From Budapest to Bucharest, cruising along the Danube, swollen with the secrets of history and exotic ports of call…

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It was Wednesday morning when in search
Of the primordial word he set off
For the north. Choir of the birds had ceased
And the active day began. Far away
Leaving their resting trees swiftly on wings
They flew to reach a new sky. Its gold-red
Started brightening, even as the chimes
Lifted up the temple above the hill.

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The last set of Sri Aurobindo’s prose writings appeared in the Bulletin d' Education Physique (Bulletin of Physical Education) beginning with 21 February 1949. The Mother approached Sri Aurobindo and requested him for a message for the newly started periodical to be brought out on the occasion of each Darshan, four times in a year. The message was dictated for it on 30 December 1948 and published in the inaugural issue of the Bulletin. The title of this quarterly bilingual journal was altered in 1959 to Bulletin du Centre International d'Éducation Sri Aurobindo (Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education) and it continues to appear so to this day.

It seems that Sri Aurobindo took this as an opportunity to disclose some of the aspects of his occult-yogic work connected with the supramental descent and manifestation upon earth. We should indeed be thankful to the Mother for this wonderful request of hers without which, we are not sure, if Sri Aurobindo would have come out at all. He had already established dynamically in his physical the supramental light and force and now it had to become a part of the vaster terrestrial manifestation. One of the primary conditions for that to happen was the opening of the physical’s mind to the supramental which he called as the Mind of Light. It is this Mind of Light which will become the formative power to effect the first desired change. The process and the details were detailed out in the articles. The Mother’s important and celebrated but arduous work of the cellular transformation began with it.

Sri Aurobindo’s writing career began with a series of eight articles he contributed to Indu Prakash from Bombay during 1893-94, which was being edited by his Cambridge friend KG Deshpande. And now here is the last set of eight articles. Between these two magnificent rivers of truth, one young and zealous and swift-moving and full of honey-fire, and the other deeply occult-spiritual loaded with the luminous charge of the spirit, like a burning diamond descending in our midst, they both together making the first and the last sets of distinctive articles, lies or spreads the vast ocean of his knowledge expressed in prose and poetry. We have just concluded the first series under the title New Lamps for Old and now begin the second for which we provide the title New Suns for the Old. The first article is A Message from Sri Aurobindo: the Place of Sports in Educational Institutions and it appeared first on 21 February 1949. Awakening of the essential instinctive body consciousness itself is the new dimension that has entered into the spiritual-yogic progress as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo.

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It was a Congress session in Belgaum, in 1924. Mahatma Gandhi was the President—for the first and the last time. The session was in full swing, when arrived Annie Besant in the pandal. The train was late and she could not be there before the session started. But as soon as she entered the pandal there was applause for several long minutes, welcoming her. Mahatma Gandhi readjusted the schedules and invited Annie Besant to address the audience. It was a fiery speech and one could feel the difference in the quality. Later, it is unfortunate, Mahtma Gandhi and Annie Besant could not work together. Yes, the leadership was now of another tone and temper.

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Purusha Sukta in the Rig Veda celebrates famously the Sacrifice of the Purusha performed by the Gods, the Rishis and the Sadhyas, the accomplished celestial beings. All is established in the Sacrifice and therefore Sacrifice is the best means of achieving whatever has to be achieved, asserts a scriptural text. What did these sacrificers intend to achieve by performing the difficult sacrifice? the cosmic order, the possibility for growth, conquest, expansion, winning new grounds, making the law of the higher truth-existence operational in the universal functioning, instituting the dharma? Indeed, it was for that, and only by it could they themselves ascend to greater realms of immortality. It is in the Sacrifice of the Purusha, the Holocaust of the primal Being, Yajna of the Great Person that the incomparable deed was carried out. In an enterprising act, by making an offering of this Purusha himself, the Male who is the begetter of things in all the worlds was this Yajna completed. Its jubilation in the Rig Veda is a forceful triumph-song of the Creator poised for Cosmic Action,—“a profound composition,” as Sri Aurobindo says about it.

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Here are four poems written by Sri Aurobindo during the mid-1940s. The third one—Is this the end—we have already seen in the last week, but let us pick it up again along with the other three written about the same time. This we are doing in the context of the observation in The Lives of Sri Aurobindo published in May 2008 by the Columbia University Press. The comment on p. 398 is as follows: “…he [Sri Aurobindo] wrote only a few [poems] after 1943. Those he did write are uncharacteristically dark.” The author is linking this aspect with the sadhana of Sri Aurobindo after 1941. It will be much appreciated if these poems are read carefully and their literary as well as biographical aspects critically examined and presented. We should also remember that the author of the Lives who seems to be in a tremendous hurry has dismissed Savitri as a possible source for looking into his sadhana. The entry is open for discussion to everyone serious about the matter.

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Britain is home to an amazing number of ancient trees; but they are slowly being killed off by neglect and ill-treatment.

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If you want serenity, this is the place.



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The general aim to be attained is the advent of a progressing universal harmony. The means for attaining this aim, in regard to the earth, is the realisation of human unity through the awakening of the inner Divinity which is One. The first imperative is, each individual should be conscious of the Divine Presence in him; then there has to be the synthesis of all human knowledge. In 1912 itself the Mother was already speaking of a collectivity of an ideal society established in a “propitious spot” for the flowering of the new race, the race of the Sons of God. In it were the early seeds of Auroville. Here is also the definition of the most useful work to be done, and here is the most acceptable definition of Sanatana Dharma itself, of the Eternal Religion of a new Mankind. Was not Auroville conceived that long ago as a “propitious spot” for the flowering of the new race? This certainly seems to be so.

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My waters are sweet and scented and true,
And my moods in surprises of song grew.
Oftentimes come here affable gods when free,
And on my banks of calm collogue that to be
Is the sense of life in all life to pursue.

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The Story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp is narrated in 78 episodes in the Arabian Nights. In it the magician makes to the gullible a tempting offer of new lamps for the old. His single interest is to get back the old magic lamp from its possessor. The trick worked. Sri Aurobindo’s series of eight articles—which appeared in Indu Praksh, edited and published from Bombay by his Cambridge friend KG Deshpande, during 1993-94—borrows this title from the story but otherwise does not have any direct relevance to it. It is with this series began his writing career in a journal. Later he himself edited a number of periodicals. Sri Aurobindo’s absolutely last set of prose writings also came out in a quarterly started by the Mother in 1949. Again, there are exactly eight articles in it which were later issued in a book form under the title The Supramental Manifestation published by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1952.

We have just serialized the Indu Prakash set dealing with the political and national aspects of the time. The lamps in it are the new the ideals and visions which must replace the old rusted ones carried by the non-adventurous and moderate minds. In fact his writings were so radical, so sweeping, so drastic in nature for them that he was advised to tone them down and make them acceptable by them. Sri Aurobindo refused and discontinued the series.

The last set of the 1949-50 articles reveal to us the work Sri Aurobindo was yogically occupied with. He had already established dynamically in his physical the supramental light and force and now it had to become a part of the vaster terrestrial manifestation. One of the primary conditions for that to happen was the opening of the physical’s mind to the supramental which he called as the Mind of Light. It is this Mind of Light which will become the formative power to effect the first desired change. The process and the details were detailed out in the articles. The Mother’s work of the cellular transformation began with it.

Between these two wonderful rivers of truth, one young and zealous and swift-moving and full of honey-fire, and the other deeply occult-spiritual loaded with the luminous charge of the spirit, like a burning diamond descending in our midst, they both together making the first and the last sets of distinctive articles, lies or spreads the vast ocean of his knowledge expressed in prose and poetry. We shall however restrict ourselves at present only to these sets and serialize the second in the coming weeks. The second series will be entitled as New Suns for Old.

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It is the power of this universal Shakti that will help create a nation. Special souls had come to invoke her and persuade her to take charge of our life first by moving towards Independence and then establishing foundation for the future work. She must be invoked again that in her strength and in her wisdom we rise to do her work. She wants us to do it and she is there to help us always. It is in that way she herself will grow in this creation, grow more and more in the opulence of the manifesting spirit, in its richnesses. We have come out of the slavish tamas, and entered into the phase of the vital, but it is not yet nobility and valour and majesty of the enlightened vital. We are tied to a thousand little and petty things of life and are full of jealousy and envy, and our works are shabby and imperfect and clumsy, and our thoughts and feelings lack broadness that alone can make the appearance of the vast spirit in us dynamically meaningful and powerful. Another birth has yet to take place in us. It is to effect this new birth that we demand in us her own power to effect it. Our demand has to carry the qualifying tapas-yajna or sacrifice by which we offer ourselves to her.

When this tapas-yajna ceased to exist, the nation fell into desuetude; it languished and the ignominy of slavery had to be suffered. But luckily in this land of ours the gods always remained awoke thigh men slept the sleep of inaction. But we can take courage in it and keep our epistemology well-kindled. It gave continuity over the running cycles of the ages. That hope is yet again with us. We are using a language that has lost the living power of the spirit and make fetishes of inconsequential stuff. We have to acquire knowledge of another vision, make another darshan our scripture or shastra of purposeful life that allows the living powers of the spirit enter in us. Even while we shall retain the best of the traditions that time does not wear them out, we have to find new ones appropriate for the new powers of expression and realization. We are heir to the sixteen formulations or samsakāras of the past, but unless they pass the fire-test of the future they shall not bind us. They must, after the fire-test create a new future of spiritual prosperity. The spiritual prosperity as envisaged here is embedded in the Life Divine given to us by Sri Aurobindo. We have to prepare ourselves to live in it. At times it is said that Sri Aurobindo’s thought-visions should be located in the Indian tradition; this may prove preposterous, in fact it should be the other way round. In him is a greater and meaningful synthesis of the eastern and western traditions and these could be foundations for the future.

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There is one thing which is not spoken of here, in the Dhammapada: a supreme disinterestedness and a supreme liberation is to follow the discipline of self-perfection, the march of progress, not with a precise end in view as described here, the liberation of Nirvana, but because this march of progress is the profound law and the purpose of earthly life, the truth of universal existence and because you put yourself in harmony with it, spontaneously, whatever the result may be.

There is a deep trust in the divine Grace, a total surrender to the divine Will, an integral adhesion to the divine Plan which makes one do the thing to be done without concern for the result. That is the perfect liberation.

That is truly the abolition of suffering. The consciousness is filled with an unchanging delight and each step you take reveals a marvel of splendour.

We are grateful to the Buddha for what he has brought for human progress and, as I told you at the beginning, we shall try to realise a little of all the beautiful things he has taught us, but we shall leave the goal and the result of our endeavour to the Supreme Wisdom that surpasses all understanding.

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Is this the end of all that we have been,
And all we did or dreamed,—
A name unremembered and a form undone,—
Is this the end?

A body rotting under a slab of stone
Or turned to ash in fire,
A mind dissolved, lost its forgotten thoughts,—
Is this the end?

Is this the end? This is a rhetorical question. The answer is, ‘no, it cannot be so’.

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