophically inclined can have a penetrating VISION of the collective conscience evolving in the
individual as psychological motives. A self-aware Yogi whose self-awareness reveals the
inner movements of his soul as well as other souls ascending towards the Mother of Souls
can hope to have the yogic vision of the evolution of the spirit.
That vision, touching the vital becomes aspiration and ends in surrender through
the path of consecration. E
663)
To be able to feel in a small work the truth of the high realisation in samadhi is
spiritual vision. To acquire practical mastery over the work to realise that vision is
Purna Yoga. E
664)
The woman alone completes man at all levels. At the bottom she physically completes
him to produce an offspring, at the top She is the Shakti to Ishwara. E
665)
Removing the woman from the life picture of man may be necessary during his periods
of preparatory discipline, but man’s integral efforts are impossible without her. HE says when Napoleon left Josephine, his
downfull started. E
666)
The highest power of reason will help us to develop a reasonable statement that
will be convincing to us. Reason is a light and it can enlighten and do only that. It can
never have the POWER to make another accept. The highest power it
may have is to convince the other of the truth of it. The trick of it is the other man
will not be ‘convinced’ unless he is able to accept it. E
667)
The inmost centre of human life is the KNOT of ego. As one moves towards the Divine,
the centre becomes more organised, the knot is tighter. It is impossible for the near
environment not to disturb it by its touch, as the disturbing touch issues out of a law.
The only way to benefit by the touch is to untie the knot. E
668)
The higher method among the lower population never works. Most of our ills issue
from considering OUR people the higher population. T
669)
Jealousy is the annoyance at seeing a man acquire something by his desert.
Generosity is the aspiration to give a man what he cannot acquire by his maximum ability.
In yoga, jealousy is transformed into generosity. T
670)
It is an interesting feature of life that your best friend and the worst enemy are
of the same traits, only that they have opposite attitudes to you. T
671)
Every act that is a source of petty desire can be an occasion for high delight when
the attitude is changed and the consciousness elevated. T
672)
The smaller the act, the greater is the difficulty in transforming it. Most of the
acts can be so transformed, a few extremes are to be destroyed, not being capable of
transformation. E
673)
The smaller the act, the lower the act, the greater is the delight it can issue
after transformation. E
674)
It is by shunning the lower values and habits that man moves to higher values and
practices. Still,
having reached the higher plane, the longing for the pride of lower values will be
significant emotion individually as well as socially. The charm of physical values remains
after entering into portals of democratic power; nor does the money value disappear after
taking to sannyasa. T
675)
Systems are creative in the beginning, later get rigid and die. As any system is
only a human creation in the circumstance, it is possible to widen the circumstance a
little by a creative idea and make the system creative for a while. Marriage, religion,
and private property have that status now. Even the outmoded system of cruel tyranny by a
more outmoded authority can be brought to life by drawing upon the virtues of tyranny
which are intensity and obedience. T
676)
The truth that the work of a leader and a worker is the very same in its essence is
known to those familiar with the inner secrets of things; but the worker is often a
failure as a leader for want of the required strength. T
677)
And that strength comes either by experience or inheritance. Another way by which
that strength can be acquired in the nerves is to SEE that at the bottom both are the same, of the
same Brahman. T
678)
Accomplishment is ensured by ‘complete act’. Capacity to initiate at a
level higher than one’s greatest achievement, a ‘complete act’ brings in a
great accomplishment. The greatest of ‘accomplishments’ is by God when we
renounce that capacity to initiate. T
679)
HIS Constant Grace is there as constant descent
received without fail at all moments of opening. Descent creates the atmosphere for
transformation. It is only aspiration that achieves that transformation. E
680)
While descent is non-stop, aspiration is rare. How we feel when aspiration awakes
is described by HIM. To entirely pull us away from our habits
enables aspiration to awake. E
681)
These Avatars of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have come not merely to reveal but to
work. In our endeavour with other people be it agriculture, bank, business or consultancy
or even development, we are to work the ideas into results. It is not given to us to
merely reveal. E
682)
Because the universe has concentrated in the individual to fulfil itself, MAN taking to yoga concentrates on his soul, his
life being his universe. &
683)
The social man avoids the unpleasant in public; the conscientious person avoids the
wrongdoing from his thoughts; the spiritual man has to eliminate the wrong and the evil
from his subconscient. T
684)
While nothing is unpleasant for the Spirit, the conscience reacts to the exhibition
of evil to its awareness and the society does not permit the demonstration of the
wrongdoing in
public. T
685)
To recognise Grace is gratitude. &
686)
To recognise Grace in lifeless events brings the events to life. By recognising
Grace in misfortune, Grace is replaced by Super Grace. E
687)
As the soul alone can recognise Grace, it is a moment when the Soul is on the
surface. The soul that comes on the surface is the psychic, as the Soul by itself is
incapable of appearing on the surface. E
688)
Gratitude is the sensation that relates the evolving human soul to the evolving
Divine Soul in Nature. E
689)
Gratitude is that movement of the individual soul trying to fulfil itself by
extending into the universe. E
690)
Universe concentrating in the individual soul is a movement of compassion. E
691)
The knowledge that what one is NOW is what he has aspired for with all his being,
precedes the knowledge that he can become what he aspires for. E
692)
This knowledge exists at the three levels of mental, vital, and physical planes. E
693)
Mental knowledge of this kind gives a certitude that one can become what he
chooses, without his actually becoming that. Having the mental knowledge, he can work to
release the vital energy necessary for it. E
694)
Vital knowledge of this type releases all the energy needed and all that he has to
do is to organise that energy into force and power of achievement. E
695)
Physical knowledge of this moves into action for achievement. T
696) The
dark hard realities of life, when transformed, are denser substance of more intense Ananda
than the static bliss up above. E
697) Obedience
is physical evolution. T
698) Worship
is vital evolution. T
699) Faith
is mental evolution. T
700) Knowledge of the Reality is spiritual evolution. E
