Series III,  201-300

201)      As the Absolute is the ultimate for creation, our present position is the ultimate for certain activities which we have consciously created and preside over. To know our relationship with those activities will help us understand our relationship with the Absolute.

 202)      The deeper centred we are, the greater is the enjoyment of living. At the greatest of depths, we identify ourselves with God in us and see our own life as a marvel. To discover that the other man has a point of view enhances our appre­ciation of his life. As we progress in our endeavour to discover he is a soul, our appreciation of his life increas­es. When we are able to appreciate everyone's life as he himself enjoys it, the world becomes a marvel.

 203)      For one to see the other as a soul, he must have withdrawn the mental and vital attachment from the other.

204)      Our irresistible charm and irresistible disgust have the same nervous impulses in the opposite direction. Even the objects that attract or repel are similarly constituted in the essentials.

 205)      The only rationality of men is to irrationally accept a leader and approve of his rationality when he is so.

 206)      There is a joy in knowing what no one else knows, a greater joy in withholding information from others. That reaches its climax in self-concealing. The Self concealing itself from itself is therefore the greatest of joys.

 207)      To know that the course of events is not determined by the surface but by the depth is human wisdom. Our perception moving from the variance between them to their correspon­dence is Divine knowledge, knowledge of the marvel the world is.

 208)      Man is self-forgetful god; tapas restores his memory. The backward, primitive citizen is equally a self-forgetful true citizen who is restored to his citizenship by his effort at social development.

 209)      In the plane of life, death exists. Successful effort to overcome death there results in deathlessness. Crossing the plane of life and mind, one enters into the plane of con­sciousness where neither death nor life can exist. Immortal­ity belongs to that plane.

 210)      Ignorant enjoyment of illusions, sentiments, traditions, superstitions generate sloppy, coarse emotions. Cultured enjoyment of sophisticated emotions is true, genuine, rich, being on the verge of saturation of emotions that leads to knowledge. Crossing into the spiritual plane, the enjoyment of the silent Being in stillness is Bliss. Enjoyment in manifestation that permits spiritual evolution is Delight which alone can make the disgust of man of people who delight in disgracing him or who delight in acts of disgrace by virtue of their being so. This is so because the cheater enjoys the act more for its deceitfulness than for the act itself. The 'self-concealment' in the act sought by him as secrecy generates that joy for him.

 211)      An act is neutral. Its character arises from the attitude. Also the level from which it is committed decides its char­acter. The same act can be good, bad or indifferent depend­ing upon the level of the act and the attitude.

212)      On examining radical changes in behaviour that we observe in ourselves or in others, they will reveal themselves to be radical on the surface. Radical changes in the depths do not occur in life, but are seen in yoga.

213)      The local chieftain who ruled as an unquestioned leader, after the advent of democracy, expects to be elected una­nimously. It is the normal human folly expressing through human nature. Often, between us and the vision of the mar­vel, there exists this folly in hundreds of ways. The car­dinal value of democracy is not to leave the leader uncon­tested.

214)      Loyalty to a deserted comrade, sympathy for one who has betrayed are sentiments very much valued in life. The physi­cal substance tenaciously repeating its habit after it has been overcome by the consciousness is seen in this fashion.

215)      Sri Aurobindo says that the level of intelligence the human mind has attained now was attained even in prehistoric times. It means two things: 1) humanity is trying to reach that peak in every individual, and 2) whoever makes an effort will surely reach that peak as it is there in poten­tial.

216)      Flattery does go to the head. Loyalty, to such people, is defined in their real emotions as the other person under­standing their unpardonable weakness as their cardinal strength.

217)      When the ace bargainer decides not to bargain but to give in, he bargains the measures of his giving in.

218)      Heights of magnanimity coexisting with aspects of meanness is tolerated by the world or even ignored, but is never understood. It is only Wisdom that understands it, understands that the trait of meanness exists in the same person not in spite of his generosity, but as its  representative.

             In ordinary human relationships this incongruity arises when one tries to please another by an extreme act of goodness, but the other comes round to point out an 'unpardonable lapse' according to him.

            It is not given to man to please another successfully. He can either dominate him or be self-righteous. The motive of pleasing another is the rationality of the vital whose irrationality is exposed by human nature that is divine.

            Attempting perfection at levels wedded to imperfection reveals the basic flaw.

219)      Social progress, its maximum possibility, is fixed by the character of the society. Outwardly it is her organisations; inwardly it is her character.  But its realisation is very precisely determined by the manners of the society. This holds good for the family as well as the individual or even organisation.

220)      Idealistic work, fast friendship, intimate conjugal life, devoted public service, spiritual pursuits will have a very solid foundation of material benefits, barring a few shining examples of perfection. Once this foundation moves away for any reason, idealism, friendship, intimacy, devotion or spirit will vanish into thin air. Idealism of any kind is rarely practical.

221)      The capacity to be offended at the mention of one's defects, is wilful self-ignorance incapable of growth beyond. The maximum growth is possible within the limits of that igno­rance. Greater growth is an illusion.

222)      Unfulfilled desires when fulfilled open up emotions to the next higher plane of growth. It could even be the plane of spiritual self-fulfilment.

223)      Submissive personalities acting in dominating circumstances flatter; in freer circumstances they offend or insult even in ordinary functions. The desire to dominate and offend is most pronounced in them in those situations.

224)      In a field of subtle forces, either you dominate or are overpowered. The question of functioning evenly is not given to that plane analogous to one swimming; either he floats by effort or goes down.

225)      Mother is evolving consciousness preceded by saturated, organ­ised energy of that plane all of which commences from an abundant spirit of Mother's Energy, an energy released by a force of Mother. That force is introduced by a principle of Mother accepted for action.

                 Man starts dying after  youth which means flagging human energy for survival. Mother starts evolving the man which means release of evolutionary energy.

                 Having taken to Mother, one should abound in energy whichever variety it is; having no energy means he does not belong to Mother in any sense of the word.

226)      The greatest strength in one plane usually leads to the next level on its maturation. In rare occasions it can be a weakness in the next level. The process or strategy of transformation seems to be so devised that to create strength in one plane, it starts with a weakness in the earlier level.

             Evolution of life is so devised that all strength needed at the next level is provided here as its opposite weakness.

 227)      Man has been seeking the ultimate and found it as Brahman. It is not as if there is an ultimate and man has reached it.

             For the citizen there are social goals, not for those who are at the top. They create newer social goals for themselves as well as for the citizens. Society is not a fixed mould with a fixed goal at the top. Its mould and peak are fixed by the society itself which is continuously rising. The scope is infinite. So also the psychological values are the creation of man. Man being infinite, he chooses his social, psy­chological moulds and goals.

            There is no ultimate, knowable or unknowable, Brahman or Absolute. Man and the Absolute being Infinite, they, by their choice, fix the ultimate and know it, leaving the rest unknowable. The Infinite does not permit a term or bound to be its ultimate.

228)      Society rests on a power structure that is compelling. The development of power passes through intermediate stages before it reaches a stage of invincibility. Power develops alternately at opposite poles. Wars, revolutions, unrest, internal turmoil are the social expressions of unformed power aiming at mastery.

            During the intermediate stage exercise of power evokes resistance from a counter aspect, whereas at a final stage no such resistance is possible. At this stage the right not backed by power is opposed by the wrong backed by power of the underworld.

            Democracy will come to stay in the world either when the population is civilised enough not to resort to terrorism or indulge in mafia or when the powers at the helm are able to wipe them out.

229)      a) He who has moved from the intensity of romance to that of emotion and from there to the same intensity of psychic devotion cannot be charmed again by the earlier stages that are now sloppy emotions.

              b) Should a human relationship survive the transition from romance to devotion, it will find itself united by divine love.

230)      A person turning hostile against you or a thing turning rotten and later poisonous such as food stuff have the same rule, the rule of trying to extend their capacity beyond their natural strength.

231)      The finest enjoyments, whether The Life Divine revealing itself or the heart opening in utter surrender, are short-lived. Once the peak of opening is outlived, they live in you passively as a prized possession, but do not continue their peak performance.

232)      Physical symbols are of value for physical people and have significance in the physical plane. It is a common occurrence that women who run away with another man do not give up their thali  (marriage necklace) until the married husband dies.

233)      Relationships come on their own; we seek them. They are from planes above, below and the same plane. They are of different strengths and attractiveness to the vital. If those that are of the same plane, of the same strength and average attraction have come on their own, they can be severed at will. The stronger for different reasons, in cases where we have sought them, are difficult to sever.

234)      Idealism is often mistaken for the disciplined dedication to convention.

235)      Procedures are as great  powers in their own realm as prin­ciples are in theirs.

236)      Even in giving up procedures, as in a retreating army, there is a procedure to be followed. You can overlook it only at your peril.

237)      Popularity, on the lower side, is vital vulgarity. On the higher side, it is spreading a high message to a low popula­tion.

238)      Even life of rich content outside the society refuses to be consummated in the sense of releasing Mother's Light. When society comes forward to accord its sanction by conferring its FORM of approval, the same light is released in rich measure.

            The Absolute can be reached by any of its aspects -- Love, Light -- becoming perfect. So also the merest external Form of society (e.g. thali) can usher real rich content into the Absolute by releasing Mother's Light.

239)      Survival demands we be unfair to unfairness; manners permit fairness even to unfairness. Manners can survive only by the excess of energy beyond the needs of survival. 

240)      The sage and the householder are like the engineer who shuns the workshop and the mechanic who is incapable of theoreti­cal knowledge. Purna yoga blends the two.

241)      Love perfect or Light perfect can reach the Absolute. If so, can perfect folly reach the Absolute too? Or will it end in its own Absolute of Inconscience? Whatever is true, the insistence on perfection in the end does lead to the Abso­lute, because the Absolute is perfect.

242)      The good cannot become perfect. At best it can only be the good of conformity, a dull goodness. Perfection is possible only for the Good. The good in the process of becoming Good accommodates the evil which the world knows as compromise.

243)      Because it is the discriminating mind that puts up a cen­tralising force of ego, it looks as if the ego must have started in the mind and later extended to the vital and the physical. This is confirmed by the absence of ego in the animal and the plant.

244)      The statement that he who chooses the Infinite has been chosen by the Infinite does not seem to be rational when we learn that HE is at play in creation. As the creation has been initiated by Him, the playmate is also chosen by Him through His initiative. This is an instance where in the field of infinity the rules of finite experience have to be reversed.

245)      Discovery is for the finite; Self-discovery is for the Infi­nite.

              Discovery gives relief or small joy; Self-discovery, the greatest possible joy.

              For man to seek Self-discovery, he has to find himself as Infinite first.

 246)      Man always criticises himself for his moral lapses when he meets with failures. Whatever the truth in it, rarely he sees his organisational lapses as the source of his failures. For example, if an opportunity that came to him vanishes, he immediately associates it with his lapses in duty, but he does not know that the opportunity vanished because he spoke of it with full satisfaction to others, thus exhausting the energy needed to accomplish it.

247)      What is to be removed may be perversity, irresistibility, essential compromise. Such characteristics show up in daily activities as impulses to comment negatively, unable to withhold an information or pass it on to another, employment of a ploy, etc. In a given act they assume the form of a poignant, minute movement such as giving a secret to the wife or speaking vainly about a distant possibility. These are not unknown to the individual; on the contrary, they are well-known. To locate them is easy. To decide to remove them in all their expressions till their root is removed will bring about the fruition of any great, pending project or create any new possibility within the realm of one's being.

248)      Irresistibility is the expression of unconsciousness in the field of action or force.

249)      Penetrating insight of shrewdness is the meanness of mind.

250)      Evil motive taking mean advantage is one expression of perversity.

251)      Strategy is to devise the most effective method. A specific prayer gives relief immediately where emotions are op­pressed, whereas a general prayer brings a wider, greater relief when the nature of the problem is general. Prayer evokes a response according to the nature of the problem as well as according to the constitution of personality. A working rule will be to start at one end and move on till the most effective point is arrived at.

252)      A bankrupt in the USA will still be left with his phone, insurance and car. That is the minimum he gets in a nation of material plenty.  A rich man going bankrupt in India will be treated deferentially when he walks out of the court. This is the maximum one can get from a country of minimum wealth.

 253)      Culture is the highest discipline in society. A rich, calm sweetness of joy from equality of the inner being is the highest possible discipline in yoga.

254)      The maximum a man of minimum value can get from Mother is to double his status in every respect. The minimum a person of maximum value can get from Her is to be the leader of his emotional world. For the very best of people, the maximum they can get in the world is the present maximum this world can offer.

255)      A very desirable change has come for the oppressed, not for the oppression. Oppression still survives but is an instru­ment of the previously oppressed.

 256)      The greatest secret discovered after a life-long search may be the plainest common sense.

 257)      The heart that gives a full response to a formula such as 'Let Thy Will be done' grows rich in responding to Mother and flowers in richness.

258)      That prayer when the thing prayed for is forgotten is the best of prayers.

 259)      There is no surer indication of intention than the hints of the subconscious.

260)      The greatest of accomplishments attainable by long protract­ed work or the greatest of siddhis yielded by years of tapas can be attained by prayer without the arduous processes.

261)      No formula, arrangement, agreement, contract, procedure, even law, however fair and rational, will ever bind the vital to voluntary compliance. Not even the final authority can enforce such a law if the collective vital resents.

262)      That prayer or concentration that helps you withdraw from the plane of the problem or the atmosphere of it, solves the problem surely and fully.

263)      Great energy trying to express becomes irresistible. Irre­sistibility reversed issues energy greater than anything man knows. It is the energy of evolution.

264)      The eternal problem before man is he is anxious to justify himself, his evil and dishonesty. Standing before God, ignoring what he is, he is asking for rewards and he always goes further to ask for rewards for what he is, i.e., his evil.

 265)      Rest is a valid concept for organisms that deplete during work and get replenished, not for ever-living systems like breathing or the sun. In a system that increases in energy by exercising, rest is an invalid concept. Man, when he crosses the line, changes from the first type to the second.

266)      Every spiritual status, psychological poise, social eleva­tion that we anxiously seek, is a status another is anxious­ly giving up in favour of another, better or different. So too, what you shun, another seeks. Shunning is growth, seeking is aspiration. Thus every position in Life is Di­vine to someone. The All-Existence in us can be aware of it and enjoy too, seeing the entire world as a marvel. That which we shun now, we sought earlier.

267)      The moment we decide not to be occupied with a thought or a sensation or much worse with a work, but to turn to the thought or sensation of Mother, the finite begins to turn into infinite. That becoming enjoyable or increasingly enjoyable, the finite finally becomes the infinite. This is giving up enjoyment of occupation in favour of enjoyment of evolving.

268)      In the Superconscience and Inconscience there is total self-absorption, not in the intermediate stages. Self-absorption that is self-oblivion has long been enjoyed by great rishis and holds a charm for the aspiring soul. In Purna yoga, the corresponding state of 'self-absorption in spiritual evolu­tion' becomes self-aware, conscious, self-initiating move­ments of evolution which is the Lord in action amusing Himself. 

269)      Enjoyment of Life as the evolving God is Integral Yoga.

270)      The 'censor' falls silent, loses its energy, structure, dissolves as the thought falls silent, mind attains silence, moves to Nirvana and disappears. 

271)      No discipline however great can be equal to surrender. Discipline is the capacity to control initiatives and im­pulses. Surrender is to give up the energies behind them and give up the capacity to discipline them. Discipline is a mental organisation of capacity. Surrender is the soul's awakening to its origin.

272)      Meanness provoking generosity is its way of seeking a rela­tionship.

              Betrayal practising its art on trust is the beginning of its evolution out of itself.

              Contraries evolving into unity appears to us as provocation or betrayal etc.

273)      To go below the surface, man has to undo God's act of creat­ing the surface and making man centre himself there. Hence the power and importance of consecration, a tool, to accom­plish it.

274)      Socially the highest goal is to serve another, to serve humanity. Spiritually the highest goal is to serve God, not humanity. He who brings the social goal into the spiritual field ends up serving neither, but acquires the wisdom that  when two planes mix, they cancel each other.

275)      Infinity is positive as well as negative. God expands infi­nitely. Man repeats the finite infinitely thus making him negative infinity or the boundless finite.

276)      One of the several sons of a father who was paralysed served him faithfully. He was paralysed later. The son's dominant trait was betrayal. Betrayal aspiring to grow into loyalty, offers loyalty to a body whose capacities have betrayed it.

277)      Aspiration fills the being, consecration makes it rich fullness, surrender concretises the emotion into substantial strength.

278)      Life is fully surrounded by lapses, dangers and tragic forces as Life is an organisation emerging out of such a chaos. Above the line similarly, life is surrounded by positive powers, luck, great opportunities and forces that can raise man to greater heights. It is so because there, out of a great organised plenty, Life carves out a small niche it can handle.

279)      An analogy for the above: A small man worming his way into a big family and maintaining himself by his ability, service and presence of mind against every member of that establish­ment, depicts human life. A rising star being solicited to work in a local organisation for their prestige is the position of Mother's devotee in life.

 280)      The whole weight of personality often expresses through seemingly small acts of behaviour known as manners or their absence. True manners, if reflecting a deeper truth of the person, become cultured emotions of psychological generosi­ty.

281)      It is such acts of manners that often decide the course of one's life, viz. take one to Mother or away from Her. Such persons presiding over a nation, their manners decide the course of that nation.

282)      Progress is only for those who conserve the energy, Mother's or psychological or social. All those who fail invariably belong to that category of people whose motto is maximum utilisation of that energy in a minimum period of time, i.e., the same day if immediate circumstances are unavailable. In that case, the mind 'enjoys' it fully the same moment by propping up one's ego. Social assertion, psychological importance instantaneously felt destroy the progress by absorbing the new found energy.

283)      Human observations, opinions, impressions are far from true. Half the observations, three-fourths of opinions and a little more of their impressions are not FACTUALLY true in the plane of his existence. When he projects himself to the next plane, all of them are not only wrong but often the re­verse.

284)      The exercise of tracing the descent of creation from Sat to matter step by step as HE has described is comprehension enough of the Book. The tracing of ascent is an easier job till one comes to the psychic and justifies its entrance into the scale and continuing it back to its origin, possi­bly explaining the rationale of Vedic, Vedantic, Buddhist, and Shankarite positions. Together the descriptions of the ascent and descent comprise the construction of the BOOK. 

285)      The mind sees the world full of contradictions; to life it is full of sufferings; the body does not see except through the eyes. The psychic sees the right against wrong. Since it is able to see the wrong, the world cannot be a marvel to it. To the soul, the world is prakriti. Only the evolving God in us sees the world as a marvel. He does so when HE has sufficiently evolved as God.

 286)      One may be bothered or disgusted by the activities or at­titudes of a friend or a crew or a wife. Knowledge of sur­vival here can lead to effective functional relationships. In such cases there is no known psychological knowledge that can result in a happy emotion. Only a yogic knowledge can discover their joy in their doings and give you God's de­light in creating them, since at that moment one becomes God in that context. It is part, an external part, of self-hiding.

287)      It is a knowledge of Self-discovery for which HE created that context which is HIS world. The beginning of that knowledge is to know in response to what in him that exter­nal context was brought into his life. That transforms disgust into delight, contraries into complements. 

288)      Unconscious life senses selfish joy. It is a conscious life that can participate in the joy of other souls that includes the joy of one who strangles your neck.

289)      Psychic is fire; but a fire that gives  chill, a cool fire perhaps!

290)      Teaching English to an illiterate, lending money to rogues, asking people to offer their money to a greedy crook, and pleas­ing a perverse, mean  person, are acts of self-initiated self-hiding. Their success yielded the joy of psychological satisfaction, not spiritual delight of Self- discovery.

291)      Impulses like thought, irritation, or expectation are intract­able. To deny them expression is most difficult. Still, to catch hold of them, trace them to their roots and deny them capacity for generation is a rewarding psychological exer­cise that will yield yogic capacity of consecration.

 292)      Vanity gathers on the surface, even in the depths. One is social, the other psychological. In those that aspire for higher social status, social vanity arises. It is confined to matters of no moment. Those whose parents lost status or wealth inherit the psychological vanity that readily gives up age-long inheritance for a momentary gain.

293)      Each level of existence from youth to age, ignorance to knowledge, low to high etc. has its own set of phrases in speech, impulses in thinking, sensitivities in mind and physical, values guiding motives, opinions, attitudes, motives, energy-releasing initiatives. One can construct a 5 point or 3 point or 10 point scale of them. By locating on the scale where one is, one can endeavour to move ahead.

294)      It is pure Grace that a nation gets the right leader, we get a partner or a spouse, parents beget good children, children get right parents, employer gets employee, landlord gets tenant. It is a higher expression of Grace that one recogni­ses them as such. One becomes a constant recipient of Grace when he sees each act is an act of Grace.

295)      To recognise a bad leader, naughty child, etc., as an act of Grace, one becomes a source of Grace.

296)      While speaking, people listen to themselves, or react. To be able to listen to another's point of view genuinely, one has to recognise him as a person worth listening to. It is the social version of spiritual seeing that the other is a soul.

297)      When the being launches itself into action, it becomes successively motive, attitude, opinion and finally expresses these as corresponding impulses. Before surrender becomes possible, one needs to disengage oneself from these succes­sively in the reverse order.

298)      Disengage from the impulses and dissolve them.

299)      Next is opinion, followed by attitude, and motive comes finally to be so dissolved.

300)      The being is now naked before the Being of which it is a part, making surrender spiritually possible.