… If you call for the Truth and yet something in you chooses what is false, ignorant and undivine or even simply is unwilling to reject it altogether, then always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you. Detect first what is false or obscure in you and persistently reject it, then alone can you rightly call for the divine Power to transform you.

Do not imagine that truth and falsehood, light and darkness, surrender and selfishness can be allowed to dwell together in the house consecrated to the Divine. The transformation must be integral, and integral therefore the rejection of all that withstands it.…   more »

On the evening of the 29th November 1950, as I was resting after a heavy day, a servant brought me a telegram which read: "FLY—URGENT—MOTHER". Never could I have imagined the amount of meaning there was in those few words.

Then it came to me—is Sri Aurobindo ill?—Why otherwise would the Mother send such a telegram? Other thoughts crept into my mind and I could not decide how best to equip myself for the errand.

The next morning, 30th November, I flew to Madras, only to find that the next train for Pondicherry did not leave until 9-50 p.m., and so I would reach my destination by 7 a.m. the next morning. It was a torment to think that after travelling 1000 miles in 5 hours it was now to take me twenty hours to cover 100 miles. I looked at the telegram—read it once again—No! I could not waste time, so I hired a car.

It took me an hour to obtain a permit from the Police authorities, who looked me over thoroughly… by six in the evening I was at the Mother's feet in the Ashram playground. As usual She greeted me with her heavenly smile, saying She had expected me that very evening. She then told me of Sri Aurobindo's illness and asked me to examine Him; She added that She would be coming to his room after the programme was over in the playground. …   more »

...And here is the famous account about the disciples of Sri Aurobindo: “As a rule people spent most of their time in what Sri Aurobindo called the lower consciousness, caught up in the play of ordinary thought and emotion. They did their work, but sometimes argued with their colleagues. They met their neighbours, and sometimes slandered them behind their backs. At home they read Sri Aurobindo’s works, or indulged in sexual daydreams. They attended pranāms, and sometimes were consumed by jealousy because the Mother smiled more warmly at another. Then, while walking on the pier or sitting at home or dusting books in the library, they might again be lifted above the mind and perceive the one soul in all, or plunge into their heart and feel the fire of the psychic being.”   more »

…here there is a work to be done, a Truth to be established against which immense forces are arranged, invisible forces which can use visible things and persons and actions for their instruments. If one is among the disciples, the seekers of this Truth, one has to take sides for the Truth, to stand against the forces that attack it and seek to stifle it. Arjuna wanted not to stand for either side, to refuse any action of hostility even against assailants; Sri Krishna, who insisted so much on samatā, strongly rebuked his attitude and insisted equally on his fighting the adversary. “Have samatā,” he said, “and seeing clearly the Truth, fight.”…   more »

Connected with the ancient five elements of Matter there are several traditions describing their character and their role in the material world. We have no idea if the Chaldean or Egyptian occultism had any perception of their presence and functioning, although there is a necessary connection between the occult practices and the five elements. But we do start seeing these elements in one form or the other even in the early Vedic revelations. The Upanishads expound them in different contexts, contexts particularly related with the manifestation of the eternal Spirit, the Brahman, in the universe. In the Puranas elaborate descriptions are presented when they speak of Nature or Prakriti working in the field of cosmic space and time. Later we also begin to notice their loud presence in the functioning of human body and related health aspects, in the science of life; humourology is a development connected with them. In the following we shall quickly trace just a few of these developments before we take up the details of how Narad in the Book of Fate of Savitri might have assumed a gross physical form when he was visiting Aswapati.   more »

It is possible to look at Sri Aurobindo in context of the future of humanity but that should be primarily done recognizing him as a Master-Yogi and perhaps not so much as a traditional or professional Master-Philosopher appealing to the rationalist of the western kind. It is justifiably said that Sri Aurobindo gives us a framework of thought, as well as pragmatics of psychology, that carries us forward in becoming a better acceptable individual and a better organised collectivity. Due credit is also at times given to him as a Master-Critic for giving us a creative expression which is futuristic, uttering the Word of the Spirit. His writings do mark “a blueprint for a destiny which he announces as a life divine”...   more »

Lilongs, Shanghai’s neighbourhoods with unique architecture that were built in the 19th century, were once a victim of China’s war on its own past during the Cultural Revolution. With enormous commercial pressure on real estate, the city’s finding ways, some controversial, to restore the few remaining heritage sites. Shikumen architecture combines Western and Chinese styles to create a unique aesthetic that cannot be found anywhere else in China. But few neighbourhoods remain today.


A surviving neighbourhood    more »

In the opening passage of the Book of Fate in Savitri, we have a complete description of the proto-atoms constituting our material world. The beginning of the objective universe starts from the Akash-element viewed as the etheric sea and goes down below to the dense form of the Prithvi-element. In the ether is the first stir, a vibration set into motion, Spandan with an urge towards the physical creation. Akash is the high substratum needed for the objects to come into existence, the subtlest, the finest support, the spiritual ādhāra for matter to exist. Sri Aurobindo writes, “…the nature of the action of cosmic Mind is the cause of atomic existence. Matter is a creation, and for its creation the infinitesimal, an extreme fragmentation of the infinite, was needed as the starting-point or basis. Ether may and does exist as an intangible, almost spiritual support of Matter, but as a phenomenon it does not seem, to our present knowledge at least, to be materially detectable. Subdivide the visible aggregate or the formal atom into essential atoms, break it up into the most infinitesimal dust of being, we shall still, because of the nature of the Mind and Life that formed them, arrive at some utmost atomic existence, unstable perhaps but always reconstituting itself in the eternal flux of force, phenomenally, and not at a mere unatomic extension incapable of contents … realities of pure existence, pure substance… are the reality underlying Matter, and not the phenomenon which we call Matter.” A body made from this pure existence, this pure substance accompanied with the truth-conscient dynamism has yet to be created. But presently Narad in the opening passage of the Book of Fate is passing from Mind into material things and therefore he picks up first the Akash-atom...   more »

"…each being in a new birth prepares a new mind, life and body—otherwise John Smith would always be John Smith and would have no chance of being Piyush Kanti Ghose. Of course inside there are old personalities contributing to the new life—but I am speaking of the new visible personality, the outer man, mental, vital, physical. It is the psychic being that keeps the link from birth to birth and makes all the manifestations of the same person.” Sri Aurobindo   more »

An evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial existence. The evolutionary working of Nature has a double process: an evolution of forms, an evolution of the soul. Man occupies the crest of the evolutionary wave. With him occurs the passage from an unconscious to a conscious evolution. At each step one receives an intimation of what the following step will be. The nature of the next step is indicated by the deep aspirations awakening in the human race. A change of consciousness is the major fact of the next evolutionary transformation, and the consciousness itself, by its own mutation, will impose and effect any necessary mutation of the body. There is no reason to suppose that this transformation is impossible on earth. In fact, it would give the truest meaning to earthly existence. Man's urge towards spirituality is an undeniable indication of the inner drive of the Spirit within towards emergence, its insistence towards the next step of its manifestation.   more »

In the West the higher minds are not turned towards spiritual truth but towards material science. The scope of science is very narrow: it touches only the most exterior part of the physical plane.

And even there, what does science really know? It studies the functioning of the laws, edificates theories ever renewed and each time held up as the last word of truth! We had recently the atomic theory, now comes the electronic!

There are, for instance, two statements of modern science that would stir up deeper ranges in an occultist: atoms are whirling systems like the solar system; the atoms of all the elements are made out of the same constituents. Different arrangement is the only cause of different properties.

If these statements are considered under their true aspect, they could lead science to new discoveries of which there is no idea actually and in comparison with which the actual knowledge is poor...   more »

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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 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.   more »