The arrival of the Mind of Light at the evolutionary stage marks a definite transition from the life in Ignorance with all its attendant turmoil and confusion to the great life governed by it, the life of a new humanity. That is not to say that it is the culmination, the desired total fulfilment of what is intended in this long process in Time. The prospects are that life of humanity will be a harmonious expression of the powers of the spirit, a possibility that can enlighten and uplift the human effort itself, raise its degree and its quality of perfection, thus providing an impetus for the locked human potential to open itself into growing dimensions of the triple splendour of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, a movement in rhythms of the Truth and the Right and the Vast, satyam-ŗtam-bŗhat, not in its comprehensive fullness but as an apt beginning. The human instrumentation will start lending itself to a living in the truth and a mind at present working in ignorance becoming a mind of Light. All that we have been thinking about, all our rationalistic formulations, may they be based on science or on thought, will undergo a radical change, that is, if we regard “consciousness and not life and form as the fundamental and essential evolutionary principle and its emergence and full development of its possibilities as the object of the evolutionary urge. The inconscience of Matter cannot be an insuperable obstacle; for in this inconscience can be detected an involved consciousness which has to evolve; life and mind are steps and instruments of that evolution; the purposeful drive and workings of the inconscient material Energy are precisely such as we can attribute to the presence of an involved consciousness automatic, not using thought like the mind but guided by something like an inherent material instinct practically infallible in all its steps, not yet cognitive but miraculously creative.” When this inherent material instinct starts responding to the descending powers of the superior planes, then we have entered into the domain where the Intermediate Race becomes the firm gain of the evolution. This is the preparatory yogic work that has now made the sequel of swift-moving events operationally inevitable and assured.

...   more »

At the other end of the rainbow bridge there is a pot of gold. Pick it up and walk into the realms of gold.

...   more »

The following article by Sri Aurobindo, fifth in the series of eight, was published in the February 1950 issue of the Bulletin of Physical Education and presents the impact the descent of the creative power that is the Supermind or the Truth-Consciousness will have in the dynamics of the world-operation, how it will new-shape the preparing humanity towards its higher goal of a life based on the principles of truth and love and joy and beauty, on the powers of the spirit poised for manifestation. This descent might very well change the law of evolution itself, evolution no in the hands of the truth-awareness instead of based on the fumbling movement through the regions of ignorance. The scope is such that even Matter alive to the hidden powers locked in its own depths will offer to the Spirit the verities of things to its expression. Indeed, it is the evolution that itself will evolve. In the course of this march mind at its highest might pass out of its limitations into the higher truth and function as a subordinate power of the supramental knowledge-will. “… in the very field of the working of the Inconscient there are signs of the labour of an infallible force, the drive of a secret consciousness and its promptings, as if the Inconscient itself were secretly informed or impelled by a Power with a direct and absolute knowledge… There would be a new mental being … aspiring towards the ascension of the divine consciousness, able to receive and bear the descent of the divine light and power, fitting itself to be a vessel of the divine Life.” There would be a new humanity as part of the new order. This would be governed by the liberated mind aware of its affiliation to Supermind. In the process, life and body could hold something of the supramental light, power and bliss. This new humanity is the Intermediate Race aspiring for the divine life upon earth.

...   more »

The theme of evolution was central to Sri Aurobindo’s thought almost throughout his life. We have a set of essays written by him in 1909 which first came out in the weekly review Karmayogin edited by him when he was in Calcutta; this was after his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case filed against the revolutionaries, including himself, in 1908. It is quite appropriate that we should read these over again to celebrate the centenary year of their appearance. Along with these three selected pieces, from Harmony of Virtue, must also go the absolutely last set of articles Sri Aurobindo dictated in 1950; this was at the request of the Mother who wished him to contribute to the newly started periodical, the Bulletin of Physical Education. These last writings were later published, in January 1952, in the book entitled The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth. The most important thing we become aware of in these revelations is the arrival of what Sri Aurobindo called the Mind of Light, the mind of the physical receiving the Supramental. It is this Mind of Light which governs the race of beings who provide a link between the Mental and the Gnostic beings,—the Intermediate Race. If we do see a change in the writings of these two periods, separated by forty years, then it is not a change or shift of any kind in his central concepts related to the principles and methods of evolution, evolution which is more a collective change of consciousness, a change pertaining to spiritual evolution than to the evolution of form. The difference is due to the great yogic work that had gone towards the realization of the life divine upon earth, the difficult and untiring yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. To view it in any other manner, other than an occult-yogic work, howsoever appealing it might be to the rational mind, is to miss the entire purport of the evolutionary objective itself. One might please oneself with theories and concepts, but that would avail hardly anything if the day’s job is to make the evolutionary possibility a realised certainty. Precisely in it lies the convincing uniqueness of Sri Aurobindo’s vision and work, and it is that we must celebrate during the centenary year, celebrate the first appearance of the theme in 1909. Belonging to the writings of this early period, we include here a relevant record Sri Aurobindo made in his jottings of yogic experiences, dated March 1914. These jottings or records were more for his personal use than for publication. But these have now been published in book form under the title Record of Yoga. We do not know if Sri Aurobindo meant these to be made public at all, as we understand that the heap of papers containing these details had on top of it a note, marking it as ‘confidential’. Perhaps the best thing would have been to just keep them as proper archival documents for studies by the interested individual researchers of his works. Which means that, while reading these, we must be extremely careful about the parameters that were associated with them at the time—we should not apply the demanding inflexible criteria of academic or professional scholarship to them, for they do not belong to the mental domain at all; we must only try to enter into the spirit of the occult knowledge they contain. And what a treasure-mine it is, shining with luminous details, containing many a gem of the divine preciousness! When Sri Aurobindo says, for instance, that the Sun is only a subordinate star of the great Agni, Mahavishnu, in whom is centred the Bhu, the Earth, he is actually talking of knowledge of another world altogether. It will be a sheer travesty of this knowledge, as much as of the knowledge obtained by our present-day science, if we mix them up. One should be extremely careful in reading such details, actually meant for advanced yogi-occultists, and that could well be the reason why Sri Aurobindo might not have approved the publication of his records. It is rather unfortunate that this important perspective is missed in the present publicity given to the Record of Yoga. All that we can now say is that the Record is meant for the seekers of the occult truth-details and they must qualify themselves before picking them up for study which should be more in the direction of extending the investigation of the occult working of nature, that functioning in this vast domain of space and time, time comprising of its three operative divisions. Let us hope that this will well borne in mind before reference is made to the secrets of Record of Yoga.

...   more »

The Spirit manifest as Intelligence is the basis of the world. Spirit as existence, sat, is one; as Intelligence it multiplies itself without ceasing to be one. We see that tree and say, "Here is a material thing"; but if we ask how the tree came into existence, we have to say, it grew or evolved out of the seed. But growth or evolution is only a term describing the sequence in a process. It does not explain the origin or account for the process itself. Why should the seed produce a tree and not some other form of existence? The answer is, because that is its nature. But why is that its nature? Why should it not be its nature to produce some other form of existence, or some other kind of tree? That is the law, is the answer. But why is it the law? The only answer is that it is so because it is so; that it happens, why, no man can say. In reality when we speak of Law, we speak of an idea, when we speak of the nature of a thing, we speak of an idea. Nowhere can we lay our hands on an object, a visible force, a discernible momentum and say, "Here is an entity called Law or Nature". The seed evolves a tree because tree is the idea involved in the seed; it is a process of manifestation in form, not a creation. If there were no insistent idea, we should have a world of chances and freaks, not a world of law—there would be no such idea as the nature of things, if there were not an originating and ordering intelligence manifesting a particular idea in forms. And the form varies, is born, perishes, the idea is eternal. The form is the manifestation or appearance, the idea is the truth. The form is phenomenon, the idea is reality. … The stress of the hidden Spirit expresses itself again in events and the majestic course of the world. This is the Zeitgeist, this is the purpose that runs through the process of the centuries, the changes of the suns, this is that which makes evolution possible and provides it with a way, means and a goal. "This is He who from years sempiternal hath ordered perfectly all things."

…   more »

The disservice which scientific materialism is unintentionally doing the world is to encourage a return to this condition; the suddenly awakened masses of men, unaccustomed to deal intellectually with ideas, able to grasp the broad attractive innovations of free thought but unable to appreciate its delicate reservations, verge towards that reeling back into the beast, that relapse into barbarism which was the condition of the Roman Empire at a high stage of material civilization and intellectual culture and which a distinguished British Statesman declared to be the condition to which all Europe approached. The development of the emotions is therefore the first condition of a sound human evolution. Unless the feelings tend away from the body and the love of others take increasingly the place of the brute love of self, there can be no progress upward. The organisation of human society tends to develop the altruistic element in man which makes for life and battles with and conquers aśanāyā mŗtyuh. It is therefore not the struggle for life, or at least not the struggle for our own life, but the struggle for the life of others which is the most important term in evolution,—for our children, for our family, for our class, for our community, for our race and nation, for humanity. An everlasting self takes the place of the old narrow self which is confined to our individual mind and body and it is this moral growth which society helps and organises. …

In Yoga the whole past progress of humanity, a progress which it holds on a very uncertain base, is rapidly summed up, confirmed and made an inalienable possession. The body is conquered, not imperfectly as by the ordinary civilised man, but entirely. The vital part is purified and made the instrument of the higher emotional and intellectual self in its relations with the outer world. The ideas which go outward are replaced by the ideas which move within, the baser qualities are worked out of the system and replaced by those which are higher, the lower emotions are crowded out by the nobler. Finally all ideas and emotions are stilled and by the perfect awakening of the intuitive reason which places mind in communion with spirit the whole man is ultimately placed at the service of the Infinite. All false self merges into the true self. Man acquires likeness, union or identification with God. This is Mukti, the state in which humanity thoroughly realises the freedom and immortality which are its eternal goal.

…   more »

The theme of evolution was central to Sri Aurobindo’s thought almost throughout his life. We have a set of essays written by him in 1909 which first came out in the weekly review Karmayogin edited by him when he was in Calcutta; this was after his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case filed against the revolutionaries, including himself, in 1908. It is quite appropriate that we should read these over again to celebrate the centenary year of their appearance. Along with these three selected pieces, from Harmony of Virtue, must also go the absolutely last set of articles Sri Aurobindo dictated in 1950; this was at the request of the Mother who wished him to contribute to the newly started periodical, the Bulletin of Physical Education. These last writings were later published, in January 1952, in the book entitled The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth. The most important thing we become aware of in these revelations is the arrival of what Sri Aurobindo called the Mind of Light, the mind of the physical receiving the Supramental. It is this Mind of Light which governs the race of beings who provide a link between the Mental and the Gnostic beings,—the Intermediate Race. If we do see a change in the writings of these two periods, separated by forty years, then it is not a change or shift of any kind in his central concepts related to the principles and methods of evolution, evolution which is more a collective change of consciousness, a change pertaining to spiritual evolution than to the evolution of form. The difference is due to the great yogic work that had gone towards the realization of the life divine upon earth, the difficult and untiring yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. To view it in any other manner, other than an occult-yogic work, howsoever appealing it might be to the rational mind, is to miss the entire purport of the evolutionary objective itself. One might please oneself with theories and concepts, but that would avail hardly anything if the day’s job is to make the evolutionary possibility a realised certainty. Precisely in it lies the convincing uniqueness of Sri Aurobindo’s vision and work, and it is that we must celebrate during the centenary year, celebrate the first appearance of the theme in 1909.

...   more »

Sri Aurobindo’s Prose Style by Goutam Ghosal is one of the professional studies which examines the characteristics and nuances as much as influences and traditions given to the creation of newer possibilities of expression. It is not in an isolationist manner that one would admire his uniqueness, but by holding a universality which can become spiritually wide and comprehensive, and rewarding, that one might be able to enter into the vastness of its exoteric as much as its esoteric spirit. Ghosal says in his preface that “Sri Aurobindo never wrote like a scholar… [even] when he was a real scholar. Tradition formed his outline, the novelty came from experience. The more he matured the more he depended on his own experience. …his prose is of a literary artist with a mind of exceptional calibre.” It is a pity that the recent biography The Lives of Sri Aurobindo is unable to enter into its immensity and feel the charm of its ambiance, the presence of the spirit pervading it; not only that, it hurriedly and disparagingly speaks of it, Sri Aurobindo’s prose style, having problems in structuring itself for the modern mind to appreciate and understand it, to value the contents. But there is in his prose style, says in the foreword VK Gokak the eminent literary critic of yesteryears, “meticulousness and virtuosity possessing the power, charm and propriety” that stand out distinctly. Elsewhere on the Mirror we have a large number of examples presenting Sri Aurobindo’s prose writings belonging to different periods of time and covering diverse subjects. These should be sufficient to dismiss the oblique manner of looking at Sri Aurobindo as an author, one possessing exceptional power of expression which is lucid, powerful, musical, full of harmonious coherences climbing to the sheer inspired and inevitable mode of expression, the revelatory speech itself. It is in that context we reproduce in the following a chapter from Goutam Ghosal’s study, lending weight to what the perceptive and discerning see in Sri Aurobindo’s writings. Ghosal himself is an academic and carries authority being the professor and head of the English Department at Vishwa Bharati University, Santiniketan. Here is a remarkable chapter, chapter nine, entitled Style in the Major Works: Fusion of Myths and Seven Kinds of Style in Sri Aurobindo’s Prose Style published in 1990.

…   more »

Dr Mangesh Nadkarni was a master of the English language and spoke brilliantly on Savitri, a 24,000-verse epic poem by Sri Aurobindo. The poem recounts the saga of human victory over ignorance and the conquest of death. Reading Savitri is itself considered a practice of integral yoga and a potent vehicle of aspiration. Dr Nadkarni inculcated Savitri as a mantra in his life. Had it not been destiny’s cruel blow which snatched away our beloved uncle from our midst, we were planning to celebrate, on a grand scale, the completion of 75 years on his birthday on 6 March 2008. But, fate willed otherwise, leaving me to write this article in his remembrance. He will be remembered for his vast knowledge, eloquence, sense of humour, melodious voice, smiling face and a magnetic, lovable personality. He was the personification of Sweetness and Light and carried an aura of Ananda with him. The soul incubates in the body as the bird in the egg; cracking the shell, the bird waddles away. Lament for the shell or rejoice for the baby bird? My prayers to the Divine Mother to take his soul in Her arms to its heavenly abode.

…   more »

It is only in harmonious collaboration that effective work can be done.

The important thing is to find the point on which you can all agree—

and after this is firmly established, each one must be ready to yield his personal will

in order to keep intact this point of harmony.

Blessings


29.3.66


The Mother

   more »

Sri Aurobindo says the following about Keats in The Future Poetry: “Keats is the first entire artist in word and rhythm in English poetry,—not grandiose, classical and derived like Milton, but direct and original in his artistry, he begins a new era.” Writing about sonnets Keats held that he shouldn’t bind the language by dull rhymes, misers as they are of sound and syllable. But his famous On the first looking into Chapman’s Homer has a kind of inspired simplicity and directness which lends another charm to it. This was written in October 1816 and published in the Examiner on 1 December 1816. It so happened that he was in the company of his friend Charles Cowden Clarke, reading together Chapman's translation of Iliad and Odyssey. Next day morning when Clarke visited Keats for the breakfast he was happily surprised to find at the table Chapman’s Homer.

…   more »

Sixty years ago the first disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the West breathed her last in the Ashram. Her life has been associated with the Mother’s since the time she was known as, not the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, but Mirra Richard, wife of Paul Richard. She was the first person to address Sri Aurobindo as ‘Lord’ while the other inmates considered him nothing more than a friend and a guide. Her entire life was consecrated to the Divine only, and despite being one of the early members of the Ashram her life has been an unsung song. We are talking of Dorothy Mary Hodgson who is better known as Datta. …

In 1920 Mirra asked Dorothy whether she would like to accompany her to Pondicherry. Dorothy readily agreed. Paul and Mirra Richard left Japan with Dorothy in March 1920 and arrived in Pondicherry on 24 April. …

On 24 November 1920, there was a heavy storm with rainfall and since the house where Mirra stayed with Dorothy was old and “looked as if it was going to melt away.” Sri Aurobindo said that under such a weather condition Mirra and Dorothy cannot be allowed to stay in that house, so he asked them to move into the house where he was staying with his companions. Thus, Mirra and Dorothy came to live with the other inmates. …

…   more »

In 1895, Bose successfully demonstrated in public in colonial Calcutta the wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves. Generating waves using a self-designed and built transmitter at one end of a link and sending them to a similarly built detector located 75 feet away, through intervening obstacles such as the body of Lieutenant General Mackenzie who commanded the British troops in the Calcutta garrison, he set off an explosion in a cache of gunpowder at the other end.

That Bose built all the equipment in the abysmal conditions that existed at the University of Calcutta then, and the country as a whole, in the 1890s makes the achievement even more mind-boggling and creditworthy. Over the next decade, Bose obtained four US and UK patents for his invention with the aid of friends.

It took some five years more for a technician of mixed Italian-Irish parentage, Guglielmo Marconi, to make a similar public demonstration. In the heyday of imperialism, the Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to 35-year-old Marconi and a 59-year old German physicist from Strasbourg, Karl Ferdinand Braun, “in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.”

…   more »

The following is a section from a long article called A Search for the Historical Krishna by Dr NS Rajaram, which precedes his upcoming book which will be of the same title. Dr NS Rajaram was a former engineer at NASA, a field which he subsequently left to study ancient civilisations. He has authored a number of scholarly and polemic works. He is widely respected in his field—although his conclusions are by no means universally accepted. Dr Rajaram has also invited hostility from some academics—although they tend to engage in personal attacks rather than refuting his ideas. I have witnessed Dr Rajaram engage in a public debate and also presenting his research papers, and his work is clearly well researched. This subject, of the dating of the life of Shri Krishna is not a settled subject, although scholars tend to converge on two dates (c. 3100 BCE or c. 1500 BCE). This article articulated some of the evidence in favour of the former.

...   more »