"A Force came down into his mortal limbs,
A current from eternal seas of Bliss;" Savitri-79
The Reader's Query
“(Question) Am I fit for Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga? Will he take me up? (Answer by Sri Aurobindo) If by my Yoga you mean the integral Yoga leading towards the supramental realisation, you have not at present the capacity for it. All you can do at present is some preparation for it by Bhakti and self-dedication through Karma; if into this preparation you put a strong sincerity and a settled psychic aspiration, then one day you will be ready for more.” 23 February 1931
Sri Aurobindo
CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-544-545,
“(Q:) I have been here for one and a half years but I know nothing of the sadhana. I meditate, but nothing happens in the meditation. I feel there is no love in me towards the Mother. What shall I do to feel this love?
(Ans.) Become truthful, pure, sincere, straightforward.”
Sri Aurobindo
1 July 1935/CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother/p-462
The Reader's Query
“Answer to him that my way of Yoga is a special path and extremely difficult and I do not readily accept disciples — unless there is something to indicate that they have a special call.... The goal of Yoga is always hard to reach, but this one (integral Yoga) is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender."¹⁹
SRI AUROBINDO
“I do not very readily accept disciples as this path of Yoga is difficult one and it can be followed only if there is a special call.”²¹
SRI AUROBINDO
“You will tell him that admission to the Asram is only allowed to those who are already accepted as Sri Aurobindo’s disciples. There are no arrangements for visitors residing in the Asram; those who come for darshan make their own arrangements outside. Sri Aurobindo does not readily accept disciples as his is a special path of Yoga and very difficult for most. For what he wants, another Guru with an easier way of Yoga would probably be more helpful.”²⁰
SRI AUROBINDO
“I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God.”²
SRI AUROBINDO
“Even if one person could put himself faithfully at the disposal of the Truth, he could change the country and the world.... The best way to help the world is to transform oneself by an integral and intensive yoga.”¹⁸
THE MOTHER
“There are very few people who carry with them an atmosphere which irradiates joy, peace, confidence- it is very rare. But these are truly benefactors of humanity. They don’t need to open their mouth.”
THE MOTHER
“I know the conditions of the country (India). Even if one person could put himself faithfully at the disposal of the Truth, he could change the country and the world.”
The Mother
The Mother’s Agenda-10/p-148/19th April-1969
“All I would need is one man who had an absolute trust and was receptive, with a power of execution.”²²
THE MOTHER
“That is exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted and attempted; he used to say, “If I can find a hundred people, it will be enough for my purpose.”²
THE MOTHER
“Otherwise what will be ultimately accomplished is an achievement by the few initiating a new order of beings, while humanity will have passed sentence of unfitness on itself and may fall back into an evolutionary decline or a stationary immobility; for it is the constant upward effort (of the few) that has kept humanity alive and maintained for it its place in the front of creation.”²³
SRI AUROBINDO
“For spiritual rebirth means the constant throwing away of our previous associations and circumstances and proceeding to live as if at each virgin moment we were starting life anew… To give you an idea of the final height of spiritual rebirth, I may say that there can be a constant experience of the whole universe actually disappearing at every instant and being at every instant newly created!”²⁴
THE MOTHER
“Well-known or unknown has absolutely no importance from the spiritual point of view…One man who earnestly pursues the Yoga is of more value than a thousand well-known men.”²⁶
SRI AUROBINDO
“Many times in his writings, particularly in The Synthesis of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo warns us against the imaginings of those who believe they can do sadhana without rigorous self-control and who heed all sorts of inspirations, which lead them to a dangerous imbalance where all their repressed, hidden, secret desires come out into the open under the pretence of liberation from ordinary conventions and ordinary reason.”²⁸
THE MOTHER
After the arrival of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the Supramental energy is active in earth’s atmosphere very close to the material world and this inner aid with constant miracle will replace the outer aid of Religion in generalising Spirituality in humanity and this personal contact with Supramental Consciousness will be initiated from individual prepared Soul Centres. Long before the Supramentalisation of humanity, a 'principle of Supramental consciousness'²⁹ must be established in few prepared vessels. So all can open themselves towards the Supramental Light and Oneness and receive its brief touch¹⁶ with miraculous result but the flow of this invisible Sunlight can be stabilised in the well built subtle and causal body of the prepared individual vessel or after one is thoroughly established in the intermediate and 'the preliminary work psychicisation and spiritualisation of the being and nature'²⁹ through prolonged Sadhana. Intervention of this Force changes circumstances, brings very wide spread results and sooner or later the world will come under its direct influence. Thus, the world appears to him with a different meaning, not a senseless and meaningless whirl in space but ‘A Presence and Greatness everywhere’¹⁷ transforming receptive matter to plastic and Spiritual Law and Divine Force can penetrate uninterruptedly into the material world through its conscious human vessel. Man’s future is ‘Decreed (to become God) since the beginning of the worlds.’¹⁵ An Avatara’s mission is fulfilled when the (consenting part of the) humanity arrives at a Consciousness in which He is fully established.
Sri Aurobindo’s first and primary objective is accomplished if the surface personalities of a few Sadhakas or ‘one hundred perfect instruments’² reveal and establish the concealed Supramental Mahashakti after long movement of Consciousness between the Psychic and Spiritual plane. And the secondary objective is with this inner movement of universalisation of Consciousness, to expedite the process of descent of Divine Force to earth's atmosphere on a large scale or “His gates to the world were swept with seas of light.” (Savitri-236) Thus, the consciousness of general humanity can be enriched and generalisation of Spirituality and the revelation of Godhead in humanity becomes practicable.
A relation between the seeker of truth, the traditional Yogi and the integral Yogi is hinted in the Gita. “A seeker of truth, jijnasu, after many births of preparation, purification of impurity and sin, endeavouring with sincerity becomes a traditional Yogi and attains the highest goal of liberation of Soul or a Soul who fell from Yoga, yogabhrasta, from the past birth, in this birth strives with sincerity to overcome the samskara of many births in brief period of this life and attains the highest goal... After many births of preparation, a traditional Yogi, Jnani, attains My Purushottama or Supramental state of Consciousness. Before realisation of this highest Consciousness, he also realises the intermediate stair that all this existence is Divine, the Cosmic Consciousness, Vasudeva sarvamiti. Such a great Soul with realisation of Vasudeva sarvamiti or integral Yogi is very rare, samahatma sudurlava.”³ An integral Yogi, after many births of preparation, attains integral Transformation, integral Perfection and integral Knowledge.²⁷
A similar description of a seeker of Truth (Jijnasu) ascending to the state of Consciousness of Godhead (Avatara) is also observed in Savitri through intermediate stairs Dvija, Yantra and Vibhuti through many successive births of preparation known as all life.
"Aspiring he transcends his earthly self; ( A seeker of Truth, Jijnasu)
He stands in the largeness of his soul new-born, (A twice-born Soul, Dvija)
Redeemed from encirclement by mortal things
And moves in a pure free spiritual realm (Instrument of Truth, Yantra)
As in the rare breath of a stratosphere;
A last end of far lines of divinity, (Emanation, Vibhuti)
He mounts by a frail thread to his high source;
He reaches his fount of immortality,
He calls the Godhead into his mortal life.” (Consciousness of Avatara)
Savitri-486
A traditional Sadhaka, after realisation of Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama consciousness, feels that this realisation cannot be reconciled⁶ with the untransformed nature of the three Gunas. So, he has no unfinished task left and hence his blissful enjoyment of existence concentrates on the issue of freedom from rebirth and escapes into the supreme abode³⁹ of param dham through the passage of Purushottama state. In integral Yoga, after realisation of Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama consciousness or after realisation of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being, a Sadhaka’s difficult task prohibits blissful enjoyment of the fruit of his labour but begins to reconcile static Matter with dynamic Spirit and thus Divine Shakti pours into the material vessel and confronts the Subconscient dark forces. His Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental purification, transformation and perfection resume action from firmly established Psychic heart centre and from firmly established Karma Yoga where Divine Will, Knowledge and Love are perfectly reconciled.
Integral Yoga gives more importance to the emergence of Spiritual Instruments⁴ and traditional Yoga/Religion to the emergence of psycho-physical/religious Teachers;⁵ or “All religions and disciplines in India which use largely the psycho-physical method, depend more or less upon it for their practices.”¹ The manifestation of some intermediate truth through traditional Yoga/Religion can draw large devotees and the manifestation of the highest and comprehensive truth³³ through integral Yoga can draw few strong Souls. Traditional Yoga gives more importance to self-expansion and a traditional Teacher is weighed by the number of disciples and devotees surrounding him. Integral Yoga gives more importance to Subconscient transformation through self-concentration and a Sadhaka of integral Yoga is weighed by his enhanced capacity to bear earth’s suffering and miseries and later transforming them into ecstasies. The perfect Instruments of integral Yoga with universalised Consciousness will preoccupy themselves for the benefit of individuals and humanity through concentration and illumination of their own subtle and causal bodies. They are nameless Spiritual leaders of humanity and their invisible world action through descent of Divine Force or reversal of Consciousness to resolve all problems of existence, are of far greater value than any religious movement can imagine.
Those whose frontal surface nature is dominated by Courage and selfless Love, known as Kshatriya Soul Force and frontal Nature dominated by Truth and Wisdom, known as Brahmin Soul Force are recognised as superior human beings and are fit for collective Spiritual life. This work will be accelerated by the emergence of the Kshatriya Soul force of courage and new adventure in the outer world and ceaseless battle against earthly opposition through activation of the Psychic Being. The Mission will further spread by high nobility of Soul which is untouched by any motive,³⁷ littleness, narrowness and baseness and will move with a certain greatness of Spiritual conquest to confront with universal dark forces attached to the present unstable creation and Supramental contagion to enter fierce battle with ‘giant sons of Darkness’⁷ of the Subconscient/Inconscient world and bear ‘inner wounds that are to slow to heal.’⁸ This manifesting action further asks that state of reconciling Wisdom which can perfectly possess all the infinite variety of external circumstances and permeate the Divine Light and Love to all the nether, neglected and less explored domain and thus illumining the whole earth. This endeavour will drive forward towards the realisation of the vision as indicated in Savitri, “Mere men into spiritual beings grow And see awake the dumb divinity.”⁹
A Sadhaka of traditional Yoga, as per the Gita's injunction, 'does not mourn and remains indifferent either for the living or for the dead.' (The Gita-2.11) and always remember the unchangeable law, 'For certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the dead.' (The Gita-2.27) After fulfilling this condition of traditional Yoga, a Sadhaka of integral Yoga will invoke the Savitri within and remain aware of people dying every day and every moment, through the mantra, 'This was the day when Satyavan must die' (Savitri-10), and maintain another Spirit always "For about sixty years I have been constantly looking after people who are said to be "dying" – constantly." (The Mother's Agenda-April 28, 1965):
"Although our fallen minds forget to climb,
Although our human stuff resists or breaks,
She keeps her will that hopes to divinise clay;
Failure cannot repress, defeat o’erthrow;
Time cannot weary her nor the Void subdue,
The ages have not made her passion less;
No victory she admits of Death or Fate.
Always she drives the soul to new attempt;
Always her magical infinitude
Forces to aspire the inert brute elements;
As one who has all infinity to waste,
She scatters the seed of the Eternal’s strength
On a half-animate and crumbling mould,
Plants heaven’s delight in the heart’s passionate mire,
Pours godhead’s seekings into a bare beast frame,
Hides immortality in a mask of death." Savitri-354
Our task in sadhana is to make Death God’s Inconscient throne³⁴ unsafe by undergoing Subconscient and Inconscient Transformation and to transform this prison-house of the material world into an opulent kingdom, rajyam samruddham. Or Death God's Inconscient throne is “Threatened with this faint beam of wandering Truth” Savitri-585
The Synthesis of Yoga book (Principal Shastra) issues injunctions to a Sadhaka (Seeker of integral Truth) of integral Yoga that he should not remain indifferent to individual, collective and world imperfection and he should become accountable for his Sadhana (askesis) to his own Self, to the World and to the Divine.²⁵ Integral Yoga proposes that a developed Soul must not ‘look with a remote indifference on the’¹⁰ sufferings of the unblessed ordinary human being and blessed devotees and draws all of them towards Spirit’s freedom. Or ‘even if our personal deliverance is complete, still there is the suffering of others, the world travail, which the great of soul cannot regard with indifference.’¹¹ ‘Accepting life, he (a Sadhaka of integral Yoga) has to bear not only his own burden, but a great part of the world’s burden too along with it, as a continuation of his own sufficiently heavy load. Therefore his Yoga has much more of the nature of a battle than others; but this is not only an individual battle, it is a collective war waged over a considerable country.’¹² The forceful directive issued in the principal Shastra related to individual and collective imperfection, is to ‘leave nothing around it (liberated Soul Sadhaka) unchanged’¹³ superseding the previous stand ‘which will in no way seek to change their outward appearance...and old human surroundings.’¹³ His personal and communal existence must ‘take full account of’¹⁴ present imperfection and he has to ‘see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection.’¹⁴
The Mother linked money power with sex and its need to control universally. That is one of the perfections of Supramental manifestation. He "who will have a total power over the human sexual impulses (not merely in himself, but a universal power – that is, a power enabling him to control this everywhere, among all men) will have the right"³⁰ to rule over the money Power of the world. "The supramentalized body will be sexless since the need for animal procreation will no longer exist."³¹
Recapitulation:
“Actually, we are very lazy...Sri Aurobindo wrote that he was very lazy – that consoled me! We are very lazy. We would like (laughing) to settle back and blissfully enjoy the fruit of our labors!...”³²
The Mother
"The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here (in Integral Yoga) being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature." ³⁵
Sri Aurobindo
The above message indicates that, in integral Yoga, enjoying life from a higher plane of Consciousness is forbidden ("I sacrifice not earth to happier worlds." Savitri-692 This line can be reconciled with the line, "Our souls forget to the Highest to aspire." Savitri-113), whereas in traditional Yoga it is permitted. A traditional Sadhak, after discovering the triple Selves, waits in an ecstatic state to escape into the supreme abode of Param Dham. In integral Yoga, time and space are utilised towards inner and outer adventures of life through movement of Consciousness and the Supreme Sachchidananda Consciousness possesses all the other intermediatee multiple planes of Consciousness. We have to be aware of the higest dynamic Self and its full possession in our external life. (“Thy consciousness forgets to be divine” Savitri-454) Thus, life is divinised.
Those whose Psychic being in the heart and Spiritual being above the head have partly opened are identified as beginners of Integral Yoga. Before this opening, they can pursue this Yoga with the aid of purified intellect. These seekers are issued with injunctions in Savitri to renounce 'rest and earthly ease' (Savitri-339) till they find their Psychic and Spiritual being. Those who have found the Psychic being and Spiritual being are issued with injunctions in Savitri to renounce 'the glory and felicity.' (Savitri-136) Because during the transformation of Nature, pain and suffering are treated not as a curse, but as a transitional mechanism and a privilege ("It keeps for her her privilege of pain...But must cross on stones of suffering to its goal." (Savitri-457)) used by the universalized consciousness to shock the inert matter into waking up and evolving.
There are two types of liberated Souls. The first type of liberated Soul or a Sadhaka of traditional Yoga, ‘may be content with a subtle and limited action within the old human surroundings which will in no way seek to change their outward appearance.’¹³ The second type of liberated Soul or a Sadhaka of integral Yoga, who ‘will not only alter the forms and sphere of its own external life but, leaving nothing around it unchanged or unaffected, create a new world or a new order.’¹³ Sri Aurobindo insists that the second type of liberated Souls remain accountable for their Sadhana through large Divine action, record the descending overhead Divine Wisdom and enrich Earth's atmosphere through the descent of Divine Love, Delight and Beauty.
A long practice³⁸ of traditional Yoga is felt necessary and indispensable before the beginning of Integral Yoga. One may note that after the perfections of traditional Yoga are exhausted (list of perfections of traditional and Integral Yoga), Integral Yoga begins. For the traditional Sadhaks, accountability in Sadhana is not obligatory, whereas integral Sadhaks are accountable for their Sadhana to the Self, World and Divine.²⁵ The Mother pointed out, "Sri Aurobindo always said that his Yoga began where the former Yogas (traditional Yoga) ended, that to be able to realise his Yoga it was necessary first of all to have reached the extreme limit of what the older Yogas had realised, that is to say, the perception of the Divine, the union, the identification with the Divine... On the contrary Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana starts where the others end. Once the union with the Supreme is realised one must bring down that realisation to the exterior world and change the conditions of life upon the earth until a total transformation is accomplished. In accordance with this aim, the sadhaks of the integral yoga do not retire from the world to lead a life of contemplation and meditation. Each one must devote at least one-third of his time (that means at least 8 hours of a day) to a useful work."³⁶ The spirit in which an integral Sadhak will pursue sadhana:
"Content abide not with one conquered realm;
Adventure all to make the whole world thine,
To break into greater kingdoms turn thy force.
Fear not to be nothing that thou mayst be all;
Assent to the emptiness of the Supreme
That all in thee may reach its absolute." Savitri-536
OM TAT SAT
References:
1: CWSA-23/ The Synthesis of Yoga/p-538,
2: “I do not want hundreds of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get a hundred complete men, purified of petty egoism, who will be the instruments of God.” Sri Aurobindo
/Champaklal Speaks/p-191-192, “That is exactly what Sri Aurobindo wanted and attempted; he used to say, “If I can find a hundred people, it will be enough for my purpose.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda- 5/p-195,
"Her spirit saw the world as living God;
It saw the One and knew that all was He.
She knew him as the Absolute’s self-space,
One with her self and ground of all things here
In which the world wanders seeking for the Truth
Guarded behind its face of ignorance:" Savitri-556
4: “Teaching, example and influence are three instruments of the Guru (integral Teacher)… He will seek to awaken much more than to instruct…The example is more powerful than the instruction; but it is not the example of the outward acts nor that of the personal character which is of most importance. These have their place and their utility; but what will most stimulate aspiration in others is the central fact of the divine realisation within him governing his whole life and inner state and all his activities.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-66-67, “The idea of helping others is a subtle form of the ego. It is only the Divine Force that can help. One can be its instrument, but you should first learn to be a fit and egoless instrument.” CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-318, “The best way to help the world is to transform oneself by an integral and intensive yoga.” The Mother/TMCW14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277,
5: “…the (traditional) Yoga proceeds by the results of prescribed methods taught in a Scripture or a tradition and reinforced and illumined by the instructions of the Master. This is a narrower practice, but safe and effective within its limits, because it follows a well-beaten track to a long familiar goal.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-55,
6: Matter cannot be reconciled with the Spirit is understood from following verse: “They who with the eye of knowledge perceive this irreconcilable difference between the Matter, kshetra, and the Spirit, Kshetrajna, and the liberation of Being from Nature, they escape into supreme abode of Param Dham.” The Gita-13.35, In the Gita Matter can be reconciled with the Spirit is hinted but not developed: ‘Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, reason and ego is My eightfold divided Nature, apara-prakriti. Know too My other Divine Nature, Para-prakriti, different from this Apara Prakriti; this Supreme Nature or the Supreme Mother which becomes the Jiva in the heart and by which this world is upheld. This ‘upholding of the world,’ jagat dharayate, means Para-Prakriti also penetrates into Apara Prakriti by which this world can be purified, transformed and perfected.” THE GITA-7.4, 5.
7: Savitri-226,
8: Savitri-230,
9: Savitri-709-10,
10: "The state of the liberated soul is that of the Purusha who is for ever free. Its consciousness is a transcendence and an all-comprehending unity. Its self-knowledge does not get rid of all the terms of self-knowledge, but unifies and harmonises all things in God and in the divine nature. The intense religious ecstasy which knows only God and ourselves and shuts out all else, is only to it an intimate experience which prepares it for sharing in the embrace of the divine Love and Delight around all creatures. A heavenly bliss which unites God and ourselves and the blest, but enables us to look with a remote indifference on the unblest and their sufferings is not possible to the perfect soul; for these also are its selves; free individually from suffering and ignorance, it must naturally turn to draw them also towards its freedom. On the other hand any absorption in the relations between self and others and the world to the exclusion of God and the Beyond is still more impossible, and therefore it cannot be limited by the earth or even by the highest and most altruistic relations of man with man. Its activity or its culmination is not to efface and utterly deny itself for the sake of others, but to fulfil itself in God-possession, freedom and divine bliss that in and by its fulfilment others too may be fulfilled. For it is in God alone, by the possession of the Divine only that all the discords of life can be resolved, and therefore the raising of men towards the Divine is in the end the one effective way of helping mankind. All the other activities and realisations of our self-experience have their use and power, but in the end these crowded side- tracks or these lonely paths must circle round to converge into the wideness of the integral way by which the liberated soul transcends all, embraces all and becomes the promise and the power of the fulfilment of all in their manifested being of the Divine." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-444-445,
11: "It is possible, when we live inwardly in the depths, to arrive at a state of vast inner equality and peace which is untouched by the reactions of the outer nature, and that is a great but incomplete liberation, — for the outer nature too has a right to deliverance. But even if our personal deliverance is complete, still there is the suffering of others, the world travail, which the great of soul cannot regard with indifference. There is a unity with all beings which something within us feels and the deliverance of others must be felt as intimate to its own deliverance."CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-422,
12: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-77,
13: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-268,
14: “But whatever his aim, however exalted his aspiration, he has to begin from the law of his present imperfection, to take full account of it and see how it can be converted to the law of a possible perfection.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-631,
15: Savitri-708,
16: “There man can visit but there he cannot live.” Savitri-659 (All men can get the Supramental touch or God’s touch but are unfit or not prepared to get His embrace.) “There he could enter, there awhile abide.” Savitri-91, “It (child Soul) can only near and touch, it cannot hold;” Savitri-179
17: Savitri-42,
18: The Mother’s Agenda-10/p-148/19th April-1969, TMCW/Vol-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277,
19: CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-554, CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-27, “Write to him that compliance with his request to see me is impossible. I do not see anyone — I do not speak with anybody or give oral instructions in Yoga. As for the rest, this is a special path of Yoga and only those are accepted who have a special call to it, not merely a general desire for the spiritual life. It is not a life of Sannyasa or a Yoga that can be done by Japa etc. but something much more difficult, so difficult that even those who have a call do not find it easy to go through to the end, and for those who have not the call, it would be impossible. If he likes, however, he can go on practising his Japa with an aspiration towards this path and if he gets any experiences by which a call to it becomes evident, then I can reconsider his case.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-554, “Sri Aurobindo’s way of Yoga is of a special character — it is neither sannyasa nor does it accept the ordinary way of human life. Its first stages can be practised anywhere. But unless there is a personal call to this particular way, there is no use in anybody taking to it. For it is a difficult path and there is little chance of success unless the aspiration is clear and fixed and the demand of the soul sincere and unbreakable. Sri Aurobindo does not admit anyone to this Yoga unless he has some ground to decide that there is in him this special call and that he has an evident capacity for this way — usually it is only after seeing personally at the time of one of the three darshans he gives to disciples and others that he decides whether or not to admit. On the strength of correspondence only he very seldom makes any decision of this kind.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-555, “The difficulty is that she seems to have only vairagya for worldly life without any knowledge or special call for this Yoga and this Yoga and the life here are quite different things from ordinary Yoga and ordinary Asrams. It is not a life of meditative retirement as elsewhere. Moreover it would be impossible for us to decide anything without seeing her and knowing at close hand what she is like. We are not just now for taking more inmates into the Asram except in a very few cases.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-556, “Reply that residence in the Asrama is only allowed to sadhakas who have been accepted into Sri Aurobindo’s path of Yoga, and not to all of them. This path is a special way of Yoga, difficult and different from others; only those are accepted who have a special call to it.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-559, “All are not equally capable of practising Yoga and in Yoga itself some paths are more difficult than others. There are some who have a special call to a path; others have no call; though they may feel drawn to Yoga, it is to other disciplines that they must go. This path is especially difficult and even some of those admitted to it find great difficulty in following it. Therefore Sri Aurobindo is not willing to admit any new disciples unless he has reason to think that they have a special call for it or a special capacity.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-560-561, “The number of sadhaks is over 150 and it is impossible to make farther admissions except in the most sparing way, as the means of the Asram are not unlimited. Moreover Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is of a special and difficult kind and he admits only those who seem to him to have a special call to the life here.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-581, “There is no study of philosophy here; there is only a silent practice of Yoga. But this Yoga is too difficult for everyone to be admitted to it; one must have a special call or a certain capacity (not intellectual, but psychic or spiritual) before he is accepted. And even then all who are accepted as disciples are not allowed to stay in the Asram. The life of the Asram is of a special kind and it is only rarely that those are admitted who have not become permanent members; a few come and stay for short periods, but these are already accepted disciples of Sri Aurobindo.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-595
20: CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-561,
21: SABCL/26/On Himself/p-175, “It may be said generally that to be overanxious to pull people, especially very young people, into the sadhana is not wise. The sadhak who comes to this Yoga must have a real call, and even with the real call the way is often difficult enough. But when one pulls people in in a spirit of enthusiastic propagandism, the danger is of lighting an imitative and unreal fire, not the true Agni, or else a short-lived fire which cannot last and is submerged by the uprush of the vital waves. This is especially so with young people who are plastic and easily caught hold of by ideas and communicated feelings not their own — afterwards the vital rises with its unsatisfied demands and they are swung between two contrary forces or rapidly yield to the strong pull of the ordinary life and action and satisfaction of desire which is the natural bent of adolescence. Or else the unfit adhara tends to suffer under the stress of a call for which it was not ready, or at least not yet ready. When one has the real thing in oneself, one goes through and finally takes the full way of sadhana, but it is only a minority that does so. It is better to receive only people who come of themselves and of these only those in whom the call is genuinely their own and persistent.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-35/ Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-691-692
22: The Mother’s Agenda-5/p-165/14th August-1964,
23: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-752,
24: TMCW/Vol-3/Questions and Answers-1929 to 1931/p-176,
25:
“She wrote the account of all that she had lost,”
Savitri-117,
(Accountability to the Self.)
“The Voice replied: “Is this enough, O spirit?
And what shall thy soul say when it wakes and knows
The work was left undone for which it came?
Or is this all for thy being born on earth
Charged with a mandate from eternity,
A listener to the voices of the years,
A follower of the footprints of the gods,
To pass and leave unchanged the old dusty laws?”
Savitri-475
(Accountability to the Self)
“He (Avatar) has given his life and light to balance here
The dark account of mortal ignorance…
Pays with the body’s death his soul’s vast light…
He dies that the world may be new-born and live.”
Savitri-445-447
(An Avatar’s accountability to the world.)
“To account for the Actual’s unaccountable sum,”
Savitri-269,
(Accountability to the Divine.)
“Is this then the report that I must make,
My head bowed with shame before the Eternal’s seat,
— His power he kindled in thy body has failed,
His labourer returns, her task undone?”
Savitri-476
(Accountability to the Divine.)
“And in the transactions of our positive consciousness, even Unity has to make its account with Multiplicity; for the Many also are Brahman.”CWSA/21/The Life Divine-39 (Accountability to the world)
“In transparent systems bodied termless truths,
The Timeless made accountable to Time”
Savitri-273
26: CWSA-35/Letters on Himself And The Ashram/p-691, TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-62
27: “Among thousands of seekers of truth, jijnasu, one here and there strives after perfection and becomes a Yogi. And of those few siddha Yogi who strive and attain perfection of Yoga one here and there attains integral perfection and knows the Divine with all the principles of His existence, betti tattvatah.” The Gita-7.3,
28: The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/Vol-10/p-15,
29: "It is not intended to supramentalise humanity at large, but to establish the principle of the supramental consciousness in the earth-evolution. If that is done, all that is needed will be evolved by the supramental Power itself. It is not therefore important that the mission should be widespread. What is important is that the thing should be done at all in however small a number; that is the only difficulty…It would therefore be a waste of time and energy which should be devoted to the preliminary work psychicisation and spiritualisation of the being and nature without which no supramentalisation is possible.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-288-290,
30: The Mother's Agenda/June 22, 1958,
31: The Mother's Agenda/August 1954,
32: The Mother’s Agenda/ July 18, 1961,
33: “For the disciple of an integral Yoga there can be no hesitation; as a seeker of knowledge it is the integral knowledge and not anything either half-way and attractive or high-pinnacled and exclusive he must seek. He must soar to the utmost height, but also circle and spread to the most all-embracing wideness, not binding himself to any rigid structure of metaphysical thought, but free to admit and combine all the soul’s highest and greatest and fullest and most numerous experiences.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-361,
34: "Death stays the journeying discoverer, Life.
Thus is the throne of the Inconscient safe" Savitri-18,
35: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-943,
36: "Sri Aurobindo came to say something new. And it is precisely because people are unable to come out of the experiences they have known and heard being spoken of, that they try to identify this Force which Sri Aurobindo called supramental with their experience of the intermediary worlds including the Overmind. For they cannot conceive that there could be something else.... Sri Aurobindo always said that his Yoga began where the former Yogas ended, that to be able to realise his Yoga it was necessary first of all to have reached the extreme limit of what the older Yogas had realised, that is to say, the perception of the Divine, the union, the identification with the Divine. But that Divine, Sri Aurobindo says, is the Divine of the Overmind which is already something quite unthinkable, in comparison with the human consciousness, because even to reach there one must pass through several planes and in these planes one feels dazzled." TMCW/Vol-5/p-283, "The usual sadhanas have for aim the union with the Supreme Consciousness (Sat-chit-ananda). And those who reach there are satisfied with their own liberation and leave the world to its unhappy plight. On the contrary Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana starts where the others end. Once the union with the Supreme is realised one must bring down that realisation to the exterior world and change the conditions of life upon the earth until a total transformation is accomplished. In accordance with this aim, the sadhaks of the integral yoga do not retire from the world to lead a life of contemplation and meditation. Each one must devote at least one-third of his time to a useful work (that means 8 hours of the day). All activities are represented in the Ashram and each one chooses the work most congenial to his nature, but must do it in a spirit of service and unselfishness, keeping always in view the aim of integral transformation...To make this purpose possible the Ashram is organised so that all its inmates find their reasonable needs satisfied and have not to worry about their subsistence... The rules are very few so that each one can enjoy the freedom needed for his development but a few things are strictly forbidden: they are — (1) politics, (2) smoking, (3) alcoholic drink and (4) sex enjoyment.... Great care is taken for the maintenance of good health and the welfare and normal growth of the body of all, small and big, young and old." TMCW/Vol-13/Words of the Mother-1/p-107-108,
37: (Blessed Lord said) : “He who expects nothing, anapekhya, (neither from the Creator nor from His Creation) is virgin, skilful, indifferent, untroubled, who has given up all initiation of work, is dear to Me.” The Gita-12.16, “There is a love in which the emotion is turned towards the Divine in an increasing receptivity and growing union. What it receives from the Divine it pours out on others, but truly without demanding a return. If you are capable of that, then that is the highest and most satisfying way to love.” The MotherTMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-122, “The true purpose of life — To live for the Divine, or to live for the Truth, or at least to live for one’s soul. And the true sincerity —To live for the Divine without expecting any benefit from Him in return.” The MotherTMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-4, The Mother here recounts the general state of consciousness of devotees and ashramites: “To give a rather curious example, there was a kind of spell of illness over the Ashram, stemming mainly from people’s thoughts, from their way of thinking. It was quite widespread and it was horrible, gloomy, full of fear, pettiness, blind submission, oh! Everyone was in a state of expectation... In short, the atmosphere was such that there was an attempt to prevent me from leaving my room – I had to sneak out! It was disgusting! Well, on the very night I saw the spell over the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo was lying sick in his bed, just as I had seen him in 1950.” The MotherThe Mother’s Agenda/ February 18, 1961, “Those who approach me with the intention of obtaining favours will be disappointed, because I have no powers at my disposal.” Or “If you approach me in the hope of obtaining favours, you will be frustrated, because I have no powers at my disposal.” The MotherThe Mother’s Agenda-5/p-250,
“There was no strength in her, no pride of force;
The lofty burning of desire had sunk
Ashamed, a vanity of separate self,
The hope of spiritual greatness fled,
Salvation she asked not nor a heavenly crown:" Savitri-p-522
38: "His (a Sadhak of Integral Yoga) Yoga may be governed for a long time by one Scripture or by several successively, — if it is in the line of the great Hindu tradition, by the Gita, for example, the Upanishads, the Veda. Or it may be a good part of his development to include in its material a richly varied experience of the truths of many Scriptures and make the future opulent with all that is best in the past. But in the end he must take his station, or better still, if he can, always and from the beginning he must live in his own soul beyond the limitations of the word that he uses. The Gita itself thus declares that the Yogin in his progress must pass beyond the written Truth, —sabdabrahmativartate — beyond all that he has heard and all that he has yet to hear, —´srotavyasya s´rutasya ca." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-55, “I may say that the way of the Gita is itself a part of the Yoga here and those who have followed it, to begin with or as a first stage, have a stronger basis than others for this Yoga. To look down on it therefore as something separate and inferior is not a right standpoint… I suggested the Gita method for you because the opening which is necessary for the Yoga here seems to be too difficult for you. If you made a less strenuous demand upon yourself, there might be a greater chance.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-445-446, “Therefore our integral Yoga will take up these various disciplines and concentrations, but harmonise and if possible fuse them by a synthesis which removes their mutual exclusions. Not realising the Lord and the All only to reject them for silent Self or unknowable Absolute as would an exclusively transcendental, nor living for the Lord alone or in the All alone as would an exclusively theistic or an exclusively pantheistic Yoga, the seeker of integral knowledge will limit himself neither in his thought nor in his practice nor in his realisation by any religious creed or philosophical dogma. He will seek the Truth of existence in its completeness. The ancient disciplines he will not reject, for they rest upon eternal truths, but he will give them an orientation in conformity with his aim.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-341-342,
39: "Although with a vain imaginary bliss
Of fiery union through death’s door of escape
She dreamed of her body robed in funeral flame,
She knew she must not clutch that happiness
To die with him and follow, seizing his robe
Across our other countries, travellers glad
Into the sweet or terrible Beyond." Savitri-472
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"(1) To give oneself to the Divine, (2) to receive and be the Divine, (3) to transmit and spread forth the Divine: these are the three simultaneous movements which constitute our total relation with the Divine."
The Mother
TMCW/Vol-14/p-22
"Think only of the Divine.
Live only for the Divine.
Aspire only to the Divine.
Love only the Divine.
Work only for the Divine.
Be attached only to the Divine.
Want only the Divine.
Seek only the Divine.
Only adore the Divine."
The Mother
White Roses
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"The Divine alone is true – all the rest is falsehood.
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The Divine alone is real – all the rest is illusion.
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The Divine alone is life – all the rest belongs to the kingdom of death.
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The Divine alone is light – all the rest is semi-obscurity.
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The Divine alone is love – all the rest is selfish sentimentality.