Series VIII
Key
to font styles:
1. Truisms
of Life
2. Extension of Their Thought
3. Ideas from The Mother & The Master
1) To enjoy greatness, it must be in the rear, not expressed often.
Greatness is great buried in the depths of the rear.
2) If
you can rise from a fall, or reach a high level, you can excel that high status.
3) Our aspiration is graded. We see it as meditation, prayer, change of heart, change of attitude, change of motives, alertness, SINCERITY. Each includes the previous aspect. Sincerity to the Divine is an openness in all parts of being that wants to live by the Divine, not the ego.
8) Any contact with people of low consciousness will prevent Grace coming in.
9) He
who has once attained a high status and fallen will be a sure obstacle to his
own growth or the growth of a work, as
his one AIM
always will be to maintain his mythical prestige.
12) The greatest physical security comes from Truth.
13) Liking is the faculty that is able to see the defect as a perfect expression.
14) Overdoing is for the initiate.
It is always clumsy and uncultured.
Even overdoing becomes beautiful and a marvel in higher consciousness.
The hideous reveals beauty thus.
Overdoing is the only permissible behavior.
16) We often see the phenomenon of a liar universally believed in spite of his reputation as a liar. It means the falsehood in each is happily in tune with a centre of falsehood.
17) It is easier to complain, to be frustrated, to be depressed than to be happy. All these are partial emotions which we can manage. Joy being a total sensation is more difficult to express.
Nothing that he does is wrong, rather it is sacred. The human sense of justice says the same act in others is a veritable sin.
19) In a changing society, values turn upside down as fierce competition changes into intense cooperation. Not only that, words too change to their opposite meaning, as 'notorious' has acquired the sense of ill reputation.
The path of human progress is mental progress.
The mind that idolises the part, when it changes to the whole or a greater part, reverses its role.
21) Nature
attempts hundreds of Forms all the time and some come into existence and others
do not. She proceeds as before. For each Form it is life and death. All the
human tragedies are in the social forms coming into existence or not. He who sees his own position mostly does
not come into existence as a form except by a fluke. He who sees the purpose of
Nature, invariably comes into Form and grows into higher Forms.
Force comes into Form by the
strength of the foresight.
22) What is fully clear to the mind is often a complete blank to the vital because the energy required here is far greater.
23) Classification and systematisation are mental. They do not appeal to non-mental persons. Nor is it interesting to those who have outgrown intellectuality.
24) For one to acquire a new evolutionary skill, it is enough he learns it as its capacity sits behind. To offer this as a formula to others, he must try all the negative tricks life can play against him and win over them before he attempts a successful formulation.
25) It is not only supramental writing that escapes mental comprehension, but writing untouched by the mind that arises purely from physical experience too escapes mental comprehension.
26) The word of mouth communication born when language was born remains the most effective organisation the world has known even after the advent of the Internet. Its efficiency issues out of its existence in the zone intermediate between the vital and the subtle vital planes.
27) When you feel embarrassed to tell a man you distrust him while he is one who deserves total distrust, see inside what he reflects in you, then he will deserve your trust fully.
28) The religious institutions live because of ceremonies. Should the people accept the essence of these ceremonies they will disappear.
29) If the finest emotions refrain from giving, they feel a social restriction. It is really a lack in the personality.
30) When we relate to another of mixed good and bad, instinctively the good in us seeks the good in the other, the bad, the bad in others.
When Sri Aurobindo and The Mother are surrounded by hostile forces, the question arises how do we reach them? They give you what you need. We need not only the good. The other side too has its services to offer us.
32) Our effectivity begins where we cease to take initiative.
A great flood of energy becomes a drop of consciousness.
34) Squeamish solicitude is dedicated devotion.
39) When success in the plane in which we are is overflowing, one single item will be different, opposite and resistant. It means success in our plane is saturated and the one remaining item indicates the possibility of rising to the next plane.
40) Destruction is the rationality of the physical in its progress to the mental plane. It is not in the power of thought to conquer the erring physical but it lies in the spirit of the mind to ward it off. Only the spirit in the body can overcome the folly of the physical.
42) Importance to smallness invariably leads to treachery.
44) Years of nice good behaviour can be wiped off by one mean word that really expresses the true inside. Years of bad low behaviour can be wholly reversed by one genuine good act truly intended.
45) The greatness of the great man lies far beyond any measurement we have. So we measure him by his social status or at best by some result we can put our finger on.
Greatness lies in the region where no
results precipitate.
47) Total quick exhaustion of energy is dissipation. On the higher side, it is the best strategy for progress.
48) To repeat serves no purpose.
Not to repeat can serve no purpose.
49) The narrow river is enamoured of the infinite expanse of the sea.
Surrender consummates the finite's aspiration for the Infinite.
50) The
joy of the idealist is in breaking the social icons. The joy of dissipation is
oblivious of the existence of 'others', as it is of consummate selfishness. Excessive joy is common to both.
53) Thought
is mental engagement, as work is physical engagement. The Self-existent inside
needs no engagement. It exists by itself. The
partial human needs an external fact to exist. The Self-existent needs no such
outer engagement for it to exist.
The small gloats over its sins.
The great are shy of their virtues.
57) Awards are for the unaccomplished. Service is for the unseen.
64) 'Love' goes by charm, passion, romance, habitual affection, vital or physical need or even by status or money. Glamour too is not prevented from generating 'Love'. But when do you hear about deeply felt affection seeking 'Love' in utter loyalty?
65) He who sees the whole theory in one act understands the theory; others do not.
66) When an evolutionary vibration is abroad, sensitive souls like poets, writers and thinkers responding to it partially or even fully is a great possibility. It can even be picked up long before the vibration or its author is born.
67) The idea that a relationship formed out of an ideal is not to be severed because it is a source of trouble is a higher idea that is capable of changing the source of trouble into a source of support, if the source is not out to destroy the ideal and the idealist.
68) No serious work, especially if it is of the highest level of concentration, can be done non-stop. It can be only taken up for a little time every day. If it is done non-stop at its period of maturity, it will be completed successfully in a few days, usually in three full days.
69) The full reversal of a negative symptom is seen in an equally good positive symptom.
70) Equality is not an evolutionary law. But what we see is that things which are unequal at one level are equal at the next deeper level.
71) Endowments such as education, money, music, etc. are sought as a means to another end. When they are sought for their own sake, they develop the capacity to reveal their infinity.
72) When a person or a thing comes to mind only when it presents itself, it has only use value. Should it come to mind after the use is over, it means you are interested in it.
73) Inner willingness to progress and outer unreadiness create small mishaps or great reversals. Progress is only for those who reverse these lapses fully. It is not enough to protect our interests; it is necessary to REVERSE those negative symptoms into positive symptoms, if you want to progress.
74) A
new idea emerging in clarity is the birth of revolution. Its acquiring vital and physical energy is an evolution, as it needs
all the energy in the world.
75) Life gives you rights. You can enjoy them. When they are denied, you can fight for them and succeed according to your strength. Come forward to relinquish them when there are symptoms of hesitation, and seek the blessings She gives. It will be incomparable.
76) It is only in the established ways of life that one never tries in such a way that it leads to error. In all new ways of life, the only strategy is trial and error.
77) Concentration on the physical is primarily
to recognise its spiritual significance. To make the physical the foundation of
yoga is to recognise that physicality is the inverted Truth of Existence.
78) An effective knowledge of organisation requires full knowledge of the forces in the unorganised sector, especially the negative forces.
Knowledge of the whole demands the knowledge of the negative or unorganised.
79) One who measures life by quantitative material benefits cannot even see its absence being compensated by raising the quality higher and higher.
Absence of Matter cannot be compensated by higher and higher spiritual heights.
80) Surrender is a method; but it behaves like a value in yielding results. The results of surrender do not begin until it reaches perfection.
81) Man lies because he has a need to lie.
82) It is excess energy that gives Joy. But, Mother gives JOY first – the end result in the beginning as is Her wont – so that we may develop out of it energy for action.
84) The man who is bored is one whose heart has not tasted Love.
85) Regret not the past, as there is NO past to be regretted.
86) Social acceptance is for your manners, not for what you are in your inner worth.
Social accomplishments are not done by manners but (by your inner worth) by what you do.
Mother's results are for what you are, not for what you do.
Yogic results are not even for what you are, but for the inner sincerity to the Divine.
87) Money rendering one shameless is the condition of one whose very physical substance, which was oblivious of attaining cash so far, sighted the possibility for the first time.
88) Physical man's mental achievements are very precious brilliant flashes, but have to be reached through a lot of mud, dirt and marsh.
89) The intellect is dry; emotions are rich. When the intellect is emotionalised, it is richer than its usual richness. When sensations that intellectually understand are emotionalised, they rise to an intensity of sweetness unknown to the heart.
Those sensations became the physical sensations in Him and Her and
have become intolerable and unflinching ecstasy and rapture.
90) Human justice is injustice.
12 or 100 supramental beings can supramentalise the world.
One in touch with Her Force – a devotee – has that much Power. It is a power of Prosperity and spiritual Peace in the very depths of the collective being.
92) A
language becomes entirely expressive when it rises to the standards of a
classical language. Vernacular languages can never attain to that level. Should
they do so, it is like the Individual through democracy coming into his own –
his spiritual own – by his own awakening.
Sri Aurobindo tried to do it for English.
93) As
accomplishment has many stages appearing almost as accomplishment, he who is
anxious to misunderstand takes any of those steps for accomplishment. The characteristic of misunderstanding is
not so much partial misunderstanding as understanding the very opposite of what is clearly stated.
Misunderstanding is the rule and that too the very opposite.
Desire for misunderstanding is so intense that it understands the very opposite to be true.
94) It is the physical attachment of passion that enjoys the physical nearness and craves for it. In the ascent it is an animal quality. In the descent, it is the final expression of loyalty.
95) One seeks relaxation and occupation only in those areas of personality where calm is not established. Where calm is established a mild ripple of causeless joy will issue, which will banish the above needs.
96) To avail of the opportunities in life, one needs the alertness needed to ward off the hostile forces.
97) Constant progress demands generation of greater energy which comes from a higher understanding of Truth.
98) The physical is the basis. Even when you base yourself on Truth, you are still making the origin of the physical the basis.
99) The calm of universality indicates that an impulse is free from ego.
100) For each at his own level, life is a Marvel. For God and for the individual from the point of view of his own enjoyment, it is self-evident. Only moral judgement brings in sin and value judgements.
God enjoys at all moments.
Each enjoys at all moments in his own way.
Man alone clamps moral judgements on life.
101) To be able to know the Brahman in knowledge as well as Ignorance is immortality. [p. 506 Life Divine]
102) On any showing the Infinite in its dealing with the finite can only give.
103) In any
great work, for that matter in any work, accomplishment is as difficult as
securing protection from the opposing forces. Even after those forces are
warded off, there is a middle term of leeches that are to be rid of. Each will be as difficult as the other two.
104) The Force that resists the division of the mind at the physical stage enabling the atomic existence is the root of the ego. It will disappear only when the Force disappears into consciousness. Does it mean the Cosmos too has its ego?
105) Creation manifesting something prevents it from returning to its original status, except when it completes the cycle of involution and evolution. A certain reversal of consciousness does the prevention.
106) Sadness is absence of emotional understanding.
Confusion in action is absence of physical understanding.
Confusion of ideas, mental irritation, mental sadness, etc. are indications of absence of understanding of concepts, mental emotion or mental sensations.
107) The deeper understanding opens to the unsaid dicta.
The greater security lies in the area that requires no protection.
The strongest attachment lies where affection is unexpressed.
The less organised, the more
effective.
110) The
sweetest of paradoxes in human conception is for the receiver to perceive
himself as the giver. When knowledge
rises to the status of giving and falsehood overwhelms it, the lingering sense
of erstwhile endowment believes the reverse. Now it gives falsehood and
misfortune and wishes the receiver to be thankful.
111) Not only is the soul hidden but all its qualities when found in a person – goodwill, love, gratitude – are also hidden from another's view.
112) Culture is not speaking out the low emotions that arise, but the incapacity to have any such emotions.
113) It is best to demarcate the zones for different types of organisations, viz. physical organisation, vital organisation, mental organisation, subtle organisation of life, subtle mental organisation. They never come singly, always there is a mixture.
114) An ordinary teacher teaches the Truth as a fact. A creative teacher expands the fact to its own Truth. The Guru goes further in relating that Truth to the pupils’ truth, first releasing it.
116) Actions, feelings, opinions, ideas, impulses, and ultimately PATIENCE is a hierarchy in which each aspect includes the previous aspect. All these at the end shift from outside inside. If so, what is the very last inner poise? To await the inner voice and let that inner voice express itself in action may be the very last inner poise.
117) The
biological, as well as psychological basis of marriage is an occasion for the
opposites to meet. The ONE ideal before it is
cooperation for lasting happiness!
118) The power of spirit in Matter will rule when the discipline of silence of thinking that arises out of fear of instantaneous death arises now in the very Body by the emerging Spirit.
Inability to think of a defying thought in the very depths is the discipline needed for the rule of the Spirit.
119) The lower vital attraction is known as love.
The higher emotions for another are only nervous energy generated by one's circumstances by one's values.
The spark of the soul never enters human love except as an exception.
Entering as an exception, that spark elevates any of these sensations or emotions to great heights for a while and allows them to be destroyed.
When destroyed the lovers become martyrs. When not destroyed they become husband and wife relating to each other through their characters.
Love is not for this earth except as a spark that destroys after a short elevation.
Is then there no love on earth?
There is. It must begin inside, not for a person but for The Person. And then that can be impersonally given to any person. The impersonal Love is the love which refuses to become personal unless a person agrees to receive it impersonally. Still that impersonal Love can go out from a person to another person if the Being in the Becoming emerges in both. That personal relation will certainly be impersonal in its personal essence.
120) The fool who loves his folly dearly and adores it as the greatest of intelligence is the finest product of God in creation.
121) Perfection
is not only elusive, it is non-existent for those who are not established in
the mind. A manuscript of 24 pages reveals 20 errors after four people pored
over it a dozen times. It means all those who proofread are
non-mental, vital persons.
Proof reading will be effective
only to mental persons.
122) What one staunchly believes to be his own strength and personal capacity tested over the years is the Grace that manages to trickle through in spite of his resistance. Is not his resistance, then, grace? Yes. It is the grace in ignorance. Man has a choice between the grace in knowledge and grace in ignorance.
123) The depth to which one can go and have his concentration fully saturate that level will enable him to escape all organised effort to acquire knowledge above that level.
124) Democracy will mature at the level of the voter when the individual authority of the citizen exceeds that of the social authority.
125) Wishing to see the whole world by ascending some peak is like the rational mind trying to understand the whole of life.
The amplitude of mind’s comprehension is limited, as the physical vision is limited.
Eye has no reach to the end of earth even as the mind is non-existent beyond the range of senses.
126) As the psychic emerges at the time of death and reviews the entire life in a trice, man’s mind reviews each period of his life, sometimes each event, which are landmarks of life.
127) Having seen a result, one feels like acknowledging only the result, ignoring the cause behind it. For him to acknowledge the cause is superstition. To secure a result without any cause is his rationality.
128) To attribute to a result an unconnected event as the cause is to grant blindness the status of drsti, the vision.
129) To see the effect as the cause is the rationality of the irrational. Man thus assures himself the possession of his folly. Maybe his goal is complete folly.
130) The recipient of luck by the good will of another is oblivious of the good will because of his own stingy, mercenary, mean selfishness. As the goodwill is from one who is oblivious of it, the recipient is able to ignore it.
131) It was through a conscious process that Sri Aurobindo entered the Supermind or after attaining that level, He became conscious of how He entered it. As He was conscious of the method by which He entered, it revealed to him. That method is surrender.
132) Life becomes live when the fact reveals its hidden Truth.
133) Resentment of an idea by one who does not understand is the expression of the personality of egoistic ignorance.
134) More than money people value the appearance money generates. That appearance undoes the real existing value in the depths.
135) When the newly laid foundation for a change is strong, it is possible to indulge in the opposite surface behaviour which can cause a stir within limits. When nothing on the surface enjoys the deviation from the depths, perfection matures into perfect perfection.
136) Our
idea of surrender and the act of surrender now are done on our initiative.
Therefore, it cannot be true surrender.
We should lose our capacity to initiate any action whatsoever to make
surrender possible. And such an attitude
must be taken to the very physical.
137) When the spirit awakes at (any level) the level of the brain, without the mind coming into existence and its benefits of education, that Spirit puts itself out as clarity. It unfailingly reaches the core of any significance. This is so after the emotions are born or before their emergence.
138) For the perfection of God’s action, it is not enough that our ego should dissolve, but Nature should cease to move on its own. Well, then, the Being of the Becoming will set Himself to action.
140) He
who values status above friendship is one who can desert his wife soon after
the wedding at the very altar itself-©n¨£¢u¼÷»÷¯
øPÂkÁõß.
141) Perfection enables perfect action. Higher perfection offers perfect enjoyment. The highest perfection is that to which life around comes for perfect enjoyment of Delight.
142) The
effort to understand any event according to ANY perspective is a mental initiative. It is a bar to our surrender.
143) To render the irrational rational generates shameless ingratitude or pride in irrationality.
144) When the Beautiful discloses its beauty, a streak of the non-beautiful will rise.
145) Whoever thinks of another?
Each man thinks only of himself when he says he thinks of others.
The only true love is Self-love. It can either be self-love or Self-Love.
146) Life is sustained by lingering desires or unfulfilled duties.
Survival of man, survival of desires.
Desires live, not life.
Human life is a life of desires.
147) Generosity of character abundantly appreciates another’s ability.
Divine generosity endeavours to give it to another who deserves it.
148) It needs a great self-love at the level of the physical, maybe the substance of it, to speak to any one else, knowing that he does not understand it.
Man loves himself most. And that is the only exercise he loves.
His self-love is a poor caricature of his Love of the Self in him.
He who loves his own self in others is a great soul.
149) In a
chain of events initiated by another person, man is capable of joining in the
last stage and claiming credit for the entire accomplishment. It is a selfish folly that expresses one’s
mercenary motive.
150) It is not what we say that matters, but how we say it, whatever the forum, whichever is the occasion.
151) Mother does not give us the opportunity of
lying when we want to withdraw from falsehood.
152) What is
happening in the world?
What do we do in our lives?
Evolution is aiming at unity of substance.
The Force returning to consciousness is aiming at union.
Ananda is aiming at infinite freedom of Ananda.
Supermind is aiming at Harmony of all forces.
Mind is trying to organise the conflicting forces so that they may compromise at oneness.
Life is trying to reduce the contradiction in Matter to conflicting movements of energy.
Let us find where we are and try to move up.
In fact, we are at most of these points in several points of our lives.
From each point, we can rise one level.
Or we can restore the balance between all these points.
Or we can try to find ONE centre of all these movements.
The psychic is the highest such centre inside us.
153) If pain is unreal, complaint that enables pain to linger is only a mechanism of the vital to sustain the negative intensity of suffering.
154) A small person is ashamed of his own shortcomings, while a strong person sees them as an occasion for growth.
155) The belief in our immortality is only a faith; the belief in our mortality is only a faith. [p. 504, The Life Divine]
The hold of mind on body is so total that it is capable of having a
faith by reversing which one can attain immortality.
By getting out of mind, one can compel the body to live forever.
By coming out of the mental ego, the body can easily believe in its immortality. Immortality is the dissolution of the physical ego.
When the physical ego dissolves, the spirit attains supreme infinity and divine universality.
156) Ego disappears only when we do not exert ourselves to surrender. That exertion will be of the Ego. HE who calls you will give the surrender too. Faith in this removes the last foothold of the Ego.
157) Until today the society has been led by robber barons. They are truly adored for their brute strength.
158) When society is in transition, the hostile forces remind the social leaders by pricking holes in the hostility of the leaders. One expression of it is a smuggler kidnapping a social leader.
159) A non-mental vital person values mental perfection. His only ‘value’ is he is capable of assuming that he has those perfections.
Strong belief in illusion is the highest
mental value of a vital person.
160) In responding to money or any value like that, a mean person proudly announces his faith in the higher values he denounces by his own present action.
161) Power is enjoyable, as it makes you feel powerful.
Power generates greater energy and expresses it. Generation and expression of energy are enjoyable.
Power takes the energy to the substance first organising it. It is a growth that one enjoys.
Power organises energy into an effective Force.
162) God knows only Delight. The Delight in the Absolute is silent or is in potential. In creation there is Delight that is expressive or expansive. Pain is there only for the ego, not for God. God created pain for the ego on the surface in the involution so that he may enjoy the expressive delight in a greater measure emerging out of pain. In that sense pain is non-existent, as even then the subliminal does not suffer, but only enjoys.
163) Pure souls inside will have their counterpart – pure hostility as poison – outside. They come close to the Divine, receive in their purity, exhaust their receptivity and then find themselves with their other side. There are others who begin in their outside and proceed to their inner purity.
164) If
one is granted only relationships of selfishness, it is better that he sees the
Brahman as selfishness to tide over the monotony. May it remind him that he is essentially selfish or he is in love with
selfishness.
165) For one who wishes to take to yogic life, his own mind and life must be treated as a second person and must be separated from his inner person.
166) The uneducated, unsophisticated vital mind buried in its sensations emerges out into rational thinking and observation through education and has a good laugh at the infinitesimal smallness of its earlier stage. Transition to the Supramental silence from the activity of the intellect is the parallel at the next level.
167) To impose human consciousness, even in the disguise of good will, on the naturally unfolding divine consciousness may lead to death of even the human consciousness.
168) Physical cleanliness in one sense determines vital purity.
169) To lose oneself in the present, one should go behind the becoming to the being in the present and emerge into that becoming as the flowering of Being into that moment.
170) Memory is the chief action of Consciousness–Force in our dealings with self, world and Nature. [p. 502, The Life Divine]
171) He who refuses a good thing, as a rule, turns towards the opposite and eagerly walks into the trap, assuming it to be an ideal.
172) Physical acts that are mere physical acts not determining the higher values are of no consequence to all the higher planes. From a wider point of view, rather from the point of view of the ACT having a consequence to the higher planes, every act is of significance.
When a boy whose education stopped in 5th standard reviews his life as a shop assistant in later life, he finds the school where he studied is of no consequence. In assessing the impact of the early education of one’s children, not only the school matters, but every detail of his education.
Details of earlier life gain in significance or become beside the point depending upon what in future one considers.
Details determine.
Not the details, but the essence
alone matters.
173) Elimination of waste enhances growth. It can shrink growth enormously. It would mean that waste has a higher justification or the person presiding over the operation is so powerful that he can prevent growth for any purposes other than his own wasting.
174) Even if there is an army of people to do your work, it is best you do it yourself until the time comes.
175) Worship is offered not to springs of Spirituality but to the seats of vital power.
176) In a relationship of devotion, even offence can only give sweetness of feeling.
178) He who yawns profusely will not be an achiever.
179) When mind’s need to understand is given up, it begins to determine. This is one passage from mind to Supermind which has the power of self-determination.
180) As people in different professions are beside the point for one who has taken to Mother’s life, his own mind and life are beside the point as they are in human life.
181) The self-respecting prestige of the material intellect of the brain asserts by refusing to be grateful to its benefactor. It has no sense of shame in being irrational or ungrateful.
182) Each faculty expresses itself as a sufficiency of that plane, an insufficiency of the higher plane, a rich fulfilment of the previous plane.
183) The only thing that suffers in the world is the ego or the ignorance of the ego. The liberated man needs to be sorry for no destruction of any kind.
184) It is unbecoming to ask, even if it is for Love. It is unbecoming to refuse even when the other person asks for your Love.
185) Those who give away endlessly for vain self-glory will never give even a small thing where duty demands. What he has been indulging in is not self-giving, but vanity.
Only one trait rules in a person.
186) A man’s status – social as well as psychological – is determined by his social relations. People of his own level will refuse to let him be free to rise above. Relationship with the Divine is possible only when human relationship ceases. The Divine seeks a relationship with man, but man seeks human relationships.
187) To know everyone is capable of the behaviour of every other person is a measure of wisdom.
188) If a yogi is accomplished, he will have the power to solve any problem on earth if the afflicted party appeals to him. He can solve it on his own initiative, but it will have repercussions on him, fully reestablishing the problem in his life.
Yoga acquires the power to solve problems. Aspiration avails of it.
189) If one looks at the whole from the part, he makes a fool of himself.
By not looking at the part from its own perspective, one cannot understand the part.
Knowing the whole as a whole is not knowledge.
Knowing the part as a part is not full knowledge.
Knowing the part from the point of view of the whole and the whole from the point of view of the part prevents Ignorance without creating knowledge.
Knowing the whole and
the parts as whole in themselves which creatively integrate each into the other
is integral Knowledge. This is the true
knowledge, as it converts ignorance into knowledge and prevents knowledge from
becoming Ignorance.
190) Psychic opening comes when one is ready to be
reborn, either physically or spiritually. The
first condition of any opening is giving up the existing security. The first condition
of any success is security in the conditions of insecure status, which is after
all freshness of consciousness.
191) All souls are equal, say the spiritualists.
All of us are made of the same atoms, not only men, but materials too, say the
scientists. The differences we see in life are, then, only a play of the
spirits variously fulfilling themselves. If so, the Play is great. Social and
moral values rob that play of its charms of being a MARVEL.
192) Living in the ever-present, initiative dies.
194) It is said that Jesus suffered for us and paid with his life for our sins. The Time has come for us to think that the future avatar would enjoy on behalf of humanity and be ushered into ever increasing ecstasy on behalf of humanity.
The greatest of Shakespeare’s plays are tragedies. Perhaps in the con-sciousness of the world four centuries ago, the best could have expressed only in tragedies. The greatest of future literature can be in works of fiction where no trace of pain or suffering occurs, but every emotion is of the highest order of enjoyment.
Inheritance enables the incapable to squander what capacity has earned.
196) It is the capacity for illusion that can create passion in the vital and sentiment in the mind which relate the irreconcilable opposites for the purpose of discovering the higher truth.
Illusion is the creative power of superstition.
In that sense IGNORANCE is creative of the greatest DELIGHT God is after.
The greater the human repulsion, the greater is the divine possibility of expanding Bliss into Delight.
The greatest of ‘fools’ is one who ‘consciously’ plays the fool. He is the divine actor of Lila.
To see wisdom as folly is the finest of dissimulations God has granted man.
197) Faced with ingratitude, one need not endeavour to be grateful to it. It is enough he recognises his own inner ingratitude that is reflected outside. Offering gratitude to ingratitude will unleash the infinity of it and one will be flooded by instances of ingratitude.
198) The best bet of treachery is its shameless self-seeking from its victims. In doing so, it prides in giving offence.
199) Will is the dynamic form and is in the Being
of which the Power is the dynamic value. [p. 502, The Life Divine]
200) Even for the rational intellect, analysis of every past suffering will now show how it has served to enhance our joy or delight. Only when the vital perversely clings to the old suffering and idolises it does pain find a justification for existence.
201) All is fair in love and war shows at any given time man chooses to transgress the rule he sets for himself.
Man rises by ACTION that respects no rule. Whatever he has achieved he preserves by rules!
202) Violence is the Force expressing through the physical without the restraints of the vital or mental.
203) Man holds an ideal before him so that he may know that he violates it every other moment.
204) Organisation of life at any level is full of creative landmarks. One’s basic attitude can fix the organisation at the same level or raise it one notch or lower it one notch. What is creative at a level becomes infinitely prolific at the higher level and at one level lower becomes a destructive obstacle.
Organisation matters; the level decides the outflow.
Organisation is creative; the level decides the character of creativity and its volume of output.
205) No work, however great it is in scope, needs time or effort if the act is from the higher plane. Decision accomplishes, expression consummates.
207) A problem remains unsolved when the emotions enjoy its consideration before thought can impact on it.
212) One can be sincere to his desire, ego,
personality, subconscious desire, his nature, etc. All this is not sincerity to Mother. To be sincere to Her, one cannot
be under any of these conditionings.
Mother’s sincerity transcends even memory.
213) Sincerity lies not so much in ‘Thy will be done’ as in ‘Not my will’.
Sincerity is difficult, but subconscious sincerity is too difficult unless one is conscious of it.
To be sincere in the subconscious, one needs to be conscious of it.
Sincerity is to be conscious in the subconscious.
To educate a plane is the best way to change, not to force it. Forcing anything will lead to accidents.
214) Before you go in for greater achievement, there must be wider under-standing.
The call is His, Grace is His. Hence the call and Grace.
215) Everything
is right in this wide world of ours. If anything is wrong, it is for the
limited context of this present evolution. He
who is able to see the present creation narrow can find everything is right.
216) The capacity to protest authority orally does not arise even if the determination to defy is total, until the atmosphere sanctions the right to protest.
217) Even when cherished psychological authority offends and tries for destruction, that which submits longs for the solace of its support. It does so even when it dominatingly survives the attempt at its destruction.
218) When a great possibility opens, we hear two responses: “There is no hurry” from those who identify themselves with Nature, and “Oh, it can be done now” from those who respond to Mother.
219) Man learning to do himself what the environment compels him to do is civilisation. Civilisation is knowledge shifting from outside to inside. At a higher stage, it is yoga where intuition shifts inside.
220) Revolution is the conflict between the assertion of vanishing forces and the emerging ones. After the revolution succeeds, the conflict shades off into compromise, until the individual finally accepts the emerging values and shuns the opposite. Literature of these periods reflects these changing social values.
221) The advent of computer, the machine that makes for perfection in every field, has strangely resulted in printer’s errors entering into Western publications. The law that is at work here is -- the advent of a greater efficiency, by increasing the volume astronomically, lowers the keenness of accuracy. We see the reverse phenomenon in air traffic where the hazards being so many, accidents are vastly reduced.
Greater care taken in air traffic has reduced accidents.
Greater volume of production allows errors to creep in by the instrumentation of computer.
Efficiency and perfection are not related by a single rule.
222) Oneness is mind’s version of Unity.
223) Oneness, union and unity belong to mind, consciousness and Existence.
224) The urge for unity arises in the force of division.
226) Stubbornness as well as constancy are the strength of the weak.
227) The power that forces one form to express through another form is cruelty. It becomes tyranny when the higher form must squeeze itself into a smaller form.
228) Company is entertaining by its comprehension. Interchange intensifies the emotion of the entertainment. Physical proximity tries to fulfil it in the measure of its awakening.
229) Sri Aurobindo’s phrase, ‘the Individual wholeness of vision’ expresses his yoga in language.
231) It is certainly a gratifying thought to all those patriotic generations that the stranglehold of poverty over the Indian masses has begun to loosen.
233) The mind wherein impulses die down enjoys calm.
236) The genuine acts of selflessness of a selfish person only serve selfish ends and they do so fully.
237) The pioneer of
thought who is aware of the generation of stinging ostracism from around
seeking protection in his own security of thought, is solitude.
238) The greatest enemy or the only enemy of the tyrant, cheat, scoundrel, culprit, etc., is himself.
239) Give and Take – Exchange of Energies
Energy balances in giving and taking.
Attitudes give direction to the energies and determine results.
The level of consciousness, and the nature of attitudes and motives vastly decide the outcome at both ends.
Change of direction in motives or attitudes can influence the results vastly in their character but the rules will hold good in either case.
If possible, it is better to move above the line so that ALL results will be beneficial.
A determined change of character of motives will decidedly change the character of results.
For a specific work, even if other conditions are negative, it is possible to protect the project from negative effects.
Our project is to
raise the benefits and change the loss into profits.
As long as we are within the defined limits and have ensured the project area with positive efforts, the results will be positive.
241) Symptoms of Supramental consciousness:
Act so that the whole – Full – personality expresses in each act.
He who acts inwardly acts from Supermind.
Conscious acts are supramental acts.
Brahman is a whole. It can only give itself as a whole. When we act to express our whole personality in each act, we express Brahman whose presence is constantly there in Supermind.
242) One who is radically different from the crowd, be it a genius, an idealist, a deranged person or a rebel, is mad for the crowd.
243) The opportunity to rise is never shut out to anyone from outside. When shut, it is a self-existent smallness.
244) Man,
when he wants to know the truth of another, remains unconvinced by several
facts that are stark naked right before his eyes. When he is called on to believe
a rank falsehood, he swallows the very first canard that comes his way. This is how man preserves and fortifies his
own cherished falsehood.
245) Truth effectuates itself without fail at the level it is perfect. Its perfection is seen by the positive creativity of the atmosphere.
247) One may thank God for saving his life or giving him a piece of luck. Gratitude, in the spiritual sense of the word, is the emotional perception that it is an act of God.
248) The lover's desire to please the object of his love when his existence is not known is an emotion of unrivalled magnificence. The rule “Bite the hand that feeds” will still be true in the subtle life unless that object is actuated by an emotion of gratitude.
249) Fullness of the mind is by aggregating the parts after dividing the whole. Fullness is there when the dividing mind is transcended.
Nothing in the world is in divided parts. The mind divides, then sees the divided existence and tries to restore unity overcoming division. Remove mind, there exists nothing but unity.
250) Purna Yoga means to be converting human consciousness into supramental consciousness during our active existence.
251) He who uses pronouns in place of proper nouns in speaking to another, speaks to his own self. It is a measure of being not aware of the other.
252) The poor small man receiving a patronising gift from a rich man, without being mercenary and with a grace that intends to please or delight the better part of the giver, is one who is in touch with the Being of his Becoming.
253) The most generous impulse of munificence or
forgiveness is often delivered through an attitude which is equally virulent in
its opposite character.
254) Mind can only find itself to be right. It is not made to see its wrong. Emotions go further and see the other man as wrong. Self-knowledge is not given to the faculties of any plane.
255) When an unpardonable suspicion is spoken out by the victim, it will disarm the accuser and will become pardonable. When Truth is uttered, it will release a force to overcome its adversaries.
257) To know Him, we should appreciate,
Lila
Self–absorption
Infinity of infinities
Psychic is the High in the Low.
The Hour of God.
Neither a method, nor the process is the end.
The Absolute in the relative is Absolute.
The aspiration to be God.
258) The
measure of one’s perfection is seen in the ability to push away imperfect
persons.
259) The heart opens only once.
I know my heart
did open that once.
Heart knows how to love, not what to love. It loves to love.
260) If what one understands is clarified enough for the level of communication intended, anyone can explain anything to anybody.
261) Understanding at any level needs mental energies at that level.
262) Understanding is facilitated by emotional sympathy, physical proximity, spiritual opening in the mind and subliminal receptivity. The shishya as well as the wife are the subconscious recipients of the realisation of the guru.
264) The insight – the sight directed inside -- which truly reflects the outside is a ray of sincerity.
269) Abundance in a family – material abundance – deserts and changes into poverty when neglect offends the growing energies of matter that expresses as abundance.
270) Lack of self–respect is the energy of self-preservation.
271) Man longed for moksha urged by the sense of union in spirit.
272) When
manifestation reaches its keenness of accuracy, the finite is ready to turn
again on its back into the Infinite.
273) Culture forms as an organisation of energy and expresses as the mental knowledge of the physical sensation. Yoga begins where culture recedes.
274) Professionals have technical knowledge and offer service. Their practice does not bring knowledge as there is no knowledge either of service or technical qualifications. The seat of knowledge is not work, but thought.
277) Occupation is self–indulgence in memory of egoistic existence.
Man is equal to the Supreme in that
both are capable of constant Self-awareness.
278) The greatest of defences is gratitude. Better, it is constant.
Gratitude is remembrance.
280) Nascent energies are always in great abundance and there is no question of controlling them. Initial excitement of mind learning anything is of that kind. Learning higher concepts can be a constant source of excitement in the brain.
281) The best judgement of oneself is at best a blind judgement.
282) Low consciousness will not respond without offence. No offence can ever elevate it. Is there an offence that can open and elevate too? He who is offended by his own position will find energy enough to elevate himself. Self–offending sensitivity turns around to raise itself. An atmosphere that can create self-awareness, though stingingly offensive, will offer the energies for progress.
283) Neither he who knows he is right or the one who knows he is wrong will ever accomplish. To accomplish at any level, he should have transcended the right and wrong of the previous level.
Progress is to overcome dualities.
285) Surrender
is a method that can give us the whole of which we are a part. It is a method that can take us straight to
the goal from wherever we follow it.
Surrender is the method of infinity to change the finite into itself.
286) It is not given to man to resist the evolutionary force in any form he encounters.
287) I
hate the man who is like me. He who is not like me is loathsome. Either way I
end up in hate, as hatred is my present consciousness. To love another because he is like me and not hate a person as he
differs from me is a desirable human state.
288) One
can move to surrender from thought or feelings or acts. In the ascent, the
higher is of greater difficulty. In the descent, the lower is more powerful. The greater the difficulty, the greater the
result.
She demands unconditional surrender and offers us ‘Surrender’ as a method that can be accepted with no stipulations and successfully undertaken at any level.
289) Families
and institutions come to stay after making innumerable obscene adjustments that
arise during moments of crises. The
reality of these institutions always bases itself on those ugly truths.
Family is the balance of good over evil.
A family that is good at the top and bottom is rare. Maybe it is a paradox or non-existent.
290) Mind,
as any other part of our being, cannot reverse or rectify itself. Either the
spirit above or the higher emotion below can do it.
291) Inspiration that comes from above also comes from below. Coming from the body, it can be ultimate.
292) How can others know me when I cannot know myself?
293) Greater energy gives a finer shape.
Much greater energy can make the substance more solid.
294) When we appreciate someone, we do so for one quality in him without being aware of any other side in him.
296) Some
men who are cruel to their wives, when it comes to money abundantly provide for
them, showing the strong bondage at the physical while the vital is in violent
conflict. Man who has moved to the
vital, in these cases, fails to dominate his wife. Such a failure is
compensated by greater physical care.
297) The man who is angry about solving a problem is like the mechanic who beats his broken machine with a stick as a method of repairing it.
298) Those who get into irretrievable situations have always created them by their choice. When man tries to overcome his acts by emotions, he always does it.
300) Misery comes from several levels of the environment and also from inside. The former will vanish with the changing environment while the latter will manage to enjoy the same misery in the changed circumstances under a new guise.
301) The low loves to serve the high from the lower end and desires to remain there.
302) Intimacy arises when limits are crossed. It needs not only proximity but a certain duration of time to mature. The intensity increases if the breaking of the limits is initiated by the weaker side of the equation who is not expected to do so.
303) Progress is conquest of Time or Space.
Time is an inner extension of consciousness.
To conquer Time is to be in consciousness.
All development is development of
consciousness.
Presently the world is undergoing the development of conquering Time.
Final development is in yoga where consciousness moves to Being, the process of which is the supreme discovery, He says.
One who does NOT need to be conscious, is in the state of Sat Purushan.
304) Fullness needs no memory.
305) Fiction writers best describe what they are not in their writings until they excel themselves and are led by the energy or the force of the character.
306) No man’s genius can be measured by his popularity during his lifetime. No man’s greatness can ever be measured by his views on other affairs of life or the other personal traits.
307) It is true we have faith at one level and it is equally true that at another level we have no faith. Our faith has its limits. The limits we see are, indeed, limits of our effective faith, not the presence of faith. As man is born in faith and lives in faith, there is no question of man not having faith.
308) The scientist trying to find the origin of consciousness in the physical properties of matter is very close to a researcher who gets to know the FACT by systematising, classifying the frequency of several words in the rumour.
309) Manliness of any description has nothing to do with a mere social being since society has only attained the value of survival and does not dream about being anything individually.
312) Miseries
issue out of limitations. For most it is the society; for the rare souls who
skip that boundary, it is this life. They may be rare and have gone far beyond
the social boundaries, but limit is a limit and it unfailingly generates
misery. For the limitless view is one
that is free of misery.
The cleverness of the clever man is the folly of his higher life.
314) The vital has that peculiar blindness of seeing what is not there. The mind has the capacity to see if it chooses.
315) Superstition sees physical fact as an emotional reality.
Emotionalising the physical is superstition.
316) The Mother sees the mental awakening in the
USA. Sri Aurobindo says that they easily get into the larger rhythm. The US has
excelled in practical organisation. USA
will become the leaders of action in the world if they choose at the level of their
mental awakening.
317) Deep down in our personality what we are most concerned about is that which we totally disregard on the surface.
Neglect is superficial.
Superficial neglect.
318) Having crossed the surface into the depth, the knowledge and experience of human nature are superfluous, even as Churchill and Napoleon dispensed with erudition.
319) To outgrow human life, one experiences it and understands it fully. Surrender enables us to outgrow human life by letting its essence flow into us in a trice.
320) The idealist as well as the insignificant man are capable of not knowing their strength, the one because of consuming idealism and the other because of obliterating insignificance.
321) Contemporary society sees great souls through their egoistic equations. Posterity has no such ego to project.
322) Every man has a person or a value – sensitivity -- where he lives. His human life ends when he outgrows that point.
323) Writers
Writers reach a wide audience writing from an identification with the readers.
Mature writers occupy their idle hours with a substandard writing which becomes popular.
Great writers relax in writing which awakens the whole nation to the writing.
The purpose of great writing produces great literature.
Literature that is purposeless is immortal, as it is universal where dimensions cannot house any purpose.
324) Man unconsciously allows himself to be a channel of good. He never initiates a good act consciously unless from his ego.
325) One expands into another in friendship or soul exchange by similarities of temperament, desire to understand, willingness to appreciate and the ability to confide in.
326) Our vital or mental interest gives an untiring energy but it is our own energy. The capacity to disregard such interest in work lets in the Force which is not related to tiredness even negatively.
327) Vital determination to preserve the physical strength results in waddling clumsiness often bloating into flabbiness.
328) Dynamic stupidity flatters itself each time it moves into action, as it is the discovery of knowledge by the dormant ignorance.
329) High physical energy trying to express intelligence flowers as stupidity.
330) The points of intersection of the psychological curve, sociological movement, and the evolutionary trend with the line of basic individual progress are creative. That point where all meet is most so.
331) Man rejects what he has long aspired for when it is granted finally.
332) The vital truth of life is infinite prosperity. The mental truth of thought is the genius for harmonious happiness.
The physical truth of existence is immortality.
333) Truth is falsehood in involution. Falsehood is Truth in evolution.
334) The spirit cannot work through the mind, nor the mind through the vital. The spirit can emerge through the mind and gradually spread itself on both sides.
Illness is the body’s knowledge of its falsehood.
336) Generation of conflicts is the upward movement of matter into life.
338) Stinginess receives grace as scarcity.
339) Calling compensates even a steep fall.
341) Low consciousness receives grace as suicide.
342) Rigid goodness touches expanding energy of life as consuming flames.
343) Discovering that man cannot be idealistic is to discover that the seawater is salty.
344) When something fails, man moves to another, as his reliance is not just on something. When everything fails, he does not despair and says, “Well, this is not the end”. And that is faith. As man shifts himself to himself when everything deserts him, when every support is there and he shifts to himself, he puts up faith. That will help. That which relies on himself, when given up – given up to Mother – is surrender.
347) Gratitude assures the greatest of protection.
349) Man’s effectivity is determined by the harmony with which his soul and life meet. He who wants to achieve more should reach there, remain permanently and try to raise the level of harmony.
350) The spirit cannot work through the mind. It can only discard it.
351) In the measure one knows the process by which he has arrived here, he will be able to produce the intended results. He who focuses on the result will not only miss the process but will surely fail to produce any result.
352) Vanity seeks popularity. The self-righteous man cannot afford to have one moment where his own ‘popularity’ with himself is let down. This is vain self-righteousness.
353) The plots of literature at all levels so far have been the events travelling along the route of vital evolution to rationality expressed in terms of human character and human relationships.
354) He who refuses to learn and thus enjoys the experience, exists as Existence, thus affirming his Being as self-conscious being in life.
355) Authority is defined as who is to decide what is reasonable.
Authority is the power to enforce the highest accepted values.
356) Economy is productive depending upon the means of production. As the society advances in self-awareness, the economy can become self-existent which means, it can throw up its own field of productivity – human relationship in the society. This has the strange chemistry of producing more because one wants more which has really been the trump of all civilisations.
All civilisation is self-conception
and self-existing.
As hunger increases by what it feeds on, productivity increases on what it consumes.
The income created by the expenditure.
Income generating expenditure.
Self-multiplying economy.
The self-existent SPIRIT evolves by itself in spiritual evolution, thus creating the new foundation of life based on the spirit.
357) The confidence that any negative trait in us lends itself to transformation is the faith we have in Her.
358) He who uses anyone’s resources without any mental inhibition is one who has come into his social layers for the first time with his earlier propensities unquenched.
359) The hope of convincing irrational people of a rational argument is the most irrational of acts.
360) What is known as human is of the ego. How can that be anything except selfish, irrational, unjust, and narrow? HE calls ego and rationality as one. So, the greatest joy of the human is to be the ego.
361) The mind that is eager rushes forward to collect facts so that knowledge will result, while simultaneously, the subtle mind that can have subliminal knowledge at one sweep discourages the surface mind from its eagerness, as it is counter productive.
362) Most will be able to appreciate the correspondence between events after the result. How many will be alert to act on that before?
363) A memory that recurs is a reminder of psychological arrears. Work lies there, not in taking initiative or pursuing personal interests. Memory, Mother says, is insincerity.
364) When two ways of Truth meet at a different place, can they be less true or become falsehood? Now that all vibrations that meet anywhere are originally vibrations of Truth, where does the falsehood come from, if not from our own perception?
365) A being that determines its own becoming is immortal.
[Sri Aurobindo, p. 739, The Life Divine]
Having outgrown the seven Ignorances, one attains to the status of Being of the Becoming.
366) Manliness begins when complaining is given up.
Spiritually conscious joy receives its energy when the energy in complaining is directed to the emotional appreciation of the labouring spirit to emerge from behind the vital plane.
367) Man is playing God when he intentionally changes joy into pain as God in involution does so.
Thus man is unconscious God.
368) When you see your kindness can be received only up to the extent your offence can be absorbed, you know how to be kind.
369) Paramatma has no loss. If anything comes out of each such loss, He gains. It is the ego that is capable of loss.
Loss of ego leads to gain forever.
370) Ideals have been there to abolish pain which is the effect of ego, the cause. Sri Aurobindo’s ideal is to abolish the cause of pain, the ego.
372) Goals
Perfection, enjoyment, accomplishment, unity, full utilisation, self-awareness are the goals.
They all are various facets of the Absolute in manifestation.
The goal for the Absolute is itself in manifestation.
373) Basis
Body is the basis.
It subsists on FOOD.
FOOD comes from work, money, and property.
As these are acquired, so will be his accomplishment.
The opposites meet here to create property, etc.
That compromise can be raised to unity.
There lies the clue for progress and accomplishment.
374) Backlash
Any work can backfire positively or negatively.
The nature of the result can be seen in the first step.
The first step is of the same structure as the final result.
What backfiring can be there in the end can be seen in the beginning.
That which backfires cannot go to the end.
Should the first step be so organised as to have no backfiring, there will be inherent protection.
The maximum that is open to us is to unleash infinite creativity into which backfiring can be transformed.
375) Life
education
There are people who do not learn anything after innumerable experiences.
We do not see that they take delight is not learning.
Nor do we see that we ourselves are like that.
The aim is not to learn when the experience is an end in itself.
Experiencing enjoyment is the privilege of existence at all levels.
376) That which is granted is not right, it is a privilege or favour.
Right exists itself and exercises on its own choice.