the seventh waves

18th of Feburuary,the day Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was born

2012-02-18T19:56:00.004-08:00

“It was in May 1919. Punamchandbhai had visited Pondicheny and when he returned I asked him whether he had seen Sri Aurobindo’s room. I put to him several questions regarding the room. He said there were two rooms connected by a door. The inner room was his private room. In the front room there was an almirah and on it was placed a framed photo of Sri Ramakrishna in a dancing pose….
(source:champaklal)

Sri Aurobindo On Sri Ramakrishna

2012-02-16T02:22:00.000-08:00

Remarks on Spiritual Figures in India Ramakrishna Paramhansa
I would have been surprised to hear that I regard (in agreement with an advanced sadhak) Ramakrishna as a spiritual pigmy, if I had not become past astonishment in these matters. I have said, it seems, so many things that were never in my mind and done too not a few that I have never dreamed of doing! I shall not be surprised or perturbed if one day I am reported to have declared, on the authority of advanced or even unadvanced sadhaks, that Buddha was a poseur or Shakespeare an overrated poetaster or Newton a third-rate college Don without any genius. In this world all is possible. Is it necessary for me to say that I have never thought and cannot have said anything of the kind, since I have at least some faint sense of spiritual values? The passage you have quoted is my considered estimate of Ramakrishna.1 3 February 1932
*
I have heard that if one learns logic or philosophy it can be
a great help in the yoga, because it makes the mind wider to
spiritual experiences so that once the mind gets beyond the
intellect and reaches the intuitive, it is able to bring down or
express knowledge which an unintellectua lmind could not do.

An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge? What then about Ramakrishna? Do you mean to say that the majority of the sadhaks here who have not learned logic and are ignorant of philosophy will never get Knowledge?
4 November 1936
*
“An unintellectual mind cannot bring down the Knowledge?”
Certainly it can. But don’t you think there is a world of difference
between the expression of an intellectual mind and an
unintellectual one?

Expression is another matter, but Ramakrishana was an uneducated, nonintellectual man, yet his expression of knowledge was so perfect that the biggest intellects bowed down before it.
5 November 1936
*
What a difference there is between Ramakrishna’s expressions
of knowledge and those of a perfectly developed intellect like
yourself!

His expressions are unsurpassable in their quality. Don’t talk nonsense. Moreover I never developed my intellect and I made zero marks in Logic.

Who preached Ramakrishna’s gospel to the world? Vivekananda,
a highly developed mind.

And who taught Vivekananda the Truth? Not a logician or highly developed intellect certainly? 13 November 1936
*
I have heard different things about Ramakrishna from different
people. Some say he was an Avatar and some that he
was not. Do you think he was an Avatar as he said in his
autobiography?

He never wrote an autobiography. What he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya. 13 November 1936

Ramakrishna himself never thought of transformation or tried for it. All he wanted was bhakti for the Mother and along with that he received whatever knowledge she gave him and did whatever she made him do. He was intuitive and psychic from the beginning and only became more and more so as he went on. There was no need in him for the transformation which we seek; for although he spoke of the divine man (Ishwarakoti) coming down the stairs as well as ascending, he had not the idea of a new consciousness and a new race and the divine manifestation in the earth-nature

SOURCE:LETTERS ON HIMSELF AND THE ASHRAM

Maulid an Nabi

2012-02-05T02:02:00.000-08:00

Mohammed's Message to the World [Excerpts of Ida Ansell's first transcript of Swami Vivekananda's San Francisco lecture delivered Sunday, March 25, 1900] Mohammed [After stating that he would "take Mohammed and bring out the particular work of the great Arabian prophet", Swami Vivekananda continued his lecture.]

Each great messenger not only creates a new order of things, but is himself the creation of a certain order of things. There is no such thing as an independent, active cause. All causes are cause and effect in turn. Father is father and son in turn. Mother is mother and daughter in turn. It is necessary to understand the surroundings and circumstances into which they [the great messengers] come. . . . This is the peculiarity of civilization. One wave of a race will go from its birthplace to a distant land and make a wonderful civilization. The rest will be left in barbarism. The Hindus came into India and the tribes of Central Asia were left in barbarism. Others came to Asia Minor and Europe. Then, you remember the coming out of Egypt of the Israelites. Their home was the Arabian desert. Out of that springs a new work. . . . All civilizations grow that way. A certain race becomes civilized. Then comes a nomad race. Nomads are always ready to fight. They come and conquer a race. They bring better blood, stronger physiques. They take up the mind of the conquered race and add that to their body and push civilization still further. One race becomes cultured and civilized until the body is worn out. Then like a whirlwind comes a race strong in the physical, and they take up the arts and the sciences and the mind, and push civilization further. This must be. Otherwise the world would not be. * * * * The moment a great man rises, they build a beautiful [mythology] around him. Science and truth is all the religion that exists. Truth is more beautiful than any mythology in the world. . . . The old Greeks had disappeared already, the whole nation [lay] under the feet of the Romans who were learning their science and art. The Roman was a barbarian, a conquering man. He had no eye for poetry or art. He knew how to rule and how to get everything centralized into that system of Rome and to enjoy that. That was sweet. And that Roman Empire is gone, destroyed by all sorts of difficulties, luxury, a new foreign religion, and all that. Christianity had been already six hundred years in the Roman Empire. . . . Whenever a new religion tries to force itself upon another race, it succeeds if the race is uncultured. If it [the race] is cultured, it will destroy the [religion]. . . . The Roman Empire was a case in point, and the Persian people saw that. Christianity was another thing with the barbarians in the north. [But] the Christianity of the Roman Empire was a mixture of everything, something from Persia, from the Jews, from India, from Greece, everything. * * * * The race is always killed by [war]. War takes away the best men, gets them killed, and the cowards are left at home. Thus comes the degeneration of the race. . . . Men became small. Why? All the great men became [warriors]. That is how war kills races, takes their best into the battlefields. Then the monasteries. They all went to the desert, to the caves for meditation. The monasteries gradually became the centres of wealth and luxury. . . . The Anglo-Saxon race would not be Anglo-Saxon but for these monasteries. Every weak man was worse than a slave.. . . In that state of chaos these monasteries were centres of light and protection. Where [cultures] differ very much they do not quarrel. All these warring, jarring elements [were originally] all one. In the midst of all this chaos was born the prophet. . .

In January 1925, Swami Shivananda visited Cuddapah, a small town in the state Andhra Pradesh in India, where Hindu and Muslim devotees had together established ‘Ramakrishna Samaj’. Later the swami recalled his meeting with a highly esteemed muslim who had received the title of Khan Bahadur from the British Government. Khan Bahadur belonged to the Sufi sect of Islam but was very devoted to Sri Ramakrishna. Almost every morning and evening during the period of his stay, the swami found Khan Bahadur seated in a corner of the shrine room of the Samaj in deep humility, intently looking at the portrait of Sri Ramakrishna on the altar. He was convinced that the Prophet Muhammad was born as Sri Ramakrishna for the good of the world...
READ MORE HERE

Prophet Mohammed

By Sri Swami Sivananda

While Mohammed was serving a sick slave, the latter asked, "Has my master sent you to look after me ?"
"Yes," said Mohammed, "the master of masters has sent me to serve you."

One day, a dying dog approached a follower of Mohammed. The man had no means with which to procure water for the dog, for wells in the desert dry up quickly. He noticed a small pool of muddy water in the vicinity. He tore his shirt, soaked it in the water, placed the dog in his lap and moistened its mouth with the wet cloth. Another Arab who saw this went to the Prophet and said, "One of your followers has touched a filthy animal, a dog, and should therefore not be allowed back here again."
Mohammed questioned, "What was he doing to the dog ?"
"I do not know, but I saw him moistening its mouth with a torn piece of cloth dipped in muddy water," replied the man.
"He is a better Muslim than you are, because he is kind to animals," said the Prophet.
When Mohammed was in Mecca once, a poor shepherd from the hills came to worship in the mosque. He worshipped in his own simple way, performing the necessary ablution, kissing the stone and bowing before the sacred spot. Tears flowed from his eyes as he prayed: "O adorable Lord of love, show me Thy face. Let me be thy servant. Let me mend Thy shoes, apply oil to Thy hair, wash Thy soiled clothes and bring Thee daily the milk of my goat. Let me kiss Thy hand and shampoo Thy sacred Feet. Let me sweep Thy room."
Such simple words of the honest and straightforward shepherd offended the priests who stood near him. They said to him, "What blasphemy is this ? There is no need of such gifts for the omnipotent Lord."
They were ready to drive him out of the temple, when the Prophet called them to him and asked, "When you are in distant lands, in which direction do you turn your faces ?"
"We turn our faces to Mecca," they answered in reply.
He further asked, "When you are within this sacred walls, in which direction do you turn your faces ?"
"All is holy here," they replied. "It does not matter which way we turn."
The Prophet then said, "Your answer is beautiful indeed. Within the mosque it does not matter how you pray, as long as you have love and reverence. This poor shepherd's simple prayer entered directly into the ears of Allah more clearly than yours, as it was uttered from his heart with intense love, faith, sincerity and reverence. Make room for God's poor lover near me. Let no one be ashamed to have his company. He is humble, pure and exalted soul."..READ MORE HERE

On this day,a gigantic personality was born and changed the course of human's destiny on earth

2012-01-11T22:07:00.000-08:00

158.What was Ramakrishna ? God manifest in a human being; but behind there is God in His infinite impersonality and His universal Personality. And what was Vivekananda ? A radiant glance from the eye of Shiva; but behind him is the divine gaze from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding.-SRI AUROBINDO

Vivekananda's Trikaldrishti On Sri Aurobindo?

2012-01-11T03:09:00.000-08:00

Disciple: I hear that there is a file of unpublished letters by Vivekananda, in one of which he says: “The time has now come to follow Aurobindo Ghose.” Because of this it seems the Ramakrishna
Mission keeps always an interested eye on what is going
on in Pondy. Do you know anything of that reference by
Vivekananda and in what connection it was made?
Sri Aurobindo:Where on earth is this extraordinary file? How could Vivekananda know anything about me? Trikaldrishti? 5 July 1937
*
Disciple:God knows where that extraordinary file of Vivekananda’s
letters is. I got news of it from X who heard about it from a
man of the Ramakrishna Mission who came here.
Sri Aurobindo:What I want to know is when did Vivekananda write that or what led him to take notice of me. I no longer remember when he left his body, but my impression is that it was when I was a blissfully obscure Professor of Baroda College and neither in politics nor Yoga had put on the tedious burden of fame. Why then should Vivekananda say anything about me at all, much
less a thing like that—unless it was as the trikaldarshi Yogi that he spoke? 7 July 1937

"I Vivekananda say so!!!"

2012-01-11T02:41:00.000-08:00

'I look behind and after
And find that all is right
In my deepest sorrows
There is a soul of light.' - Swami Vivekananda

As for the sense of superiority, that is a little difficult to avoid when greater horizons open before the consciousness, unless one is already of a saintly and humble disposition. There are men like Nag Mahashaya (among Sri Ramakrishna's disciples) in whom spiritual experience creates more and more humility; there are others like Vivekananda in whom it creates a great sense of strength and superiority – European critics have taxed him with it rather severely; there are others in whom it fixes a sense of superiority to men and humility to the Divine. Each position has its value. Take Vivekananda's famous answer to the Madras Pundit who objected to one of his assertions saying: "But Shankara does not say so", to whom Vivekananda replied: "No, but I, Vivekananda, say so", and the Pundit was speechless. That "I, Vivekananda," stands up to the ordinary eye like a Himalaya of self-confident egoism. But there was nothing false or unsound in Vivekananda's spiritual experience. For this was not mere egoism, but the sense of what he stood for and the attitude of the fighter who, as the representative of something very great, could not allow himself to be put down or belittled. This is not to deny the necessity of non-egoism and of spiritual humility, but to show that the question is not so easy as it appears at first sight. For if I have to express my spiritual experiences I must do that with truth – I must record them, their bhАva, their thoughts, feelings, extensions of consciousness which accompany them. What am I to do with the experience in which one feels the whole world in oneself or the force of the Divine flowing in one's being and nature or the certitude of one's faith against all doubts and doubters or one's oneness with the Divine or the smallness of human thought and life compared with this greater knowledge and existence? And I have to use the word I – I cannot take refuge in saying "This body" or "This appearance", especially as I am not a Mayavadin. Shall I not, therefore, fall into expressions which will make X shake his head at my asser tions as full of pride and ego? I imagine it would be difficult to avert it.

Another thing: it seems to me that you identify faith very much with the mental belief, but real faith is something spiritual, a knowledge of the soul. The assertions you quote in your letter are the hard assertions of mental belief leading to a great vehement assertion of one's mental creed and goal because they are one's own and must therefore be greater than those of others – an attitude which is universal in human nature. Even the atheist is not tolerant, but declares his credo of Nature and Matter as the only truth and on all who disbelieve it or believe in other things he pours scorn as unenlightened morons and superstitious half-wits. I bear him no grudge for thinking me that, but I note that this attitude is not confined to religious faith but is equally natural to those who are free from religious faith and do not believe in Gods or Gurus. You will not, I hope, mind my putting the other side of the question; I want to point out that there is the other side, that there is much more to be said than at first sight appears.

5th December 1950:The Triumph Over Death

2011-12-03T23:32:00.000-08:00

Sri Aurobindo

The Pilgrim of the Night

I made an assignation with the Night;
In the abyss was fixed our rendezvous:
In my breast carrying God's deathless light I came her dark and dangerous heart to woo.
I left the glory of the illumined Mind And the calm rapture of the divinised soul And travelled through a vastness dim and blind To the grey shore where her ignorant waters roll.
And still that weary journeying knows no end;
Lost is the lustrous godhead beyond Time, There comes no voice of the celestial Friend,
And yet I know my footprints' track shall be A pathway towards Immortality.
26-7-1938 revised 18-3-1944

One of the disciples, Dara (Aga Syed Ibrahim), who paid his homage to Sri Aurobindo on the 5^th December, stated :

I found myself in Sri Aurobindo’s own room by the side of his cot. He seemed so peaceful and happy, and the flesh shone with a new luster which I failed to see at the daŕsan time on 24^th November. Why could I not see it before?... I could not take my eyes off his face and arms. It seemed to me he was alive. It was certain that he was in a condition of a deep and upward soaring trance just then.

Notes of Some wanderings With the Swami Vivekananda - by Sister Nivedita

2011-11-24T23:58:00.000-08:00

Notes of Some wanderings With the Swami Vivekananda - by Sister Nivedita

St. Bismillah placed at the head of the Koran

2011-11-10T03:04:00.000-08:00

Oct 10--

St. Bismillah placed at the head of the Koran

The movement of the Siddhi is once again overcoming the Asiddhi. The second & first chatusthayas are being restored in their completeness. The faith that disregards immediate out- ward circumstances, is developing, although still combated by the suggestions of the intellectual environment

Outward circumstances of the moment have to be understood by the vijnana. But there must first be this general faith that they have all an intelligible purpose & an intelligible sense.

647

It is true that they are worked out through the Pranic world by the Dwayavins using conflicting energies, but the Power that gov- erns them in spite of their ignorance & mutual misunderstanding is One, who is neither a passive Being nor a blind Force.

The only question that remains is whether the immediate guide of the Yoga is the Ishwara himself or a Spirit who errs, the Manomaya Purusha in oneself or a Manishi outside.

The faith must be that it is the Ishwara, Anandamaya & Vijnanamaya who is the guide, although He still uses the im- pulsions & ideas of the Manishi & not yet the full Vijnanamaya harmony.

It is the replacement of the mental perceptions & impulses that is the work of the Vijnanachatusthaya. It is because that work is not yet done, that the first two chatusthayas are open to shocks & disturbances through the disappointment of the faith.

This is why it has always been said that the absolute finality of the first two chatusthayas depended on the fulfilment of the third.

But the entire fulfilment of the third implies the fulfilment of the fourth and fifth and therefore necessarily of the sixth and seventh.

Therefore it is an integral fulfilment that is being worked out & this aim prevents the separate perfection of each chatusthaya by itself without relation to the rest.

Faith & Ananda Brahman are the two keys to the perfect internal state, with dasya as the joining point. Knowledge & Power are the two keys to the perfect external state, with Daivi Prakriti as the joining point.

Utthapana Arms 1 hr 45 minutes, discontinued for want of time, not failure of power. More physical unwillingness & more defect of anima than day before yesterday..

Effectivity of tapas still acts against resistance and by lapse of time.

http://www.sriaurobindoashram.info/Content.aspx?ContentURL=_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-01%20Works%20of%20Sri%20Aurobindo/-01%20English/-03_CWSA/-10_Record%20of%20Yoga/-32_29to30%20SEPTEMBER%2031%20DECEMBER%201914_1.htm

Bismillah al rahman al rahim

The Arabic phrase shown above is pronounced as Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim, and is a beautifully poetic phrase which offers both deep insight and brilliant inspiration. It has often been said that the phrase Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim contains the true essence of the entire Qur'an, as well as the true essence of all religions.

Muslims often say this phrase when embarking on any significant endeavor, and the phrase is considered by some to be a major pillar of Islam. This expression is so magnificent and so concise that all but one chapter of the Qur'an begins with the words Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim.

http://wahiduddin.net/words/bismillah.htm

Parabrahman

2011-10-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

[Yusufali 2:255] Allah! There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).

SRI AUROBINDO

Collected Poems

SHORT POEMS — 1895-1908

Parabrahman

These wanderings of the suns, these stars at play

In the due measure that they chose of old,

Nor only these, but all the immense array

Of objects that long Time, far Space can hold,

Are divine moments. They are thoughts that form,

They are vision in the Self of things august

And therefore grandly real. Rule and norm

Are processes that they themselves adjust.

The Self of things is not their outward view,

A Force within decides. That Force is He;

His movement is the shape of things we knew,

Movement of Thought is Space and Time. A free

And sovereign master of His world within,

He is not bound by what He does or makes,

He is not bound by virtue or by sin,

Awake who sleeps and when He sleeps awakes.

He is not bound by waking or by sleep;

He is not bound by anything at all.

Laws are that He may conquer them. To creep

Or soar is at His will, to rise or fall.

One from of old possessed Himself above

Who was not anyone nor had a form,

Nor yet was formless. Neither hate nor love

Could limit His perfection, peace nor storm.

He is, we cannot say; for Nothing too

Is His conception of Himself unguessed.

He dawns upon us and we would pursue,

But who has found Him or what arms possessed?

He is not anything, yet all is He;

He is not all but far exceeds that scope.

Both Time and Timelessness sink in that sea:

Time is a wave and Space a wandering drop.

Within Himself He shadowed Being forth,

Which is a younger birth, a veil He chose

To half-conceal Him, Knowledge, nothing worth

Save to have glimpses of its mighty cause,

And high Delight, a spirit infinite,

That is the fountain of this glorious world,

Delight that labours in its opposite,

Faints in the rose and on the rack is curled.

Sri Aurobindo

Essays Divine and Human

Writings from Manuscripts. 1910 – 1950

Purna Yoga

III. Parabrahman and Parapurusha

God or Para Purusha is Parabrahman unmanifest and inexpressible turned towards a certain kind of manifestation or expression, of which the two eternal terms are Atman and Jagati, Self and Universe. Atman becomes in self-symbol all existences in the universe; so too, the universe when known, resolves all its symbols into Atman. God being Parabrahman is Himself Absolute, neither Atman nor Maya nor unAtman; neither Being nor Not-Being (Sat, Asat); neither Becoming nor non-Becoming (Sambhuti, Asambhuti); neither Quality nor non-Quality (Saguna, Nirguna); neither Consciousness nor non-consciousness, (Chaitanya, Jada); neither Soul nor Nature (Purusha, Prakriti); neither Bliss nor non-Bliss; neither man nor god nor animal; He is beyond all these things, He maintains and contains all these things; in Himself as world He is and becomes all these things.

The only difference between Parabrahman and Parapurusha is that we think of the first as something beyond our universe-existence, expressed here indeed, but still inexpressible, and of the second as something approaching our universe-existence, inexpressible indeed, but still here expressed. It is as if, in reading a translation of the Ramayan or Homer's Iliad, we were to look at the unapproachable something no translator can seize and say “This is not the Ramayan”, “This is not the Iliad” and yet, looking at the comparative adequacy of the expressions which do succeed in catching something of the original spirit and intention, were at the same time to say “This is Homer”, “This is Valmekie.” There is no other difference except this of standpoint. The Upanishads speak of the Absolute Parabrahman as Tat; they say Sa when they speak of the Absolute Parapurusha.

Circa 1913

Good And Evil

2011-09-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

We may think that this is an altogether mystical vision of the universe, with very little in common with our daily reality; at every step we encounter ugliness and evil; this world is riddled with pain, saturated with strangled cries. Where is the Divine in all this? Is the Divine that barbarism ever ready to open its torture camps? Or that pervading egoism? Or that villainy, concealed or flaunted? God is innocent of all these crimes. He is perfect. He cannot be a party to this – neti neti – God is so pure that He is not of this world. There is simply no place for Him in all this suffocating squalor! We must look existence in the face if our aim is to arrive at a right solution whatever that solution may be. And to look existence in the face is to look God in the face; for the two cannot be separated.... This world of our battle and labor is a fierce dangerous destructive devouring world in which life exists precariously and the soul and body of man move among enormous perils, a world in which by every step forward, whether we will it or no, something is crushed and broken, in which every breath of life is a breath too of death. To put away the responsibility for all that seems to us evil or terrible on the shoulders of a semi-omnipotent Devil, or to put it aside as a part of Nature, making an unbridgeable opposition between world-nature and God-nature, as if Nature were independent of God, or to throw the responsibility on man and his sins, as if he had a preponderant voice in the making of this world or could create anything against the will of God, are clumsily comfortable devices.... We erect a God of Love and Mercy, a God of good, a God just, righteous and virtuous according to our own moral conceptions of justice, virtue and righteousness, and all the rest, we say, is not He or is not His, but was made by some diabolical Power which He suffered for some reason to work out its wicked will or by some dark Ahriman counterbalancing our gracious Ormuzd, or was even the fault of selfish and sinful man who has spoiled what was made originally perfect by God.... We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in His being and that so He has made it. We have to see that Nature devouring her children, Time eating up the lives of creatures, Death universal and ineluctable and the violence of the Rudra¹³⁵ forces in man and Nature are also the supreme Godhead in one of his cosmic figures. We have to see that God the bountiful and prodigal creator, God the helpful, strong and benignant preserver is also God the devourer and destroyer. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is his touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. It is only when we see with the eye of the complete union and feel this truth in the depths of our being that we can entirely discover behind that mask too the calm and beautiful face of the all-blissful Godhead and in this touch that tests our imperfection the touch of the friend and builder of the spirit in man. The discords of the world are God's discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastness of his transcendent and his cosmic Ananda....¹³⁶ For truth is the foundation of real spirituality and courage is its soul.¹³⁷

Darshan Day 15th Of August 2011

2011-08-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

AUTOMATIC WRITINGS, c. 1920 [1] One of the guests of the future. . Millions of men are waiting for the day that comes but it comes not till the light has descended. And who shall make the light descend? Half lights will not do, they prepare and pass and fade. The whole light, the unveiled power. We behind the veil wait for our hour; not to a world such as is now can we come. We are the sons of the glory, the children of immortality, the flames of God. When the divine Light descends, then we descend. But we know that an hour approaches and the dawn is red, red as blood and red with blood, the fire is behind, the fire of the Angel of the Presence. Light first, strength with the light, joy with the strength, love with the joy, the fourfold splendour. Who shall contain it within himself and give harbourage to all the Godhead? Who shall have the unfathomable calm that shall support all the light and neither be blasted by the fire nor spill it like an insufficient vessel? The strength, who shall be bold enough to bear it, mighty enough not to shrink from the terror and marvel of its works, great and sweet enough to turn its lion forces into the path of the Lover? Who shall be the sea of the universal joy and swallow up into it the poisons of the universe and his throat not even be blackened by the fire of the poison?
Who shall know what the love is and take nothing out of it nor reject any face of love however strange and out of all experience it may be to the mind of the mortal? All this he must be before the Godhead of the future can descend. All else that promises to come are only glimpses of things that would intervene and take the great seat if they could or else flashes that mislead. The new age promises always, but is always the old age in another dress. This only can be the thing that is truly new born and the birth of a new humanity. One who has come near because some of the ways are opened.
(excerpt from Sri Auroibindo's record of yoga)

The Secret Part1:Simultaneous Ascend And Descend

2011-07-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

Mohammed, flying over Paradise, looks at the houris harvesting flowers and enjoying themselves. Persian, 15th century.

Mohammed, along with Buraq and Gabriel, visit Hell, and see a demon punishing "shameless women" who had exposed their hair to strangers. For this crime of inciting lust in men, the women are strung up by their hair and burned for eternity. Persian, 15th century.

"On the second part of his journey, he proceeded from this spot to the skies (heavens). Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw), then observed the stars and the systems of the world and conversed with the souls of the previous prophets, and also with the angels of the heavens, peace and blessing be upon them all. Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) saw the centre of the tortures and the blessings (hell and heaven) and became fully aware of the secrets of creation, the extent of the universe and the signs of the Omnipotent Allah (swt)."
link

Divine consciousness Emerging

from the Inconscient

Chapter 14
The Secret

We can try to say something of this Secret, though keeping in mind that the experience is in progress. Sri Aurobindo began; he found the Secret in Chandernagore in 1910 and worked on it for forty years; he gave up his life to it. And so did Mother.

Sri Aurobindo has never told us the circumstances of his discovery. He was always extraordinarily silent about himself, not out of reserve but simply because the "I" did not exist. "One felt," his Chandernagore host reports with naive surprise, "one felt when he spoke as if somebody else were speaking through him. I placed the plate of food before him, – he simply gazed at it, then ate a little, just mechanically! He appeared to be inwardly absorbed even when he was eating; he used to meditate with open eyes."²¹⁸ It was only later, from his writings and some fragments of conversations, that his experience could be pieced together. The first clue came from a chance remark made to one of his disciples. It shows that from Alipore onward he was on the trail: I was mentally subjected to all sorts of torture for fifteen days. I had to look upon pictures of all sorts of suffering.²¹⁹ We must remember that in those worlds, seeing is synonymous with experiencing. Thus, as Sri Aurobindo ascended toward the overmind, his consciousness was descending into what we are used to calling hell.

This is also one of the first phenomena the seeker experiences, in varying degrees. This is not a yoga for the weak, as the Mother says, and it is true. For if the first tangible result of Sri Aurobindo's yoga is to bring out new poetic and artistic faculties, the second, perhaps even the immediate consequence, is to shine a merciless spotlight on all the undersides of the consciousness, first individual, then universal. This close, and puzzling, linkage between superconscient and subconscient was certainly the starting point of Sri Aurobindo's breakthrough

(excerpt from Satprem's "Sri Aurobindo or Adventure Of Consciousness")

The Ocean Of White

2011-07-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

Mohammed arrives on the shores of the White Sea. Also from the Apocalypse of Muhammad, written in 1436 in Herat, Afghanistan (now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris).
(Hat tip: Buck.)

"We must not only cut asunder the snare of the mind and the senses, but flee also beyond the snare of the thinker, the snare of the theologian and the church-builder, the meshes of the Word and the bondage of the Idea. All these are within us waiting to wall in the spirit with forms; but we must always go beyond, always renounce the lesser for the greater, the finite for the Infinite; we must be prepared to proceed from illumination to illumination, from experience to experience, from soul-state to soul-state.... Nor must we attach ourselves even to the truths we hold most securely, for they are but forms and expressions of the Ineffable who refuses to limit itself to any form or expression; always we must keep ourselves open to the higher Word from above that does not confine itself to its own sense and the light of the Thought that carries in it its own opposites.¹⁷⁴ Then, one day, because of our burning need, after being like a mass of compressed gas, the doors will finally burst open: The consciousness rises, says the Mother, breaking the kind of hard carapace, there, at the top of the head, and one emerges into the light."

Above was an ardent white tranquillity.¹⁷⁵

(exceprt from Sri Aurobindo or Adventure Of Consciousness)

Isra And Miraj

2011-06-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Angel Gabriel cleansing Mohammed's heart of impurities in preparation for his ascent to heaven, while the other angels watch. From the 16th-century manuscript The Progress of the Prophet, from Turkey

High beyond Intelligence is the Great Self,beyond the Great Self is the Unmanifest,beyond the Unmanifest is the Conscious Being.There is nothing beyond the Being-that is the extreme ultimate,that the Supreme Goal-KATHA UPANISHAD

Nirvana-Liberating,annihilation,extinction,not necessarily of all the being,but of being as we know it,extinction of ego,desire and egoistic action and mentality

The Central Being. The Universal Person
"Thou art He" – such is the eternal truth. Tat tvam asi, thou art That. This is the Truth the ancient Mysteries taught and the later religions forgot. Having lost the central secret, they fell prey to all the aberrant dualisms, substituting obscure mysteries for the great, simply Mystery. "I and my Father are one," Jesus Christ said (John 10,30); "I am He," – so'ham – the sages of India say; indeed, this is the truth all liberated men discover, whether they be from the East or the West, from the past or the present. This is the eternal Fact we must all discover. This "I," the self who asserts its identity with God, is not that of a privileged individual

"A year and a half later, he was invited to the Presence of Allah, Almighty and Exalted. From Makkah to Jerusalem (Quds) he travelled accompanied by Archangel Gabriel (Jibril) . From Jerusalem he ascended to the heavens by means of Buraq, a heavenly mount who carried him up. All the prophets in the different levels of heaven came to greet him. He ascended higher and higher, until he heard the scratching of the Pen(Kalam Of Allah or The Self Of Allah), writing out God's Decree. He approached the Divine Presence, closer and closer, until Jibril said to him, "Ya Rasul Allah (O Prophet of God), I cannot continue further, or I will be extinguished." The Prophet said, "O Jibril, accompany me!" He said, "I cannot, or I will be burned in Allah's Light." So Muhammad , the most Perfect of the Perfect, continued alone. Driven by his love for Allah's Divine Presence he approached closer and closer, achieving the State of Complete Annihilation in five different stages

From one stage to another the Prophet moved into Allah's Divine Secrets. Between each stage was five hundred thousand years. He passed through these vast Divine Oceans of Knowledge, which Allah Almighty and Exalted has created, until he was completely dissolved in Allah's Existence, seeing nothing except Him. Then Allah called him to return to existence after he had reached the State of Annihilation. He returned and Allah told him, "O Muhammad, Approach closer." From this it is understood that the Prophet , having reached the State of Complete Annihilation, was called by Allah by his name, indicating that he was appearing anew with Allah's Appearance. He reached so near to the Divine Light, that he was "two bow-lengths or nearer" [53:9]. Allah asked him, "Who are you, O Muhammad?" At that time the Prophet was not conscious of himself and he replied: "You, O my Lord." This is the perfection of the state of not associating anyone with Allah. It is the perfect sign of Tawhid (Oneness), when nothing exists except His Glory, His Essence, Himself."

http://www.naqshbandi.org/chain/1main.htm

The Lord Is Everywhere And In Everything

2011-06-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

[Yusufali 2:115] To Allah belong the east and the West: Whithersoever ye turn, there is the presence of Allah. For Allah is all-Pervading, all-Knowing.

[Yusufali 4:40] Now I do call to witness the Lord of all points in the East and the West that We can certainly-

Indeed God is not outside His world, He did not "create" the world – He became the world, as the Upanishad says: "He became knowledge and ignorance, He became the truth and the falsehood.... He became all this whatsoever that is." (Taittiriya Upanishad II.6) "This whole world is filled with beings who are His members," says the Swetaswatara Upanishad (IV.10). All to the eye that sees is One, to a divine experience all is one block of the Divine.¹³⁴

"I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva* who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell, but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna* whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana¹³¹ who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover.... I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies."
SRI AUROBINDO

But who has realized cosmic consciousness? Not the yogi; the yogi goes on drinking, eating, sleeping, being ill at times like all human animals, and dying. It is not he, but a tiny point of his being that is experiencing cosmic consciousness, the very one on which he so earnestly concentrated to break through his carapace. The rest of his being, all the human and earthly nature that he has excluded from the experience, which he has repressed or mortified in order to better concentrate on that single point of escape, does not share in his cosmic consciousness, except through indirect radiation. Sri Aurobindo was therefore making this first important observation, that a linear realization, in one point, is not enough, but that a global realization, in all points – one that embraces the individual's entire being – is necessary. If you want to transform your nature and your being, and participate in the creation of a new world, the Mother says, that aspiration, that one-pointed and linear push is no longer enough; you must embrace everything and contain everything in your consciousness. Hence the integral yoga or "full yoga," purna yoga.

Towards The Home Of Total Reality

2011-06-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

[Yusufali 6:5] And hearkens to (the Command of) its Lord,- and it must needs (do so);- (then will come Home the full reality).
[Yusufali 6:62] That is because Allah - He is the Reality; and those besides Him whom they invoke,- they are but vain Falsehood: verily Allah is He, Most High, Most Great.

[Yusufali 26:193] With it came down the spirit of Faith and Truth-

[Yusufali 17:80] Say: "O my Lord! Let my entry be by the Gate of Truth and Honour, and likewise my exit by the Gate of Truth and Honour; and grant me from Thy Presence an authority to aid (me)."
Here is what Sri Aurobindo reported:

I lived in that Nirvana day and night before it began to admit other things into itself or modify itself at all... in the end it began to disappear into a greater Super-consciousness from above.... The aspect of an illusionary world gave place to one in which illusion is only a small surface phenomenon with an immense Divine Reality behind it and a supreme Divine Reality above it and an intense Divine Reality in the heart of everything that had seemed at first only a cinematic shape or shadow. And this was no reimprisonment in the senses, no diminution or fall from supreme experience, it came rather as a constant heightening and widening of the Truth.... Nirvana in my liberated consciousness turned out to be the beginning of my realization, a first step towards the complete thing, not the sole true attainment possible or even a culminating finale.¹¹⁹

Nirvana cannot be at once the ending of the Path with nothing beyond to explore... it is the end of the lower Path through the lower Nature and the beginning of the Higher Evolution.

The Triple Ignorance

2011-06-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

7. Shunahshepa too was bound to the thousandfold post of sacrifice, him didst thou release and he attained to calm;¹ so do thou take thy seat here in us, O conscious knower, O Priest of the call, and loose from us the cords of our bondage.

(Sri Aurobindo. Hyms to the Mystic Fire, Mandala 5, Sukta 2, Verse 7)

Ignorance, this matrix of sin, has in its substantial effect the appearance of a triple cord of limited mind, inefficient life, obscure physical animality, the three ropes with which the Rishi Shunahshepa in the parable was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post. The whole result is a struggling or inert poverty of being; it is the meagreness of a mortal undelight and the insufficiency of a being that collapses at every moment towards death. When Varuna the Mighty comes and sunders this threefold restraint, we are freed towards riches and immortality. Uplifted, the real man arises to his true kingship in the undivided being. The upper cord flies upward releasing the wings of the Soul into superconscient heights; the middle cord parts both ways and all ways, the constrained life breaking out into a happy breadth of existence; the lower cord collapses downward taking with it the alloy of our physical being to disappear and be dissolved in the stuff of the Inconscient. This liberation is the purport of the parable of Shunahshepa and his two great hymns to Varuna.

[Sri Aurobindo. Secret of the Vedas, The Guardians of the Light]

The triple cord in the Upanishads

He, verily, who knows that Supreme Brahman becomes himself Brahman; in his lineage none is born who knows not the Brahman. He crosses beyond sorrow, he crosses beyond sin, he is delivered from the knotted cord of the secret heart and becomes immortal.

[Mundaka Upanishad Chapter III, 2.9]

Yea, when all the strings of the heart are rent asunder, even here, in this human birth, then the mortal becomes immortal. This is the whole teaching of the Scriptures.

[Katha Upanishad, 2.3.15]

Mother Mirra Alfassa

The cords symbolise the limitations of the mind; and there are three of them because there is a physical mind, a vital mind and a mental mind.

(Some Answers From The Mother Volume-16, Series Eleven, 9 November 1968)

Sunil Bhattacharya's Music On Savitri

2011-05-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

Sunil Da's mesmezing music on Savitri

Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo THE "INDIA" INTERVIEW (1909)

2011-05-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo

THE "INDIA" INTERVIEW (1909)

Article from India (Tamil weekly) 18 September 1909

1

A Conversation with Sriman Aravinda Ghosh

A few days ago one of our correspondents went to Calcutta and spoke to Mahajnani Sriman Aravinda Ghose on several topics. We give here excerpts from the conversation.

Our correspondent had the darshan of Aravinda-babu at 6, College Square Street [sic], Calcutta. The house belongs to Babu Krishna Kumar Mitra, who has been deported. The family of Babu Krishna Kumar resides downstairs, while the office of his journal Sanjivani is located upstairs. In two rooms here, Aravinda-babu does his writing work and speaks to those who come to see him.

When our correspondent saw Aravinda-babu there, the first thought that came to his mind, it seems, was, “Is this Aravinda-babu?” But then, he had not seen Aravinda-babu’s eyes as yet. Aravinda¹ is of a lean frame; and he was sitting like a very ordinary man with a piece of cloth thrown over his upper body. On seeing him our correspondent could only wonder, “Is this the Yogi born to redeem us through an upheaval, showing a new way to India?”

It was when he saw the eyes that our correspondent felt reassured. Oh! how knowing those eyes were! What grace in them! What peace! Mahashanti, mahashanti! The room exuded a great sattwic shanti.

Our correspondent asked a few questions about the Narayan darshan which Aravinda-babu had experienced when he was in prison. Since a darshan of the Supreme is a rarity in this age, our correspondent wondered whether Aravinda-babu’s darshan could have come about in the dream-state. But when he listened to Aravinda’s reply, all his doubts vanished. When our correspondent saw the humility, the peace, the solemnity, the innocence and the light that appeared on Aravinda’s face when he answered, it was very clear to him that Aravinda is indeed a Mahasiddha.

Aravinda: “Yes, I saw Narayana. I had all my darshans in the waking state; they were not dreams.”

Correspondent: “Is there a way to reach the state you are speaking about?”

Aravinda: “Yes. Yoga is the way.”

Correspondent: “Was it only you who were practising yoga sadhana in the prison, or were there others who practised with you?”

Aravinda: “Barindra too was practising sadhana as I was.”

Correspondent: “What kind of yoga was it?”

Aravinda: “It was Bhakti Yoga. Leave all responsibility to the Divine. Try to realize that whatever you think, speak, or do is not yours, and that it is the Divine who thinks, speaks and acts through you. The realization will come in time. Realization is different from vision. Crush your ego, be without the “I”, practise self-renunciation.”

Rumour of Deportation

Later our correspondent turned the conversation from spiritual to worldly matters.

Correspondent: “All Calcutta is rife with the rumour that the Government is going to deport you. If perchance they take you away from us what shall we do?”

Aravinda: “It seems that the Viceroy and his council have not accepted the suggestion from the Calcutta police that I should be deported.”

Correspondent: “The authorities will not do anything against you now. We know that God shall allow none to touch you, because you are destined to show the way to the nation for a while yet.”

Aravinda-babu smiled.

Our Correspondent’s Thoughts

Our correspondent writes of the thoughts that rose in his mind even as the conversation was going on:

Aravinda’s voice was very calm. A state of peace was born in my mind. There was peace everywhere. It gave me great bliss to think that I was in the presence of a great being who has suffered much out of his love for the country, one whose utterances have been the wonder of the whole nation, and who was one of the Rishis of the Swadeshi Dharma. I was astonished to see him conversing with me calmly and peacefully even while his own brother was awaiting the death sentence.

The Upheaval

Aravinda continued to answer with great grace the several questions put to him by our correspondent. Finally our correspondent started speaking about the present confused state of India. When he asked Aravinda some questions in this regard, he gave this Divine answer:

“There will be an upheaval.² There are signs to indicate its coming. The year 1906 completes 5000 years of Kaliyuga, and a new age has begun with the year 1907. The upheaval will have developed well enough to be visible to all. It will be complete in a further period of four to five years.”

Correspondent: “What kind of upheaval is it?”

Aravinda: “The upheaval will be one of a revolutionary change, a great step; the low will be raised and the high brought down. There will be change, change, everywhere — change in Government, change in our people; new resolves, new thoughts, new ways for all actions.”

2

Extract from Government of India, Home Department-A, June 1912, 41-68: 67.

Aravinda Ghose who is proved to be living in Pondicherry is stated to have declared in reply to a Karmayogin correspondent³ that 5,000 years of the Kaliyuga have expired, that a new epoch has commenced and in the next 4 or 5 years there will be “great deluge, change, revolution, great revolution, great persons falling, low persons rising, change, change, change everywhere, change in the Government, change in our people, new methods, new ideas in all” — See exhibit BBB.⁴

¹ The newspaper throughout used the respectful form Aravindar.

² The words pralaya and mahāpralaya in the Tamil text have been translated as “upheaval”.

³ There was a Tamil newspaper called Karmayogi that was related to India.

⁴ An exhibit in the Ashe murder and conspiracy cases (1912).

Julian Assange Is The Equalizer

2011-04-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

WIKILEAKS

The Chosen One-Part2

2011-03-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

Remembered: Nur Hossain

[Rezwan, Germany.]

Bangladeshi blogosphere observed November 10 as Nur Hossain day.

Banglapedia:

Hossain, (Shahid) Nur (1961-1987) a victim in a mass movement against Ershad-regime in 1987. Born in 1961 at Narinda in Dhaka Nur Hossain was the son of Mujibar Rahman, an auto-rickshaw driver, whose ancestral home was at village Jhatibunia under Mathbaria upazila of Pirozpur district.

His family had been living at 79/1 Banagram Road in Dhaka since liberation. Nur Hossain received his primary education from the Radhasundari Primary School at Banagram Road, and while a student of class VIII at Graduate High School in Dhaka, he left school and received training in motor driving. As an activist in politics he was the publicity secretary of the Banagram unit committee of Dhaka City Awami League.

As a part of the long drawn movement against the autocratic rule of President Hussain Muhammad Ershad, the alliance of the opposition political parties declared ‘Dhaka Blockade’ programme on 10 November 1987. The aims and objectives of the programme were to realise the demands for resignation of Ershad government and holding of Jatiya Sangsad elections under a neutral caretaker government. Nur Hossain had his bare back and chest painted with the slogan ‘Sairachar nipat jak, Ganatantra mukti pak’ (Down with autocracy, let democracy be established). Looking so prominent in the crowd, Nur Hossain was shot dead by the police at the Zero-point in front of the General Post Office. The slogan imprinted on his body soon turned into the slogan of the irresistable mass movement which eventually led to the fall of the Ershad-government on 6 December 1990.

To commemorate his sacrifice in the struggle for the restoration of democracy in the country, the Zero-square in Dhaka city was renamed after him as Nur Hossain Square, and a postal stamp was issued in honour of his memorable sacrifice.
****************************************************************************
Nur Hossain (Bangla:নূর হোসেন) (1961-November 10, 1987) is perhaps the most widely known martyr in the movement in Bangladesh against the dictatorship of General Hossain Mohammad Ershad. Neither well-off nor highly educated, Nur Hossain embodied the struggle of common people of the country.

Nur Hossain was born in Narinda, Dhaka, in 1961. His father was an autorickshaw driver. Hossain had to quit school while in the eighth grade and got training as a motor driver. He was an activist of the opposition party Awami League.

On November 10, 1987, during the Dhaka Blockade program, Nur Hossain painted his chest and back with the slogans স্বৈরাচার নীপাত যাক, গণতন্ত্র মুক্তি পাক (transliterated as Sairachar nipat jak, Ganatantra mukti pak, translation: Down with autocracy, let democracy be established). He was shot dead by the police. A photograph of Nur Hossain showing his back taken shortly before his death, has become an important icon of the struggle for democracy in Bangladesh. Mass movements caused Hossain Mohammad Ershad to resign in December, 1990. Each year, November 10 is commemorated as the Shaheed Nur Hossain Dibosh or Martyr Nur Hossain Day in Bangladesh. Cultural and political organizations run special programs to observe the day.^[1]

The Chosen One-Part1

2011-03-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

Tarek al-Tayyib Muhammad Bouazizi (March 29, 1984 – January 4, 2011; Arabic: طارق الطيب محمد البوعزيزي‎), more commonly known as Mohamed Bouazizi, was a Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17, 2010, in protest of the confiscation of his wares and the harassment and humiliation that was allegedly inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides. This act became the catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution, sparking deadly demonstrations and riots throughout Tunisia in protest of social and political issues in the country. Anger and violence intensified following Bouazizi's death, leading then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on January 14, 2011, after 23 years in power.
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The Spirit Of Asia

2011-02-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

KARMAYOGIN
A WEEKLY REVIEW
of National Religion, Literature, Science, Philosophy, &c.,
Vol. I. } SATURDAY 31st JULY 1909 { No. 6
Facts and Opinions
The Spirit in Asia

A spirit moves abroad in the world today upsetting kingdoms
and raising up new principalities and powers the workings of
which are marked by a swiftness and ubiquity new in history.
In place of the slow developments and uncertain results of the
past we have a quickness and thoroughness which destroy in an
hour and remould in a decade. It is noteworthy that these rapid
motions are mostly discernible in Asiatic peoples.

The Doctrine Of Self Sacrifie

2011-02-11T23:43:00.000-08:00

The Doctrine of Sacrifice
Karmayogin, 24 July 1909

THE GENIUS of self-sacrifice is not common to all nations
and to all individuals; it is rare and precious, it is the
flowering of mankind’s ethical growth, the evidence of
our gradual rise from the self-regarding animal to the selfless
divinity. A man capable of self-sacrifice, whatever his other sins,
has left the animal behind him; he has the stuff in him of a
future and higher humanity. A nation capable of a national act
of self-sacrifice ensures its future.
Self-sacrifice involuntary or veiled by forms of selfishness is,
however, the condition of our existence. It has been a gradual
growth in humanity. The first sacrifices are always selfish—they
involve the sacrifice of others for one’s own advancement. The
first step forward is taken by the instinct of animal love in the
mother who is ready to sacrifice her life for the young, by the
instinct of protection in the male who is ready to sacrifice his
life for his mate. The growth of this instinct is the sign of an
enlargement in the conception of the self. So long as there is
identification of self only with one’s own body and its desires,
the state of the jiva is unprogressive and animal. It is only when
the self enlarges to include the mate and the children that advancement
becomes possible. This is the first human state, but
the animal lingers in it in the view of the wife and children as
chattels and possessions meant for one’s own pleasure, strength,
dignity, comfort. The family even so viewed becomes the basis
of civilisation, because it makes social life possible. But the real
development of the god in man does not begin until the family
becomes so much dearer than the life of the body that a man
is ready to sacrifice himself for it and give up his ease or even
his life for its welfare or its protection. To give up one’s ease
for the family, that is a state which most men have attained; to
give up one’s life for the honour of the wife or the safety of the home is an act of a higher nature of which man is capable in
individuals, in classes, but not in the mass. Beyond the family
comes the community and the next step in the enlargement of
the self is when the identification with the self in the body and
the self in the family gives way to the identification with the
self in the community. To recognise that the community has a
larger claim on a man than his family is the first condition of the
advance to the social condition. It corresponds to the growth
of the tribe out of the patriarchal family and to the perfection
of those communal institutions of which our village community
was a type. Here again, to be always prepared to sacrifice the
family interest to the larger interest of the community must be
the first condition of communal life and to give one’s life for
the safety of the community, the act of divinity which marks the
consummation of the enlarging self in the communal idea. The
next enlargement is to the self in the nation. The evolution of the
nation is the growth which is most important now to humanity,
because human selfishness, family selfishness, class selfishness
having still deep roots in the past must learn to efface themselves
in the larger national self in order that the God in humanity may
grow. Therefore it is that Nationalism is the dharma of the age,
and God reveals himself to us in our common Mother. The first
attempts to form a nationality were the Greek city, the Semitic
or Mongolian monarchy, the Celtic clan, the Aryan kula or jati.
It was the mixture of all these ideas which went to the formation
of the mediaeval nation and evolved the modern peoples. Here
again, it is the readiness to sacrifice self-interest, family interest,
class interest to the larger national interestwhich is the condition
of humanity’s fulfilment in the nation and to die for its welfare
or safety is the supreme act of self-consummation in the larger
national ego. There is a yet higher fulfilment for which only a
few individuals have shown themselves ready, the enlargement
of the self to include all humanity. A step forward has been taken
in this direction by the self-immolation of a few to humanitarian
ideals, but to sacrifice the interests of the nation to the larger
interest of humanity is an act of which humanity in the mass
is not yet capable. God prepares, but He does not hasten the ripening of the fruit before its season. A time will come when
this also will be possible, but the time is not yet. Nor would it be
well for humanity if it came before the other and lesser identification
were complete; for that would necessitate retrogression
in order to secure the step which has been omitted. The advance
of humanity is a steady progress and there is no great gain in
rushing positions far ahead, while important points in the rear
are uncaptured.
The national ego may easily mean nothing more than collective
selfishness. I may be ready to sacrifice money and ease
for the country in order to secure my wealth, fame or position
and property which depend upon her security and greatness. I
may be ready to sacrifice these and more for her because of the
safety of the home and the hearth which her safety ensures. I
may be ready to sacrifice much for her because her greatness,
wealth, ease mean the greatness, wealth, ease of my community
or my class. Or I may be ready to sacrifice everything to
secure her greatness because of my pride in her and my desire
to see my nation dominant and imperial. All these are forms of
selfishness pursuing man into the wider life which is meant to
assist in liberating him from selfishness. The curse of capitalism,
the curse of Imperialism which afflict modern nations are due
to this insistence. It is the source of that pride, insolence and
injustice which affect a nation in its prosperity and by that
fatal progression which the Greeks with their acute sense for
these things so clearly demarcated, it leads from prosperity to
insolence and outrage and from insolence and outrage to that
ate, that blind infatuation, which is God’s instrument for the
destruction of men and nations. There is only one remedy for
this pursuing evil and it is to regard the nation as a necessary
unit but no more in a common humanity.
There are two stages in the life of a nation, first, when it is
forming itself or new-forming itself, secondly, when it is formed,
organised and powerful. The first is the stage when Nationalism
makes rightly its greatest demands on the individual, in the
second it should abate its demands and, having satisfied, should
preserve itself in Cosmopolitanism somewhat as the individual preserves itself in the family, the family in the class, the class
in the nation, not destroying itself needlessly but recognising
a larger interest. In the struggles of a subject nation to realise
its separate existence, the larger interest can only be viewed in
prospect and as a higher inspiration to a broadminded and generous
patriotism. No sacrifice of the nation to the larger interest
is possible, for the nation must exist before it can sacrifice its
interests for a higher good.
We are at present in the first or formative stage, and in this
stage the demand of Nationalism is imperative. It is only by
the sacrifices of the individual, the family and the class to the
supreme object of building up the nation that under such adverse
circumstances Nationalism can secure the first conditions for its
existence. Every act of the new Nationalism has been a call for
suffering and self-sacrifice. Swadeshi was such a call, arbitration
was such a call, national education was such a call, above all,
passive resistance was such a call. None of these things can be
secured except by a general readiness to sacrifice the individual
and the family to the interests of the nation. Nowadays a new
call is visibly forming, the call on the higher classes to sacrifice
their privileges and prejudices, as the Japanese Samurai did,
for the raising up of the lower. The spread of a general spirit
of ungrudging self-sacrifice is the indispensable prelude to the
creation of the Indian nation. This truth is not only evident from
the very nature of the movement we have initiated, but it is borne
out by the tests of history and experience to which we have been
recently asked to refer in each individual case before the act of
sacrifice is decided. It is by the appeal to history and experience
that the Nationalist party has convinced the intellect, just as by
its inspiring ideals and readiness to suffer, it has carried with
it the heart of the nation. The demand that we should in every
individual case go into a review of thewhole question is excessive
and impossible. It is enough if we are generally convinced of the
utility and necessity of sacrifice and feel the individual call. It
must be remembered that we cannot argue from the condition of
a people formed, free and prospering to that of a people subject,
struggling and miserable. In the first case the individual is not called to frequent acts of self-sacrifice, but only to those regularly
demanded by the nation and to a general readiness for especial
sacrifice in case of necessity, but in the second the necessity is
a constant quantity. Nor is it a sound principle to demand in
such circumstances an adequate value for every individual act
of courage and self-denial. It would indeed be singular for the
individuals of a subject nation asked for the price of their liberty
to say to the Dispenser of Karma, “You shall give me so much
in return for every individual sacrifice and we must know your
terms beforehand.We will not trust you to the extent of a single
pice worth of result for our sufferings.” Not by such men or
such a spirit have subject nations been delivered.

The Subconscious

2011-02-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

Web-Server for Integral Yoga

Satprem. "Life Withowt Death"

Then the pioneer enters a dark zone, full of dangers and risks and as vast as an ocean, a bottomless swamp, the real difficulty of the physical transformation to another species: the subconscious.

(Sri Aurobindo:) You have to go on working and working year after year, point after point, till you come to a central point in the subconscient which has to be conquered and it is the crux of the whole problem, hence exceedingly difficult. . . . This point in the subconscient is the seed and it goes on sprouting and sprouting till you have cut out the seed. (36:180)

There are no lights there, no higher illuminations, no Divine. Everybody is equal, without noticeable difference -- the Christian and the Buddhist and the man without religion -- both feet firmly stuck in mud. It is an indescribable place because it contains everything. It is our base, the ground on which the human species has grown millennium after millennium. It is millions of years old and we all have the dubious privilege of plunging our roots into it, adding our personal contribution to it life after life. Twenty-four hours a day it meticulously records, in its own language, our every gesture and action, conscious or unconscious. We visit there almost every night, during our sleep, and do not retain any recollection of our visits.

(Sri Aurobindo:) It contains all the reactions to life which struggle out as a slowly evolving and self-formulating consciousness, but it contains them not as ideas or perceptions or conscious reactions but as the blind substance of these things. Also all that is consciously experienced sinks down into the subconscient not as experience but as obscure and obstinate impressions of experience and can come up at any time as dreams, as mechanical repetitions of past thought, feeling, action, etc., as "complexes" exploding into action and event etc., etc. The subconscient is the main cause why all things get changed except in appearances. It is the cause why, people say, character cannot be changed, also of the constant return of things one hoped to have got rid of. All seeds are there and all the sanskaras [imprints] of the mind and vital and body, -- it is the main support of death and disease and the last fortress (seemingly impregnable) of the Ignorance. All that is suppressed without being wholly got rid of sinks down there and remains in seed ready to surge up or sprout up at any moment. (32:247)

(Mother:) I am right in the subconscious -- a subconscious, oh, hopelessly riddled with weakness, dullness and . . . (what shall I say?) enslaved by a host of things -- enslaved by EVERYTHING. Oh, night after night, night after night, it unfolds before me, to show me. Last night it was indescribable! And it goes on and on; it seems limitless. So, naturally, the body feels the effects, poor thing! That's its subconscious, not personal -- it's personal and not personal: it becomes personal when it enters the body. You can't imagine the accumulations of impressions that are recorded and stored there, one on top of another. Outwardly, you haven't even noticed anything -- the waking consciousness doesn't even notice them, but they keep entering, piling up on top of one another -- horrible! (2/18/61)

No real freedom is possible so long as "that" exists and controls life, no divine species on earth and no hope of transformation. A new man means new roots and a new base. It is a complete illusion -- the illusion of all spiritual teachings -- to call for a New Earth and a New Man while modestly averting one's eyes from that impossible quagmire. (One can understand the reluctance of these spiritual teachings, but then one can also understand why nothing has ever really changed on earth and in man since the advent of the great human religions: They have always prudently skirted the real issue.)

(Sri Aurobindo:) It is a Herculean labour, for, when one enters there, it is a sort of unexplored continent. Previous Yogis came down to the vital. If I had been made to see it before, probably I would have been less enthusiastic. (31:196)

The truth is, we have to go down there, too, and overcome. That is the true labor and the marvel of Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

(Sri Aurobindo:) As for the Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody else in the Ashram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight, wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and forest, hostile masses to conquer -- a work such as, I am certain, none else had to do before us. (26:464)

I have had my full share of these things and the Mother has had ten times her full share. But that was because the finders of the Way had to face these things in order to conquer. No difficulty that can come on the Sadhak [disciple] but has faced us on the path; against many we have had to struggle hundreds of times (in fact, that is an understatement) before we could overcome; many still remain protesting that they have a right until the perfect perfection is there. But we have never consented to admit their inevitable necessity for others. It is, in fact, to ensure an easier path to others hereafter that we have borne that burden. (26:465)

And he added:

But it is not necessary nor tolerable that all that should be repeated over again to the full in the experience of others. It is because we have the complete experience that we can show a straighter and easier road to others -- if they will consent to take it. (26:464)

Mother too, indomitably, descended into the pit:

What I am made to see every night is horrible. Horrible. It's as if one were trying to thoroughly disgust me with my work. That subconscious is truly a mass of horrors. . . . The impression is that it's bottomless and limitless, that there always will be new combinations, always as horrible. But that is not true. It does change. It does change . . . but, oh, what a difficult task! And so intractable. Intractable in that you think you've come to the end of something (you don't think so, you know better than that, but you hope!), and it comes right back in another form, which seems even worse than the previous one! (11/3/62)

I don't know if it's the last battle, but these last few days it has gone down very deep, into the least enlightened part of the cells: what still belongs the most to the world of Unconsciousness and Inertia, what is the most foreign to the divine Presence. You could say it's the original substance used by Life, with a sort of incapacity to respond, to feel any reason for that life. . . . This is an identification with the world at large, with the earth as a whole. An absolutely dreadful and hopeless condition, something that has neither meaning nor goal nor purpose, that lacks any joy of its own and . . . that is worse than unpleasant -- meaningless and totally devoid of feeling. Something that has no reason for being, and yet which is. It was . . . it is a dreadful situation.

I have the feeling it's quite close to the bottom. . . . And this is the base, the foundation of all materialism. (8/21/63)

The "bottom" has to be cleaned in order for the "top" to accept to come down and materialize in it.

(Sri Aurobindo:) No, it is not with the Empyrean that I am busy: I wish it were. It is rather with the opposite end of things; it is in the Abyss that I have to plunge to build a bridge between the two. But that too is necessary for my work and one has to face it. (26:153)

But the joining of the two can also be explosive. For the Light does not tolerate the least speck of dust in its path. Everything it touches must be in the image of its own nature -- pure. The least obstacle (or imperfectly purified element) reacts violently, as if violated under the pressure of the unaccustomed Ray. The result in the being, or the beings around -- or even in the world around -- may take the form of a fine catastrophe.

(Sri Aurobindo:) The attempt to bring a great general descent having only produced a great ascent of subconscient mud, I had given up that. . . . At present I am only trying to prevent people from making hysterical, subconscient asses of themselves, so that I may not be too much disturbed in my operations -- not yet with too much success. (32:389)

(Mother:) It is as though that Force I mentioned were penetrating like a power drill, deeper and deeper toward the subconscious. There are unbelievable things in the subconscious -- unbelievable. And it keeps going deeper and deeper . . . IMPERATIVELY. So the human subconscious cries out: "Oh, not yet! Please, not yet! Not so fast!" This is what you are up against. It's a general subconscious. (4/12/72)

Perhaps it is what we see everywhere around us?

(Sri Aurobindo:) Things are bad, are growing worse and may at any time grow worst or worse than worst if that is possible -- and anything, however paradoxical, seems possible in the present perturbed world. The best thing for them is to realise that all this was necessary because certain possibilities had to emerge and be got rid of, if a new and better world was at all to come into being: it would not have done to postpone them for a later time. It is, as in yoga, where things active or latent in the being have to be put into action in the light so that they may be grappled with and thrown out or to emerge from latency in the depths for the same purificatory purpose. Also they can remember the adage that night is darkest before dawn and that the coming of dawn is inevitable. But they must remember too that the new world whose coming we envisage is not to be made of the same texture as the old and different only in pattern, and that it must come by other means -- from within and not from without; so the best way is not to be too much preoccupied with the lamentable things that are happening outside, but themselves to grow within so that they may be ready for the new world, whatever the form it may take. [Letter written in July 1948] (26:1611)

But why, we might ask, is it necessary to confront that horrible subconscious directly? Why can't we keep a "yogic" smile before those base and vulgar things, look at them benignly -- from above -- and manipulate them with the pincers of a "higher" consciousness and power? Why must we stick our necks out? It is a question that Satprem did not fail to ask Mother.

(Satprem:) But is it necessary to go down to the level of all these subconscious things? Can one not act on them from above?

(Mother:) Act on them from above? . . . I have been acting on them from above for more than thirty years, my child! But it changes nothing -- it changes something, but it doesn't transform.

(Satprem:) So one must go down to that level?

(Mother:) Yes. Acting from above may hold things back, keep them under control, prevent them from taking unpleasant initiatives, but that's not -- to transform is to transform.

As long as we talk of even mastery, it can be done -- it can be done very well from above. But, to transform, you must go down, and that's the terrible part. . . . Otherwise things will never be transformed; they'll remain as they are.

You see, you can even pose as a superman! (Mother laughs) But it's still like this (gesture in midair). It isn't the true thing; it isn't the new creation, not the next step of terrestrial evolution. (2/18/61)

http://integral-yoga2.narod.ru/IntegralYoga/Satprem/Life_Without_Death/Satprem.Life_Without_Death.eng.html

Integral Yoga Books

2011-02-08T07:38:00.000-08:00

WEB SERVER FOR INTEGRAL BOOKS

The Mother On Finance

2011-02-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

Undated 1958

(Concerning Finances')

Money is a force and should not be an individual possession, no more than air, water or fire.
...
To begin with, the abolishment of inheritance.

**

Financial power is the materialization of a vital force turned into one of the greatest powers of action: the power to attract acquire, and utilize.

Like all the other powers, it must be put at the service of the Divine

Death Of Capitalism

2011-02-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

March 21, 1956

The age of Capitalism and business is drawing to a close.

But the age of Communism, too, will pass. For Communism as it is preached is not constructive, it is a weapon to combat plutocracy. But when the battle is over and the armies are disbanded for want of employment, then Communism, having no more utility, will be transformed into something else that will express a higher truth.

We know this truth, and we are working for it so that it may reign upon earth.

1. Note written by Mother in French.

2. Mother appeared on her balcony daily at about 6 a.m. to give a few moments of meditation to her disciples before the beginning of the day's work.

SOURCE:THE AGENDA,MARCH 21ST,1956

The Mothers Agenda 1958

2011-02-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

October 10, 1958

(The disciple asks to know what he must do and what his place is in the universal manifestation)

In all religious and especially occult initiations, the ritual of the different ceremonies is prescribed in every detail; all the words pronounced, all the gestures made have their importance, and the least infraction of the rule, the least fault committed can have fatal consequences. It is the same in material life - if one had the initiation into the true way of living, one could transform physical existence.

If we consider the body as the tabernacle of the Lord, then medical science, for example, becomes the initiatory ritual of the service of the temple, and doctors of all kinds are the officiating priests in the different rituals of worship. Thus, medicine is really a priesthood and should be treated as such.

The same can be said of physical culture and of all the sciences that are concerned with the body and its workings. If the material universe is considered as the outer sheath and the manifestation of the Supreme, then it can generally be said that all the physical sciences are the rituals of worship.

We always come back to the same thing: the absolute necessity for perfect sincerity, perfect honesty and a sense of the dignity of all we do so that we may do it as it should be done.

If we could truly, perfectly know all the details of the ceremony of life, the worship of the Lord in physical life, it would be wonderful - to know, and no longer to err, never again to err. To perform the ceremony as perfectly as an initiation.

To know life utterly ... Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And it's strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras' (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, 'like that'):

'It is the Supreme Lord who has ineluctably decreed the place you occupy in the universal concert, but whatever be this place, you have equally the same right as all others to ascend the supreme summits right to the supramental realization.'

There is one's position in the universal hierarchy, which is something ineluctable - it is the eternal law - and there is the development in the manifestation, which is an education; it is progressive and done from within the being. What is remarkable is that to become a perfect being, this position - whatever it is, decreed since all eternity, a part of the eternal Truth - must manifest with the greatest possible perfection as a result of evolutionary growth. It is the junction, the union of the two, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization, that will make the total and perfect being, and the manifestation as the Lord has willed it since the beginning of all eternity (which has no beginning at all! ).

I see Agenda 1957, p. 119.

And for the cycle to be complete, one cannot stop on the way at any plane, not even the highest spiritual plane nor the plane closest to matter (like the occult plane in the vital, for example). One must descend right into matter, and this perfection in manifestation must be a material perfection, or otherwise the cycle is not complete - which explains why those who want to flee in order to realize the divine Will are in error. What must be done is exactly the opposite! The two must be combined in a perfect way. This is why all the honest sciences, the sciences that are practiced sincerely, honestly, exclusively with a will to know, are difficult paths - yet such sure paths for the total realization.

It brings up very interesting things. (What I am going to say now is very personal and consequently cannot be used, but it may be kept anyway:)

There are two parallel things that, from the eternal and supreme point of view, are of identical importance, in that both are equally essential for the realization to be a true realization.

On the one hand, there is what Sri Aurobindo - who, as the Avatar, represented the supreme Consciousness and Will on earth - declared me to be, that is, the supreme universal Mother; and on the other hand, there is what I am realizing in my body through the integral sadhana.' I could be the supreme Mother and not do any sadhana, and as a matter of fact, as long as Sri Aurobindo was in his body, it was he who did the sadhana, and I received the effects. These effects were automatically established in the outer being, but he was the one doing it, not I - I was merely the bridge between his sadhana and the world. Only when he left his body was I forced to take up the sadhana myself; not only did I have to do what I was doing before - being a bridge between his sadhana and the world - but I had to carry on the sadhana myself. When he left, he turned over to me the responsibility for what he himself had been doing in his body, and I had to do it. So there are both these things. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other (I don't mean successively in time, but ... it depends on the moment), and they are trying to combine in a total and perfect realization: the eternal, ineffable and immutable Consciousness of the Executrice of the Supreme, and the consciousness of the Sadhak of the integral Yoga who strives in an ascending effort towards an ever increasing progression.

1 Sadhana: yogic discipline. Sadhak: seeker.

To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.

Then - and this becomes rather amusing like life's play ... Depending upon each one's nature and position and bias, and because human beings are very limited, very partial and incapable of a global vision, there are those who believe, who have faith, or to whom the eternal Mother is revealed through Grace, who have this kind of relationship with the eternal Mother - and there are those who themselves are plunged in sadhana, who have the consciousness of a developed sadhak, and thereby have the same relationship with me as one has with what they generally call a 'realized soul.' Such persons consider me the prototype of the Guru teaching a new way, but the others don't have this relationship of sadhak to Guru (I am taking the two extremes, but of course there are all the possibilities in between), they are only in contact with the eternal Mother and, in the simplicity of their hearts, they expect Her to do everything for them. If they were perfect in this attitude, the eternal Mother would do everything for them - as a matter of fact, She does do everything, but as they aren't perfect, they cannot receive it totally. But the two paths are very different, the two kinds of relationships are very different; and as we all live according to the law of external things, in a material body, there is a kind of annoyance, an almost irritated misunderstanding, between those who follow this path (not consciously and intentionally, but spontaneously), who have this relationship of the child to the Mother, and those who have this other relationship of the sadhak to the Guru. So it creates a whole play, with an infinite diversity of shades.

But all this is still in suspense, on the way to realization, moving forward progressively; therefore, unless we are able to see the outcome, we can't understand a thing. We get confused. Only when we see the outcome, the final realization, only when we have TOUCHED there, will everything be understood - then it will be as clear and as simple as can be. But meanwhile, my relationships with different people are very funny, utterly amusing!

Those who have what I would call the more 'outer' relationship compared to the other (although it is not really so) - the relationship of yoga, of sadhana - consider the others superstitious; and the others, who have faith OI perception, or the Grace to have understood what Sri Aurobindo meant (perhaps even before knowing what he said, but in any event, after he said it), discard the others as ignorant unbelievers! And there are all the gradations in between, so it really becomes quite funny!

It opens up extraordinary horizons; once you have understood this, you have the key - you have the key to many, many things: the different positions of each of the different saints, the different realizations and ... it resolves all the incoherencies of the various manifestations on earth.

For example, this question of Power - THE Power - over Matter. Those who perceive me as the eternal, universal Mother and Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar are surprised that our power is not absolute. They are surprised that we have not merely to say, 'Let it be thus' for it to be 'thus.' This is because, in the integral realization, the union of the two is essential: a union of the power that proceeds from the eternal position and the power that proceeds from the sadhana through evolutionary growth. Similarly, how is it that those who have reached even the summits of yogic knowledge (I was thinking of Swami) need to resort to beings like gods or demigods to be able to realize things? - Because they have indeed united with certain higher forces and entities, but it was not decreed since the beginning of time that they were this particular being. They were not born as this or that, but through evolution they united with a latent possibility in themselves. Each one carries the Eternal within himself, but one can join Him only when one has realized the complete union of the latent Eternal with the eternal Eternal.

And ... this explains everything, absolutely everything: how it works, how it functions in the world.' I was saying to myself, 'But I have no powers, I have no powers!' Several days ago, I said, 'But after all, I KNOW WHO is there, I know, yet how is it that ... ? There, up to there (the level of the head), it is all-powerful, nothing can resist - but here ... it is ineffective.' So those who have faith, even an ignorant but real faith (it can be ignorant but nevertheless it is real), say, 'What! How can you have no powers?' ... Because the sadhana is not yet over.

1. Mother added: 'The most beautiful part of the experience is missing ... When I try to formulate something in too precise a way, all the vastness of the experience evaporates. The entire world is being revealed in all its organization down to the minutes" details - but everything simultaneously - how can that be explained? It's not possible.'

The Lord will possess his universe only when the universe will have consciously become the Lord.

Live Blog 30/1-Egypt Protests

2011-01-30T01:16:00.000-08:00

From our headquarters in Doha, we keep you updated on all things Egypt, with reporting from Al Jazeera staff in Cairo, Alexandria, and Suez.

Live blog 29/1 - Egypt Protests

Live blog 28/1 - Egypt Protests

Visit our special Anger in Egypt coverage page.

Watch Al Jazeera English broadcasting live from Cairo, Suez and Alexandria.

Read up on a timeline of the past four days of unprecedented protests.

View a gallery of photos from the past four days of protests.

Follow staff tweets on the protests from Egypt and Doha.

(All times are local in Egypt.)

LIVE BLOG URL:http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/29/live-blog-301-egypt-protests

The Fearless Muslims Of North Africa-Part5

2011-01-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

A Very Fine Thing

The Egyptian Revolution

By GARY LEUPP

January 28, 2011, Day of Rage.

I’m watching live coverage of the Egyptian revolution on Al-Jazeera TV. Cairo is swarming with hundreds of thousands, defying the curfew, hurling stones at the police. The images recall the Palestinian youth waging their Intifadas. The National Democratic Party headquarters is in flames. Downtown Suez has been taken over by the people, two police stations torched. The security forces are out in strength and shooting into crowds. But the people have lost their fear...read+

The Revolutionary Wave

Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen – is the West next?

by Justin Raimondo, January 28, 2011

Email This | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum

It started, of all places, in Tunisia, a land of sunny beaches and sleepy walled cities – the first stirrings of a revolutionary wave that, before it’s crested, may reach American shores..read+

Mubarak's Acts of Cowardice; Obama Calls Mubarak for 30-Minutes; Cell Service, Internet Total Shutdown; Anarchy in Cairo; How Long can Mubarak Last?

The situation in Egypt has gone from bad to worse. Cairo is in a state of near-anarchy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's cowardly disruptions to the internet and cell phones have made things worse.

Egyptian citizens unable to get news on the internet or cell phones have only one place to get it now, the street.

President Obama called Mubarak in a 30-minute phone call. Obama's message was "Ultimately, the future of Egypt will be determined by the Egyptian people."

If that was a hint, Mubarak did not get it. Instead, Cairo is in flames as protesters have turned more defiant...read+

The Fearless Muslims Of North Africa-Part4

2011-01-29T18:19:00.000-08:00

Bande Mataram, March 3, 1908

Mustafa Kamil Pasha

WE published yesterday among our selections a full account of the life and death of Mustafa Kamil Pasha, the great Nationalist leader in Egypt, who has regenerated Nationalism in his motherland and will be remembered in history as the chief among the creators of modern Egypt. The early death of this extraordinary man will be a blow to the movement, but we must remember what we are apt to forget that the life-work of a great man often does not begin till he dies. While the body fetters the activities of the spirit within, his work is limited in its scope and imperfect in its intensity, but when the material shackles are struck' off by the friendly hand of death, then the spirit ranges abroad in perfect freedom and the sudden and start- ling rapidity with which its work develops, forms a theme for the amazement and admiration of posterity. Whatever else Mustafa Kamil may have been, he was a sincere and enthusiastic patriot. When he left Egypt to help the cause of his country in foreign countries, he was welcomed even in England by those who had the generosity to appreciate patriotism; but the moment it appeared that his work was beginning to bear practical fruit in Egypt it- self, a storm of misrepresentation began to beat about his devoted head which has not even yet ceased. He was denounced as an intriguer, a paid tool of the Khedive, a Turcophil emissary of the Sultan. But Egypt felt the heart of a patriot in his writings and his speeches and her people responded to his call. The steady growth of the Nationalist Party has been mainly the work of Mustafa Kamil. It attained its consummation in the meaning of the recognised Nationalist Party when he was on the brink of the grave and his last self-forgetful service to his country was the speech which he rose from his death-bed to deliver upon that memorable occasion.

The programme of the Nationalist Party in Egypt has some resemblances to that of the Indian Nationalists. Its object is the independence of Egypt, its method is the appeal to the

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self-consciousness of the nation, and its reliance is on the help which God always gives to the cause of righteousness when it is pursued in a lofty and disinterested spirit. In his earlier career Mustafa relied too much on foreign sympathy and he persisted till the end in clinging to the hope of some assistance, moral if not material, from the foreign Powers financially interested in Egypt. But his trust in this chance of outward help never extended to the folly of expecting British statesmen to co-operate of deliberate purpose in hastening the day of Egypt's liberation. He was a statesman as well as a prophet of Nationalism. If he relied too much on foreign sympathy, it was because the national sentiment in Egypt was as yet local and he trusted in the moral support of other countries to prevent England from putting it down with the strong hand before it had become sufficiently self-conscious to survive oppression. The Sultan stood between Egypt and complete annexation to England, and therefore he always persisted in laying stress on the suzerainty of the Sultan. The religious solidarity of Islam was a moral asset in his favour and he insisted on this solidarity but never suffered it for a moment to interfere with the distinct existence of Egyptian Nationality. The cause of Nationality was his first object; the rest merely helps and supports. Towards the end of his career as the sentiment of Nationality grew more and more self-conscious and self-reliant in his countrymen, he too came to perceive in its fullness the truth that Egypt must rely on herself first and not on others. Foreign help can only be safe and beneficial if the nation has already grown strong enough to rely mainly on itself for its own separate existence.

Mustafa Kamil was a man of the type of Mazzini in one respect, his intense idealism and lofty idea of cosmopolitan unity embracing national independence. It is this idealism which will keep Egypt alive and secure the immortality of the Nationalist movement. When a movement for independence begins with diplomacy and Machiavellianism, it is doomed to failure as the Carbonari movement failed in Italy. God is not with it. It does not rely on the eternal principles of truth and virtue, but on the finite strength of human intellect and human means and to that finite strength God leaves it. When that strength comes to its

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limits, there is nothing left, and failure is final. But when a movement takes its stand on truth and justice, then it appeals to God Himself and He will see to it that the trust reposed in Him is not falsified. Failures may come but they will be only fresh incentives to purer and nobler effort. An immortal power will stand behind the movement and death will be afraid to come near it. Its leaders may be snatched away by the hand of death, hurried into exile or imprisonment, given to the hand of the executioner, but fresh leaders will arise. Its means may change from time to time, it may pass through ever-new phases and sometimes men may fail to recognise it as the same old movement, but God is within it always as its eternal and undying Self and it lasts till it receives its consummation.

The Fearless Muslims Of North Africa- Part3

2011-01-27T03:22:00.000-08:00

A Burning Desire for Freedom

Tonight We Are All Tunisians

By YVONNE RIDLEY

Over the last few days we have seen some of the bravest people facing down some of the worst.

Armed with nothing more than a revolutionary heart and hopes of a better future they gathered and protested as government forces aimed their weapons and fired live rounds in to the crowds.

But the ammunition and the underlying threats of arrest and torture meant absolutely nothing to the masses – for they had simply lost their fear.

It was the final testament to the brutality of a dictator who has had the support of European leaders and various presidents of the United States.
And that the Tunisian President Zine El-Abedine Ben Ali fled from his country like a rat up a drainpipe after 23 brutal years spoke volumes about the character of the man himself.

If he had one ounce of the courage his own people displayed, he too would have stayed but most of these tyrants are gutless with the moral fibre of a dung beetle. The demise of Ben Ali came when police prevented an unemployed 26-year-old graduate from selling fruit without a licence. Mohammad Bouazizi turned himself in to a human torch on December 17 and died of the horrific burns in Sidi Bouzid, in central Tunisia.

It was the final straw, a defining moment which ignited rallies, marches and demonstrations across Tunisia.

And revelations from Wikileaks cables exposing the corrupt and extravagant lifestyle of Ben Ali and his grasping wife fanned the flames of unbridled anger from a people who were also in the grip of poverty.
I knew it was coming. I saw the burning desire for freedom in the eyes of the courageous people of Ghafsa when the Viva Palestina Convoy entered the country in February 2009 on its way to Gaza.

Our convoy witnessed the menacing secret police intimidate the crowds to stop them from gathering to cheer us on.

This vast army of spies, thugs and enforcers even tried to stop us from praying in a local mosque.

That they stood their ground to cheer us on prompted me to leave my vehicle and hug all the women who had turned out. We exchanged cards and small gifts and then, to my horror, I discovered 24 hours later that every woman I had embraced in the streets of Gafsa had been taken away and questioned.

Human rights organizations have constantly condemened and exposed the brutality of the Ben Ali regime but that has not stopped America and European leaders from intervening or putting on pressure to stop the brutality.

Sadly, it serves western interests to have a people brutalized and subjugated.

Now Tunisia is minus one dictator but it is still in a state of emergency. The next few days and weeks are going to be crucial for the Tunisian people who deserve freedom and liberty. My God, they’ve paid for it with their own blood and we must always remember their martyrs.

None of the politicians, secret police or other odious government forces will emerge from this period with any honor and quite a few are already cowering in the shadows.

But perhaps the biggest show of cowardice in this whole sorry episode has come from The White House.

Not one word of condemnation, not one word of criticism, not one word urging restraint came from Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton as live ammunition was fired into crowds of unarmed men, women and children in recent weeks.

And news of the corrupt, mafia-like regime would not have come as a surprise to either of them. We know this thanks to the Wikileaks cables written by US Ambassador Robert Godec who revealed in one memo: “Corruption in the inner circle is growing.”

But, as the injustices and atrocities continued there was not one squeak from the most powerful nation on earth … until America’s dear friend, Ben Ali had scuttled from the country.

The reality is the US Administration likes dealing with tyrants and even encourages despotic behavior. Egypt is one of the biggest testaments to this with its prisons full of political opposition leaders. Hosni Mubarak is Uncle Sam's enforcer and biggest recipient of aid next to the Zionist State.

Pakistan's treatment of its own people is little better. Remember when US Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad wrote in one Wikileak cable about the human rights abuses carried out by the Pakistan military? Patterson then went on to advise Washington to avoid comment on these incidents.

But now the US has made a comment on the situation in Tunisia ... but only when Ben Ali was 30,000 feet in the air did White House spokesman Mike Hammer issue a statement which read: “We condemn the ongoing violence against civilians in Tunisia, and call on the Tunisian authorities to fulfill the important commitments … including respect for basic human rights and a process of much-needed political reform.”

Unbelievable. Too little, too late, Mr President. Actually that statement could have been uttered any time during the last US presidencies since Ronald Reagan.

But as I say, America couldn't give a stuff about the human rights of the people of the Maghreb, Pakistan, Egypt and Palestine to name but a few.

When US condemnation finally came through the tyrant had fled leaving behind more than 60 civilian martyrs and countless more injured.

Tomorrow I will go to the Tunisian Embassy in London as I have done previously and stand shoulder to shoulder with my Tunisian brothers and sisters and their supporters. We will remember the dead, we will pay tribute to the brave and courageous many who are still in the process of seizing back their country and we will pray that no tyrant will sleep easy in his bed from this moment on.

Tonight we are all Tunisians.

Yvonne Ridley is a British journalist and also a patron of the London-based NGO Cageprisoners. She can be reached at yvonne@yvonneridley.org

The Fearless Muslims Of North Africa- Part2

2011-01-27T03:18:00.000-08:00

Karmayogin, 2 October 1909

Nation-stuff in Morocco
The Powers of Europe are highly indignant at the tortures and
mutilations practised by Mulai Hamid on his vanquished rival,
El Roghi, and his captured adherents. There is no doubt that the
savage outbreak of mediaeval and African savagery of which
the Moorish Sultan has been guilty, is revolting and deprives
him personally of all claim to sympathy; but European moral
indignation in the matter seems to us to be out of place when we
remember the tortures practised by American troops on Filipinos
(to say nothing of the ghastly details of lynching in the Southern
States), and the unbridled atrocities of the European armies in
China. Be that as it may, we come across a remarkable account,
extracted in the Indian Daily News, of the stuff of which the
Moorish people are made. The narrator is Belton, the Englishman
who commanded the Sultan’s army and has resigned his
post as a protest against the Sultan’s primitivemethod of treating
political prisoners. Death and mutilation seem to have been the
punishments inflicted. Belton narrates that twenty officers of El
Roghi had their right hands cut off and then seared, according to the barbarous old surgical fashion, in a cauldron of boiling
oil, to stop the bleeding. Not from one of these men, reports
the English soldier with wonder, did there come, all the time,
a single whimper. And he goes on to tell how one of them,
after the mutilation, quietly walked over to the fire where the
cauldron was boiling, and, while his stump was being plunged
in the boiling liquid, lighted from the flame with the utmost
serenity a cigarette he held in his hand. Whatever may be the
present backwardness of the Moors and the averseness to light
of their tribes, there is the stuff of a strong, warlike and princely
nation in the land which gave birth to these iron men. If ever
the wave of Egyptian Neo-Islam and Mahomedan Nationalism
sweeps across Morocco, Europe will have to reckon with no
mean or contemptible people in the North West of Africa.

The Fearless Musliims Of North African-Part1

2011-01-27T03:13:00.000-08:00

Karmayogin, 28 August 1909
Spain and the Moor
Another corner of the Asiatic world—for Northern Africa is
thoroughly Asianised if not Asiatic,—is convulsed with struggles
which may well precede another resurgence. There was a
time when the Moor held Spain and gave civilisation to semibarbarous
Europe. The revolution of the wheel has now gone to its utmost length and finds the Spaniard invading Morocco. But
this invasion does not seem to promise any Spanish expansion in
Africa.With infinite difficulty and at the cost of a bloody ´emeute
in Spain King Alfonso’s Government have landed a considerable
army in Morocco and yet with all that force can only just protect
their communications and stand facing the formidable country
where the stubborn Kabyle tribesmen await the invader. There
the army is hung up for the present, unwilling to retreat and
afraid to advance, and the Spanish General has again sent to
Spain for reinforcements, a feat of military strategy at which he
seems to be exceptionally skilful. If the men of the mountains are
fortunate enough to have a leader with a head on his shoulders,
the circumstances augur a reverse for Spain as decisive and perhaps
more sanguinary than the Italian overthrow in Abyssinia.
Meanwhile King Alfonso has sacrificed all his youthful popularity
by this ill-omened war and the bloody severity which
has temporarily saved his throne. And with the popularity of
the young King has gone the friendship of the Spanish nation
for England, for the Spaniards accuse that friendship of the
origination of these troubles and the British Govern

Man's Origin Part 3

2011-01-14T23:16:00.000-08:00

When Manu Prajapati wishes to incarnate in a fresh form, he has a mental body prepared for him by evolution of births by a human vibhuti, Suratha or another &takes possession of it at the beginning of his manvantara. Each manvantara is composed of a varying number of chaturyugas according to the importance & difﬁculty of the stage with which it is concerned. Once at least in each chaturyuga the Manu of the Manvantara incarnates as a man upon earth, but this never happens in the Kali Yuga. The seventh & eighth Manus are the most important in each Prati Kalpa & have the longest reigns, for in their Manvantaras the critical change is ﬁnally made from the type which was completed in the last Prati Kalpa to the type which is to be perfected in the present Kalpa. For each of the ten Prati- Kalpas has its type. Man in the ten Prati-Kalpas progresses through the ten types which have been ﬁxedfor his evolution in the Kalpa. In this Kalpa the types, dashagu, are the ten forms of consciousness, called the Pashu, Vanara, Pishacha, Pramatha, Rakshasa, Asura, Deva, Sadhyadeva, Siddhadeva and the Satyadeva. The last three are known by other names which need not be written at present. The Pashu is mind concentrated entirely on the annam, the Vanara mind concentrated on the Prana, the Pishacha mind concentrated on the senses & the knowledge part of the chitta, the Pramatha mind concentrated on the heart & the emotional & aesthetic part of the chitta, the Rakshasa is mind concentrated on the thinking manas proper & taking up all the others into the manas itself; the Asura is mind concentrated on the buddhi & in the Asura Rakshasa making it serve the manas & chitta; the Deva is mind concentrated in vijnanam, exceeding itself, but in the Asura Deva or Devasura it makes the vijnana serve the buddhi. The others raise mind successively to the Ananda, Tapas & Sat & are, respectively, the supreme Rakshasa, the supreme Asura, the supreme Deva. We have here the complete scale by which Mind ascends its own ladder from Matter to pure Being evolved by Man in the various types of which each of the ten principles is in its turn capable. To take the joy of these various types in their multifold play is the object of the Supreme Purusha in the human Lila.

Man's Origin Part 2

2011-01-14T23:06:00.000-08:00

The animal proper is a lower type. Certain devas of the manasic plane in the Bhuvarloka descend in the higher type of animal. They are not mental beings proper, but only half-mental vital beings. They live in packs, tribes etc with a communal existence. They are individual souls, but the individuality is less vigorous than the type soul. If they were not individual, they would not be able to incarnate in individual forms. The body is only the physical type of the soul. The soul, if it were only a communal soul, would manifest in some complex body of which the conglomeration of the different parts would be the sole unity; say, a life like that of the human brain. The animal develops the tribe life, the pack or clan life, the family life. He develops chitta, manas, the rudiments of reason. Then only man appears.

How does he appear? Prajapati manifests as Vishnu Upendra incarnate in the animal or Pashu in whom the four Manus have already manifested themselves, and the ﬁrst human creature who appears is, in this Kalpa, the Vanara, not the animal Ape, but man with the Ape nature. His satya yuga is the ﬁrst Paradise, for man begins with the Satya Yuga, begins with a perfected type, not a rudimentary type. The animal forms a perfect type for the human Pashu andthen only a Manuputra or Manu, a human, a true mental soul, enters into existence upon earth, with the full blaze of a perfect animal-human mentality in the animal form.

These are man’s beginnings. He rises by the descent of ever higher types of Manu from the Bhuvarloka,ﬁrst he is Pashu, then Pishacha, then Pramatha, then Rakshasa, then Asura, then Deva, then Siddha. So he ascends the ladder of his own being towards the Sat Purusha.

Manu, the ﬁrst Prajapati, is a part of Mahavishnu Himself descended into the mental plane in order to conduct the destinies of the human race. He is different from the four Manus who are more than Prajapatis, they being the four Type-Souls from whom all human Purushas are born; they are Manus only for the purpose of humanity & in themselves are beyond this manifest universe & dwell for ever in the being of the Para Purushas. They are not true Manomaya Purushas. But Manu Prajapati is a true manomaya Purusha. He by mental generation begets on his female Energies men in the mental & vital planes above earth, whence they descend into the material or rather the terrestrial body. On earth Manu incarnates fourteen times in each Kalpa & each of these fourteen incarnations is called a Manu. These fourteen Manus govern human destinies during the hundred chaturyugas of the Prati-Kalpa, each in turn taking charge of a particular stage of the human advance. While that stage lasts he directs it both from the mental world and by repeated incarnations upon earth.

Sri Aurobindo :Glossary To The Records Of Yoga

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Sri Aurobindo--Glossary to the Records of Yoga

Sri Aurobindp Talks Letters

2011-01-04T22:20:00.000-08:00

Sri Aurobindo Talks Letters and Articles

Hyperinflation Rocks India

2011-01-04T22:15:00.000-08:00

August 21, 1893

Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism.

Sri Aurobindo

Indian Street Markets Are Tense As Commodity Prices Rise

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-india-inflation-2011-1##ixzz1A8gMQpga

Man's Origins Part1

2010-12-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

1323
NOTES ON IMAGES SEEN IN MARCH 1914

The Evolutionary Scale.

We shall see how the thought of God works itself out in Life. The material world is ﬁrst formed with the Sun as centre, the Sun [ ]1 being itself only a subordinate star of the great Agni, Mahavishnu, in whom is centred the Bhu. Mahavishnu is the Virat Purusha who as Agni pours Himself out into the forms of sun and star. He is Agni Twasht´
a, Visvakarman, he is also Praj´

apati and Matariswan. These are the three primal Purushas of the earth life,Agni Twashta, Praj´

apati &Matariswan, all of them soul bodies of Mahavishnu. Agni Twashta having made the Sun out of the Apas or waters of being, Prajapati as Surya Savitri enters into the Sun and takes possession of it. He multiplies himself in the Suris or Solar Gods who are the souls of the ﬂames of Surya, the Purushas of the female solar energies. Then he creates out of this solar body of Vishnu the planets each of which successively becomes the Bhumi or place of manifestation for Manu, the mental being, who is the nodus of manifest life-existence and the link between the life and the spirit. The present earth in its turn appears as the scene of life, Mars being its last theatre. In the Bhumi Agni Twashta is again the ﬁrst principle, Matariswan the second, ﬁnally, Prajapati appears in the form of the four Manus, chatv´

aro manavah. Not in the physical world at ﬁrst, but in the mental world which stands behind the earth-life; for earth has seven planes of being, the material of which the scenes and events are alone normally visible to the material senses, the vital of which man’s pranakosha is built and to which it is responsive, the mental to which his manahkosha is attached, the ideal governing his vijnanakosha, the beatiﬁc which supports his anandakosha, & the dynamic and essential to which he has not yet developed corresponding koshas, but only unformed nimbuses of concrete being. All the gods throw out their linga-rupas into these worlds of earth and through them carry on her affairs; for these lingas repeat there in the proper terms of life upon earth the conscious movements of the gods in their higher existences in the worlds above Bhu. The Manus manifested in the Manoloka of Bhu bring pressure to bear upon the earth for the manifestation of life and mind. Prajapati as Rudra then begins to form life upon earth, ﬁrst in vegetable, then in animal forms. Man already exists but as a god or demigod in Bhuvarloka of Bhu, not as a man upon earth. There he is Deva, Asura, Rakshasa, Pramatha, Pisacha, Pashu or as Deva he is either Gandharva[,] Yaksha, Vidyadhara or any of the Karmadevas. For Man is a son of the Manu and is assigned his place in Div & Pradiv, in Heaven & in the Swargabhumis. Thence he descends to earth and thither from earth he returns. All that will be explained afterwards. When the human body is ready, then he descends upon earth and occupies it. He is not a native of earth, nor does he evolve out of the animal. His manifestation in animal form is always a partial incarnation, as will be seen hereafter...

Mahavishnu

2010-12-27T02:29:00.000-08:00

n Hinduism, Mahavishnu (Devanāgarī: महाविष्णु) is an aspect of Vishnu, the Absolute which is beyond human comprehension and is beyond all attributes. In Vaishnavite theology, the term is similar to Brahman and Almighty Absolute Supreme Personality of Godhead. Precisely, this means that Absolute truth is realized as Brahman (first - impersonal) then as Paramatma and then as Bhagavan. Then goes bhakti to Bhagavan, Krishna (Vishnu, Narayana). So bhakti surpasses even yoga which is aimed on Supersoul, Paramatma. Mahavishnu is Supersoul of all living beings (jivaatmas) in all material universes. It is also often used interchangeably with Vishnu to indicate reverence, as the prefix "Mahā" exalts the noun to which it is attached.

Mahavishnu is said to lie in the causal ocean or the Karanodak. He puts the seed of this material universe in Mahāmāyā by glancing at her. Mahāmāyā remains the ever obedient material energy of the Supreme Lord. All the natural elements including sky, fire, water, air and ether are created along with mind, intelligence and false ego.

After this Mahavishnu enters each of the many universes so created (seeds emerging from the pores of His skin). Garbhodaksayi Vishnu lays down in each and every of these individual material universes (Brahmandas). It can be interpreted that Garbodakshayi Vishnu is the collective of all souls in a particular material universe and Mahavishnu is the collective of all souls in all of the material universes.

From the Garbodakshayi Vishnu, then emerges Brahmā who is the secondary creator (due to his need to meditate to create planets in the material universe) of the planetary systems within particularly this material universe (Brahmanda).

Maha-Vishnu is an expansion of Sankarshana.

source:wikipedia

Egoistic Faith

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10 June – 29 September 1914
545

Script.

The Devatas are resisting once more the ﬁnal elevation into the sunlight; but by this struggle they are conﬁrming throughout the nature the ananda of battle and the right ananda of defeat as enjoyable in itself in the samata, but in the activity to be viewed & enjoyed in the light of a step towards victory. In reality the prakasha is there, but it is not yet evenly distributed & pervasive.

The equipment has begun; there will be enough for one year from this July onward for bare expenses. This step gained is only an initial step and the whole viewpoint will have to be changed before long. The means will be Brahminic, danagrahana, Vaisya, literary & commercial, & afterwards, Kshatriya. All these must be done on a large scale, but the Brahminic ﬁrst. Of these things there is at present no apparent sign.

Samadhi

In swapnasamadhi clear but stationary rupas &scenes of great
stability.
Abdul Baha, stable, repeatedly, the face only. “The time is
coming” in Hindi.

In jagrat bahirdarshi the rupas are exceedingly vivid & have sometimes the ﬁrst initial stability; only crude images have the longer stability. Reﬂected images are far more vivid & beautiful, whether of men or things, than their material counterparts.

546
Record of Yoga
The ﬁnal double afﬁrmation is visibly preparing behind the
obstinate denial opposed to it.

Lipi.

1.It is the egoistic faith that is to be dispelled.
2It is the perfect light that is to dispel the egoistic faith in the
gods in the intellectuality.
3It is the intellectuality that is to accept delight of the ideality.
Script

The egoistic faith now belongs to the devatas who oppose, not to the Jiva which accepts the entire mastery of Krishna. The shadow of their ego falls on the system, but even the system rejects it. That which was ego, is now only personality.
Lipi kaushalya continues to manifest. Spontaneous stability is
again difﬁcult.
Script.

The progress in samadhi is gradual &stepby step, not because it is difﬁcult, but because of the immense mass of resistance opposed to it.The attempts to prevent the triple afﬁrmation are only tem-
porarily successful as the price of great effort; the siddhi always
reasserts itself

Source:SRI AUROBINDO'S RECORD OF YOGA,PG:545,546

Integral Yoga Vs Traditional Yoga

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24. PURNA YOGA & THE TRADITIONAL YOGAS

The aim of any yoga is moksha, liberation of the soul from the cycle of births and deaths. In Purna Yoga the aim is not liberation of the soul but transformation of human life into Divine Life. To start this Yoga the soul is to be liberated, but not from the cycle of birth and death. The soul is to be liberated from ego and desire. The soul that seeks its own liberation while millions of other souls languish in darkness is expressing an egoistic desire. In Purna Yoga the human soul must renounce the desire for individual salvation and lend its liberated status as an instrument for the greater fulfilment of the original Divine Intention.

Hatha Yoga, Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Tantra, and Raja Yoga are the main lines of Indian Yoga. In all these yogas, the system chooses one part and purifies it through austerities. Purification leads to the liberation of that Purusha, the Purusha of that part. Through that initial liberation they attain Moksha, i.e. give liberation to the Jivatma. Hatha Yoga’s instrument is the body. It liberates the Annamaya Purusha and attains final liberation of Jivatma through that. Jnana Yoga uses thought in the mind as the instrument to work on and attains the desired result, initially releasing Manomaya Purusha. Raja Yoga uses the whole mind to achieve the same result. Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga use the vital and will respectively. All Indian Yogas use one part of the human being. Purna Yoga uses all the parts of the being—mind, vital and body—and seeks the release of Psychic being from the domination of nature, the Prakriti. It is called Purna Yoga because its instrument is the whole being.

In our tradition Kundalini awakens and rises through the chakras in the heart between the brows and the head and joins the thousand-petalled Lotus above the head yielding Moksha through Samadhi. In Purna Yoga the entire process is in the reverse. The Yogi releases the psychic being hidden behind the heart from the ego and desire. The Psychic comes out and hastens the purification of the entire instrument. This opens the thousand–petalled Lotus, first and lets the higher spiritual force descend through all the chakras down to the Kundalini, which is awakened at the end

In the tradition we use one part to liberate the whole. This being an arduous task, naturally serious austerities are called for. Asanas, Pranayama, Japa, Mantra, Tantra, etc. are resorted to. In Purna Yoga, as the whole being is the instrument and the sadhak is not the human being but the Divine Itself, the path is broad. Hence all narrow austerities are avoided. Methods needed here are sincerity and aspiration. Only, they must be total and intense.

Tradition employs physical methods. Purna Yoga eschews physical methods and resorts to only spiritual and psychological methods.

Tantra Yoga, which occupies a place of pride in Yogas, starts with the dictum that MAN is a soul in the body. Purna Yoga begins with the assumption that MAN is a soul in the mind.

It is customary for the Jnani to look down upon the ignorant Bhakta, and the Karma Yogi frowns on the Jnana as insubstantial, etc. Each yoga is inimical to the other. In Purna Yoga, not only are all these three systems included, but each leads to the other, to finally integrate the effort.

Indian Yoga is a life-shunning path. Purna Yoga declares that all life is Yoga and embraces life in its fold. Rishis, Munis, Yogis, when displeased, are known to spell out a curse. Purna Yoga has as its experiential base ‘all life is divine’. It does not lend itself to curse anyone. If in its path an obstacle is laid, it looks into itself to remove the deep-seated curse, the eternal falsehood.

Traditional Yogas purify one part of the being and the ego of that part is dissolved, while the egos of the other parts remain. In Purna Yoga the ego in every part must be wiped out to bring the psychic being forward, the very first requirement.

Traditional yoga is done in the hermitages in the forest, away from life. Purna Yoga accepts life, lives it as the Divine Wills it to be lived, so that Life is divinised.

Guru is all in our tradition and even replaces God as far as the Sishya is concerned. The guru is God. Purna Yoga does not seek or accept a human guru. The Jagat Guru, the world Teacher in the heart of the sadhaka, is the only Guru.

Yogis pray to the gods Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna to grant them boons in their Yoga. The gods assent and grant the prayers. The Gods help the Yogi in his Yogic realisation. Purna Yoga aims at bringing down the power of the Vignana Loka, the Supramental plane that is above the plane of the gods, the overmental plane. If gods are accepted by the sadhaka, his yogic achievement will be limited by the limitation of gods, unless the participating god himself seeks spiritual progress through Purna Yoga.

Practice of this Yoga is not governed by Asanas, Pranayama, dress regulation, diet restriction, auspicious hours or even Mantras. Even meditation occupies a place of less importance here, not the pride of place accorded usually.

Indian tradition does not encourage women to take to sannyasa, yoga or Tapas. In certain disciplines there is even a prohibition. Mother accepts women with the same eagerness as men into Her fold. The only criterion for Mother is the fitness for yoga.

Our tradition says—and Sri Aurobindo also has said the same thing—that in sleep every human being goes to Satchidananda to be spiritually energised. The stone stillness of sleep enables the soul to raise itself to that height. Purna Yoga demands the same type of inner stillness in activity for its accomplishment.

Gods

2010-12-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

15. GODS

Mother always had several types of relationships with the Gods. She once saw a film on Anusuya, the wife of a rishi. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva appeared before Anusuya and asked food to be served by her naked. Anusuya turned the Tirumurthis into babies by the power of her chastity and served them food. Mother commented that it was a lovely story. Mother explained that through her devotion Anusuya invoked the Supreme to come to the rescue of her husband against the erratic wishes of the Tirumurthis.

Mother used to conduct meditation in the hall and several gods, goddesses and rishis used to regularly participate in the meditation. She said they perched themselves on the cornices of the meditation hall pillars. Durga came every year a day or two before the puja for Durga. Mother spoke to Durga about surrender to the Supreme. This concept was new to Durga and she was intrigued. Later she understood. Durga explained that the gods never thought of surrender. It was not their way. When Durga understood and offered surrender to the Supreme, she enjoyed the new experience.

Once Mother spoke to the sea god and asked him not to disturb her work by encroaching into her building. Mother had heard a lot about Ganesh. One day she meditated to see him. She saw him approaching with his trunk and a smile. She was surprised that he did exist. He was happy to do anything for Mother. Mother expressed her need for money for the work. He agreed to do his part. Mother said that for ten years money flowed in constantly. Later she took up work in America. By that time money had dried up. She called Ganesh and asked him what happened to his promise. Ganesh expressed his inability, saying that Mother’s need was too big and his resources were limited. Mother explained that since people in America had no knowledge or faith in Ganesh, he could not give her money for work in America.

A Ganesh temple near the Ashram was being renovated and there was not enough space on one side. Ganesh came to Mother and asked her for space from one of her adjacent buildings. Mother called her people and arranged for it.

Mother returned to her room one day and found Shiva standing there. He was as tall as the room. His head reached the ceiling. She had a conversation with him and he said he was willing to help her. She wanted her physical ego to be eliminated. Shiva consented and the next moment the sensation in the cells showed that the dissolution of her physical ego had begun. She told Sri Aurobindo what had happened. He felt it was not necessary at that time. Immediately every movement in Mother’s cells stopped.

Mother had asked Shiva and Krishna to incarnate in the body of Sri Aurobindo to expedite his mission. Shiva was unwilling and said he would come after the advent of the Supermind. Krishna agreed and entered into Sri Aurobindo’s body. Mother says she saw with her own eyes Krishna incarnating in Sri Aurobindo’s body. She reported all that to Sri Aurobindo and found that he was not interested.

Sri Aurobindo used to say that he never wanted to be limited by the gods. The gods belong to the overmental plane. Their dimension, Mother says, belongs to the dimension of earth. Overmind is a plane where the full power of truth does not exist. It is a plane where truths can protect themselves and act, eliminating the destructive influence of ignorance. Overmind brings together several truths to act in unison. Krishnavatar came from this plane. The color of this plane is blue. Sri Aurobindo explained to Mother that the overmental truth had no power to transform ignorance into knowledge. It can function successfully protecting its truth and avoiding the warping influence of ignorance. Truth is self-existent in the next plane of Supermind. Here there is no ignorance. Power of Supermind can enter into ignorance, reach its foundation of truth, unite all of them and from there transform ignorance into knowledge. Without that seed of truth, however little, neither ignorance, nor evil, nor falsehood, nor even hostility can exist. Beings of the supramental plane are of the dimension of the universe. On February 29, 1956 when the Supermind descended, Mother found herself as big as the universe and in a golden form. The gods have a limitation when they come to function in the supramental plane. Sri Aurobindo had declared he never wanted to be limited by the gods in his work.

After 1950, Mother sometimes took to walking. She was walking daily on the verandah outside Sri Aurobindo’s room. After a few days, she found Krishna walking alongside her. Much later, she found Sri Aurobindo instead of Krishna walking with her. These were adorable moments in her life. She remarked to Sri Aurobindo how nice it was to walk with him. It was much better than the other work she was doing. From that day onwards, he stopped coming. After sometime Mother found that, when she walked on the verandah, She was followed by HERSELF.

Siddhi Day:Homage To Sri Aurobindo And The Mother

2010-11-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

OM NAMO BHAGAVATE

The True Meaning Of Deepavali

2010-11-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

"the world of the Sun of Truth, svar, or the Great
Heaven. We have to find the path to this Great Heaven, the path of Truth,
rtasya panthah, [[III.12.7; also VII.66.3.]] or as it is sometimes called the
way of the gods. This is the second mystic doctrine. The third is that our life is a
battle between the powers of Light and Truth, the Gods who are the Immortals
and the powers of Darkness. These are spoken of under various names as Vritra
and Vritras, Vala and the Panis, the Dasyus and their kings. We have to call in
the aid of the Gods to destroy the opposition of these powers of Darkness who
conceal the Light from us or rob us of it, who obstruct the flowing of the streams
of Truth, rtasya dharah, [[V.12.2; also VII.43.4.]] the streams of Heaven
and obstruct in every way the soul's ascent. We have to invoke the Gods by the
inner sacrifice, and by the Word call them into us, -- that is the specific power of
the Mantra, -- to offer to them the gifts of the sacrifice and by that giving secure
their gifts, so that by this process we may build the way of our ascent to the goal.
The elements of the outer sacrifice in the Veda are used as symbols of the inner
sacrifice and self-offering; we give what we are and what we have in order that
the riches of the divine Truth and Light may descend into our life and become
the elements of our inner birth into the Truth, -- a right thinking, a right
understanding, a right action must develop in us which is the thinking, impulsion
and action of that higher Truth, rtasya presa, rtasya dhitih, [[I.68.3.]] and
by this we must build up ourselves in that Truth. Our sacrifice is a journey, a
pilgrimage and a battle, -- a travel towards the Gods and we also make that
journey with Agni, the inner Flame, as our path-finder and leader. Our human
things are raised up by the mystic Fire into the immortal being, into the Great
Heaven, and the things divine come down into us. As the doctrine of the Rig-
veda is the seed of the teaching of the Vedanta, so is its inner practice and
discipline a seed of the later practice and discipline of Yoga. Finally, as the
summit of the teaching of the Vedic mystics comes the secret of the one Reality,
ekam sat, [[1.164.46.]] or tad ekam, [[X.129.2.]] which became the
central word of the Upanishads. The Gods, the powers of Light and Truth are
powers and names of the One, each God is himself all the Gods or carries them
in him: there is the one Truth, tat satyam, [[III.39.5; also IV.54.4 and
VIII.45.27.]] and one bliss to which we must rise. But in the Veda this looks out
still mostly from behind the veil. There is much else but this is the kernel of the
doctrine"
SRI AUROBINDO

The Importance Of Sri Ramakrishna

2010-11-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

From a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Bombay National Union by Sri Aurobindo to a large gathering at Mahajanwadi, Bombay, on Sunday, the 19th January, 1908. The title is "The present situation".[…] The Bengali has the faculty of belief. Belief is not a merely intellectual process, belief is not a mere persuasion of the mind, belief is something that is in our heart, and what you believe, you must do, because belief is from God. It is to the heart that God speaks, it is in the heart that God resides. That saved the Bengali. Because of this capacity of belief, we were chosen as the people who were to save India, the people who were to stand foremost, the people who must suffer for their belief, the people who must meet everything in the faith that God was with them and that God is in them. Such a people need not be politically strong, it need not be a people sound in physique, it need not be a people of the highest intellectual standing. It must be a people who can believe.In Bengal there came a flood of religious truth.Certain men were born, men whom the educated world would not have recognised if that belief, if that God within them had not been there to open their eyes, men whose lives were very different from what our education, our Western education, taught us to admire.One of them, the man who had the greatest influence and has done the most to regenerate Bengal, could not read and write a single word. He was a man who had been what they call absolutely useless to the world. But he had this one divine faculty in him, that he had more than faith and had realised God. He was a man who lived what many would call the life of a madman, a man without intellectual training, a man without any outward sign of culture or civilisation, a man who lived on the alms of others, such a man as the English-educated Indian would ordinarily talk of as one useless to society. He will say, "This man is ignorant. What does he know? What can he teach me who have received from the West all that it can teach?"But God knew what he was doing. He sent that man to Bengal and set him in the temple of Dakshineshwar in Calcutta, and from North and South and East and West, the educated men, men who were the pride of the university, who had studied all that Europe can teach, came to fall at the feet of this ascetic.The work of salvation, the work of raising India was begun.Sri Aurobindo from "Speeches", booklet edition pages 26-27also in SABCL, volume 1published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherrydiffusion by SABDA

source:intyoga

The Need Of The Hour

2010-10-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

"What India needs especially at this moment is the aggressive virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation, fearless resistance, courageous attack; of the passive tamasic spirit of inertia we have already too much. We need to cultivate another training and temperament, another habit of mind."
SRI AUROBINDO
source:danino's lectures

Conversations With Sri Aurobindo On Vivekananda's Letter

2010-10-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Disciple : The question is : Is Vivekananda expressing only a passing mood because of his innate preference for Vairagya or was ambition really an element mixed up in his work. I always felt that there was a double strain in his nature,—he was drawn between work and Sadhana.

Disciple : It is quite understandable that he observed some ambition lurking in his work. I do not think it is only a passing mood. Simultaneously with the Higher Consciousness one can see these things in one's nature.

Sri Aurobindo : These things, like ambition etc., are not easily removed. They remain in the nature and are difficult to get rid of. Even when the Higher Consciousness comes they can continue with the lower nature.

Disciple : But he says in his writings and speeches that he was conscious of a Higher Power driving him into activity.

Sri Aurobindo : Quite possible; he was conscious of such a Power driving him in spite of his weakness, but that does not mean that his own ambition did not mix with the working of the Power.

Disciple : But later on in his letter he speaks of being freed after death or "freed in the body". That implies that he did not attain liberation till then.

Sri Aurobindo : There are two kinds of liberation : one is when you drop the body, that is to say, you may have attained liberation in consciousness yet something in the nature continues in the old bondage and that ignorance is usually supported by the body-consciousness. When the body drops the man becomes entirely free or liberated.

read more

Vivekananda's letter on Nirvana

2010-10-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

27-1-1939

This evening a very feeling letter written by Vivekananda in 1900 from California to Miss. Josephine Macleod was read to Sri Aurobindo. The relevant points in it are here reproduced.

Alameda, California 18th April 1900

After all, Joe, I am only a boy who used to listen with rapt wonderment to the wonderful words of Ramakrishna under the banyan at Dakshineshwar. That is my true nature, doing good and so forth are all super-impositions. Now I again hear the voice; the same old voice thrilling my soul. Bonds are breaking, love dying, work becoming tasteless—the glamour is off life. .

Yes, I come, Nirvana is before me, I feel it at times, the same infinite ocean of peace, without a ripple, a breath.

Since the beginning of this year, I have not dictated anything in India. You know that..

I am drifting again in the warm heart of the river, I dare not make a splash with my hand or feet for fear of breaking the wonderful stillness, stillness that makes you feel sure it (the world) is an illusion.

Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst of power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come, Mother....a spectator, no more an actor.

.............things are seen and felt like shadows.

Vivekananda

Aldous Huxley on Self-Transcedence

2010-10-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

Aldous Huxley on Self-Transcendence

Let's Celebrate John lennon's Hopes And Dreams

2010-10-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

Rama And Ayodhya

2010-10-03T00:11:00.000-07:00

"I have no intention of entering into a supreme defence of Rama – I only entered into the points about Bali etc. because these are usually employed nowadays to belittle him as a great personality on the usual level. But from the point of view of Avatarhood I would no more think of defending his moral perfection according to modern standards than I would think of defending Napoleon or Caesar against the moralists or the democratic critics or the debunkers in order to prove that they were Vibhutis. Vibhuti, Avatar are terms which have their own meaning and scope, and they are not concerned with morality or immorality, perfection or imperfection according to small human standards or setting an example to men or showing new moral attitudes or giving new spiritual teachings. These may or may not be done, but they are not at all the essence of the matter.
Also, I do not consider your method of dealing with the human personality of Rama to be the right one. It has to be taken as a whole in the setting that Valmiki gave it (not treated as if it were the story of a modern man) and with the significance that he gave to his hero's personality, deeds and works. If it is pulled out of its setting and analysed under the dissecting knife of a modern ethical mind, it loses all its significance at once. Krishna so treated becomes a debauchee and trickster who no doubt did great things in politics – but so did Rama in war. Achilles and Odysseus pulled out of their setting become, one a furious egoistic savage, and the other a cruel and cunning savage. I consider myself under an obligation to enter into the spirit, significance, atmosphere of the Mahabharata, Iliad, Ramayana and identify myself with their time-spirit before I can feel what their heroes were in themselves apart from the details of their outer action.
As for the Avatarhood, I accept it for Rama because he fills a place in the scheme – and seems to me to fill it rightly – and because when I read the Ramayana I feel a great afflatus which I recognise and which makes of its story – mere faery-tale though it seems – a parable of a great critical transitional event that happened in the terrestrial evolution and gives to the main character's personality and action a significance of the large typical cosmic kind which these actions would not have had if they had been done by another man in another scheme of events. The Avatar is not bound to do extraordinary actions, but he is bound to give his acts or his work or what he is – any of these or all – a significance and an effective power that are part of something essential to be done in the history of the earth and its races. All the same, if anybody does not see as I do and wants to eject Rama from his place, I have no objection – I have no particular partiality for Rama – provided somebody is put in who can worthily fill up the gap his absence leaves. There was somebody there, Valmiki's Rama or another Rama or somebody not Rama.

Sri Aurobindo

Baba Farid

2010-10-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

I am neither Hindu nor Muslim -

Let us sit in the spinning part and abandon pride

Since the Lord dwells in every heart

I have renounced to be either a Hindu or a Turk

(Baba Farid)

Hazrat Bābā Farīduddīn Mas'ūd Ganjshakar (Persian: حضرت بابا فرید الدّین مسعود گنج شکر, Punjabi: حضرت بابا فرید الدّین مسعود گنج شکر, ਫ਼ਰੀਦ-ਉਦ-ਦੀਨ ਗੰਜਸ਼ਕਰ) (1173–1266)^[1]^[2] or (1188 (584 Hijri) - May 7, 1280 (679 Hijri)),^[3]^[4] commonly known as Baba Farid (Punjabi: بابا فرید, ਬਾਬਾ ਫ਼ਰੀਦ), was a 12th-century Sufi preacher and saint of the Chishti Order of South Asia.^[1]

Hazrat Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar, a Sufi, is generally recognized as the first major poet of the Punjabi language^[3] and is considered one of the pivotal saints of the Punjab region. Revered by Muslims and Hindus, he is also considered one of the fifteen Sikh Bhagats within Sikhism and his selected works form part of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh sacred scripture..read+

Fault Lines - The other debt crisis: Climate debt

2010-09-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

Was Ahmadinejad's Comments on 9//11 outrageous?

2010-09-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

Here are 5 surprising facts about spying in America.

We understand if some of this sounds far-fetched. But take a look for yourself, and see if you can disprove these claims.

1: Cheney and Rumsfeld Pushed for Warrantless Wiretaps in the '70s

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumseld and other government officials who held high positions in the George W. Bush administration pushed for wiretaps without approval by a judge ... in the 1970s.

2: Massive Spying on Americans Began Before 9/11

You know about the government's massive program of spying on Americans which has been justified as a necessary response to 9/11?

Whistleblowers from major telecommunications companies have testified that the program began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here).

3: U.S. and Allied Intelligence Heard the 9/11 Hijackers Plans from Their Own Mouths

The 9/11 hijackers were largely unknown prior to that horrible event, right?

Actually, U.S. and allied intelligence services heard a lot from the hijackers' own mouths prior to 9/11:

An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House. As the New York Times notes:
Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence ....
The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.

According to Le Monde, the intelligence services of America's close ally France and of other governments had infiltrated the highest levels of Al-Qaeda's camps, and actually listened to the hijackers' debates about which airlines' planes should be hijacked, and allied intelligence services also intercepted phone conversations between Al-Qaeda members regarding the attacks

According to journalist Christopher Ketcham, America's close ally Israel tracked the hijackers' every move prior to the attacks, and sent agents to film the attack on the World Trade Centers

The National Security Agency and the FBI were each independently listening in on the phone calls between the supposed mastermind of the attacks and the lead hijacker. Indeed, the FBI built its own antenna in Madagascar specifically to listen in on the mastermind's phone calls

According to various sources, on the day before 9/11, the mastermind told the lead hijacker "tomorrow is zero hour" and gave final approval for the attacks. The NSA intercepted the message that day and the FBI was likely also monitoring the mastermind's phone calls

Shortly before 9/11, the NSA also intercepted multiple phone calls to the United States from Bin Laden's chief of operations

The CIA and the NSA had been intercepting phone calls by the hijackers for years (see also this)

According to the Sunday Herald, two days before 9/11, Bin Laden called his stepmother and told her "In two days, you're going to hear big news and you're not going to hear from me for a while.” U.S. officials later told CNN that “in recent years they've been able to monitor some of bin Laden's telephone communications with his [step]mother. Bin Laden at the time was using a satellite telephone, and the signals were intercepted and sometimes recorded." Indeed, before 9/11, to impress important visitors, NSA analysts would occasionally play audio tapes of bin Laden talking to his stepmother.

And according to CBS News, at 9:53 a.m on 9/11, just 15 minutes after the hijacked plane had hit the Pentagon, "the National Security Agency, which monitors communications worldwide, intercepted a phone call from one of Osama bin Laden's operatives in Afghanistan to a phone number in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia", and secretary of Defense Rumsfeld learned about the intercepted phone call in real-time (if the NSA monitored and transcribed phone calls in real-time on 9/11, that implies that it did so in the months leading up to 9/11 as well)

4: The Spying Program Has Not Been Narrowly Tailored to Keeping Americans Safe

We would all hope that the spying program has been tightly focused on protecting Americans from terrorists.

However, as I noted in 2008:

The NSA spied on U.N. diplomats in their deliberations on the Iraq war (so that the U.S. could figure out which countries were against the war and their reasons, to gain an advantage in twisting arms and selling the war)
The government has been spying on journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications for years
Some 8 million average Americans are now listed in government threat assessment databases as potentially suspect
As one writer puts it:
"If we know of illegal administration spying on journalists and other non-suspects, and we know of pre-9/11 surveillance, then we for all intents and purposes know that these are not programs designed to fight some foreign terrorists threat."
READ MORE

Raiders Of LME

2010-09-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

Greed Is Evil!

2010-09-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

YogA Vasistha

2010-09-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

About Yoga Vasistha

It is said that this book alone can lead to spiritual liberation. The conversation between Sage Vasistha and Prince Rama is of that between a great enlightened sage and a seeker who is about to reach completeness. This is amongst those rare conversations which directly leads to Truth.

This scripture provides several understandings, scientific ideas, philosophies, and explains about consciousness, creation of the world, the multiple universes in this world, our perception of world, dissolution of the world and the liberation of this soul, the non-dual approach to this creation.

Just as the blue sky is an optical illusion this entire world and the creation is but such an optical illusion. When the illusion ends in the mind, the world and its miseries too end. The self is the seer of all, the self is the perceiver of all and the self is the experiencer of all. And that self is only one. There is no two, there is no subject, seer and the object. It is all one.

Another oft repeated verse in the text is that of Kakathaliya (coincidence). The story of how a crow alights on a palm tree and that very moment the ripe palm fruit falls on the ground. The two events are apparently related, yet the crow never intended the palm fruit to fall nor did the palm fruit fall because the crow sat on the tree. The intellect mistakes the two events as related, though in reality they are not.

All of creation is the play of consciousness. As an unenlightened person may have a desire for action, and then perceives themselves doing action, the two are unrelated as the crow and the palm fruit. Consciousness is the actor, the action, the process and the witness of action.

The book is divided into 6 parts:

Dispassion
Qualifications of a seeker
Creation
Existence
Dissolution
Liberation

The Yoga Vasishta sums up the spiritual process in terms of the Seven Bhoomikas:

1. Subecha. Longing for the Truth

The yogi or sadhaka rightly distinguishes between permanent and impermanent; cultivates dislike for worldly pleasures; acquires mastery over organs, physical and mental; and feels a deep yearning to be free from Samsara.

2. Vicharana. Right inquiry

The yogi has pondered over what her/she has read and heard and has realized it in his/her life.

3. Tanumanasa. Attenuation or thinning out of mental activities.

The mind abandons the many and remains fixed on the ONE.

4. Sattvapati. Attainment of Sattva

The Yogi at this stage is called Brahmavid or Knower of Brahman.

In the above 4 stages, the yogi is subject to Sanchita, Prabrabdha and Agami Karmas. He/she has been practicing Samprajnata Samadhi or contemplation in which consciousness of duality still exists.

5. Asamsakti. Unaffected by anything

The yogi, now called Brahmavidvara performs necessary duties of own will.

6. Pararthabhavani. See Brahman everywhere

External things do not appear to exist to the yogi, now called Brahmavidvariya, and f unctions are performed only at the prompting of others.

Sanchit and Agami Karmas are now destroyed. Only a small amount of Prarabdha Karma remains.

7. Turiya. Perpetual Samadhi

The yogi is known as Brahmavidvaristha and does not perform his duties either by his will or the promptings of others. The body drops off after approximately three days of entering this stage.

Jim Willie - New world currency coming soon backed by gold!

2010-09-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

Greed Never Ends?

2010-09-23T19:34:00.001-07:00

On The Edge With Jim Willie

2010-09-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

Show me The Paise!!

2010-09-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Alan Cross, secretary of the Jersey Commonwealth Games Association, said: "We have to make a decision in the next 24 hours whether to take part or not. There is a risk we will not. It seems very likely that the accommodation will not be ready in time. If the first big team pulls out then others may follow. We are very, very unhappy and disappointed. In the future, members will be very reluctant to vote for cities from developing countries again which is a real shame."

Among the evidence apparently submitted by the Scottish delegation is a photograph of a dog defecating on a bed in the games village.

Read more: Now, smaller teams consider withdrawal from Commonwealth Games - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/events-tournaments/commonwealth-games/top-stories/Now-smaller-teams-consider-withdrawal-from-Commonwealth-Games/articleshow/6605483.cms#ixzz10ITurxUC

Waking Up The Dead

2010-09-17T00:33:00.000-07:00

She follows to the goal of those that are passing on beyond, she is the first in the eternal succession of the dawns that are coming, - Usha widens bringing out that which lives, awakening someone who was dead.... What is her scope when she harmonises with the dawns that shone out before and those that now must shine? She desires the ancient mornings and fulfils their light; projecting forwards her illumination she enters into communion with the rest that are to come.
Kutsa Angirasa - Rig Veda, I. 113. 8, 10.
[Yusufali 22:6] This is so, because Allah is the Reality: it is He Who gives life to the dead, and it is He Who has power over all things.
Yusufali 51:18] And the Dawn as it breathes away the darkness;-

[Yusufali 54:34] And by the Dawn as it shineth forth,-

[Yusufali 113:1] Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the Dawn

9/11 Conspiracy Theories & Loose Change

2010-09-11T23:36:00.000-07:00

On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Dick Cheney was running several war games in the north eastern portion of the United States. These drills included many hijacking scenarios, where commercial jets were hijacked and flown into buildings. At the same time Cheney had arranged for a drill involving a bio attack on NY. This resulted in FEMA setting up a command post on pier 29 in New York on September 10th..read+

Science From The islamic World

2010-09-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

AbuRaihan AlBiruni

Biruni wrote the following on the geology of India: "But if you see the soil of India with your own eyes and meditate on its nature, if you consider the rounded stones found in earth however deeply you dig, stones that are huge near the mountains and where the rivers have a violent current: stones that are of smaller size at a greater distance from the mountains and where the streams flow more slowly: stones that appear pulverised in the shape of sand where the streams begin to stagnate near their mouths and near the sea - if you consider all this you can scarcely help thinking that India was once a sea, which by degrees has been filled up by the alluvium of the streams."

For More,Read Here

Inventions From The Islamic World

2010-09-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

An illustration of patterned Girih tiles, found in Islamic architecture dating back over five centuries ago. These featured the first quasicrystal patterns and self-similar fractal quasicrystalline tilings.

The programmable humanoid robot band of Al-Jazari.

A number of inventions were developed in the medieval Islamic world, a geopolitical region that has at various times extended from Spain and Africa in the west to the Indian subcontinent in the east.^[1]^{[page needed]} The inventions listed here were developed during the medieval Islamic world, which covers the period from the early Caliphate to the later Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires.^[2] In particular, the majority of inventions here date back to the Islamic Golden Age, which is traditionally dated from the 8th to the 13th centuries...FOR MORE,READ HERE

Soul Surrender

2010-09-03T03:48:00.000-07:00

[Yusufali 11:101] "O my Lord! Thou hast indeed bestowed on me some power, and taught me something of the interpretation of dreams and events,- O Thou Creator of the heavens and the earth! Thou art my Protector in this world and in the Hereafter. Take Thou my soul (at death) as one submitting to Thy will (as a Muslim), and unite me with the righteous."
(FROM AL QURAN)

Nati

Nati is the submission of the soul to the will of God; its ac- ceptance of all touches as His touches, of all experience as His play with the soul of man. Nati may be with titiksha, feeling the sorrow but accepting it as God’s will, or with udasinat´

a, rising superior to it and regarding joy and sorrow equally as God’s working in these lower instruments, or with ananda, receiving everything as the play of Krishna and therefore in itself delightful. The last is the state of the complete Yogin, for by this continual joyous or anandamaya namaskara to God constantly practised we arrive eventually at the entire elimination of grief, pain etc, the entire freedom from the dwandwas, and ﬁnd the Brahmananda in every smallest, most trivial, most apparently discordant detail of life & experience in this human body. We get rid entirely of fear and suffering; Anan- dam Brahmano vidv´

an na bibheti kutaschana. We may have to begin with titiksha and udasinata but it is in this ananda that we must consummate the siddhi of samata. The Yogin receives victory and defeat, success and ill-success, pleasure and pain, honour and disgrace with an equal, a sama ananda,ﬁrst by buddhi-yoga, sep- arating himself from his habitual mental & nervous reactions & insisting by vichara on the true nature of the experience itself and of his own soul which is secretly anandamaya,full of the sama ananda in all things. He comes to change all the ordinary values of experience; amangala reveals itself to him as mangala, defeat & ill-success as the fulﬁlment of God’s immediate purpose and a step towards ultimate victory, grief and pain as concealed and perverse forms of pleasure. A stage arrives even, when physical pain itself, the hardest thing for material man to bear, changes its nature in experience and becomes physical ananda; but this is only at the end when this human being, imprisoned in matter, subjected to mind, emerges fromhis subjection, conquers his mind and delivers himself utterly in his body, realising his true anandamaya self in every part of the adhara´
(EXCERPT FROM SRI AUROBINDO'S RECORD OF YOGA)

Rumi:Say I Am You

2010-08-31T07:23:00.000-07:00

Quote Of The Day

2010-08-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman

"Paul Krugman is a salon monkey. You can quote me on that."-Max Keiser

With regard to the U.S. economy, would you agree with Paul Krugman, who wrote not a long time ago that the lights in the U.S. are about to go out?[1]

Paul Krugman is a salon monkey. You can quote me on that.

Okay, no problem (laughs).

He is a tool of the New York Times. If it wasn’t for the New York Times, no one would read Paul Krugman. He has absolutely nothing credible to say. He is merely a mouthpiece for neo-liberal clap-trap. Any minute you spend reading Paul Krugman is a minute of your life that you’ll never get back..READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Sin,Evil,Virtue,Part2

2010-08-18T06:34:00.000-07:00

To hate the sinner is the worst sin, for it is hating God;
yet he who commits it glories in his superior virtue.

SRI AUROBINDO

There is not a single sin that is not our sin.... You have this expe- rience when for some reason or other — depending on the case — you come into contact with the universal state of conscious- ness — not in its limitless essence, but on any level of Matter. There is an atomic consciousness; there is a purely material consciousness; and there is, even more, a general psychological consciousness. When by going within, by a kind of withdrawal fromthe ego, you come into contact with this zone of conscious- ness, let us say, a terrestrial or collective human psychological zone — there is a difference, “collective human” is restrictive, whereas “terrestrial” includes many animal movements, even plant movements; but as in the present case the moral notion of guilt, sin, evil belongs exclusively to the human conscious- ness, we will say simply the collective human psychological consciousness — when you come into contact with that through this identiﬁcation, naturally you feel or see or know that you are capable of any human movement anywhere. It is to some extent a truth-consciousness — this egoistic sense of what belongs and does not belong to you, of what you can do and cannot do, disappears at that time; you become aware that the fundamental structure of the human consciousness is such that any human being is capable of doing anything at all. And since you are in a truth-consciousness, at the same time you have the feeling that judgments or aversions, or rejection, are absurd.Everything is potentially there. And if certain currents of force — which you usually cannot trace; you see them come and go, but as a rule their origin and direction are unknown — if any one of these currents enters into you, it can make you do anything. If you could always remain in this state of consciousness,
after some time — provided you maintained within you the ﬂame of Agni, the ﬂame of puriﬁcation and progress — you would be able not only to prevent these movements from taking an active form in you and expressing themselves materially, but also to act on the very nature of the movement and transform it. But, of course, unless you have attained a very high degree of realisation, it will be practically impossible to maintain this state of consciousness for long. Almost immediately you fall back into the egoistic consciousness of the separate self. And then all the difﬁculties come back: the disgust, the revolt against certain things, the horror they arouse in you, etc.

It is probable — it is even certain — that until you are your- self completely transformed, these movements of disgust and revolt are needed so that you can doin yourself what has to be done to shut the door. For after all, the problem is not to allow them to manifest themselves.

In another aphorism Sri Aurobindo says — I no longer re- member his exact words — that sin is merely something which is not in its right place. In this perpetual Becoming nothing ever repeats itself, and there are things that disappear, so to speak, into the past; and when their disappearance becomes necessary these things become, for our very limited consciousness, bad and repulsive. And we revolt against them because their time is over. But if we had the overall view, if we could contain within ourselves the past, the present andthe future all at once — as it is somewhere above — we would see the relativity of these things and that it is above all the progressive Force of evolution that gives us the will to reject; andthat wherever they are in their right place, they are quite acceptable. Only, it is practically impossible to have this experience unless you have the total vision, that is to say, the vision that belongs to the Supreme alone! Therefore you must ﬁrst of all identify yourself with the Supreme; then, afterwards, with this identiﬁcation, you can return to a sufﬁ- ciently exteriorised consciousness and see things as they are. But that is the principle, and to the extent that you are capable of realising it, you reach a state of consciousness where you can

look at everything with a smile of total certitude that everything
is as it should be.

Naturally, people who do not think deeply enough will say, “Ah, but if we saw that everything is as it should be, nothing would move!” No, you cannot prevent things from moving! Even for a fraction of a second they do not stop moving. It is a continuous, total transformation, a movement that never ceases. And because it is difﬁcult for us to feel like this, it is possible for us to imagine that if we were to enter into certain states of consciousness, things would not change. But even if we were to enter into an apparently total inertia, things would continue to change and so would we!

Basically, disgust, revolt, anger, all these movements of vio- lence are necessarily movements of ignorance and limitation, with all the weakness that limitation represents. Revolt is a weakness — it is the feeling of an impotent will. You will — or you think you will — you feel, you see that things are not as they should be and you revolt against whatever does not agree with what you see. But if you were all-powerful, if your will and your vision were all-powerful, there would be no occasion for you to revolt, you would always see that all things are as they should be. If we go to the highest level and unite with the consciousness of the supreme Will, we see, at every second, at every moment of the universe, that all is exactly as it should be, exactly as the Supreme wills it. That is omnipotence. And all movements of violence become not only unnecessary but utterly ridiculous.

Therefore there is only one solution: to unite ourselves by aspiration, concentration, interiorisation and identiﬁcation with the supreme Will. And that is both omnipotence and perfect freedom at the same time. And that is the only omnipotence and the only freedom; everything else is an approximation. You may be on the way, but it is not the entire thing. So if you experience this, you realise that with this supreme freedom and supreme power there is also a total peace and a serenity that never fails. Therefore, if you feel something which is not that, a revolt, a disgust, something which you cannot accept, it means thatin
youthere is a part which has not been touched by the trans-
formation, something which has kept the old consciousness,
something which is still on the path — that is all.
Explained by THE MOTHER
sourece:http://www.scribd.com/doc/23547211/10-On-Thoughts-And-Aphorisms-by-Holy-Mother

15th AugustMother On Sri Aurobindo

2010-08-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

the mother on sri aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo's Record of Yoga

2010-08-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

10-11. Record Of Yoga by Shri Aurobindo

Never Underestimate Small States

2010-08-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

"Failed State" Myths

Welcome to Lebanon: Graveyard of the Arrogant

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Why has Lebanon ended up as the graveyard of so many invaders? Israelis used to say in the 1960s that one of their military bands would be enough to conquer the country. Sometimes, prior to Israel and Egypt agreeing a peace in 1979, they would add archly that “I don’t know which will be the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but I do know the name of the second.” The idea was that Lebanon, only the size of Wales and its population divided by communal, sectarian and party hatreds, would inevitably be a pushover for the greatest military power in the Middle East. Lebanon’s Maronite Christian minority was an obvious ally for Israel against the forces of Arab nationalism. The well-earned reputation of the Lebanese for commercial ingenuity and capacity to survive in all circumstances suggested that they would be the last people to die in the last ditch fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy...READ+

Assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri: Hezbollah Exposes Israeli Hit Men


Global Research, August 10, 2010
Press TV - 2010-08-09

Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has presented evidence proving that Israel masterminded the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

At a press conference in Beirut on Monday night, the Lebanese resistance movement's secretary general presented video materials captured by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists substantiating that the February 14, 2005 assassination of Hariri in the capital was carried out on orders from Tel Aviv.

The Lebanese network Al-Manar aired the speech and incorporated the evidence, showing intercepted footage of Hariri's house in the lead-up to the massive car bombing which killed him and claimed the lives of 22 other people.

The network showed videos, taken by the drones, monitoring the route that Hariri used to take every day.

The Lebanese Defense Ministry reports show Israeli warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft flew over the area where Hariri was assassinated on the day he was murdered, Nasrallah said.

Al-Manar also aired film footage showing Israeli espionage agents acknowledging their roles in the assassination.

One of the Israeli operatives, Ahmad Hussein Nasrallah, "gave false information to former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri through someone who worked with Hariri in the security area," the Al-Manar narrator stated, and added, "He said that Hezbollah wanted to assassinate Rafik Hariri."

Afterwards Al-Manar showed the agent admitting to the ruse.

Syria was accused of being behind the plot to assassinate Hariri, which undermined the tenuous ties between Damascus and Beirut and eventually led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.

The Hezbollah leader said Ahmed Nasrallah had sought to frighten the late Lebanese premier with the allegations as part of a larger plot to drive Syria out of Lebanon.

He went on to say that the assassination was meant to spark a sectarian and religious war in Lebanon, adding that if the United Nations tribunal investigating the case fails to consider the new evidence, it will show that the investigation has been politicized.

Nasrallah had said last month that he had been informed by the slain leader's son and successor, Saad Hariri, that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon "will accuse some undisciplined [Hezbollah] members."

He rejected the allegation and warned that the plot was part of "a dangerous project that is targeting the resistance."

The United Nations tribunal is expected to announce its findings by the end of the year.

HN/HGhttp://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20558L

I Wish It Would Rain

2010-08-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

"Whence shall he have grief, how shall he be deluded, who sees everywhere the Oneness?"
SRI AUROBINDO

Roger Penzabene
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roger Penzabene (d. December 31, 1967) was a songwriter for the Motown label. Among his most notable compositions are "The End of Our Road" by Gladys Knight & the Pips and Marvin Gaye, and a trilogy of hits for the Temptations: "You're My Everything", "I Wish It Would Rain", and "I Could Never Love Another (After Loving You)".

The mournful break-up song "I Wish It Would Rain" in particular drew from Penzabene's real-life pain & suffering. The songwriter found out that his wife was cheating on him, but could not bring himself to leave her, and his emotions on the situation are present in both of his final compositions, "I Wish It Would Rain" and "I Could Never Love Another". However the lyrics to the song were changed from the original one. On New Year's Eve 1967, a week after the release of "I Wish It Would Rain", Penzabene committed suicide.

Sin,Virtue And Evil Part1

2010-08-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

Then the wound is healed that seemed forever to divide the world between Satan and Heaven, as if there were nothing else but Good and Evil, with us in between like an infant coddled and whipped into virtuous ways.¹³⁸ All duality is a vision based on Ignorance. There is nothing but the innumerable One¹³⁹ everywhere, and "God's discords" to help the Godhead grow within us. Even so, quite a gap remains between this perhaps divine imperfection and the ultimate Perfection. Is not this cosmic Divine a lesser Divine? Should we not try to find elsewhere an untarnished, transcendent, and perfect Divine? If there is an opposition between the spiritual life and that of the world, it is that gulf which he [the integral seeker] is here to bridge, that opposition which he is here to change into harmony. If the world is ruled by the flesh and the devil, all the more reason that the children of Immortality should be here to conquer it for God and the Spirit. If life is an insanity, then there are so many million souls to whom there must be brought the light of divine reason; if a dream, yet it is real within itself to so many dreamers who must be brought either to dream nobler dreams or to awaken; or if a lie, then the truth has to be given to the deluded.¹⁴⁰

http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/satprem/adventure_of_consciousness_e.htm#036

Divine Grace and Faith, Sincerity and Surrender

2010-07-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

[Yusufali 16:39] (They must be raised up), in order that He may manifest to them the truth of that wherein they differ, and that the rejecters of Truth may realise that they had indeed (surrendered to) Falsehood.
[Yusufali 16:48] Do they not look at Allah's creation, (even) among (inanimate) things,- How their (very) shadows turn round, from the right and the left, prostrating themselves to Allah, and that in the humblest manner?
[Yusufali 13:15] Whatever beings there are in the heavens and the earth do prostrate themselves to Allah (Acknowledging subjection),- with good-will or in spite of themselves: so do their shadows in the morning and evenings.

Third letter in "The Mother"

(Divine Grace and Faith, Sincerity and Surrender)
(August 1, 1927)
by Sri Aurobindo

To walk through life armoured against fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together:
- the Grace of the Divine
- and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender.

Let your faith be pure, candid and perfect.
An egoistic faith in the mental and vital being tainted with ambition, pride, vanity, mental arrogance, vital self-will, personal demand, desire for the petty satisfactions of the lower nature is a low and smoke-obscured flame that cannot burn upwards to heaven.
Regard your life as given you only for the divine work and to help in the divine manifestation.
Desire nothing but the purity, force, light, wideness, calm, Ananda of the divine consciousness and its insistence to transform and perfect your mind, life and body.
Ask for nothing but the divine, spiritual and supramental Truth, its realization on earth and in you and in all who are called and chosen and the conditions needed for its creation and its victory over all opposing forces.

Let your sincerity and surrender be genuine and entire.
When you give yourself, give completely, without demand, without condition, without reservation so that all in you shall belong to the Divine Mother and nothing left to the ego or given to any other power.

The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender, the more will grace and protection be with you.
And when the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you fear?
A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties, obstacles and dangers; surrounded by its full presence you can go on surely on your way because it is hers, careless of all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful, whether from this world or from the worlds invisible.
Its touch can turn difficulties into opportunities, failure into success and weakness into unfaltering strength.

For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.

August 1, 1927

Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo

Note on surrender in Karma Yoga

The progressive surrender of our ignorant personal will and its merger into a greater divine or on the highest summits greatest supreme Will is the whole secret of Karma Yoga. To bring about the conditions in which alone this vast and happy identity becomes possible and to work out the lines we must follow to their end if we are to reach it, is all the deeper purpose of this discipline.

The first condition is the elimination of personal vital desire, for if desire intervenes, all harmony with the supreme Divine Will becomes impossible. Even if we receive it, we shall disfigure its working and distort its dynamic impulse. To give up all desire, all insistence upon fruit and reward and success must be renounced from our will and all vital attachment to the work itself excised from our nature; for attachment makes it our own and no longer the Godhead's.

The elimination of egoism is the second condition, not only of the rajasic and tamasic egoisms that twine around desire, but of the sattwic egoism that takes refuge in the idea of the I as the worker. The ordinary consciousness of man cannot accept this difficult renunciation or, if it accepts it, cannot achieve this tremendous change. The human mind is too ignorant, narrow and chained to its own limited movements, the human life-instincts too blind, selfish, obscure, shut up in their own earth-bound pursuits and satisfactions, the human body too clumsy and hampering a machine. There is here no freedom, no large and infinite room, no willing and happy plasticity for the greater play of the Divine in Nature. A certain half-seeing and imperfect subordination of the personal will to an ill-understood greater Will and Power, a stumbling and occasional intuition or at best a brilliant lightninglike intimation of its commands and impulsions, a confused, clouded and often grossly distorted execution of the little one seizes of a divine Mandate seems to be the uttermost that the human consciousness as it is at its best seems able to accomplish. Only by a growth into a greater superhuman and supramental consciousness whose very nature is to be attuned to the Divine can we achieve the true and supreme Karma Yoga.

This transformation is only possible after certain steps of a divine ascent have been mastered and to climb these steps is the object of the Yoga of Works as it is conceived by the Gita. The extirpation of desire, a wide and calm equality of the mind, the life soul and the spirit, annihilation of the ego, an inner quietude and expulsion or transcendence of ordinary Nature, the Nature of the three gunas and a total surrender to the Supreme are the successive steps of this preliminary change.

Only after all this has been done, can we live securely in an infinite consciousness not bound like our mental human nature. And only then can we receive the Light, know perfectly the will of the Supreme, attune all our movements to the rhythm of its Truth and execute perfectly from moment to moment its imperative commandments. Till then there is no firm achievement, but only an endeavour, seeking and aspiration, all the stress and struggle of a great and uncertain spiritual adventure. Only when these things are accomplished is there for the dynamic parts of our nature the beginning of a divine security in its acts and a transcendent peace.

(Circa 1927)

in "Essays Divine and Human",
SABCL, volume 17
CWSA - vol.10 - page 1300
published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA

Death Of Capitalism

2010-07-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

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