There are those who are open—entirely open as a flower to the sun, ready to absorb. It is particularly the receptivity of people which I see, the state in which they are: those who come with an aspiration, those who come with a curiosity, those who come, as though with a kind of obligation, and then there are those who thirst for light—there are not many of them. Today I saw one who was charming! Oh, wonderful! Well, I am constantly struggling against people who have come here so that they may be comfortable and “free to do whatever they like”, so... I tell them, “The world is big enough, you can go out”—there is no soul, no aspiration, nothing. They are all, all old and I am the only one to be young! It is that, yes, this flame, this will, what they call “push”. But there are not many who bring it. Mostly it is comfort that they need—and free to do some nonsense which they would not do in the world! But to hasten the coming—one could hasten it if one were a conqueror!

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Theology is the greatest and most certain of all the sciences, since its source is divine knowledge, which cannot be deceived, and because of the higher worth of its subject-matter, the sublimity of which transcends human reason.

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He who is free from the knots of desires and whose doubts have been set at rest is liberated even when he is in the body, a jivan-mukta. Although he may seem to be bound he is free. He remains like a lamp in a picture. He who has easily cast off all his egoistic tendencies and has abandoned even the object of meditation, is said to be liberated even when he is in the body.

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What man most passionately wants is his living wholeness and his living unison, not his own isolate salvation of his "soul". … For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and the dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh. … I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation.

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Book auctions bring back many memories from my boyhood days. Often, my father, then a practising pleader in Andhra Pradesh, would get a call to attend book auctions in Bangalore. Those were the days of World War II. Many foreign families leaving India left behind their precious collection of books with the auctioneer in Bangalore.

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There is anecdotal evidence that Jinnah, when faced with the consequences of his separatism, was both appalled and contrite. He may well have realised before he died that his ideal of a secular Muslim-majority state was no more than a chimera.

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The great august Paramount of seven dawns
Comes crashing the golden cosmos’s massive gates,
Sweeping in his royalty’s blaze the twilight of thought,
Thundering through the throat the impeccable voice,
Pouring in the heart the holocaust of love,
Pressing the fire-feet of the creative gleam,
Flooding with miracles the spines of little life,
Thrilling the vast Name in body’s night of trance;
The Self of Bliss bursts in seven epiphanies.

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Physical sight and hearing have been thrown into the background to make room for identification by consciousness, for the sake of the growth of consciousness. The means for relating, knowing, is consciousness identifying itself with the thing or the person. There are experiences altogether interesting. The consciousness established there above the head, became more and more strong, more and more clear; and it was constant. About transformation, well, I do not know.... What I have explained about “replacement of consciousness” is being done methodically. Actually, all this time has been utilised for developing the consciousness of the physical being. And this physical being, the body, seems really to have been prepared for another consciousness. Indeed, all that which in the physical nature belonged still to the old world, to its habits, its ways of doing and being, its ways of acting, all that could not be “handled” in any other way than this: through illness. I cannot say that it has not been interesting. The change is there, the change is evident. I have changed very much, there has been wholly a regrouping. There is something in the physical world as it is which is not yet open to the divine Vibration. And it is this something which does all, all, all the evil.... The Divine Consciousness is not felt. I believe something has been done to prepare Matter to receive as it must, in a suitable way—it has learnt to receive in the right way.

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Bees may have evolved to be "cleverer" in the mornings to help them forage. They are "hugely important to us. Not only do bees pollinate many crops we depend upon for food, but they also pollinate wild flowers which helps to maintain the beauty and diversity of the landscape in which we live."

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Just as a block of stone is said to be devoid of the statue when it has not actually been carved out, so also Brahman is said to be void when it is devoid of the impression of the world. Just as still water may be said to contain or not contain ripples, so also Brahman may be said to contain or not contain the world. It is neither void nor existence.

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Sri Aurobindo describes seven suns of the Supermind as follows: the Sun of Supramental Truth,—Knowledge-Power; the Sun of Supramental Light and Will-Power; the Sun of Supramental Word, embodying the Knowledge-Power; the Sun of Supramental Love, Beauty, and Bliss, releasing the Soul of the Knowledge-Power; the Sun of Supramental Force dynamised as a power and source of life; the Sun of Life-Radiances (Power-Rays) distributing the dynamis and pouring it into concrete formations; the Sun of Supramental Substance-Energy and Form-Energy empowered to embody the supramental life and stabilise the creation.

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If the Managing Trustee feels so confident about his attitude towards the Mother, so do we who are against him on this particular issue. Perhaps the only difference is that we feel answerable to others also in the absence of a clear indication from the Mother. If all of us were sure how the Mother would have reacted to Peter Heehs’s Lives of Sri Aurobindo, the problem would not have arisen at all.

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How do we in the role of the subject perceive an object? What is the state of our consciousness with respect to the object? This is referred to as the epistemology of perception. In this post, I will first survey perception (Pratyaksha) as outlined by Vedanta and then discuss how Sri Aurobindo augmented this theory in the light of his own supramental experiences. By giving new meaning to the four terms Vijnana, Prajnana, Samjnana and Ajnana listed in the Aitereya Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo presented a fresh perspective on the epistemology of perception.

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Erdös numbers have been a part of the myth of mathematicians for many years. Due to the very high frequency of interdisciplinary collaboration in science today and due to the fact that mathematics is basic to science disciplines, very large numbers of non-mathematicians also have finite Erdös numbers. Not only that; many linguists, political scientists, and Nobel laureates have finite (less than 8) Erdös numbers.

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Denizens of this world are our guardian-friends
And in their zeal we kindle the earth-sacrifice;
Such richness, that in it expands her bosom
As though the Unborn found his beloved.

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This Consciousness that came more than a year ago is working very hard for sincerity; it does not allow “pretence”. It is an excellent mentor for this body, and the body is learning constantly. It knows the distance there is between the consciousness of the being which uses it and itself, and it does not suffer for that but is full of a perfect humility, a perfect modesty. And it is not surprised, it is not anxious, because it is: “Let Thy will be done; it is not my affair, I am not capable of judging and I do not try—let Thy will be done.” So, the body is like that, passive and abandoned. I let this Consciousness work actively. What speaks, what observes is a centre of consciousness that is there, up above. One must maintain through a sort of conscious concentration a condition, a way of being, and that is evidently the new way of being. But it is almost a Herculean task.

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The photographs illustrate the severity of the loss of ice mass among the glaciers surrounding Mount Everest. The melt waters of these high altitude glaciers supply crucial seasonal flows to the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Salween, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers, which hundreds of millions of people downstream depend on for their livelihoods. If the present rate of melting continues, many of these glaciers will be severely diminished by the middle of this century.

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There is a double aspect of biography in Savitri, of the legendary Aswapati and Savitri, of the spiritual-occult, of Purusha and Shakti, Presence and Power, Omniscience and Omnipotence, supreme Being and Consciousness-Force, divine Will and divine Action, of human incarnates as Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. This double aspect is present in it in intimate and functional relationship, of the Divine’s will-to-be and the Divine’s will-to-become. It is a manifesto for the Divine’s manifestation.

The first half of Savitri is essentially presenting the yoga-tapasya of Aswapati, and the second the shakti-yoga of Savitri. For an epic entitled Savitri, this may look somewhat disproportionate in division but Savitri is at once a legend and a symbol, both together, the legend capitalising on the myth, and the symbol unfolding the manifesto in the language that holds in it the future. The legend essentially comes from the narrative as is given in the Mahabharata, it having the splendid Vedic roots in it. The Vedic roots themselves are symbolic; it is a revelatory myth belonging to the Vedic cycle. Savitri’s biographical is carrying in it this double aspect, the legendary and the symbolic.

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In August 2010 something happens that only happens every 823 years: 5 Sundays… 5 Mondays… 5 Tuesdays…

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