The Keyword of integral Yoga: “This is a difficult lesson to learn (rejection of revolt and impatience), but you must learn it. I do not find fault with you for taking long over it, I myself took full twelve years to learn it thoroughly, (written in the year 1919) and even after I knew the principle well enough, it took me quite four years and more to master my lower nature in this respect. But you have the advantage of my experience and my help; you will be able to do it more rapidly, if you consciously and fully assist me, by not associating yourself with the enemy Desire ; jahi kamam durasadam , (this enemy in the form of desire, who is so hard to assail. The Gita-3.43) remember that utterance of the Gita , it is a keyword of our Yoga.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-229 “A new consciousness is at work upon earth to prepare the coming of the superhuman being. Open yourselves to this consciousness if you aspire to serve the Divine Work. To come into contact with this new consciousness, the essential condition is no longer to have any desires and to be wholly sincere.” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-9th April 1969

"There throned on concentration’s native seat He opens that third mysterious eye in man," Savitri-665 The Central Truth ofIntegral Education "It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman , and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen. After that revelation, whatever fadings of the light, whatever periods of darkness may afflict the soul, it can never irretrievably lose what it has once held. The experience is inevitably renewed and must become more frequent till it is constant; when and how soon depends on the devotion and persistence with which we insist on the path and besiege by our will or our love the hidden Deity." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-305 “It (Concentration) is to bring back all the scattered threads of consciousness to a single point, a single idea. Those who can attain perfect attention succeed in everything they undertake; they will always make a rapid progress. And this kind of concentration can be developed exactly like the muscles; one may follow different systems, different methods of training. Today we know that the most pitiful weakling, for example, can with discipline become as strong as anyone else. One should not have a will which flickers out like a candle... The will, concentration must be cultivated ; it is a question of method, of regular exercise. If you will, you can... But the thought “What’s the use?” must not come in to weaken the will. The idea that one is born with a certain character and can do nothing about it is a stupidity.” (The Mother's above message can be compared with "sometimes full of some divine afflatus or more than ordinary manifestation of the Godhead which is indeed present in all, even in the weakest or most clouded living being, " The Synthesis of Yoga-741) The Mother The Mother's Centenary Works/Vol-4/p-5 The Central Truth of Integral Education “Many times in his writings, particularly in The Synthesis of Yoga, ⁴³ 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.”²⁶ The Mother “It is only by increasing that control that he (a Sadhaka of integral Yoga) can move towards perfection, — and it is only by developing soul-power that he can reach it. Nature-power in him has to become more and more completely a conscious act of soul, a conscious expression of all the will and knowledge of spirit. Prakriti has to reveal itself as shakti of the Purusha .”²⁷ Sri Aurobindo “He does not abandon the animal reactions and enjoyments, but more lucidly, finely and sensitively mentalises them. This he does even on his normal and his lower levels, but, as he develops, he puts his lower being to a severer test , begins to demand from it on pain of rejection something like a transformation: that is the mind’s way of preparing for a spiritual life still beyond it.”¹⁰ Sri Aurobindo “This character of our actually realised being and therefore our Yoga (integral Yoga) imposes on us certain limitations and primary difficulties which can only be overcome by (1) divine help or (2) an arduous practice , and in reality (3) only by the combination of both these aids.”⁴¹ Sri Aurobindo Concentration is defined as ‘the bringing to its full intensity and the mastered and self-directed employment of that energy of being in us for a definite end.’¹ To renounce all types of earthly enjoyments is the general cause of increase of concentration power, samyama . The purpose and necessity of Concentration is to trace the cycle of self-oblivion and self-discovery in Ignorance and Knowledge for the joy of Nature and Spirit. Exclusive concentration is the frontal pragmatic power of concentration in a limited superficial surface working of the all-inclusive Integral Concentration; it is much like that power of our human mentality which is absorbed in a particular object and in a particular work and seems to use so much part knowledge and partial ideas that are necessary for it by forgetting his totality or rest of himself. But it is all the time a part and portion of an indivisible concentration in us that has done all the work that has to be done and seen all thing that has to be seen. This ability of exclusive concentration is rightly held to be one of the greatest powers of the human mind and it is only a supreme self-possessing Knowledge which can thus be powerful to limit itself in the act and yet work out perfectly all its intentions through that apparent Ignorance. Integral education proposes ⁴⁹ that if one does not practice self-control, then one is identified as an animal. If he controls his lower Nature through the practice of Self-control, then he is identified as a man. If he transforms his lower Nature through the descent of Divine Force, then he is identified as God. If intellect is purified, then a student of integral Education or a Sadhaka of integral Yoga can practice self-control. This self-control will be spontaneous and rigorous if his Psychic being in the heart or the Spiritual Being above the head open. In integral Concentration, his self-control will be spontaneously absolute. ⁴³ Integral Education proposes sevenfold concentrations, out of which the first four are exclusive mental concentrations and the last three are beyond the mental concentrations. a) Education through first Exclusive Concentration: "A little curve cut off in measureless Space, " Savitri-148-149 “Then science and reason careless of the soul Could iron out a tranquil uniform world, Aeonic seekings glut with outward truths And a single-patterned thinking force on mind, Inflicting Matter’s logic on Spirit’s dreams A reasonable animal make of man And a symmetrical fabric of his life.” Savitri-255 “Ideals, systems, sciences, poems, crafts Tirelessly there perished and again recurred, Sought restlessly by some creative Power; But all were dreams crossing an empty vast.” Savitri-642 “The mind is a thing that dwells in diffusion, in succession; it can only concentrate on one thing at a time and when not concentrated runs from one thing to another very much at random. Therefore it has to concentrate on a single idea, a single subject of meditation, a single object of contemplation, a single object of will in order to possess or master it, and this it must do to at least the temporary exclusion of all others.”³¹ Sri Aurobindo “The first step in concentration must be always to accustom the discursive mind to a settled unwavering pursuit of a single course of connected thought on a single subject and this it must do undistracted by all lures and alien calls on its attention. Such concentration is common enough in our ordinary life, but it becomes more difficult when we have to do it inwardly without any outward object or action on which to keep the mind; yet this inward concentration is what the seeker of knowledge must effect.”³² Sri Aurobindo “Studies strengthen the mind and turn its concentration away from the impulses and desires of the vital. Concentrating on study is one of the most powerful ways of controlling the mind and the vital; that is why it is so important to study.”³³ The Mother "By studying carefully what Sri Aurobindo has said on all subjects one can easily reach a complete knowledge of the things of this world. "⁵¹ The Mother The first immediate approach towards the realisation of the slow pace of Education in the active mind¹⁵ is the development of (first) exclusive concentration, one form of the self-gathering of the power of Tapas, ¹⁸ which is defined as the complete absorption in the objective world by an entire separation¹² from the true Self; this practical self-oblivion without essential and binding self-ignorance is the nature of exclusive concentration; out of this concentration, the secret of the material world is revealed, in recent times it has justified itself by the many immense and innumerable minute discoveries of Modern Science.²⁴ The limitation of this first exclusive concentration is that it erects a wall of exclusion limiting itself to a single field, domain, or habitation in the movement so that it is aware only of that and unaware of all the rest. Thus, a principle of self-limiting knowledge has emerged which culminates in a positive and effective potential Education which manifests as the genius of an artist, Scientist, Sportsman, Administrator, Educationist. They are identified as the elite of the society. A seeker of Truth utilises the faculty of first exclusive concentration towards calling down the spaceless Infinity to the limited space of his surrounding world and self-expansion in the form of manifestation of objective Divine Work with the aid of three gunas. For a Sadhaka of Integral Yoga, the outer small space of habitation can be utilised as a means of concentration of the highest descent of the Divine Force. b) Education through Second Exclusive Concentration: “Its solitude greatened her human hours” Savitri-14 “At last the traveller in the paths of Time Arrives on the frontiers of eternity.” Savitri-23 “Absorbed no more in the moment-ridden flux Where mind incessantly drifts as on a raft Hurried from phenomenon to phenomenon, He abode at rest in indivisible Time. As if a story long written but acted now, In his present he held his future and his past, Felt in the seconds the uncounted years And saw the hours like dots upon a page.” Savitri-33 “Inheritor of the brief animal mind, Man, still a child in Nature’s mighty hands In the succession of the moments lives; To a changing present is his narrow right; His memory stares back at phantom past, The future flees before him as he moves; He sees imagined garments, not a face.” Savitri-53 “It leaves two giant letters void of sense While without sanction turns the middle sign Carrying an enigmatic universe, As if a present without future or past Repeating the same revolution’s whirl Turned on its axis in its own Inane.” Savitri-56 “It (Overmind) can immortalise a moment's work:” Savitri-85, "Invoking in world-time the timeless truth," Savitri-141, “Absorbed in the present act, the fleeting days, None thought to look beyond the hour’s gains, Or dreamed to make this earth a fairer world, Or felt some touch divine surprise his heart.” Savitri-145 “It (Spiritual Being) sees the hurrying crowd of moments stream Towards the still greatness of a distant hour." (Timeless state) Savitri-160 “His little hour is spent in little things… Time has he none to turn his eyes within And look for his lost self and his dead soul.” Savitri-164-65 “She hopes by the creative act’s release To o’erleap sometimes the gulf she cannot fill To heal awhile the wound of severance, Escape from the moment’s prison of littleness And meet the Eternal’s wide sublimities In the uncertain time-field portioned here. Almost she nears what never can be attained; She shuts eternity into an hour And fills a little soul with the Infinite; The Immobile leans to the magic of her call; She stands on a shore in the Illimitable, Perceives the formless Dweller in all forms And feels around her infinity’s embrace.” Savitri-177 “She has lured the Eternal into arms of Time.” Savitri-178 “But now she turns to break the oblivious spell, Awakes the sleeper on the sculptured couch; She finds again the Presence in the form And in the light that wakes with him recovers A meaning in the hurry and trudge of Time, And through this mind that once obscured the soul Passes a glint of unseen deity.” Savitri-182 “No silent peak is found where Time can rest.” Savitri-197 "A touch supreme surprised his hurrying heart," Savitri-237 “Labours for the hour and not for eternity And trades its gains to meet the moment’s call:” Savitri-240 “Two firmaments of darkness and of light Opposed their limits to the spirit’s walk; It moved veiled in from Self’s infinity In a world of beings and momentary events Where all must die to live and live to die.” Savitri-287-288 “Attracting into time the timeless Light, Imprisoning eternity in the hours, This they (bright gods of Thought) have planned, to snare the feet of Truth In an aureate net of concept and of phrase And keep her captive for the thinker’s joy In his little world built of immortal dreams:” Savitri-274 “The moments there were pregnant with all time.” Savitri-301 “The moment’s thought inspired the passing act.” Savitri-325, “A marriage with eternity divinised Time.” Savitri-327 “His day is a moment in perpetual Time; He is the prey of the minutes and the hours.” Savitri-336 “Immortal movements touched the fleeting hours.” Savitri-352 “Each minute was a throb of beauty’s heart; The hours were tuned to a sweet-toned content” Savitri-355 “That a diviner Force might enter life, A breath of Godhead greaten human time.” Savitri-366 “A moment passed that was eternity’s ray, An hour began, the matrix of new Time.” Savitri-399 “In the immutable ideal world One human moment was eternal made.” Savitri-411 “This now remained with her, her heart’s constant scene.” Savitri-412 “In his floating house upon the sea of Time The regent sits at work and never rests: He is a puppet of the dance of Time; He is driven by the hours, the moment’s call Compels him with the thronging of life’s need And the babel of the voices of the world.” Savitri-478 “The hurried servant senses answer apace To every knock upon the outer doors, Bring in time’s visitors, report each call, Admit the thousand queries and the calls And the messages of communicating minds And the heavy business of unnumbered lives And all the thousandfold commerce of the world.” Savitri-478-79 “A portion of us lives in present Time, A secret mass in dim inconscience gropes; Out of the inconscient and subliminal Arisen, we live in mind’s uncertain light And strive to know and master a dubious world Whose purpose and meaning are hidden from our sight.” Savitri-484 "A Force descended trailing endless lights; Linking Time’s seconds to infinity," Savitri-573 (Savitri said) “All means are held good to catch a single beam, Eternity sacrificed for a moment’s bliss: Yet for joy and not for sorrow earth was made And not as a dream in endless suffering Time.” Savitri-629 (Death said) “Hope not to call God down into his life. How shalt thou (Savitri) bring the Everlasting here? There is no house for him in hurrying Time” Savitri-644 “I (Savitri) claim from Time my will’s eternity, God from his moments.” Savitri-652 "In the truth of a moment, in the moment’s soul Can sip the honey-wine of Eternity." Savitri-662 “And love and joy overtake fleeing Time.” Savitri-664 "Ascend, O soul, into thy timeless self; Choose destiny’s curve and stamp thy will on Time.” Savitri-695 The second exclusive concentration¹⁹ is a contemplation on the present without past and future. Then there is development of second exclusive concentration, which is defined as to preoccupy and limit oneself with the mental knowledge of the present which is hurriedly changing from moment to moment in a helpless succession of events, forms, phenomena and actions, oblivious of the successive past and future happenings except that of memory that holds little and vague inference of future; through this concentration, the objective experience of the ever-changing present environment is realised through a superficial movement of consciousness; thus, the man is practically and dynamically the man of moments; future is withheld from his possession; identifies himself solely in the name and personality of the present narrow existence, lives only in his immediate and outward work and problem and ignorant of his limitation of past births and Spirit’s unending future or put aside the whole infinite course of Time and his rest of total Self and Nature. Yet all the time this existence in the present moment is not the real or the whole truth of his being, but only a practical or pragmatic mental construction for the purposes of the superficial movement of his life and within its limits and he recovers partially from this restriction by linking together the succession of moments, the succession of points of Space, the successions of forms and movements in Time and Space which are beyond his control and comprehension. This second exclusive concentration is 'ignorant but capable of seeking for knowledge and finding it at least in a series of mental representations which may be made clues to the true truth and, more and more refined and illuminated and rendered transparent by the influence, the infiltration and the descent of the light from above, prepare the intelligence for opening to the capacity of true knowledge.' ⁴⁵ The superficial or the apparent man can dissolve this partial concentration of living from moment to moment and go back from its present action at any time to the consciousness of the larger Self and he can only do it to some extent in exceptional conditions of his mentality or, more permanently and completely, as the fruit of a long and arduous self-training, self-deepening, self-heightening and self-expansion. His objective in life is to exist consciously in eternity, in the truth of the indivisibility of Time, in the indivisibility of Force and substance and not in the bondage of the hour and become a patient trustee of the slow eternal Time. The real truth of his being is a time-transcending eternity and living in the whole infinite course of triple Time, but not to a definite succession of moments and all the past, present and future are perfectly stored in every detail in the all-retaining integral Consciousness⁶ within him. This second exclusive concentration, 'can neither live in the infinite time consciousness nor command any direct and real power of the triple time knowledge. The mind of ignorance (or second exclusive concentration) lives, not in the indivisible continuity of time, but successively in each moment. It has a vague sense of the continuity of self and of an essential continuity of experience, a sense of which the source is the deeper self within us, but as it does not live in that self, also it does not live in a true time continuity, but only uses this vague but still insistent awareness as a background, support and assurance in what would otherwise be to it a constant baseless flux of its being. In its practical action its only support other than its station in the present is the line left behind by the past and preserved in memory, the mass of impressions deposited by previous experience and, for the future, an assurance of the regularity of experience and a power of uncertain forecast founded partly upon repeated experience and well-founded inference and partly on imaginative construction and conjecture.' ⁴⁴ Their Divine Will is to utilise time for the preparation of Divine descent, both during success and failure, happiness and sorrow, and opportunities and difficulties. A seeker of Truth utilises this second exclusive concentration towards calling down the Timeless Eternity to the slipping moments . The Synthesis of Yoga book proposes a Sadhaka to become ‘virginally creative at each moment.’³⁰ For a Sadhaka of integral Yoga, the present moment can be utilised as a means of a brief descent of the highest Divine Force. So through the practice of second exclusive concentration, the reception of brief Supramental touch is practicable. “It (child Soul) can only near and touch, it cannot hold;” Savitri-179, (A developing Soul can receive brief Supramental touch.) “There man can visit but there he cannot live.” Savitri-659 (all man can visit Supramental world for a brief period.) A sadhaka of integral Yoga will also remember these two directives of the Mother with reference to our relation with time: (1) "The perfection of this endless variety of relationships between man and God throughout the history of the world is an unutterable wonder. Yet all this together is but a second in the total manifestation of the Divine. " (2) "For if at each moment, you expect to be uplifted and drawn towards the Divine, He will come and uplift you, and He will be there, very near, nearer and nearer. " The Mother's Agenda/Vol-1/Undated 1957 c) Education through Third Exclusive Concentration: “A heavenlier function with a finer mode Lit with its grace man’s outward earthliness; The soul’s experience of its deeper sheaths No more slept drugged by Matter’s dominance. …He lived in the mystic space where thought is born And will is nursed by an ethereal Power And fed on the white milk of the Eternal’s strengths Till it grows into the likeness of a god.” Savitri-27-28 “He (Jijnasu ) is a smallness trying to be great, An animal with some instincts of a god, … His hope a star above a cradle and grave. And yet a greater destiny may be his, For the eternal Spirit is his truth.” Savitri-78 “A pilgrim of the everlasting Truth, Our measures cannot hold his measureless mind; He has turned from the voices of the narrow realm And left the little lane of human Time.” Savitri-80 “Where Space is a vast experiment of the soul, In an immaterial substance linked to ours In a deep oneness of all things that are, The universe of the Unknown arose.” Savitri-95 “So must the dim being grow in light and force And rise to his higher destiny at last, Look up to God and round at the universe, And learn by failure and progress by fall And battle with environment and doom, By suffering discover his deep soul And by possession grow to his own vasts.” Savitri-146 “Yet can the mind of man receive God’s light, The force of man can be driven by God’s force, Then is he a miracle doing miracles.” Savitri-457-458 “This is the little surface of man’s life. He is this and he is all the universe; He scales the Unseen, his depths dare the Abyss; A whole mysterious world is locked within. Unknown to himself he lives a hidden king Behind rich tapestries in great secret rooms; An epicure of the spirit’s unseen joys, He lives on the sweet honey of solitude:” Savitri-479 “A reasoning animal willed and planned and sought; He stood erect among his brute compeers, He built life new, measured the universe, Opposed his fate and wrestled with unseen Powers, Conquered and used the laws that rule the world, And hoped to ride the heavens and reach the stars, A master of his huge environment. Now through Mind’s windows stares the demigod Hidden behind the curtains of man’s soul: (Psychic being) He has seen the Unknown, looked on Truth’s veilless face; A ray has touched him from the eternal sun; Motionless, voiceless in foreseeing depths, He stands awake in Supernature’s light And sees a glory of arisen wings And sees the vast descending might of God.” Savitri-622 “Thus arises the attraction and, it would seem, the necessity of the principle of exclusive concentration which plays so prominent a part in the specialised schools of Yoga; for by that concentration we can arrive through an uncompromising renunciation of the world at an entire self-consecration to the One on whom we concentrate.”⁴ Sri Aurobindo “The effective fullness of our concentration on the one thing needful to the exclusion of all else will be the measure of our self-consecration to the One who is alone desirable. But this exclusiveness will in the end exclude nothing except the falsehood of our way of seeing the world and our will’s ignorance.”³⁴ Sri Aurobindo “A long, difficult stage of constant effort, energism, austerity of the personal will, tapasya has ordinarily to be traversed before a more decisive stage can be reached in which a state of self-giving of all the being to the Supreme and the Supreme Nature can become total and absolute .”⁴⁷ Sri Aurobindo “A quietude and stillness is imposed on the body, on the active life-soul of desire and ego, on the external mind, while the sattwic nature by stress of meditation, by an exclusive concentration of adoration, by a will turned inward to the Supreme, strives to merge itself in the spirit.”¹⁴ Sri Aurobindo “Do what I explained to you yesterday — make your brain work by studying regularly and systematically; then during the hours when you are not studying, your brain, having worked enough, will be able to rest and it will be possible for you to concentrate in the depths of your heart and find there the psychic source; with it (finding of Psychic being) you will become conscious of both gratitude and true happiness.”³³ The Mother Concentration on subjective inner world by exclusion of concentration on the objective outer world and by exclusion of concentration on the present moment is identified as third exclusive concentration. This world is identified as the outer body or sheath or Kosha of God. The Self that holds this outer body is known as the universal or cosmic Self. Behind this outer sheath there exist multiple subtle sheaths, mystic inner Spaces whose influence can purify, transform and perfect the external world. And then, the third exclusive concentration⁸ or reverse movement of first exclusive concentration,²² is defined as the complete absorption in the objective means or instruments of Education in finding the subjective Being or concentrates exclusively on the concealed inner being by quieting¹³ the frontal active prakriti and subjective experience of the ever-modified subtle mental states of its personality. This third exclusive concentration 'is conscious that the knowledge of all things is hidden within it or at least somewhere in the being, but as if veiled and forgotten, and the knowledge comes to it not as a thing acquired from outside, but always secretly there and now remembered and known at once to be true, — each thing in its own place, degree, manner and measure.' ⁴⁵ Increase of third exclusive concentration gives birth to increase of consecration, which is identified as central truth of Integral Yoga. Thus we are able to link the central truth of integral Education with the central truth of Integral Yoga. Exclusive concentration on subliminal being might throw strong light on the large inner life and extend vastly the powers of human beings and it might lead towards an independent and radical Spiritual realisation but it would not be by itself an integral valid solution of truth of individual existence or lead us successfully to the integral knowledge of Reality which is something beyond the One and the Many, containing both and aware of both. The third exclusive concentration can be utilised further for unfolding the part knowledge of the Brahman. (1) either through concentration of the One in itself to the exclusion of the Many; one can plunge by a trance of exclusive concentration into a mystic sleep²⁹ state by a subjective abolition of cosmic forces or pass abruptly in waking Mind into a state belonging to the supreme Superconscience (2) or of the Many in their own action to the exclusion of the all-awareness of the One, (3) or of the individual being absorbed in his own self to the exclusion of both of the One and the rest of the Many who are then to him separated units not included in his direct awareness, (4) or again there may intervene all the above three separative active consciousness in a separative movement; but this takes place not in the true self, but in the active Prakriti . This third exclusive concentration is utilised to find the true physical being, true vital being, true mental being and the Psychic being. For a Sadhaka of Integral Yoga, the third exclusive concentration can be utilised for a brief descent of the Highest Divine Force. d) Education through Fourth Exclusive Concentration: “Only the Immortals on their deathless heights Dwelling beyond the walls of Time and Space, Masters of living, free from the bonds of Thought, Who are overseers of Fate and Chance and Will” Savitri-53-54 “A voyager upon uncharted routes Fronting the viewless danger of the Unknown, Adventuring across enormous realms, He broke into another Space and Time.” Savitri-91 “All ocean lived within a wandering drop, A time-made body housed the Illimitable.” Savitri-101 “A little joy and knowledge satisfied This little being tied into a knot And hung on a bulge of its environment, A little curve cut off in measureless Space, A little span of life in all vast Time.” Savitri-148-149 “Almost she nears what never can be attained; She shuts eternity into an hour And fills a little soul with the Infinite; The Immobile leans to the magic of her call; She stands on a shore in the Illimitable, Perceives the formless Dweller in all forms And feels around her infinity’s embrace.” Savitri-177 “Unending Space was beaten into a curve, Indivisible Time into small minutes cut, The infinitesimal massed to keep secure The mystery of the Formless cast into form.” Savitri-266-67 “A timeless Spirit was made the slave of the hours; The Unbound was cast into a prison of birth To make a world that Mind could grasp and rule.” Savitri-268 “There consciousness was a close and single weft; The far and near were one in spirit-space, The moments there were pregnant with all time.” Savitri-301 “Self’s vast spiritual silence occupies Space; Only the Inconceivable is left, Only the Nameless without space and time:” Savitri-310 “The splendid youth of Time has passed and failed; Heavy and long are the years our labour counts” Savitri-345 “Time, life and death were passing incidents Obstructing with their transient view her sight, Her sight that must break through and liberate the god Imprisoned in the visionless mortal man. The inferior nature born into ignorance Still took too large a place, it veiled her self And must be pushed aside to find her soul.” Savitri-487 “She crossed through spaces of a secret self And trod in passages of inner Time.” Savitri-490 “He is Eternity lured from hour to hour, He is infinity in a little space:” Savitri-516 “Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand, Only when infinity weds the finite’s thought, Can man be free from himself and live with God.” Savitri-516 “In endless Time her soul reached a wide end, The spaceless Vast became her spirit’s place.” Savitri-523 " In the mystery of its selecting will, In the Divine Comedy a participant, The Spirit’s conscious representative, God’s delegate in our humanity, Comrade of the universe, the Transcendent’s ray, She had come into the mortal body’s room To play at ball with Time and Circumstance. A joy in the world her master movement here, The passion of the game lighted her eyes:" Savitri-526 “The world is but a spark-burst from its light, All moments flashes from its Timelessness, All objects glimmerings of the Bodiless That disappear from Mind when That is seen.” Savitri-548 “The infinite holds the finite in its arms, Time travels towards revealed eternity.” Savitri-623 “A mute Delight regards Time’s countless works: To house God’s joy in things Space gave wide room, To house God’s joy in self our souls were born.” Savitri-630 “Time thrills to the sapphics of her amour-song And Space fills with a white beatitude.” Savitri-632 “Is not the spirit immortal and absolved Always, delivered from the grasp of Time? Why came it down into the mortal’s Space?” Savitri-653 “He glimpses eternity, touches the infinite, He meets the gods in great and sudden hours, He feels the universe as his larger self, Makes Space and Time his opportunity To join the heights and depths of being in light, In the heart’s cave speaks secretly with God.” Savitri-659 "Without care for time, without fear for space, surging out purified from the flames of the ordeal, we shall fly without stop towards the realisation of our goal, the supramental victory."⁵⁰ The Mother “By concentration upon the Idea the mental existence which at present we are breaks open the barrier of our mentality and arrives at the state of consciousness, the state of being, the state of power of conscious-being and bliss of conscious-being to which the Idea corresponds and of which it is the symbol, movement and rhythm. Concentration by the Idea is, then, only a means, a key to open to us the superconscient planes of our existence; a certain self-gathered state of our whole existence lifted into that superconscient truth, unity and infinity of self-aware, self-blissful existence is the aim and culmination; and that is the meaning we shall give to the term Samadhi .”³⁵ Sri Aurobindo “For our concentration on the Eternal will be consummated by the mind when we see constantly the Divine in itself and the Divine in ourselves, but also the Divine in all things and beings and happenings. It will be consummated by the heart when all emotion is summed up in the love of the Divine, — of the Divine in itself and for itself, but love too of the Divine in all its beings and powers and personalities and forms in the Universe. It will be consummated by the will when we feel and receive always the divine impulsion and accept that alone as our sole motive force; but this will mean that, having slain to the last rebellious straggler the wandering impulses of the egoistic nature, we have universalised ourselves and can accept with a constant happy acceptance the one divine working in all things. This is the first fundamental siddhi of the integral Yoga.”³⁶ Sri Aurobindo This concentration is the outcome of the fusion of the above three¹⁷ exclusive concentrations. This is a concentration of separative active consciousness in a separative movement and this takes place not in true self, but in the untransformed active Prakriti. It does not prevent the full emergence and working of the whole conscious being behind the Ignorance, but a working in the conditions chosen and self-limited on nature for a special purpose. This power of self-limitation for a particular working, instead of being incompatible with the Integral Concentration, is precisely one of the powers we should expect to exist among the manifold energies of the Infinite. In this concentration, the present moment is utilised in linking the subjective Time with the objective Space or in this concentration self-concentration and self-expansion are reconciled. So, space and time are initially reconciled in the fourth exclusive concentration and finally in integral concentration. Integral Yoga proposes to use time and space as a means of the highest descent of Divine Force. e) Education through Essential Concentration: “Absorbed no more in the moment-ridden flux Where mind incessantly drifts as on a raft Hurried from phenomenon to phenomenon, He abode at rest in indivisible Time. As if a story long written but acted now, In his present he held his future and his past, Felt in the seconds the uncounted years And saw the hours like dots upon a page.” Savitri-33 “All we attempt in this imperfect world, Looks forward or looks back beyond Time's gloss To its pure idea and firm inviolate type In an absolute creation's flawless skill.” Savitri-108 “All that we seek for is prefigured there And all we have not known nor ever sought Which yet one day must be born in human hearts That the Timeless may fulfil itself in things.” Savitri-176 “A fire to call eternity into Time, Make body’s joy as vivid as the soul’s, Earth she would lift to neighbourhood with heaven, Labours life to equate with the Supreme And reconcile the Eternal and the Abyss.” Savitri-196 “In its deep lotus home her being sat As if on concentration’s marble seat, Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds To make this earthly tenement her house.” Savitri-528 “Eliminate the falsity of the thought with its imperfect mental constructions, its arrogant assertions and denials, its limited and exclusive concentrations; a greater faculty of knowledge is behind that can open to the true Truth of God and the soul and Nature and the universe.”³⁷ Sri Aurobindo " In our Yoga very often the Power descends from above and opens the Ajnachakra first, then the others in order. But it is perhaps the safest to open by concentration the heart-lotus first so as to have the psychic influence from the beginning... The psychic cannot lose its consciousness in the enjoyment of experiences; when it is in free action, it has the unfailing discrimination of which you speak. It has besides no push to outward enjoyment, though it has Ananda. It is the vital that is carried away by enjoyment and carries away with it the mind and other lower parts — and it can also cover up the psychic; but then what happens is not that the psychic loses its own.”⁴ ⁶ Sri Aurobindo The second instrument of swift Psychic⁹ Education in Ignorance is the development of Essential Concentration, which is defined as the entire self-absorption in the essence of its own being through deeper self-oblivion of outward things. There are the dynamic function and pragmatic creative values of the Essential concentration, but what concerns us in our present inquiry is to learn from its way of action the exact character and nature of this deeper and larger cognition and how it is related to true knowledge of Self. Its main character is a knowledge by the direct contact of consciousness with its object or of consciousness with other consciousness; but in the end we discover that this concentration is an outcome of an Integral Concentration, a translation of it into a separative awareness of things. The superficial or apparent man with his active self-oblivion cannot go back at will to the real man within; he can do it to some extent during exceptional or abnormal or supernormal moments of his life. This essential concentration will carry one behind the surface physical nature and one will enter vast domain of subtle physical, subtle vital and subtle mental world and consciousness will undulate between Superconscient Silence and Inconscient torpor for purification and transformation action. In essential concentration, action need not bind or limit a liberated Soul, it binds or limits only the surface constructed personality. It is only by going back from surface physical mind to the Psychic or Spiritual Consciousness that vision, knowledge and cognition of triple time and transcendence of this attachment to present moment are wholly possible. He can get out of this moment-cognition of second exclusive concentration into a status of cognition of the eternal of essential concentration proper to the true consciousness by breaking the imprisonment in moment³ with its limitations of sensation, memory, inference and conjecture. If we go deeper within to discover the essential concentration, then we can see that it is not a particular part of us but the whole man who is doing the action and this action depends on our whole character, temperament, all our past, not the past of this life only, but in other lives and not only our past but past, present and predestined future of ourselves and the world are the determinants of work. This concentration gives one the capacity⁴⁰ to move consciousness from the nether Inconscient Sheath to the highest Bliss Sheath. f) Education through Multiple Concentrations: “A flaming warrior from the eternal peaks Empowered to force the door denied and closed Smote from Death’s visage its dumb absolute And burst the bounds of consciousness and Time.” Savitri-21 “Affiliated to cosmic Space and Time And paying here God’s debt to earth and man A greater sonship was his divine right.” Savitri-22 “All the deep cosmic murmur falling still, He lives in the hush before the world was born, His soul left naked to the timeless One.” Savitri-80 “Across the unfolding of the seas of self Appeared the deathless countries of the One. A many-miracled Consciousness unrolled Vast aim and process and unfettered norms, A larger Nature’s great familiar roads.” Savitri-91 “In this passage from a deaf unknowing Force To struggling consciousness and transient breath A mighty Supernature waits on Time. The world is other than we now think and see, Our lives a deeper mystery than we have dreamed; Our minds are starters in the race to God, Our souls deputed selves of the Supreme.” Savitri-169 “Almost she nears what never can be attained; She shuts eternity into an hour And fills a little soul with the Infinite; The Immobile leans to the magic of her call; She stands on a shore in the Illimitable, Perceives the formless Dweller in all forms And feels around her infinity’s embrace.” Savitri-177 “A gold supernal sun of timeless Truth Poured down the mystery of the eternal Ray Through a silence quivering with the word of Light On an endless ocean of discovery.” Savitri-264 “At the beginning of each far-spread plane Pervading with her power the cosmic suns She (Divine Mother) reigns, inspirer of its multiple works And thinker of the symbol of its scene.” Savitri-295 “Something thou (King Aswapati) cam’st to do from the Unknown, But nothing is finished and the world goes on Because only half God’s cosmic work is done.” Savitri-310 “The Spirit’s white neutrality became A playground of miracles, a rendezvous For the secret powers of a mystic Timelessness: It (Spirit) made of Space a marvel house of God, It poured through Time its works of ageless might, Unveiled seen as a luring rapturous face The wonder and beauty of its Love and Force.” Savitri-326-327 “Nameless the austere ascetics without home Abandoning speech and motion and desire Aloof from creatures sat absorbed, alone, Immaculate in tranquil heights of self On concentration’s luminous voiceless peaks , World-naked hermits with their matted hair Immobile as the passionless great hills Around them grouped like thoughts of some vast mood Awaiting the Infinite’s behest to end.” Savitri-382 “His soul must be wider than the universe And feel eternity as its very stuff, Rejecting the moment’s personality Know itself older than the birth of Time, Creation an incident in its consciousness,” Savitri-537 “Then stretches the boundless finite’s last expanse, The cosmic empire of the Overmind, Time’s buffer state bordering Eternity, Too vast for the experience of man’s soul:” Savitri-660 “The Power that from her being’s summit reigned, The Presence chambered in lotus secrecy, Came down and held the centre in her brow Where the mind’s Lord in his control-room sits; There throned on concentration’s native seat He opens that third mysterious eye in man , The Unseen’s eye that looks at the unseen, When Light with a golden ecstasy fills his brain And the Eternal’s wisdom drives his choice And eternal Will seizes the mortal’s will. It stirred in the lotus of her throat of song, And in her speech throbbed the immortal Word, Her life sounded with the steps of the world-soul Moving in harmony with the cosmic Thought.” Savitri-665 “We may hear clear and luminous teachings about the Self from philosophers or teachers or from ancient writings; we may by thought, inference, imagination, analogy or by any other available means attempt to form a mental figure or conception of it; we may hold firmly that conception in our mind and fix it by an entire and exclusive concentration; but we have not yet realised it, we have not seen God. It is only when after long and persistent concentration or by other means the veil of the mind is rent or swept aside, only when a flood of light breaks over the awakened mentality, jyotirmaya brahman , and conception gives place to a knowledge-vision in which the Self is as present, real, concrete as a physical object to the physical eye, that we possess in knowledge; for we have seen.”³⁸ Sri Aurobindo “The Divine is centred in itself and when it throws out ideas and activities does not divide itself or imprison itself in them, but holds them and their movement in its infinity; undivided, its whole self is behind each Idea and each movement and at the same time behind all of them together. Held by it, each spontaneously works itself out, not through a separate act of will, but by the general force of consciousness behind it; if to us there seems to be a concentration of divine Will and Knowledge in each, it is a multiple and equal and not an exclusive concentration, and the reality of it is rather a free and spontaneous working in a self-gathered unity and infinity. The soul which has risen to the divine Samadhi participates in the measure of its attainment in this reversed condition of things, — the true condition, for that which is the reverse of our mentality is the truth. It is for this reason that, as is said in the ancient books, the man who has arrived at Self-possession attains spontaneously without the need of concentration in thought and effort the knowledge or the result which the Idea or the Will in him moves out to embrace.”³⁹ Sri Aurobindo “Brahman always reveals himself to us in three ways, within ourselves, above our plane, around us in the universe. Within us, there are two centres of the Purusha , the inner Soul through which he touches us to our awakening; there is the Purusha in the lotus of the heart which opens upward all our powers and the Purusha in the thousand-petalled lotus whence descend through the thought and will, opening the third eye in us, the lightnings of vision and the fire of the divine energy.”²¹ Sri Aurobindo The third instrument of swifter Spiritual Education in Knowledge is the development of Multiple¹¹ Concentration, the method of the totalising or global Overmental¹⁶ awareness, which is defined as a greater concentration or self-absorption in the universalised Self for greater world action. With the expansion of subtle physical, subtle vital and subtle mental sheath, the consciousness is universalised and one feels the whole universe is within him and enters the greater creation, action and ananda of universal proportion. This global consciousness includes the coexistence of both the static being of Purusha and dynamic action of Prakriti, the soul and its instruments, the Self and the dynamisms of the Self-Power, atmashakti: it can then embrace its manifestation with a larger Consciousness free from the previous Nature’s limitation and oblivion of the indwelling Spirit. This concentration reconciles all the planes of consciousness from the nether Inconscient Sheath to the highest Bliss Sheath. Through this opening of third mysterious eye, Arjuna of the Gita was able to see the Viswarupa , the universal vision of multiple concentration as described in the Gita , chapter 11. Through this opening of the third mysterious eye, the Death God of Savitri could see the Divine Mother Savitri in Her Viswarupa , whose Light could penetrate his body and his 'darkness muttered perishing in her blaze.'⁴¹ g) Education through All-inclusive Integral Concentration: “The Maker shall recast us and impose A plan of godhead on the mortal’s mould Lifting our finite minds to his infinite, Touching the moment with eternity.” Savitri-67, “In a moment shorter than death, longer than Time, By a Power more ruthless than Love, happier than Heaven, Taken sovereignly into eternal arms, Haled and coerced by a stark absolute bliss, In a whirlwind circuit of delight and force Hurried into unimaginable depths, Upborne into immeasurable heights, It was torn out from its mortality And underwent a new and bourneless change.” Savitri-81 " At her will the inscrutable Supermind leans down To guide her force that feels but cannot know, Its breath of power controls her restless seas And life obeys the governing Idea." Savitri-121 “The moments stretched towards the eternal Now, The hours discovered immortality, But, satisfied with their sublime contents, On peaks they ceased whose tops half-way to Heaven Pointed to an apex they could never mount, To a grandeur in whose air they could not live.” Savitri-238 “August and few the sovereign Kings of Thought Have made of Space their wide all-seeing gaze Surveying the enormous work of Time: A breadth of all-containing Consciousness Supported Being in a still embrace…. A great all-ruling Consciousness is there…” Savitri-271 “Its inexhaustible acts in a timeless Time, A space that is its own infinity.” Savitri-298 “One moment fill with thy eternity, Let thy infinity in one body live, All-Knowledge wrap one mind in seas of light, All-Love throb single in one human heart.” Savitri-345 “The Immortal bound to earth’s mortality Appearing and perishing on the roads of Time Creates God’s moment by eternity’s beats.” Savitri-447 “She passed beyond Time into eternity, Slipped out of space and became the Infinite;” Savitri-555 “She was Time and the dreams of God in Time; She was Space and the wideness of his days. From this she rose where Time and Space were not; The superconscient was her native air, Infinity was her movement’s natural space; Eternity looked out from her on Time.” Savitri-557 “The infinite holds the finite in its arms, Time travels towards revealed eternity.” Savitri-623 “All Time is one body, Space a single look: There is the Godhead’s universal gaze And there the boundaries of immortal Mind: The line that parts and joins the hemispheres Closes in on the labour of the Gods Fencing eternity from the toil of Time.” Savitri-660-61 “The Truth supreme, vast and impersonal Fits faultlessly the hour and circumstance , Its substance a pure gold ever the same But shaped into vessels for the spirit’s use, Its gold becomes the wine jar and the vase.” Savitri-662-63 “There Time dwelt with eternity as one; Immense felicity joined rapt repose.” Savitri-678 “But when the phantom flame-edge fails undone, Then never more can space or time divide The lover from the loved; Space shall draw back Her great translucent curtain, Time shall be The quivering of the spirit’s endless bliss.” Savitri-684 "There is a being beyond the being of mind, An Immeasurable cast into many forms, A miracle of the multitudinous One, There is a consciousness mind cannot touch, Its speech cannot utter nor its thought reveal. It has no home on earth, no centre in man, Yet is the source of all things thought and done, The fount of the creation and its works, It is the origin of all truth here," Savitri-705 “An exclusive concentration, or even a succession of concentrations of that kind, can be in his complex work only a temporary convenience; it has to be abandoned as soon as its utility is over. An all-inclusive concentration is the difficult achievement towards which he (a Sadhaka of integral Yoga) must labour…Concentration is indeed the first condition of any Yoga, but it is an all-receiving concentration that is the very nature of the integral Yoga.”² Sri Aurobindo “What we can be aware of is, first, its original self-concentration which we endeavour to realise as the indivisible One; secondly, the diffusion and apparent disintegration of all that was concentrated in its unity which is the Mind’s conception of the universe; and thirdly, its firm self-extension in the Truth-consciousness which contains and upholds the diffusion and prevents it from being a real disintegration, maintains unity in utmost diversity and stability in utmost mutability, insists on harmony in the appearance of an all-pervading strife and collision, keeps eternal cosmos where Mind would arrive only at a chaos eternally attempting to form itself. This is the Supermind, the Truth-consciousness, the Real-Idea which knows itself and all that it becomes.”²⁵ Sri Aurobindo "“Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman , all things are Brahman ” is the triple formula of the comprehensive Supermind, a single truth of self-manifestation in three aspects which it holds together and inseparably in its self-view as the fundamental knowledge from which it proceeds to the play of the cosmos."⁴² Sri Aurobindo Integral Concentration is a Consciousness that rests on the One, the Divine and acts in all His creation. In this concentration, a new Time and a new Space are activated and reconciled.⁴⁸ The last instrument of swiftest Supramental Education is the development of Integral Concentration, which is capable of an integral, comprehensive, multiple,²³ infinite self-concentration. It is further defined as entire absorption in the three poises⁷ of Self or a triune realisation; (1) that is Self is in all things, which is the basis of our Psychic individuality in the universal, (2) all things are within the Self, which is the basis of our Spiritual oneness in difference and (3) all things are made up of the stuff of Self, which is the basis of our Supramental oneness with all. Self-control, which begins with the purification of intellect, becomes rigorous with the emergence of Psychic Being and Spiritual Being²⁶ and becomes absolute⁴³ with the emergence of Supramental Consciousness. This integral Concentration's ' time consciousness therefore will be different from that of the mental being, not swept helplessly on the stream of the moments and clutching at each moment as a stay and a swiftly disappearing standpoint, but founded first on its eternal identity beyond the changes of time, secondly on a simultaneous eternity of Time in which past, present and future exist together for ever in the self-knowledge and self-power of the Eternal, thirdly , in a total view of the three times as one movement singly and indivisibly seen even in their succession of stages, periods, cycles, last — and that only in the instrumental consciousness — in the step by step evolution of the moments. It will therefore have the knowledge of the three times, trikaladristi , — held of old to be a supreme sign of the seer and the Rish i, —not as an abnormal power, but as its normal way of time knowledge.' ⁴⁵ In integral concentration, consciousness is universalised and space is no longer realised as separative existence in a small surrounding place, but it is extended to realise the whole earth. Or 'He (King Aswapati) broke into another Space and Time.' ⁴ ⁸ Or 'An hour began, the matrix of new Time.' ⁴ ⁸ An integral concentration is the basis of an entire harmonisation of life through the total transformation, unification, and integration of the Being and Nature and there would be no further need for a slow evolution counting many millenniums for each step, the halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance. This concentration⁵ purifies, transforms, and perfects all the multiple planes of ten Sheaths on a large scale. Recapitulation-I: “Annulling an original nullity The Timeless took its ground in emptiness And drew the figure of a universe, That the spirit might adventure into Time And wrestle with adamant Necessity And the soul pursue a cosmic pilgrimage.” Savitri-622 “All our concentration is merely an image of the divine Tapas by which the Self dwells gathered in itself, by which it manifests within itself, by which it maintains and possesses its manifestation, by which it draws back from all manifestation into its supreme oneness.”²⁰ Sri Aurobindo “But you see, you see all the way I have come.... And I was born with a consciously prepared body – Sri Aurobindo was aware of that, he said it immediately the first time he saw me: I was born free. That is, from the spiritual standpoint: without any desire. Without any desire and attachment. And, mon petit, if there is the slightest desire and the slightest attachment, it's IMPOSSIBLE to do this work. A vital like a warrior, with an absolute self-control ⁴³ (the vital of this present incarnation was sexless – a warrior), an absolutely calm and imperturbable warrior – no desires, no attachments .... Since my earliest childhood, I have done things which, to the human consciousness, are "monstrous"; my mother went so far as to tell me that I was a real "monster," because I had neither attachments nor desires. If I was asked, "Would you like to do this?" I answered, "I don't care." If people were nasty to me, or if people died or went away, it left me absolutely calm – and so: "You're a monster, you have no feelings." And with that preparation ... It's eighty-six years since I came here, mon petit! For thirty years I worked with Sri Aurobindo consciously, without letup, night and day. We shouldn't be in a hurry.”²⁸ The Mother The supreme integrality of the Brahman holds all these seven states or powers of its concentration together as a single indivisible Being looking at all itself in manifestation with a simultaneous triple self-vision. Thus, radical transformation through Nature’s method of triple movement of (1) ascent of Consciousness to realise the Being, (2) widening of the field and base through the descent of Consciousness and (3) integration of Being and Becoming are realised. The integral emergence of total Consciousness is the ultimate goal of the evolving Nature. The old inconscient foundation of our body is made subtle, plastic, pure and conscious by the inflow of light and awareness from above and its depths annexed to the heights of the Spirit through rapid development of the Truth-consciousness. There must be achieved a new Spiritual height, wideness, depth, subtlety, and intensity of our consciousness, of its substance, its force, its sensibility, an elevation, expansion, integral capacity of our being, and an assumption of mind and all that is below mind into that larger existence. Recapitulation-II: The transition from exclusive to multiple and Integral concentrations marks a profound spiritual evolution from a self-limiting, divided focus to a global, universalised state of awareness. According to the provided text, this movement is the key mechanism for shifting from ordinary mental ignorance into a vast Spiritual and Cosmic consciousness. Here is how this vital transition unfolds across the specific stages of education and concentration outlined in this paper: 1. The Starting Point: Exclusive Concentration Exclusive concentration is the human mind's capacity to narrow its focus to a single object, field, or moment while temporarily forgetting everything else. The text separates this into distinct developmental phases: First Exclusive Concentration: Complete absorption in the objective, physical world. This limits awareness to an isolated domain and is the driving force behind modern scientific and artistic excellence. Second Exclusive Concentration: Contemplation focused strictly on the fleeting present moment. It isolates the seeker from the grand continuity of past births and future spiritual possibilities. Third Exclusive Concentration: A reverse movement that withdraws from the outer world to focus exclusively inward on the hidden Psychic or Subliminal Being. Fourth Exclusive Concentration: A crucial integration where the previous three exclusive types fuse together, beginning to reconcile inner subjective Time with outer objective Space. 2. The Core Mechanism of the Transition: The breakthrough from these exclusive forms happens through Essential Concentration, where a seeker achieves deep self-absorption in the very essence of their being. By breaking past the "imprisonment in the moment," the consciousness steps behind the surface-constructed personality. This action quiets the frontal nature (Prakriti) and enables direct contact between our consciousness and the universal reality. 3. The Culmination: The Multiple and Integral Concentrations Once the subtle sheaths expand, the consciousness is completely universalised. At this stage, exclusive concentration transforms into Multiple Concentration, which is defined as a totalising or global overmental awareness. Undivided Oneness: Unlike human focus, which can only think of one thing at a time, multiple concentration mimics the Divine. The Divine holds all individual ideas and activities together in infinity without dividing or imprisoning itself in them. Spontaneous Working: It is a multiple and equal concentration where the whole Self is simultaneously behind each isolated movement and all movements together. Universal Action: It reconciles all planes of existence from the nether Inconscient to the highest Bliss sheath, allowing you to execute the triple Yoga of works, knowledge, and devotion simultaneously and ceaselessly. The Third Eye: This state opens the third mysterious eye—enabling global cosmic vision (Viswarupa) where the individual feels the entire universe moving in perfect harmony within themselves. Ultimately, this moves a seeker into All-inclusive Integral Concentration, the final supramental state where our eternal identity is fully realized, and past, present, and future exist together in a single, undivided gaze. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-530, 2: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-78, 3: “The true consciousness within is not unaware of its past; it holds it there, not necessarily in memory but in being, still active, living, ready with its fruits, and sends it up from time to time in memory or more concretely in result of past action or past causes to the superficial conscious being, —that is indeed the true rationale of what is called Karma. It is or can be aware too of the future, for there is somewhere in the inner being a field of cognition open to future knowledge, a prospective as well as a retrospective Time-sense, Time-vision, Time-perception; something in it lives indivisibly in the three times and contains all their apparent divisions, holds the future ready for manifestation within it. Here, then, in this habit of living in the present, we have a second absorption, a second exclusive concentration which complicates and farther limits the being, but simplifies the apparent course of the action by relating it not to the whole infinite course of Time, but to a definite succession of moments.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-606, 4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-73, 5: “Sometimes, all of a sudden, I see myself as a FORMIDABLE concentration of power, pushing, pushing, pushing in an inner concentration to pass through. It happens to me anywhere, any time, at any moment – I see a whole mass of consciousness gathered into a formidable power pushing, pushing, pushing to pass to the other side. When we have passed to the other side, all will be well.” The Mother’s Agenda/27th June, 1961, "But this experience with X was really interesting. I learned many things that day, many things ... If you concentrate long enough on any one point, you discover the Infinite (and in his own experience he found the infinite), what could be called your own Infinite. But this is not what WE want, not this; what we want is the direct and integral contact between the manifested universe and the Infinite out of which this universe has emerged. So then it is no longer an individual or personal contact with the Infinite, it’s a total contact. And Sri Aurobindo insists on this, he says that it’s absolutely impossible to have the transformation (not the contact, but the supramental transformation) without becoming universalized – that is the first condition. You cannot become supramental before being universal. And to be universal means to accept everything, be everything, become everything – really to accept everything. And as for all those who are shut up in a system, even if it belongs to the highest regions of thought, it is not THAT." The Mother's Agenda/20.09.1960, 6: “An integral consciousness with a multiform dynamic experience is essential for the complete transformation of our nature.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-114, 7: “If the defect of our mentality, if its need of exclusive concentration compels it to dwell on any one of these aspects of self-knowledge to the exclusion of the others, if a realisation imperfect as well as exclusive moves us always to bring in a human element of error into the very Truth itself and of conflict and mutual negation into the all-comprehending unity, yet to a divine supramental being, by the essential character of the supermind which is a comprehending oneness and infinite totality, they must present themselves as a triple and indeed a triune realisation.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-166, 8: “To be alone with oneself or alone with the Divine, to walk apart with God and his devotees, to entrench oneself in the single self-ward endeavour of the mind or Godward passion of the heart is the trend of these Yogas. The problem is solved by the excision of all but the one central difficulty which pursues the one chosen motive-force; into the midst of the dividing calls of our nature the principle of an exclusive concentration comes sovereignly to our rescue.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-77, “In our view the Spirit, the Self is the fundamental reality of existence; but an exclusive concentration on this fundamental reality to the exclusion of all reality of Mind, Life or Matter except as an imposition on the Self or unsubstantial shadows cast by the Spirit might help to an independent and radical spiritual realisation but not to an integral and valid solution of the truth of cosmic and individual existence.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-679-80, 9: “His being is not shut into the succession of the moments, but has the full power of the past and ranges seemingly through the future: not shot in the limiting ego and personal mind, but lives in the freedom of the universal, in God and in all beings and things; not in the dull density of the physical mind, but in the light of the self and the infinity of the spirit.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-839, 10: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-744, 11: “Held by it, each spontaneously works itself out, not through a separate act of will, but by the general force of consciousness behind it; if to us there seems to be a concentration of divine Will and Knowledge in each, it is a multiple and equal and not an exclusive concentration, and the reality of it is rather a free and spontaneous working in a self-gathered unity and infinity. The soul which has risen to the divine Samadhi participates in the measure of its attainment in this reversed condition of things, — the true condition, for that which is the reverse of our mentality is the truth. It is for this reason that, as is said in the ancient books, the man who has arrived at Self-possession attains spontaneously without the need of concentration in thought and effort the knowledge or the result which the Idea or the Will in him moves out to embrace.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-322, 12: “In other words, the mental being has put away from himself by exclusive concentration the dynamic aspect of consciousness, has taken refuge in the static and built a wall of non-communication between the two; between the passive and the active Brahman a gulf has been created and they stand on either side of it, the one visible to the other but with no contact, no touch of sympathy, no sense of unity between them.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-402, 13: “The difficulty is created by the exclusive concentration of the mental being on its plane of pure existence in which consciousness is at rest in passivity and delight of existence at rest in peace of existence.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-406, 14: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-688, 15: “If it is not there in all its sides, we have the imperfections or perversions of the type, a mere intellectuality or curiosity for ideas without ethical or other elevation, a narrow concentration on some kind of intellectual activity without the greater needed openness of mind, soul and spirit, or the arrogance and exclusiveness of the intellectual shut up in his intellectuality, or an ineffective idealism without any hold on life, or any other of the characteristic incompletenesses and limitations of the intellectual, religious, scientific or philosophic mind. These are stoppings short on the way or temporary exclusive concentrations, but a fullness of the divine soul and power of truth and knowledge in man is the perfection of this Dharma or Swabhava, the accomplished Brahminhood of the complete Brahmana.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-744, 16: “Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-300, 17: “Or again there may be or there may intervene at a certain point some general rule of exclusive concentration, operative in all these three directions, a concentration of separative active consciousness in a separative movement; but this takes place not in the true self, but in the force of active being, in Prakriti.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine-602, 18: “An exclusive concentration on or in a single subject or object or domain of being or movement is not a denial or departure from the Spirit’s awareness, it is one form of the self-gathering of the power of Tapas . But when the concentration is exclusive, it brings about a holding back behind it of the rest of self-knowledge.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-604, 19: “Here, then, in this habit of living in the present, we have a second absorption, a second exclusive concentration which complicates and farther limits the being, but simplifies the apparent course of the action by relating it not to the whole infinite course of Time, but to a definite succession of moments.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine- 606, “There is a minor pragmatic use of exclusive concentration on the surface which may also give us an indication in spite of its temporary character. The superficial man living from moment to moment plays, as it were, several parts in his present life and, while he is busy with each part, he is capable of an exclusive concentration, an absorption in it, by which he forgets the rest of himself, puts it behind him for the moment, is to that extent self-oblivious. The man is for the moment the actor, the poet, the soldier or whatever else he may have been constituted and formed into by some peculiar and characteristic action of his force of being, his Tapas, his past conscious energy and by the action which develops from it.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine-607, “This power of exclusive concentration is not confined to absorption in a particular character or type of working of one’s larger self, but extends to a complete self-forgetfulness in the particular action in which we happen at the moment to be engaged.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-609, “The mental man thinks and acts in a radius determined by the smallness or largeness of his mentality and of its experience. The range of the supramental man will be all the earth and all that lies behind it on other planes of existence. And finally the mental man thinks and sees on the level of the present life , though it may be with an upward aspiration, and his view is obstructed on every side. His main basis of knowledge and action is the present with a glimpse into the past and ill-grasped influence from its pressure and a blind look towards the future. He bases himself on the actualities of the earthly existence, first on the facts of the outward world, — to which he is ordinarily in the habit of relating nine tenths if not the whole of his inner thinking and experience, — then on the changing actualities of the more superficial part of his inner being. As he increases in mind, he goes more freely beyond these to potentialities which arise out of them and pass beyond them; his mind deals with a larger field of possibilities: but these for the most part get to him a full reality only in proportion as they are related to the actual and can be made actual here, now or hereafter. The essence of things he tends to see, if at all, only as a result of his actualities, in a relation to and dependence on them, and therefore he sees them constantly in a false light or in a limited measure. In all these respects the supramental man must proceed from the opposite principle of truth vision.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-837-838, 20: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-320, 21: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-596, 22: “It is to be noted also that in order to remove the veil of the Ignorance the conscious Force of being in us uses a reverse action of its power of exclusive concentration; it quiets the frontal movement of Prakriti in the individual consciousness and concentrates exclusively on the concealed inner being, — on the Self or on the true inner, psychic or mental or vital being, the Purusha , — to disclose it. But when it has done so, it need not remain in this opposite exclusiveness; it can resume its integral consciousness or a global consciousness which includes both being of Purusha and action of Prakriti , the soul and its instruments, the Self and the dynamisms of the Self-Power, atmasakti : it can then embrace its manifestation with a larger consciousness free from the previous limitation, free from the results of Nature’s forgetfulness of the indwelling Spirit.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine- 615, "By a reverse movement of the same Yoga we must transcend the limits of phenomenal nature and recover the greater consciousness by which we can live in the Divine and the Eternal." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-311, "In the evolution of the soul back from Prakriti towards Purusha, the reverse order has to be taken to the original Nature-evolution, and that is how the Upanishads and the Gita following and almost quoting the Upanishads state the ascending order of our subjective powers. “Supreme, they say,” beyond their objects “are the senses, supreme over the senses the mind, supreme over the mind the intelligent will: that which is supreme over the intelligent will, is he,” — is the conscious self, the Purusha." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-98, "The soul which has risen to the divine Samadhi participates in the measure of its attainment in this reversed condition of things , — the true condition, for that which is the reverse of our mentality is the truth. It is for this reason that, as is said in the ancient books, the man who has arrived at Self-possession attains spontaneously without the need of concentration in thought and effort the knowledge or the result which the Idea or the Will in him moves out to embrace." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-322, "To rid the prana of desire and incidentally to reverse the ordinary poise of our nature and turn the vital being from a troublesomely dominant power into the obedient instrument of a free and unattached mind, is then the first step in purification." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-659, "But when we would rise above to a higher divine life we must loosen the force of the ego and eventually get rid of it — as for the lower life the development of ego, so for the higher life this reverse movement of elimination of the ego is indispensable. To see our actions as not our own but those of the divine Shakti working in the form of the lower Prakriti on the inferior levels of the conscious being, helps powerfully towards this change." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-762, "The supermind in its completeness reverses the whole order of the mind’s thinking. It lives not in the phenomenal, but in the essential, in the self, and sees all as being of the self and its power and form and movement, and all the thought and the process of the thought in the supermind must also be of that character." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-844, "Mind has to make room for another consciousness which will fulfil Mind by transcending it or reverse and so rectify its operations after leaping beyond it: the summit of mental knowledge is only a vaulting-board from which that leap can be taken. The utmost mission of Mind is to train our obscure consciousness which has emerged out of the dark prison of Matter, to enlighten its blind instincts, random intuitions, vague perceptions till it shall become capable of this greater light and this higher ascension. Mind is a passage, not a culmination." CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-136, 23: “This Ignorance is, as we have seen, really a power of the Knowledge to limit itself, to concentrate itself on the work in hand, an exclusive concentration i n practice which does not prevent the full existence and working of the whole conscious being behind, but a working in the conditions chosen and self-imposed on the nature. All conscious self-limitation is a power for its special purpose, not a weakness; all concentration is a force of conscious being, not a disability. It is true that while the Supermind is capable of an integral, comprehensive, multiple, infinite self-concentration, this is dividing and limited; it is true also that it creates perverse as well as partial and, in so far, false or only half- true values of things: but we have seen the object of the limitation and of this partiality of knowledge; and the object being admitted, the power to fulfil it must be admitted also in the absolute force of the absolute Being.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-616, 24: “The material interpretation of existence was the result of an exclusive concentration, a preoccupation with one movement of Existence, and such an exclusive concentration has its utility and is therefore permissible; in recent times it has justified itself by the many immense and the innumerable minute discoveries of physical Science. But a solution of the whole problem of existence cannot be based on an exclusive one-sided knowledge; we must know not only what Matter is and what are its processes, but what mind and life are and what are their processes, and one must know also spirit and soul and all that is behind the material surface: only then can we have a knowledge sufficiently integral for a solution of the problem… Such a preoccupation of exclusive concentration may lead to a fruitful scrutiny which sheds much light on Mind and Life, but cannot result in a total solution of the problem.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-679, 25: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-136-137, 26: TMCW (second edition)/Vol-10/p-15, 27: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-631, 28: The Mother’s Agenda, March 28 1964, 29: “This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama , but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalinı, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi. ” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-36, “But if we plunge by a trance of exclusive concentration into a mystic sleep state or pass abruptly in waking Mind into a state belonging to the Superconscient, then the mind can be seized in the passage by a sense of the unreality of the cosmic Force and its creations; it passes by a subjective abolition of them into the supreme superconscience.” CWSA/21/The Life Divine/p-469, 30: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-636-37, 31: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-322, 32: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-323, 33: TMCW-12/On Education/p-133, 34: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-85, 35: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-321, 36: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-85, 37: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-292, 38: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-305, 39: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-322, 40: “Our souls can climb into the shining planes, The breadths from which they came can be our home. His privilege regained of shadowless sight The Thinker entered the immortals’ air And drank again his pure and mighty source.” Savitri-263, 41: "A pressure of intolerable force Weighed on his unbowed head and stubborn breast; Light like a burning tongue licked up his thoughts, Light was a luminous torture in his heart, Light coursed, a splendid agony, through his nerves; His darkness muttered perishing in her blaze." Savitri-667, 41: Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-392, 42: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-149, 43: "Nevertheless, there is somewhere an absolute control, a real Ishwara . He is aware of it and knows that if he can find it, he will enter into control, become not only the passive sanctioning witness and upholding soul of her will, but the free powerful user and determiner of her movements . But this control seems to belong to another poise than the mentality. Sometimes he finds himself using it, but as a channel or instrument; it comes to him from above. It is clear then that it is supramental, a power of the Spirit greater than mental being which he already knows himself to be at the summit and in the secret core of his conscious being. To enter into identity with that Spirit must then be his way to control and lordship. He can do it passively by a sort of reflection and receiving in his mental consciousness, but then he is only a mould, channel or instrument, not a possessor or participant in the power. He can arrive at identity by an absorption of his mentality in inner spiritual being, but then the conscious action ceases in a trance of identity. To be active master of the nature he must evidently rise to some higher supramental poise where there is possible not only a passive, but an active identity with the controlling spirit. To find the way of rising to this greater poise and be self-ruler, Swarat, is a condition of his perfection." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-637-638, “Integral tapasya: the whole being lives only to know and serve the Divine.... Perfect tapasya : that which will reach its goal.” The Mother/TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-45, 44: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-889, 45: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-886-887, 46: CWSA-30/Letters on Yoga-III/350-351, 47: Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963-964, 48: “He sees things not as one on the levels surrounded by the jungle of present facts and phenomena but from above, not from outside and judged by their surfaces, but from within and viewed from the truth of their centre; therefore he is nearer the divine omniscience… His being is not shut into the succession of the moments, but has the full power of the past and ranges seeingly through the future: not shut in the limiting ego and personal mind, but lives in the freedom of the universal, in God and in all beings and all things; not in the dull density of the physical mind, but in the light of the self and the infinity of the spirit. He sees soul and mind only as a power and a movement and matter only as a resultant form of the spirit. All his thought will be of a kind that proceeds from knowledge. He perceives and enacts the things of the phenomenal life in the light of the reality of the spiritual being and the power of the dynamic spiritual essence.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-839, “Its (Supermind’s) time consciousness too is itself infinite and maintains in itself at once in a vision of totalities and of particularities, of mobile succession or moment sight and of total stabilising vision or abiding whole sight what appears to us as the past of things, their present and their future.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-885 “Its (Supermind’s) time consciousness therefore will be different from that of the mental being, not swept helplessly on the stream of the moments and clutching at each moment as a stay and a swiftly disappearing standpoint, but founded first on its eternal identity beyond the changes of time, secondly on a simultaneous eternity of Time in which past, present and future exist together for ever in the self-knowledge and self-power of the Eternal, thirdly, in a total view of the three times as one movement singly and indivisibly seen even in their succession of stages, periods, cycles, last — and that only in the instrumental consciousness — in the step by step evolution of the moments. It will therefore have the knowledge of the three times, trikaladristi, — held of old to be a supreme sign of the seer and the Rishi , — not as an abnormal power, but as its normal way of time knowledge.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-886-887 “A voyager upon uncharted routes Fronting the viewless danger of the Unknown, Adventuring across enormous realms, He broke into another Space and Time .” Savitri-91 “They wondered at each other and rejoiced And wove affinity in a silent gaze. A moment passed that was eternity’s ray, An hour began, the matrix of new Time .” Savitri-399, 49: "We are here to give up all desires and to turn towards the Divine and to become conscious of the Divine. To realize and manifest the Divine in our life is the way, not to become animals, living like cats and dogs." The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-30.03.1972, "Man can bring an enlightened will, an enlightened thought and enlightened emotions to the difficult work of his self-development; he can more and more subject to these more conscious and reflecting guides the inferior function of desire. In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards the superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-80, 50: TMCW-15/Words of the Mother-III/p-97, 184, 51: TMCW-13/Words of the Mother-I/p-24 Download this WEB PAGE as a PDF file: INTEGRAL PHYSICAL EDUCATION "To everyone who has lived closely with it, my body gives the impression of two things:(1) a very concentrated, very stubborn will, and.. (2) such endurance! Sri Aurobindo used to tell me he had never dreamed a body could have such endurance. And that's probably why. But I don't want to curtail this ability in any way, because it is (1) a CELLULAR will, and (2) a cellular endurance too – which is quite intriguing. It's not a central will and central endurance (that's something else altogether) – it's cellular. That's why Sri Aurobindo used to tell me this body had been specially prepared and chosen for the Work– because of its capacity for obstinate endurance and will." The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-January-1, 1962 INTEGRAL VITAL EDUCATION “But you see, you see all the way I have come...And I was born with a consciously prepared body—Sri Aurobindo was aware of that, he said it immediately the first time he saw me: I was born free. That is, from the spiritual standpoint: without any desire. Without any desire and attachment. And mon petit, if there is the slightest desire and the slightest attachment, it is IMPOSSIBLE to do this work... A vital like a warrior, with an absolute self-control (the vital of this present incarnation was sexless—a warrior), an absolutely calm and imperturbable warrior—no desires, no attachments...Since my earliest childhood, I have done things which, to human consciousness, are “monstrous;” my mother went so far as to tell me that I was a real “monster,” because I had neither attachments nor desires. If I was asked, “Would you like to do this?” I answered, “I don’t care.” If people were nasty to me, or if people died or went away, it left me absolutely calm—and so: “You are a monster, you have no feelings.” And with that preparation... It is eighty-six years since I came here, mon petit! For thirty years I worked with Sri Aurobindo consciously, without letup, night and day... We shouldn’t be in a hurry.” The Mother The Mother's Agenda-28th March-1964 INTEGRAL MENTAL EDUCATION "When I returned from Japan and we began to work together, Sri Aurobindo had already brought the supramental light into the mental world and was trying to transform the Mind. ‘It’s strange,’ he said to me, ‘it’s an endless work! Nothing seems to get done– everything is done and then constantly has to be done all over again.’ Then I gave him my personal impression, which went back to the old days with Theon: ‘It will be like that until we touch bottom.’ So instead of continuing to work in the Mind, both of us (I was the one who went through the experience ... how to put it? ... practically, objectively; he experienced it only in his consciousness, not in the body – but my body has always participated), both of us descended almost immediately (it was done in a day or two) from the Mind into the Vital, and so on quite rapidly, leaving the Mind as it was, fully in the light but not permanently transformed. The Mother The Mother's Agenda/ November 7, 1961 The Practice of Self-Control in the Gita “This Yoga of self-control by intelligent will must be rigorously, resolutely and continually practised without yielding to any discouragement by difficulty or failure until the bliss of Nirvana is securely possessed.” The Gita-6.23 The Gita’s Self-control through Personal Effort: ‘On this path no effort is lost, no obstacle prevails; even a little of this dharma delivers from the great fear.’ The Gita-2.40 ‘Yoga destroys all sorrow for him in whom the sleep and waking, the food, the play, the putting forth of effort in works are all yukta .’ The Gita-6.17 ‘By one who is not self-controlled, this Yoga is difficult to attain; but by the self-controlled, it is attainable by properly directed efforts.’ The Gita-6.36 ‘Those who have resort to Me as their refuge, those who turn to Me in their spiritual effort towards release from age and death (from the mortal being and its limitations), come to know that Brahman and all the integrality of the spiritual nature and the entirety of Karma .’ The Gita-7.29 ‘Whatever thou doest, whatever thou enjoyest, whatever thou sacrificest, whatever thou givest, whatever energy of tapasya , of the soul's will or effort, thou puttest forth, make it an offering unto Me.’ The Gita-9.27 ‘That askesis which is pursued under a clouded and deluded idea, performed with effort and suffering imposed on oneself or else with a concentration of the energy in a will to do hurt to others, that is said to be tamasic. ’ The Gita-17.19 ‘These five causes, O mighty-armed, learn of Me as laid down by the Sankhya for the accomplishment of all works. These five are the body, the doer, the various instruments, the many kinds of efforts, and last, the Fate.’ The Gita-18.13,14 ‘But that action which a man undertakes under the dominion of desire, or with an egoistic sense of his own personality in the action, and which is done with inordinate effort (with a great heaving and straining of the personal will to get at the object of desire), that is declared to be rajasic . The action undertaken from delusion (in mechanical obedience to the instincts, impulsions and unseeing ideas), without regarding the strength or capacity, without regarding the consequences, the waste of effort or injury to others, that action is declared to be tamasic .’ The Gita-18.24, 25

The Main Formula of Integral Yoga: (All Life is Yoga) “Apart, living within, all lives she bore; Aloof, she carried in herself the world:” Savitri-8 "We have all met in previous lives ("she met nameless comrades...a part of old forgotten selves:" (Savitri-376). Otherwise we would not have come together in this life. We are of one family and have worked through ages for the victory of the Divine and its manifestation upon earth." The Mother The Mother's Centenary Works/Vol-3/p-3, “To be perpetually reborn is the condition of a material immortality.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-5 “But that (life) CANNOT be extended as it is, for everything is constantly changing! And to be immortal, you have to follow this perpetual change ; otherwise, what will naturally happen is what now happens – one day you will die because you can no longer follow the change. But if you can follow it, then all this will fall from you! Understand that what will survive in you is something you don’t know very well, but it’s the only thing that can survive – and all the rest will keep falling off all the time ... Do you still want to be immortal?’ – Not one in ten said yes! ... Once you are able to make them feel the thing concretely, they tell you, ‘Oh no! Oh no! Since everything else is changing, the body might as well change too! What difference would it make!’ But what remains is THAT; THAT is what you must truly hold on to – but then you must BE THAT, not this whole agglomeration. What you now call ‘you’ is not THAT, it’s a whole collection of things...” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda/ November 15, 1960 The Main Formula of Integral Yoga (In this paper, The Synthesis of Yoga , the principal Shastra of integral Yoga, is compressed into ten formulas ("Compressing Nature into a formula;" Savitri-273), out of which the last nine formulas have descended while pursuing the sadhana of the book, The Synthesis of Yoga. ) “Apart, living within, all lives she bore; Aloof, she carried in herself the world:” Savitri-8 “Inapt to fold its mighty wings of dream Her spirit refused to hug the common soil, Or, finding all life’s golden meanings robbed, Compound with earth, struck from the starry list, Or quench with black despair the God-given light.” Savitri-19 “Recall of the soul’s adventure into space, A traveller through the magic centuries And being’s labour in Matter’s universe,” Savitri-29 “Even through the tangled anarchy called Fate And through the bitterness of death and fall An outstretched Hand is felt upon our lives. It is near us in unnumbered bodies and births ; In its unslackening grasp it keeps for us safe The one inevitable supreme result No will can take away and no doom change, The crown of conscious Immortality, The godhead promised to our struggling souls When first man’s heart dared death and suffered life.” Savitri-59 “The Spirit, the innumerable One, He has left behind his lone eternity, He is an endless birth in endless Time , Her finite’s multitude in an infinite Space.” Savitri-66 “She meditates upon mighty words and looks On the unseen links that join the parted spheres.” (unseen links of all life) Savitri-85 “The Spirit’s greatness is our timeless source And it shall be our crown in endless Time. ” Savitri-110 “A subtle link of union joins all life . Thus all creation is a single chain:” Savitri-110 “Here was its early brief attempt to be, Its rapid end of momentary delight Whose stamp of failure haunts all ignorant life … Even when reason is born and soul takes form, In beast and reptile and in thinking man It lasts and is the fount of all their life. ” Savitri-140 “In war and clasp these life-wants joined the All-Life, Wrestlings of a divided unity Inflicting mutual grief and happiness In ignorance of the Self for ever one.” Savitri-145 “A little joy and knowledge satisfied This little being tied into a knot And hung on a bulge of its environment, A little curve cut off in measureless Space, A little span of life in all vast Time .” (this life's link with all life) Savitri-148-149 “Our being must move eternally through Time; Death helps us not, vain is the hope to cease; A secret Will compels us to endure…. Our souls are dragged as with a hidden leash, Carried from birth to birth, from world to world, Our acts prolong after the body’s fall The old perpetual journey without pause.” Savitri-197 “All life’s high visions are embodied there, Her wandering hopes achieved, her aureate combs Caught by the honey-eater’s darting tongue, Her burning guesses changed to ecstasied truths, Her mighty pantings stilled in deathless calm And liberated her immense desires.” Savitri-235 “All life to harmonise by thought’s control, She with the huge imbroglio struggles still; Ignorant of all but her own seeking mind To save the world from Ignorance she came.” Savitri-250 “He stood on a wide arc of summit Space Alone with an enormous Self of Mind Which held all life in a corner of its vasts.” Savitri-283 “A Panergy that harmonised all life Held now existence in its vast control; A portion of that majesty he was made.” (Here Panergy is the all energy or Supramental energy which can harmonise all past and present births.) Savitri-300 “There consciousness was a close and single weft; The far and near were one in spirit-space, The moments there were pregnant with all time .” Savitri-301 “Each was unique, but took all lives as his own, And, following out these tones of the Infinite, Recognised in himself the universe.” Savitri-323 “All life is fixed in an ascending scale” Savitri-342 “All her (Savitri’s) life’s turns led her to symbol doors Admitting to secret Powers that were her kin; Adept of truth, initiate of bliss, A mystic acolyte trained in Nature’s school, Aware of the marvel of created things She laid the secrecies of her heart’s deep muse Upon the altar of the Wonderful; Her hours were a ritual in a timeless fane; Her acts became gestures of sacrifice.” Savitri-360 “A forehead that wore the crown of all her (Savitri’s) past , (The Mother had the crown of twelve pearls over her head in subtle form.) Two eyes her constant and eternal stars, Comrade and sovereign eyes that claimed her soul, Lids known through many lives , large frames of love.” Savitri-396 “These bodies summed the drift of numberless births, And the spirit to the spirit was the same.” Savitri-399 “This earth is full of labour, packed with pain; Throes of an endless birth coerce her still; The centuries end, the ages vainly pass And yet the Godhead in her is not born.” Savitri-443-44 “Always the stature of her passion grew; Grief, fear became the food of mighty love. Increased by its torment it filled the whole world; It was all her life , became her whole earth and heaven.” Savitri-473 “And the heavy business of unnumbered lives” Savitri-479 “The Master and the Mother of all lives Watching the worlds their twin regard had made, And Krishna and Radha for ever entwined in bliss, The Adorer and Adored self-lost and one.” Savitri-525 “Out of some sullen monstrous vast arisen, Out of an abysmal deep of grief and fear Imagined by some blind regardless self, A consciousness of being without its joy, Empty of thought, incapable of bliss, That felt life blank and nowhere found a soul, A voice to the dumb anguish of the heart Conveyed a stark sense of unspoken words; In her own depths she heard the unuttered thought That made unreal the world and all life meant.” Savitri-534 “So she beheld the many births of thought, If births can be of what eternal is; For the Eternal’s powers are like himself, Timeless in the Timeless, in Time ever born.” Savitri-541 “In the dire beauty of an immortal face Pitying arose, receiving all that lives For ever into its fathomless heart, refuge Of creatures from their anguish and world-pain.” Savitri-574 (Savitri said to Death God) "A traveller of the million roads of life , His steps familiar with the lights of heaven Tread without pain the sword-paved courts of hell; There he descends to edge eternal joy. Love’s golden wings have power to fan thy void: The eyes of love gaze starlike through death’s night, The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds. He labours in the depths, exults on the heights; He (Love) shall remake thy universe, O Death.” Savitri-592 “Even in all that life and man have marred, A whisper of divinity still is heard, A breath is felt from the eternal spheres.” Savitri-612-613 (Death God said) “If God there is he cares not for the world; All things he sees with calm indifferent gaze, He has doomed all hearts to sorrow and desire, He has bound all life with his implacable laws; He answers not the ignorant voice of prayer.” Savitri-646 “Above the wash and surge of Time and Space, Disengaging from the cosmic commonalty By which all life is kin in grief and joy, Delivered from the universal Law The sunlike single and transcendent spirit Can blaze its way through the mind’s barrier wall And burn alone in the eternal sky, Inhabitant of a wide and endless calm.” Savitri-691 “But first high Truth must set her feet on earth And man aspire to the Eternal’s light And all his members feel the Spirit’s touch And all his life obey an inner Force. This too shall be; for a new life shall come, A body of the Superconscient’s truth, A native field of Supernature’s mights: It shall make earth’s nescient ground Truth’s colony, Make even the Ignorance a transparent robe Through which shall shine the brilliant limbs of Truth And Truth shall be a sun on Nature’s head And Truth shall be the guide of Nature’s steps And Truth shall gaze out of her nether deeps.” Savitri-708 The earliest First Formula and the ultimate Last Formula of the Divine Life: ‘The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its last, --God, Light, (Bliss),¹⁶ Freedom, Immortality.’¹⁶ Sri Aurobindo “The Illimitable they measured with number’s rods And traced the last formula of limited things, In transparent systems bodied termless truths, The Timeless made accountable to Time And valued the incommensurable Supreme.” Savitri-273 “Therefore, O Arjuna, at all times of all life be in Yoga, tasmat sarvesu kalesu yoga-yukto bhavarjuna. ” The Gita-8.27 “O Arjuna, at all times of all life unite with Me by remembrance of Me and by doing action for Me, tasmat sarvesu kalesu mam anusmara yudhya cha. ” The Gita-8.7 The literal meaning of integral Yoga is the union with the total Consciousness of the Eternal. The written truth of integral Shastra had descended from above like traditional Shastra as formulas, Sutras and was further expanded and heightened through ascension and widening of Consciousness. All the (ten) formula of integral Yoga breaks through to uncover the integral Divine which includes integral Divine Law, integral Divine manifestation, integral Divine liberation, integral Divine transformation and integral Divine Perfection. The first formula or Maha Mantra of integral Yoga is ‘All life is Yoga ’ and the last formula of integral Yoga is complete possession of ‘God, Light, Bliss, Freedom and Immortality.’¹⁶ 1) ‘All life is Yoga,’⁵⁸ sarva (ananta) jivanam nitya-yogamastu or sampurnam jivanam yogamayam bhabet. All life is a secret unconscious and conscious Yoga of Nature intended to become progressively self-conscient, luminous and self-fulfilled. Life develops many initial hints of Divinity and change of nature by liberating them which must be enforced upon the whole of life and not merely on a part of this life. Where the effort of this whole of life can become the conscious Yoga of Nature and must extend over to All Life until the recovery of the complete and undivided Divine Life. All Life is defined as a subtle link of union that joins the succession of past, present and future lives and it is the right play of the Soul with all the possibilities of Nature for manifestation, self-expression, self-experience, self-knowledge and all-knowledge. ‘…the key to life’s hidden secret is the true relation of this Spirit with its own created existences.’⁹⁵ The true joy of life can be experienced by the profound union of the Self and Nature. And Yoga is a practical psychology and the central common principle of all Vedantic schools of Yoga is defined as the self-fulfilment of the Purusha, the Lord of Yoga, through the movement of His Energy, Consciousness or Prakriti. The central common principle of all Tantric schools is the self-fulfilment of Prakriti by her Purusha. In integral Yoga a relation between Purusha and Prakriti exists whose static union will lead towards Rest, Purification, Freedom and Liberation of Soul and whose dynamic union will lead towards divine Action, new Creation, Delight and change of Nature. Static union will establish the Ishwara in the heart as hinted in the Gita, “The Lord is stationed in the heart of all creatures”⁵⁷ or “the Lord as Self, abides in the heart of all beings”⁵⁷ and dynamic union will establish Ishwari in the heart as hinted in Savitri, ‘A face, a form (of the Divine Mother) came down into her heart’⁵⁴ or as hinted in the Gita, ‘Para-prakriti has become the Jiva in the heart,’ paraprakritir Jivabhuta . When both experiences reconcile, then the heart becomes the dwelling place of the ‘incarnate dual Godhead’⁵⁵ and this experience will repeat in the other nine occult centres. So those who lead a surface objective life, for them this whole life can be a field of practice of Yoga and those who live an inward subjective life and are established in their consciousness in waking-trance and non-waking trance can extend the experience of whole life into all-life. 2) All Yoga is a compression of one’s Evolution by all possible ways of union with the Divine or all Yoga is a swift and concentrated conscious evolution of Being. Sarvayogah abhibyaktimastu or yogasakalam abhibyakteh sankochanam. To become aware of the truth of our being and becoming is the object of all Yoga. Or all the revelatory aspects of the Divine must be caught in the wide nets of integral Yoga. All Yoga is in its nature an attempt and an arriving at unity with the Supreme Being, Supreme Consciousness and Supreme Ananda. Evolution is defined as the progressive self-manifestation of Nature in man or ‘a progressive self-manifestation of the Spirit in a material universe.’¹⁰² The Nature affects her aim of collective slow growth through evolution in Ignorance and the individual experiences rapid revolutionary change through Yoga or spiritual Evolution in knowledge; the former arrives at the Divine through concentration on her own manifestation whereas the latter goes beyond Nature to the Lord of Nature and beyond universe to the Transcendence. Natural evolution in ignorance is an uncertain growth by the pressure of environment, partly by groping education and an ill-lit purposeful effort, partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders, lapses and relapses, veiling a secret divine intervention and guidance. In Yoga, we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious, concentrated and self-directed evolution which can compress the growth of many lives into a single birth. 3) All Evolution is the heightening of force of Consciousness until it passes from a mental, vital and physical instrumentation into the essence and power of the Spirit. Or All Evolution is the awakener of higher states of Consciousness. Sarva-abhibyakti cetayanti sumatinam astu or Sarva abhibyanjanam sumatinam chetakamastu. All evolution must move in stages through combination of three ascending gradations that of the evolution in Inconscient, a bodily life which the unassisted Nature might take centuries and millenniums or many hundreds of lives to form the basis of our existence; the evolution in Ignorance, a mental life into which we emerge and enlarge it into greater completeness and the evolution in Knowledge, the greatest rapidity and concentration of movement of divine existence. The essence and true nature of Consciousness are that it is a power to be aware of itself and its object and this power must be direct, self-fulfilled and complete. The destiny of the evolving Consciousness is to become aware of the Self and aware of all existence, which is the body of the greater Self. The practice of movement of Consciousness leads one to the discovery of inner Psychic and higher Spiritual possibility and elevates one to all-retaining Consciousness where past births and future births are contained, present and effective. Integral Yoga aspires for that central change of Consciousness which rests in the One and acts in the All. It is a growing direct Spiritual experience, vision, feeling of the Supreme and the cosmic existence, the Divine in itself and the Divine in all things. 4) All Consciousness¹⁰¹ is one, but in action, it involves in manifold concentrated Effort and spontaneous movement of Shakti to realise every possible line of Spiritual experience. Sarvachetana bahubidha abhyasam astu or chetana sakalam prakruteh bahubidha chesta . All Consciousness is the combination of Exclusive Consciousness, the action of surface mind and intellect, Essential Consciousness, the action in the subtle world, the Multiple Consciousness, the universal action and Supramental Consciousness, links highest with the lowest world and achieves indivisible whole. Personal effort is defined as the attempt of the egoistic mind to identify itself in a wrong and imperfect way with the workings of the divine Force. Ego turns into desire, wish and craving of the intellectual, emotional and volitional mind. As we gain clarity through purification, the turmoil of egoistic effort becomes calm self-knowledge and leads us to the source of growing light. 5) All Effort is the synthesis of all the wide and supple Methods, Sarvah abhyasah (avhyasa sakalam) vidhi-purbakam astu, pursued by the (1) comprehensive Spirituality of ancient Vedantic Seers who work out the relationship between Purusha-Prakriti, Ishwara-Shakti and Brahman-Maya by equal regard and reverence towards earth the Mother and heaven the Father, God and Man, Matter and Spirit, Ishwara and Ishwari, (2) exclusive Spirituality of later Vedantic ascetics, the exclusive worshipper of the Being, the Brahman, the Ishwara and (3) the synthetic Spirituality of Tantrics, the exclusive worshipper of the Energy, the Consciousness, the Mother, the Ishwari. The goal of all effort and all sacrifice is the full recognition of the inner Guide and the Master of the Yoga. 6) All the methods are the synthesis of (central truth of all) self-discipline, Sarva vidhi anusashanam astu or vidhi sakalam anusashana samnwitam bhabet. All Methods are the invention of evolutionary Nature through the synthesis of Indispensable ancient Vedantic/Vedic and Dispensable later Vedantic self-discipline of integral Yoga. Or all methods, grouped under the common name of Yoga, are special, indispensable Psycho-spiritual and dispensable Psycho-physical processes founded on the fixed truth of Nature. Indispensable methods are necessary to build the Spiritual foundation, and dispensable methods are necessary for Spiritual integration. The method of integral Yoga is a direct commerce between the human Purusha, the Psychic being, the Kshara in the individual body and the Divine Purusha , the Spiritual being, the Akshara who dwells in every body and yet transcends all form and name and the Supramental being, the Purushottama , the source of all being and existence through the triple Path of Works, of Love and of Knowledge. The method of integral Yoga is to put our whole conscious being into relation and contact with the Divine and direct Him to transform the entire lower nature into His Divine Nature. The Sadhaka will take as much care and thoroughness from the most insignificant action to the greatest action as a means of self-offering and lifts all into the Light and transforms all. For him, in the Yoga there is nothing too small to be used and nothing too great to be attempted. Due to the entire consecration, all the sadhana is done for him from above by an impersonal Force, so he has no business with ego and pride and he will live like a slave and disciple of the Master with full of gratitude for the Divine Master. 7) The practice of all self-discipline leads to continuous union with the Self, Sarvam anusashanam yunjita satatam atmana . Or all self-disciplines labour in their different ways to realise the one supreme experience. Integral Yoga is neither exclusive worship of the Shaktis, the Energy, the Consciousness, the Chit nor the exclusive worship of the Purusha, the Ishwara, the Being, the Sat, but to find a passive and an active relation between Them, the Purusha and Prakriti relation in ignorance, Avidya, Ishwara and Shakti relation in Spiritual plane, Vidya , and Brahman and Maya relation in Supramental plane, Vijnana resulting in Ananda. When the Prakriti, the Ishwari, the Maya, the Chit are self-absorbed in the conscious existence of the Purusha, the Ishwara, the Brahman, the Sat respectively, there is rest, the Nirvana, the realisation of Oneness. When the Purusha, the Ishwara, the Brahman, the Sat pour themselves out in the action of the Prakriti, the Ishwari, the Maya, the Chit respectively, then there is action, creation and Ananda in Ignorance, exclusive Knowledge, comprehensive Knowledge and supreme Knowledge respectively. 8) All Dispensable self-disciplines are termed as Psycho-physical methods, which means to pursue inner development with the help of outer aid, support, Sarva aniyatam anusashanam bahya abalmbana ashritam. Or all dispensable self-discipline is defined as the finding of the Self by confronting, seizing, conquering the difficulties of nature or agitating and exciting all Nature. It ensures that lower formulations can also be used for the highest Spiritual and Supramental perfection. These lower formulations are having following six disadvantages; firstly dependency on any physical, external and mechanical means can confine life within the limitation of exclusive concentration and subjection to Prakriti ; secondly, it may awake the Kundalini Shakti, which asks the attention of physical Guru and the necessity of pure and strong vessel; thirdly these exercises are separative movements which take place not in the true Self, not in the silence, but in the active Prakriti; fourthly these actions are continued in active mind, directly opposes the passive silence which is the condition of full disclosure of Spiritual and Supramental action; fifthly the exclusive quest of psycho-physical methods are born or invented out of the impatience of the later Vedantic saints and ascetics to possess the Divine exclusively and too much indulgence in it can create a gulf between the Creator and His Creation resulting in impatience and lastly, the aims of integral Yoga can be arrived at by these methods but there are other means, preferably higher Spiritual formulations, which are more subtle, essential, powerful and pliable. 9) All Indispensable self-disciplines are termed as Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental methods which mean to pursue inner development with the assistance of inner aid and without the support of any outer aid; where the higher formulations are used for transformation of lower faculties, Sarva niyatam anusashanam bahya abalmbana rahitam. Or all Indispensable self-discipline is defined as the finding of the Self by silencing or drawing back from the difficulties of all Nature. It ensures largest possible development in the shortest possible path. A Spiritual man needs nothing external for completeness of his existence and he lives one with all existence. Integral Yoga will use fully active or positive methods subordinated by passive or negative methods consistent with the totality of the aim of perfected universalised individual Power, Knowledge and Ananda ; it will combine passive method of equal endurance with active method of spontaneous possession of universal energy of oneness and ananda, passive method of impartial indifference with active method of high-seated impartial acceptance of life strong to transform all experience into greater values of equal spirit, passive method of calm resignation and submission with the active method of full surrender of its personal being to the Divine, passive purity of entire god content with complete silence of vibrant mental and soul concentration, passive state of profound absorbing quietude of impersonal peace with active purity of perfect joy of being and bliss of Divine action. It will combine the positive self-discipline of purity and concentration, which is identified as the right arm of integral Yoga with the negative practice of renunciation, which is identified as its left arm.⁵³ 10) All Dispensable self-disciplines are used to subordinate all indispensable self-disciplines, and their indispensability is felt after the Spiritual foundation is established on a secure basis.¹⁷ Sarva niyatam anusasanam adhinasta sarva aniyatam anusasanam. All mind or all Nature has the capacity to possess the All Divine partially, whereas the All Divine has the capacity to possess the all mind or all Nature entirely; so the latter must be pursued by pacifying the lower mind and the former must subordinate it by activating the all mind or turning the lower mind Godward. All mind consists of lower ranges of consciousness that of physical mind, vital mind, sensory mind, emotional mind and intellectual mind and higher ranges of Consciousness that of higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind and Overmind. 11) In evolutionary consciousness, lower instruments temporarily perform functions that are fulfilled more perfectly by higher spiritual faculties. Nature first employs provisional instruments and later replaces them with more direct and luminous powers. In integral Yoga the practice of ‘psycho-physical processes on a large scale’¹⁸ is the direct substitution of spiritual methods; ‘psycho-physical power of vision’¹⁹ is the substitute of ‘the spiritual sight, the pure sense, the Supramental samjnana ;’¹⁹ Spiritual vision is ‘something much more near, profound and comprehensive than mental vision;’⁵² ‘memory is a poverty-stricken substitute for an integral direct abiding consciousness of self;’²⁰ ego is only an outward false substitute²¹ of Psychic entity; ‘false soul of desire’⁶¹ is the substitute of true Psychic Being; individual ego is the ‘subjective substitute’²² of true self; communal ego is the substitute of ‘collective soul;’²³ ‘this voice of the soul is not what we call conscience — for that is only a mental and often conventional erring substitute;’⁶⁰ reason is a substitute of intuitive mind²⁴ or ‘a delegate or substitute of the Supermind;’²⁵ mental knowledge is the ‘substitute for the more real and integral knowledge;’²⁶ pseudo-intuition, which frequently visit man’s mind is the ‘adulterated article or false substitute’²⁷ of intellect; sense mind is the ‘dumb substitute for thought;’²⁸ sense organs are the substitute of ‘psychical hearing, touch, smell, taste’²⁹ which is again the substitute of ‘Supramental sense;’³⁰ all mind constructed laws and standards like law of truth, law of justice, law of love are the substitute of the liberty in the spirit or the law of the self;³¹ mental and vital association are the substitute of Psychic and Spiritual oneness; egoistic life is the substitute of Divine Life;³² mankind or community or state is the substitute of God;³³ mental law of good is substitute of spiritual change;³⁴ mental control is the substitute of ‘control of the spiritual Reality;’³⁵ falsehood is a ‘lurid substitute’³⁶ of truth; ‘the appreciations of our human mind and desire-soul’³⁷ is a substitute for the divine values; titiksa , the facing, enduring and conquest of all shocks of existence is the substitute for elimination of suffering;³⁸ equality is the substitute of Sachchidananda consciousness³⁸ which is All-Bliss; ‘there must be an ascent which substitutes the principle of knowledge;’³⁹ the soul of Matter, annamaya purusha , is the substitute of the conscious foundation of being;⁴⁰ intellectual logo ‘is only a partial representative and substitute for the greater supramental Logos;’⁴¹ the action of lower Prakriti is the dynamically substituted by ‘the action of the supreme and universal divine Shakti under the control of Ishwara ;’⁴² the egoistic state always subject to the ignorant and troubled action of the desire soul is substituted by ‘large and luminous static equality which quiets the reason, the emotional mind, the life mind and the physical nature;’⁴² prayer is the substitute of ‘the faith, the will, the aspiration;’⁴³ faith is the substitute of ‘knowledge and perfect experience;’⁴⁴ written truth or Shastra is the substitute of ‘eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being;’⁴⁵ personal effort is the substitute of divine Will;⁴⁶ concentration is the substitute of ‘active oneness;’⁴⁷ psychological observation is the substitute of ‘Supramental cognition;’⁴⁷ passive silence is the substitute of ‘Supramental gnosis;’48 Modern Science is a ‘substitute for eternal mysteries;’⁷¹ Soul is the subordinate term of Divine Bliss; mind is taught to be the obedient subordinate of Supermind⁴⁹ and Ignorance and Mind are defined as grandmother and ‘barren mother’⁵⁰ respectively of their unreal child, this false world of mental Maya.⁹⁶ Supramental Maya , the power of Brahman and Shakti are grandmother and virgin mother of their real child, the true world which waits for its self-fulfilment. For a Sadhaka, until the higher Psychic and Spiritual faculties have evolved, he can rely on these substitutes as an aid to sadhana and wait patiently for the emergence of higher instrumentation. 12) Those who practice this Yoga must have an integral mental conception of the Divine from the very beginning of their Sadhana life that of (1) the Divine is in all things; (2) all things are within the Divine and (3) all things are made up of the stuff of the Divine and they must be wholly aware of the entire object of integral Yoga and opposition of all other Spiritual disciplines towards its practicality and final outcome. Any partial knowledge can fragment the Divine, the Law of Integral Yoga, the human collectivity, and His creation. And lastly, they must strive to attain fullness of Life and Being by perfecting the movement of ascending and descending Consciousness. One can arrive at the fullness of Consciousness only by intensifying and integrating the double movement of Consciousness. The vision of a Spiritually strong India rests on a few individuals who can attain the largest development, the widest and deepest movement of Consciousness in the shortest possible time. First, there will be the emergence of a few Spiritual men who will be able to reconcile Spirit and Matter partly, then there will be the emergence of Gnostic and Bliss Souls to make this reconciliation entire. And it is through acceptance and consecration of physical work of all types, sarvakarmani, ⁵⁶ not by rejecting action as defective, dosam, the highest Spirit must enter contact with the nether imperfect Matter and bring the possibility of Divine Life. That is the promise of the infallible Supramental action on earth through which Matter will reveal the Spirit’s image. Recapitulation: The First Formula: All Life is Yoga. (Maha Mantra ) The Second Formula: All Yoga is a compression of one’s Evolution by all possible ways of union with the Divine. The Third Formula: All Evolution is the awakener of higher states of Consciousness. The Fourth formula: All Consciousness is one, but in action, it involves many-fold concentrated Effort and spontaneous movement of Shakti to realize every possible line of Spiritual experience. The Fifth Formula: All Effort is the synthesis of all the wide and supple Methods followed by (1) comprehensive Spirituality of ancient Vedantists , (2) exclusive Spirituality of later Vedantic a scetics, and (3) Synthetic Spirituality of Tantrics. The Sixth Formula: All the methods are the synthesis of the central Truth of all self-disciplines, followed by the traditional schools of Yoga. The Seventh Formula: The practice of all self-discipline leads to continuous union with the Self. The Eighth Formula : All Dispensable self-disciplines are termed Psycho-physical methods, which means pursuing inner development with the help of outer aid and support. The Ninth Formula: All Indispensable self-disciplines are termed as Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental methods, which means to pursue inner development without the support of any outer aid or "Transcended was the human formula;". (Savitri-319) The Tenth Formula: A ll Dispensable self-disciplines are used to subordinate all Indispensable self-disciplines, and its indispensability is felt after the Spiritual foundation is established on a secure basis. The Eleventh Formula: Nature first employs provisional instruments and later replaces them with more direct and luminous powers. The Twelfth Formula : Remembrance of Integral Divine from the very beginning of Sadhana life. OM TAT SAT References: - 1: The Mother’s Agenda-9/107, 2: The Mother’s Agenda-3/274-275, 3: The Mother’s Agenda-8/172-175, 4: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/4, 5: SABCL-23/Letters on Yoga/584, 6: SABCL-23/Letters on Yoga/584, 7: CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II-p-99, 8: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/250, 9: The Gita-6.23, 10: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/700, 11: The Gita-18-66, 12: Savitri-200, 13: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/72 14: The Gita-17.3, 15: “In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass through the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” The Mother-37, 16: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-4, “In that case, the unconquerable impulse of man towards God, Light, Bliss, Freedom, Immortality presents itself in its right place in the chain as simply the imperative impulse by which Nature is seeking to evolve beyond Mind, and appears to be as natural, true and just as the impulse towards Life which she has planted in certain forms of Matter or the impulse towards Mind which she has planted in certain forms of Life.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-5,6, 17: “In other words we must arrive at and use a psycho-physical knowledge with a spiritual foundation.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-624, “The asanas are one means for control of the body, as is Pranayam for the life-forces, but neither is indispensable.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-439, 18: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/542, 19: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/869, 20: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/525, 21: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/542, 22: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/646, 23: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/1093, 24: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/315, 25: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/828, 26: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/827, 27: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/982, 28: Savitri-137, 29: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/875, 30: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/862-864, 31: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/1038, 32: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/59, 33: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/1102, 34: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/653, 35: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1038, 36: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/153, 37: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/224, 38: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/117-118, 39: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/731, 40: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/821-22, 41: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/796, 42: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/784, 43: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/567-68, 44: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/37, 45: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/53, 46: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/59, 47: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/858, 48: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/861, 49: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/232, 50: CWSA-21/The Life Divine-512, 51: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1038, 52: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/833-34, 53: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-326, 54: Savitri-528, 55: “The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door, Eternal Supermind touch earthly Time.” Savitri-705, “When in your heart and thought you will make no difference between Sri Aurobindo and me, when to think of Sri Aurobindo will be to think of me and to think of me will mean to think of Sri Aurobindo inevitably, when to see one will mean inevitably to see the other, like one and the same Person, — then you will know that you begin to be open to the supramental force and consciousness.” The Mother/The Mother’s Centenary Works/13/32/4 March 1958 56: The Gita-3.30, 57: “The Lord is stationed in the heart of all existences, O Arjuna, and turns them all round and round, mounted on a machine by his Maya.” The Gita-18.61, “I, O Gudakesha, as the Self, which abides in the heart of all beings. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all beings.” The Gita-10.21, 58: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-8, “All life , we have said, is a Yoga of Nature; here in this material world life is her reaching out from her first inconscience towards a return to union with the conscient Divine from whom she proceeded.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-559, “The characteristics of Life are (1) action and movement, a reaching out to absorb and assimilate what is external to the individual and (2) a principle of satisfaction or dissatisfaction in what it seizes upon or what comes to it, which is associated with the (3) all-pervading phenomenon of attraction and repulsion. These three things are everywhere in Nature because Life is everywhere in Nature.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-350, “The proper function of the life-energy is to do what it is bidden by the divine principle in us, to reach to and enjoy what is given to it by that indwelling Divine and not to desire at all.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-351, 59: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-85, 60: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-154, 61: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-175, 62: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-186, 63: “Pursuing all knowledge like a questing hound.” Savitri-39, 64:“How has he (Satyavan) through the thickets of the world Pursued me (Para-prakriti Savitri) like a lion in the night” Savitri-614, 65: The Gita-7.5, 66: “The Yoga of self-perfection is to make this double movement as absolute as possible… This complete detachment, impossible without an entire self-government, equality, calm, sama, samata, santi , is the surest step towards the purification of the buddhi. A calm, equal and detached mind can alone reflect the peace or base the action of the liberated spirit.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-669, 67: “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-631, “This is in fact what the mass of men do; (1) a small minority trample down the life instinct and strain after an ascetic perfection; (2) most obey the gross will to live with such modifications and restraints as society imposes or the normal social man has been trained to impose on his own mind and actions (moderate perfection); (3) others set up a balance between ethical austerity and temperate indulgence of the desiring mental and vital self and see in this balance the golden mean of a sane mind and healthy human living. (4) But none of these ways gives the perfection which we are seeking, the divine government of the will in life.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-658-59, “It is only by increasing that (self) control that he can move towards perfection, — and it is only by developing soul-power that he can reach it. Nature-power in him has to become more and more completely a conscious act of soul, a conscious expression of all the will and knowledge of spirit. Prakriti has to reveal itself as shakti of the Purusha.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-631, “But while the possession of the being, consciousness, delight, power of the Self is the condition of perfection, —for it is only by knowing and possessing and living in the truth of itself that the soul can become free and perfect, — we hold that Nature is an eternal action and manifestation of the Spirit; Nature is not a devil’s trap, a set of misleading appearances created by desire, sense, life and mental will and intelligence, but these phenomena are hints and indications and behind all of them is a truth of Spirit which exceeds and uses them.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-666-67, “We find that it progresses towards a greater completeness in proportion as we arrive at two kinds of perfection; first, a greater and greater detachment from the control of the lower suggestions; secondly, an increasing discovery of a self-existent Being, Light, Power and Ananda which surpasses and transforms the normal humanity… The Yoga of self-perfection is to make this double movement as absolute as possible.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga-668-69, 68: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-530, 69: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-95, 70: “She surrendered to the service of the soul” Savitri-87, 71: Savitri-286, 72: The Mother’s Agenda-August-7, 1965 (Addendum), 73: The Mother’s Centenary Works/13/353/February 1954, 74: The Mother’s Agenda/July21, 1962/Addendum, 75: “Even in India…And I am beginning to believe....That's what I observe when I am put in contact with the outside world, Europe…... But anyway, the Old World is an OLD world in the true sense of the word. India is much, much older, but more alive. Yet now it strikes me as so very rotten! They went rotten. You know what happens when a rotten apple is put next to a good one: England came and stayed much too long. It made things go quite rotten. Very, very rotten; it's difficult to heal. Otherwise, what's not rotten is truly good.” The Mother’s Agenda/July14, 1962, “And here, there's TOTAL corruption – total, to such a point that I'll give you an example. The government meddles in everything, you can't move a finger without its permission: you can't leave the country, you can't enter the country, you can't send money out, you can't open a shop, you can't ... nothing, nothing, nothing, not even plow your field without its permission. They meddle in everything, which in itself is pretty stupid. And then they make regulations – the more regulations you make, the more disobedience it creates, naturally… People no longer grow crops because it's too complicated and with all those taxes (they've scores of taxes to pay), it costs them much more than they can earn. And as there isn't enough food, there are naturally individuals who try and hoard as much as they can to sell it for as high a price as possible.” The Mother’s Agenda-August 14, 1964, “They're mad. No, the English made them thoroughly rotten. Those two hundred years of British rule left them completely rotten. Naturally, another effect is that some people have awakened, but they don't know anything; they know nothing either of administration or of government or anything – they've lost everything, and whatever they know is what they were taught by Britain, which means an absolutely corrupt business. So they don't know anything, they don't even know how to make a decision.” The Mother’s Agenda-August 12, 1967, “And the government is rotten. People whose very tactics and principle of action are falsehood: to deceive and deceive and deceive. And naturally, to deceive themselves.” The Mother’s Agenda-October 19, 1967 76: “Islam was a return towards sensation, beauty, harmony in the form, and the legitimization of sensations and joy in beauty. From a higher viewpoint, it wasn't quite of a superior quality, but from a vital viewpoint, it was extremely powerful, and that's what gave them so much power to spread, to appropriate, seize, dominate. But what they did is very beautiful – all their art is magnificent, magnificent! It was a flowering of beauty Then there were others – it all comes one after another. And every religion came as a stage in the development and the relationship with the Divine, to lead the consciousness towards a oneness which is a totality and not a removal from a whole reality so as to obtain another. The need for totality, completeness, is what caused those religions to come like that, one after another.” The Mother’s Agenda- August 12, 1967, “To adopt a religion because one is born in that religion or because the people one loves and trusts practise that religion or because when one goes to a particular place where others pray and worship, one feels helped in one’s own prayer and worship, is not the sign of a very strong nature; I should say it is rather the sign of a weakness or at any rate of a lack of originality.” The Mother/The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/8/246, 77: “I had this experience very, very strongly. When I left here [Pondicherry in 1915], as I got farther away, I felt as if emptied of something, and once in the Mediterranean, I wasn't able to bear it any longer: I fell ill. And even in Japan, which outwardly is a marvelous country – marvelously beautiful and harmonious (it WAS, I don't know what it is nowadays), and outwardly it was a joy every minute, a breathtaking joy, so strong was the expression of beauty – yet I felt empty, empty, empty, I absolutely lacked ... (Mother opens her mouth as though suffocating) ... I lacked the important Thing. And I found it again only when I came back here (Pondicherry).” The Mother’s Agenda-6/265, 78: The Mother’s Agenda/7/265, 79: The Mother’s Agenda/10/148, 80: Savitri-401, 81: Savitri-424, 82: Savitri-262 83: “But only if India is ONE can she fulfill this role (of becoming the Guru of the World), for how can one who is herself divided lead others? Thus the division of India is the first Falsehood that must disappear, for it is the symbol of the earth’s division. As long as India is not one, the world cannot be one. India’s striving for unity is the symbolic drama of the world’s striving for unity.” Satprem/The Mother’s Agenda/May-15, 1971 Addendum, 84: “I (The Mother) tell those who govern (the country): “You leave free hands to the bandits and take insulting measures against the honest people. It will be like that so long as the country is not governed by the wisest people. The wisest people are those who can freely and correctly read the hearts and the minds of men.” It was in the form of a conversation. I (the Mother) tell those who govern (the country): "You leave free hands to the bandits and take insulting measures against the honest people.” So the reply (from the Government of India): "But how can we tell the bandits from the honest people until we see them at work?” I (The Mother) said: “Yes, it will always be like that, you will always commit the same sort of blunder ... until the country is governed by the wisest people." (The Government of India asked): "Ah, but how can one know if they are the wisest people?” (The Mother replied): “The wisest people are those who can freely and correctly read the hearts and the minds of men.”” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda/23rd June 1965 85: “But no one has yet dared to say: money is a force and belongs to nobody, but it must be used by the most disinterested and clear sighted person (or persons) in the country.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda/January 31, 1970, “Money is not meant to generate money; money should generate an increase in production, an improvement in the conditions of life and a progress in human consciousness. This is its true use. What I call an improvement in consciousness, a progress in consciousness, is everything that education in all its forms can provide – not as it’s generally understood, but as we understand it here: education in art, education in ... from the education of the body, from the most material progress, to the spiritual education and progress through yoga; the whole spectrum, everything that leads humanity towards its future realization. Money should serve to augment that and to augment the material base for the earth’s progress, the best use of what the earth can give – its intelligent utilization, not the utilization that wastes and loses energies. The use that allows energies to be replenished.” The Mother’s Agenda-04.10.1958, “For in this ideal place, money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social position. There, work would not be for earning one's living, but the means to express oneself and develop one's capacities and possibilities, while at the same time being of service to the group as a whole, which would in turn provide for everyone's subsistence and field of action. In short, it would be a place where human relationships, ordinarily based almost exclusively on competition and strife, would be replaced by relationships of emulation in trying to do one's best, of collaboration and real brotherhood.” The Mother’s Agenda-18.01.1964 86: “And in any society we should have all four types (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra), — even, for an example, if we create a purely productive and commercial society such as modern times have attempted, or for that matter a Shudra society of labour, of the proletariate such as attracts the most modern mind and is now being attempted in one part of Europe and advocated in others.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-523, “In street and house, in councils and in courts Beings he (King Aswapati) met who looked like living men And climbed in speech upon high wings of thought But harboured all that is subhuman, vile And lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl.” Savitri-215 “I (Mother of Might) break the ignorant pride of human mind And lead the thought to the wideness of the Truth; I rend man’s narrow and successful life And force his sorrowful eyes to gaze at the sun That he may die to earth and live in his soul.” Savitri-510, “The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man’s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-48, 87: “(The Divine is) the perfect Personality capable of all relations even to the most human, concrete and intimate; for he is friend, comrade, lover, playmate, guide, teacher, master, ministrant of knowledge or ministrant of joy, yet in all relations unbound, free and absolute. This too the divinised man becomes in the measure of his attainment...” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-141, 88: “August 15, 1947 is the birthday of free India… the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India’s internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go… But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India’s future…” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL-26/On Himself/404, “I had the vision that India is the place where the fate of the earth will be decided.” The Mother/ The Mother’s Agenda/10/145-19.04.1969, 89: “Our earth is a fragment and a residue; Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds” Savitri-99, “A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease, A sudden mystery of secret Grace Flowers goldening our earth of red desire.” Savitri-278, “Arisen beneath a triple mystic heaven The seven immortal earths were seen, sublime:” Savitri-672, “In the collective gnostic life the integrating truth-sense, the concording unity of gnostic nature would carry all divergences in itself as its own opulence and turn a multitudinous thought, action, feeling into the unity of a luminous life-whole. This would be the evident principle, the inevitable result of the very character of the Truth-Consciousness and its dynamic realisation of the spiritual unity of all being.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1047, “The one rule of the gnostic life would be the self-expression of the Spirit, the will of the Divine Being; that will, that self-expression could manifest through extreme simplicity or through extreme complexity and opulence or in their natural balance, — for beauty and plenitude, a hidden sweetness and laughter in things, a sunshine and gladness of life are also powers and expressions of the Spirit. In all directions the Spirit within determining the law of the nature would determine the frame of the life and its detail and circumstance.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1104 90: “Heaven’s joys might have been earth’s if earth were pure.” Savitri-123, “The virgin forms through which the Formless shines,” Savitri-327, 91: “With Indians, it's very easy – they're heaven-blessed, these people, because it takes very little for them to be oriented in the right way. But there are two types of difficult religion, the Christian religion (especially in the form of Protestantism), and the Jewish religion.” The Mother’s Agenda- January 25, 1964, 92: “A dual Power at being’s occult poles Still acted, nameless and invisible: Her divine emptiness was their instrument.” Savitri-553 “He (Divine) dwells in me (Savitri), the mover of my acts, Turning the great wheel of his cosmic work. I am the living body of his light, I am the thinking instrument of his power, I incarnate Wisdom in an earthly breast, I am his conquering and unslayable will. The formless Spirit drew in me its shape; In me are the Nameless and the secret Name.” Savitri-634, “One man who earnestly pursues the Yoga is of more value than a thousand well-known men.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-35/Letters on Himself And The Ashram-691, 93: “The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature.” The Life Divine-943, 94: “Our sacrifice is not a giving without any return or any fruitful acceptance from the other side; it is an interchange between the embodied soul and conscious Nature in us and the eternal Spirit. For even though no return is demanded, yet there is the knowledge deep within us that a marvellous return is inevitable. The soul knows that it does not give itself to God in vain; claiming nothing, it yet receives the infinite riches of the divine Power and Presence.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-109, “If mankind only caught a glimpse of what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all and never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust and scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature, to forbid the turning away of our feet from her ordinary pastures.” Sri Aurobindo/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-10-11 “Amid the welcome-hum of many bees Invade our honied kingdom of the woods; There let me lead thee into an opulent life.” Savitri-402, 95: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-115, 96: “The lower, present and deluding mental Maya has first to be embraced, then to be overcome; for it (Maya) is God’s play with division and darkness and limitation, desire and strife and suffering in which He subjects Himself to the Force that has come out of Himself and by her obscure suffers Himself to be obscured... Its literal meaning is cunning, fraud or illusion… an undivine Maya, that which creates false mental forms and appearances, -- and hence the later significance of this word which seems to have meant originally a formative power of knowledge, the true magic of the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, but was also for adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa.” The Life Divine-126, 109, 507, 97: CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV-676, 98: Kena Upanishada-1.4, CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-72, CWSA-21/The Life Divine-403, 99: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-10-11, 100: “As for spiritual knowledge, it consists of two elements, experience and a direct knowledge which is not mental but is of the nature of a light showing the deeper truth of things, a direct vision and perception of the Truth…The ordinary consciousness is not capable of receiving it as knowledge except in a fragmentary way because it belongs to a deeper consciousness within or a higher consciousness above the mind. The ordinary consciousness has therefore to open to the deeper and the higher consciousness. It has to receive the knowledge from within and above. It cannot do this if it does not open. There must, therefore, first necessarily be an opening, however small, before any direct knowledge can come. As the knowledge comes the opening also can widen and so admit a greater and greater direct knowledge and experience. In some, however, the opening comes first very wide and then the knowledge comes afterwards in a great stream, some light of the Truth and many experiences…If one has merely a mental idea about the Divine, that is not knowledge. It is with the experiences and the inner light of knowledge that the realisation of the Divine begins. As for example, one may have the mental idea of the Divine Peace but that is nothing, only a mental conception. It is only when one has the feeling of the Divine Peace descending from above or in oneself or surrounding one that one begins to know what it is. That is what is called experience. Afterwards one begins to have a direct vision in knowledge of what the Peace is and what is its place in regard to the Divine Realisation; that is direct knowledge.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-198-199, 101: ‘not merely a state withdrawn from the all consciousness of the outward, withdrawn even from all consciousness of the inward’ CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-321, “Mind, being an action of the Infinite, depieces as well as aggregates ad infinitum. It cuts up being into wholes, into ever smaller wholes, into atoms and those atoms into primal atoms, until it would, if it could, dissolve the primal atom into nothingness. But it cannot, because behind this dividing action is the saving knowledge of the supramental which knows every whole, every atom to be only a concentration of all-force, of all-consciousness, of all-being into phenomenal forms of itself. The dissolution of the aggregate into an infinite nothingness at which Mind seems to arrive, is to the Supermind only the return of the self-concentrating conscious-being out of its phenomenon into its infinite existence.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine-178, 102: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-734, 103: “I am beginning to understand why Sri Aurobindo always said it was woman (Mother caresses Sujata’s cheek with her finger) that could build a bridge between the two. I am beginning to understand. One day, I’ll explain. I am beginning to understand. Sri Aurobindo used to say: it is woman that can build a bridge between the old world and the supramental world. Now I understand.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-26.04.1972, 104: TMCW-13/Words of the Mother-I/82-83, 105: “All Yoga is in its nature an attempt and an arriving at unity with the Supreme, --unity with the being of the Supreme, unity with the consciousness of the Supreme, unity with the bliss of the Supreme,-- or, if we repudiate the idea of absolute unity, at least at some kind of union, even if it be only for the soul to live in one status and periphery of being with the Divine, salokya, or in a sort of indivisible proximity, samipya. This can only be gained by rising to a higher level and intensity of consciousness than our ordinary mentality possesses.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-528, “All Yoga proceeds in its method by three principles of practice; first, purification, that is to say, the removal of all aberrations, disorders, obstructions brought about by the mixed and irregular action of the energy of being in our physical, moral and mental system; secondly, concentration, that is to say, the bringing to its full intensity and the mastered and self-directed employment of that energy of being in us for a definite end; thirdly, liberation, that is to say, the release of our being from the narrow and painful knots of the individualized energy in a false and limited play, which at present are the law of our nature.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-530, “All Yoga is a turning of the human mind and human soul, not yet divine in realization, but feeling the divine impulse and attraction in it, towards that by which it finds its greater being.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-571 DOWNLOAD THIS WEBPAGE IN PDF FORMAT: “For those who are eager to get rid of falsehood, here is a way: Do not try to please yourself, do not try either to please others. Try only to please the Lord…Because He alone is the Truth. Each and every one of us, human beings in our physical body, is a coat of falsehood put on the Lord and hiding Him…As He alone is true to Himself, it is on Him that we must concentrate and not on the coats of falsehood.” The Mother TMCW/15/Words of the Mother-III/80, TMCW/14/Words of the Mother-II/196 "I have tried many things, a great many, I have looked a great deal, and I see only one that’s absolute – only one that’s absolute and can bring the absolute result, it’s this (gesture turned Upward): the complete annulment of all that, leaving it all, "To You, Lord – You, You, to You." And it isn’t a being with a form, that’s not it; it isn’t a formless force, it’s ... It has nothing to do with thought, only with this: the contact. And the contact, an unmistakable contact, which nothing can imitate – nothing, nothing at all has the power to imitate it. And for every difficulty, every time, whatever it is, simply this: " Everything to You, Lord. Everything for You, to You. You alone can do it, You, You alone, You alone. You alone are the Truth; You alone are the Power. " And those words are nothing, they are only the very clumsy expression of something ... a stupendous Power. It’s only the incapacity, the clumsiness, the lack of faith we mix into it that takes away His power. The minute we are truly pure, that is, under His influence alone, there are no limits, no limits – nothing, nothing, there is nothing, no law of Nature that can resist, nothing, nothing. Only, the whole thing is that the time must have come, there must be only That left – all the rest spoils, whatever it is, even the highest, purest, noblest, most beautiful and marvelous things: all that spoils. Only That." The Mother The Mother's Agenda/ March 26, 1966

The Mother's Manifestation The editor of this book believes that apart from the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita, Sri Aurobindo’s principal Teaching, The Synthesis of Yoga is one of the best standards of the race. Its Teaching is so vast, catholic and impersonal that all can accept but only a few aspirant Souls can live it’s message which is the reconciliation of perfect Spirit with imperfect Matter. The Mother’s Manifestation book is a utilitarian interpretation of the book The Synthesis of Yoga. It insists on a Sadhaka becoming accountable for his sadhana to his own Self, to the World and to the Divine in three stages. Firstly, he will trace a path of his own sadhana by constantly renewing, reshaping, reliving and restating the best written standard available to the race and by noting the full account of his human imperfection and Self-perfection. Secondly, during the concentration, contemplation and meditation of these formative truths extending over decades, he receives new overhead Divine Wisdom, Divine Will and Divine Love and the unending instrumental exercise of a Sadhaka is to learn this lesson of the Infinite which gets precedence over all other appetite and interest. Lastly, he will be a Divine Centre of the world by receiving the Divine energies, of holding them in the purified and transformed human vessel, of transmitting them to the surrounding world and of fulfilling the deficiencies of men. His Soul strength is weighed and augmented from his capacity for ceaseless action, ceaseless concentration to hold and transmit ceaseless Divine Love, Delight and Beauty and finally the capacity to remember the Divine uninterruptedly through ceaseless Japa. The perfect utilisation of the opportunities of integral Yoga is identified as to use the time and space exclusively for the ascent and descent of Consciousness and by this vertical movement through the assistance of the triple Yoga of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti, one arrives at the birth of experiencing Timeless Eternity and Spaceless Infinity and their manifestation through new birth of time and space. The Mother’s Consciousness is that which rests on the One and acts in all existence and this consciousness manifests on earth by penetrating into finite things, phenomena and forms to produce infinite harmony, freedom and perfection. OM TAT SAT DOWNLOAD THIS MANUSCRIPT

"The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart;" Savitri-43 “A sealed identity within her woke; She knew herself the Beloved of the Supreme:” Savitri-525 Integral Psychic Education "These things, love, compassion, kindness, bhakti, Ananda are the nature of the psychic being, because the psychic being is formed from the Divine Consciousness, it is the divine part within you. But the lower parts are not yet accustomed to obey or value the influence and control of the psychic for in men the vital and physical are accustomed to act for themselves and do not care for what the soul wants. When they do care and obey the psychic, that is their conversion — they begin to put on themselves the psychic or divine nature." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-122 "For the integral Yoga this method of Samadhi may seem to have the disadvantage that when it ceases, the thread is broken and the soul returns into the distraction and imperfection of the outward life, (return to three gunas ) with only such an elevating effect upon that outer life as the general memory of these deeper experiences may produce. But this gulf, this break is not inevitable. In the first place, it is only in the untrained psychic being that the experiences of the trance are a blank to the waking mind; as it becomes the master of its Samadhi, it is able to pass without any gulf of oblivion from the inner to the outer waking. Secondly, when this has been once done, what is attained in the inner state, becomes easier to acquire by the waking consciousness and to turn into the normal experience, powers, mental status of the waking life (activation of waking trance). The subtle mind which is normally eclipsed by the insistence of the physical being, becomes powerful even in the waking state, until even there the enlarging man is able to live in his several subtle bodies as well as in his physical body, to be aware of them and in them, to use their senses, faculties, powers, to dwell in possession of supraphysical truth, consciousness and experience. " Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-525 Integral Psychic Education: “Attracted to strange far-off shimmerings, Led by the fluting of a distant Player He sought his way amid life’s laughter and call” Savitri-192 “An Infant nursed on Nature’s covert breast, An Infant playing in the magic woods, Fluting to rapture by the spirit’s streams, Awaits the hour when we shall turn to his call.” Savitri-169 “Although are witnessed there the joys of Time, Pressed on the bosom the Immortal’s touch is felt, Heard are the flutings of the Infinite .” Savitri-279 “It seemed the yearning of a lonely flute That roamed along the shores of memory And filled the eyes with tears of longing joy.” Savitri-290 “High-fluting with the coil’s happy voice, His peacock turban trailing on the trees; His breath was a warm summons to delight, The dense voluptuous azure was his gaze.” Savitri-352 “What feet of gods, what ravishing flutes of heaven Have thrilled high melodies round, from near and far” Savitri-419 “An adoration reigned in the yearning heart, A spirit of purity, an elusive presence Of faery beauty and ungrasped delight Whose momentary and escaping thrill, However unsubstantial to our flesh, And brief even in imperishableness, Much sweeter seemed than any rapture known Earth or all-conquering heaven can ever give.” Savitri-603 “His bliss laughs to us or it calls concealed Like a far-heard unseen entrancing flute From moonlit branches in the throbbing woods, Tempting our angry search and passionate pain. Disguised the Lover seeks and draws our souls.” Savitri-614 “O subtle-souled musician of the years, Play out what thou hast fluted on my stops ; Arise from the strain their first wild plaint divined And that discover which is yet unsung.” Savitri-687 “Pursuing her in her fall, implacably sweet, A face was over her which seemed a youth’s, Symbol of all the beauty eyes see not, Crowned as with peacock plumes of gorgeous hue Framing a sapphire, whose heart-disturbing smile Insatiably attracted to delight, Voluptuous to the embraces of her soul.” Savitri-711 “The soul may dwell in the principle of infinite unity of self-existence and be aware of all consciousness, energy, delight, knowledge, will, activity as conscious form of this essential truth, Sat or Satya . It (Psychic being) may dwell in the principle of infinite conscious energy, Tapas , and be aware of it unrolling out of self-existence the works of knowledge, will and dynamic soul-action for the enjoyment of an infinite delight of the being. It may dwell in the principle of infinite self-existent delight and be aware of the divine Ananda creating out of its self-existence by its energy whatever harmony of being. In these three poises the consciousness of unity dominates; the soul lives in its awareness of eternity, universality, unity, and whatever diversity there is, is not separative, but only a multitudinous aspect of oneness.”⁹ Sri Aurobindo " It is only love that can understand and get at the secrets of the Divine Working. The mind, the physical mind especially, is incapable of seeing correctly and yet it always wants to judge. It is only a true, sincere humility in the mind, allowing the psychic to rule the being, that can save human beings from ignorance and obscurity."¹² The Mother Psychic education draws one towards the immortal life, ‘a higher realisation upon earth,’ ¹⁰ ever progressive change, unbroken continuity in the world of forms, meets the Immanent God dwelling in each form and it turns always towards Truth, Good and Beauty. It is conscious of rasa of things and takes equal delight to all contacts. Their opposite experiences of pleasure, pain and indifference gather strength and grow by them and are necessary part of experience, but have to be outgrown in the Spiritual increase of the being. (Janmastami & Nanda Utsaba at Sri Matriniketan Ashram) (“The Blessed Lord said to Arjuna , the Divine, Ishwara, is seated in the heart of all beings, turning all beings mounted upon a machine by His Maya .” The Gita-18.61) (“God has so arranged life that the world is the soul’s husband; Krishna its divine paramour. We owe a debt of service to the world and are bound to it by a law, a compelling opinion, and a common experience of pain and pleasure, but our heart’s worship and our free and secret joy are for our Lover.”¹¹ Sri Aurobindo ) The inner soul in man, the Psychic being, Kshara Purusha , is a partial manifestation of the Divine, mamaivamsah , who is itself mutable, kshara, everlasting, sanatanah , the Lord, Ishwara, the luminous inhabitant in human body, manusim tanumasritam , and simultaneously the giver of sanction, anumanta of all the action of the three gunas within the boundary of Ignorance, missioned to lead man in Ignorance towards light of Divine Consciousness. Its operation in the ignorance is different¹⁰ from Akshara Purusha , the Spiritual being and Uttama Purusha, the Supramental Being,¹⁶ though it has manifold deep relations with them. The Kshara Purusha , associating itself with the works of Prakriti , seems to be the doer of all works, karta , whereas Akshara Purusha, dissociating itself from all the workings of the gunas is the inactive non-doer, akarta and witness. In Purushottama , these two states, the action of the Soul and its mutability and the status of the immutability of the Spirit, actually coexist. The Purushottama puts forth his own active nature, svam prakrtim , manifest in the jiva and works out its own innate Divine nature, svabhava , in addition to its egoistic action, bewildered by the three gunas. Initially, the Gita has identified the double soul in man (The Gita-6-5, 6); one that of the surface desire soul¹³ carrying in its nature the apparent nature of lower instincts, emotions, the mental seeking for power, knowledge and happiness and the other behind it that of the true Soul, the Psychic being which is a living light that illumines. We are aware of a guide within that knows the truth, the good,¹ the pure power of light, the true delight and beauty of existence, when body, heart and intellect take their true place as instruments and lead our life and being towards Spiritual completeness. The desire soul’s wrong approach and reception towards life deforms the pure joy into pleasure, pain and indifference. True Soul is the imperishable, evolves in us from birth to birth and is untouched by death, decay and corruption. It is actually the Psychic sheath that grows from birth to birth by entering the essence of all experience of the Psychic Self in the Ignorance. A mastery of senses, the ability to do without all that they hanker after, is the initial condition of true Soul education. True Soul is a witness who discerns within the obscure working of Ignorance; it is a will that refuses to be misled by the mind’s error, the heart’s response towards wrong call, the turbid falsehood of our vital nature and its dark self-seeking. “Wisdom transcendent touched his quivering heart:” Savitri-33 “The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart” Savitri-43 "At last there wakes in us a witness Soul That looks at truths unseen and scans the Unknown; Then all assumes a new and marvellous face: The world quivers with a God-light at its core, In Time’s deep heart high purposes move and live, Life’s borders crumble and join infinity." Savitri-168 "Our souls deputed selves of the Supreme." Savitri-169 "A touch supreme surprised his hurrying heart, The clasp was remembered of the Wonderful, And hints leaped down of white beatitudes." Savitri-237 “He dwelt in his self’s colourless purity” Savitri-297 "His soul was a delegation of the All" Savitri-319 “Even as her body, such is she within. Heaven’s lustrous mornings gloriously recur, Like drops of fire upon a silver page, In her young spirit yet untouched with tears. All beautiful things eternal seem and new To virgin wonder in her crystal soul.” Savitri-422 "All was fulfilled the heart of Savitri Flower-sweet and adamant, passionate and calm, Had chosen and on her strength’s unbending road Forced to its issue the long cosmic curve." Savitri-465 "And Savitri’s life was glad, fulfilled like earth’s; She had found herself, she knew her being’s aim. Although her kingdom of marvellous change within Remained unspoken in her secret breast, All that lived round her felt its magic’s charm:" Savitri-532 “But the soul grows concealed within its house; It gives to the body its strength and magnificence; It follows aims in an ignorant aimless world, It lends significance to earth’s meaningless life.” Savitri-658-59 The fundamental Psychic⁸ experience in us has the delight of all-life and progressive manifestation of the Spirit and gathers out of all contacts and happenings their secret Divine sense and essence. Thus, our mind and life can grow out of the Inconscience and the divisions of Ignorance towards supreme Consciousness and Knowledge. In the book-7, Canto-5 of Savitri book, Savitri discovered her Psychic being⁷ through Tantric Method of Yoga and not the Vedantic self-discipline. This Tantric method is safe for Developed Soul but not so safe for developing Souls. Because the desire Soul surrounding the Psychic Being is not easy to overcome but rather it invites Spiritual fall. In Vedantic method, first the Spiritual being opens and by its pressure or descent, the Psychic being opens and this Self-discipline is rather safe for developing Souls and without any possibility of Spiritual fall. In this Canto, Savitri’s Psychic⁶ being not only opens but the Psychic being is Spiritualised and Supramentalised. It means mediatrix Spiritual Mother and Creatrix Supramental Mother, consented to live permanently in Savitri’s Psychic heart centre, thus the Psychic being is identified as an important centre for individual and world Transformation. “Here in this chamber of flame and light they met; (Psychic and Spiritual being met) They looked upon each other, knew themselves, The secret deity (Spiritual being) and its human part (Psychic being), The calm immortal (Spiritual being) and the struggling soul (Psychic being). Then with a magic transformation’s speed They rushed into each other and grew one.” Savitri-527 (This is the experience of Spiritualisation of Psychic being.) (By this experience the Spiritual Mother consented to live in Savitri's Psychic heart centre.) “In its deep lotus home her being sat As if on concentration’s marble seat, Calling the mighty Mother of the worlds To make this earthly tenement her house.” Savitri-528 (The Mighty Supramental Mother stationed permanently in the Savitri’s Psychic heart Centre.) So Savitri book proposes that if a Sadhaka has realised the Psychic⁵ being and his consciousness learns the lesson to live in waking trance, then through the movement of Consciousness, he can Spiritualise and Supramentalise the Psychic being, then he can save himself, the collectivity and the world. But to realise this perfection is a long process of time. This Canto gives the input, that if the Psychic Being⁴ opens, then this heart Centre acts as a Fortress of Truth and Virginity, surrounded with a large world of Ignorance and from this Divine Centre the Overhead truth and purity pours into world Falsehood and world perversion, thus one extends help to illumine the world and this is further universalised as ‘the little strength we have to help our race.’ (Savitri-527) “O soul, my soul, we have created Heaven, Within we have found the kingdom here of God, His fortress built in a loud ignorant world.” Savitri-531 This Canto also informs us that with the Psychic³ realisation of Savitri , the Gods and Goddess of the Overmental world preferred to live with her. Similar experience we also observe with King Aswapati : "In the slow process of the evolving spirit, In the brief stade between a death and birth A first perfection’s stage is reached (by Savitri) at last; Out of the wood and stone of our nature’s stuff A temple is shaped where the high gods could live. Even if the struggling world is left outside One man’s perfection still can save the world.” Savitri-531 (King Aswapati’s experience) “In an outburst of heavenly joy and ease Life yields to the divinity within And gives the rapture-offering of its all, And the soul opens to felicity. A bliss is felt that never can wholly cease, A sudden mystery of secret Grace Flowers goldening our earth of red desire. All the high gods who hid their visages From the soiled passionate ritual of our hopes, Reveal their names and their undying powers.” Savitri-278 If ‘the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being. The necessary turn or change can also be brought about by an occult descent of the spiritual force from above, in which the influx, the influence, the spiritual consequence is felt, but the higher source is unknown and the actual feeling of a descent is not there.’² This Canto also hints at the Psychic transformation of Savitri’s untransformed Nature. They are: “And all emotions gave themselves to God.” Savitri-529 “Its proud ambitions and its master lusts Were tamed into instruments of a great calm sway To do a work of God on earthly soil.” Savitri-530 “Its childish game of daily dwarf desires Was changed into a sweet and boisterous play,” Savitri-530 “Then sin and virtue leave the cosmic lists;” Savitri-531 The psychic being is the conscious Immortal being in us, reminding us of the necessity of physical immortality. With fourfold Divine union, the Psychic being gathers Force. With the increase and accumulation of fourfold Soul Force, the conscious Psychic Being prepares to confront Death and destiny. Constant contact with the Psychic being means living in a waking trance; triple time becomes active, movement occurs in multiple subtle bodies and brief Supramental touch. OM TAT SAT References: 1: “The subconscient is not the whole foundation of our nature; it is only the lower basis of the Ignorance and governs mostly the lower vital and physical exterior consciousness and these again affect the higher parts of the nature. While it is necessary to see what it is and how it acts, one must not be too preoccupied with this dark side or this apparent aspect of the instrumental being. One should rather regard it as something not oneself, a mask of false nature imposed on the true being by the Ignorance. The true being is the inner with all its vast possibilities of reaching and expressing the Divine and especially the inmost, the soul, the psychic Purusha which is always in its essence pure, divine, turned to all that is good and true and beautiful. The exterior being has to be taken hold of by the inner being and turned into an instrument no longer of the upsurgings of the ignorant subconscient Nature, but of the Divine. It is by remembering always that and opening the nature upwards that the Divine Consciousness can be reached and descend from above into the whole inner and outer existence, mental, vital, physical, the subconscient, the subliminal, all that we overtly or secretly are. This should be the main preoccupation. To dwell solely on the subconscient and the aspect of imperfection creates depression and should be avoided. One has to keep a right balance and stress on the positive side most, recognising the other but only to reject and change it. This and a constant faith and reliance on the Mother are what is needed for the transformation to come.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-217-218, 2: “It is indeed from these higher sources that the secret spiritual Power acts upon the being and by its pressure brings about the psychic transformation or the spiritual change; but in the early stages of our growth this action is not apparent, it remains occult and unseizable. At first what is necessary is that the pure touch of the spiritual force must intervene in mental nature: that awakening pressure must stamp itself upon mind and heart and life and give them their upward orientation; a subtle light or a great transmuting power must purify, refine and uplift their motions and suffuse them with a higher consciousness that does not belong to their own normal capacity and character. This can be done from within by an invisible action through the psychic entity and the psychic personality; a consciously felt descent from above is not indispensable. The presence of the spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being. The necessary turn or change can also be brought about by an occult descent of the spiritual force from above, in which the influx, the influence, the spiritual consequence is felt, but the higher source is unknown and the actual feeling of a descent is not there.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-967-968 3: “The central being — the Jivatman which is not born nor evolves, but presides over the individual birth and evolution puts forward a representative of himself on each plane of the consciousness. On the mental plane it is the true mental being, manomaya purusa, on the vital plane the true vital being, pranamaya purusa, on the physical plane the true physical being, annamaya purusa. Each being therefore is, so long as the Ignorance lasts, centred round his mental, vital or physical Purusha, according to the plane on which he predominantly lives, and that is to him his central being. But the true representative all the time is concealed behind the mind, vital and physical — it is the psychic, our inmost being… When the inmost knowledge begins to come, we become aware of the psychic being within us and it comes forward and leads the sadhana. We become aware also of the Jivatman, the individual Self or Spirit above the manifestation of which the psychic is the representative here.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-59, 4: “The central being is above the Adhara — most people are not aware of their central being (Jivatma) — they are aware only of the ego... The psychic is the soul — it is a portion of the Divine that supports the mind, life and body in the evolution. The psychic gets the Divine’s help directly from the Divine.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-60, “When there is no demand or desire, only love and self-giving, that is the psychic love.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-336, “The Divine Guidance works best when the psychic is open and in front (yours was beginning to open), but it can also work even when the sadhak is either not conscious of it or else knows it only by its results.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-316 5: “The central being is that which is not born, does not evolve, but presides over all the individual manifestation. The psychic is its projection here — for the psychic being is in the evolution and from within supports our whole evolution; it receives the essence of all experience and by that develops the personality Godward. The Self is at once one in all and many — one in its essence, it manifests also as the individual self which may be described as in Nature an eternal portion of the Divine; in spirit a centre of the manifestation, individual but extending into universality and rising into transcendence.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-60 6: It is the central being above the evolution (always the same) that we call the Jivatma — the psychic being is the same in the evolution, it is the spark of the Divine there growing into its full divinity as a portion of the Divine.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-60 7: “The central being and the soul are both in different ways portions of the Divine. They are in fact two aspects of the same entity, but one is unevolving above Nature, the other evolves a psychic being in Nature.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-60-61 8: “The phrase “central being” in our Yoga is usually applied to the portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This central being has two forms — above, it is the Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-knowledge comes, — below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. The Jivatman is above the manifestation in life and presides over it; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it…The natural attitude of the psychic being is to feel itself as the child, the son of God, the Bhakta; it is a portion of the Divine, one in essence, but in the dynamics of the manifestation there is always even in identity a difference. The Jivatman, on the contrary, lives in the essence and can merge itself in identity with the Divine; but it too, the moment it presides over the dynamics of the manifestation, knows itself as one centre of the multiple Divine, not as the Parameshwara. It is important to remember this distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatara…” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga/p-61, “Caitya purusa means rather the Purusha in the cit, the fundamental (inner) consciousness…Jiva is the fundamental, or as we call it, the central being. But the fundamental being is not combined of the mental, vital, psychic etc., these are only expressions of the Jivatman; the Jivatman itself is self-existent in the Divine; essential in its being, it cannot be regarded as a combination of things.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga/p-62, “The nascent spiritual man makes his appearance in the emotional nature as the devotee, the bhakta; if, in addition, he becomes directly aware of his soul and its dictates, unites his emotional with his psychic personality and changes his life and vital parts by purity, God-ecstasy, the love of God and men and all creatures into a thing of spiritual beauty, full of divine light and good, he develops into the saint and reaches the highest inner experience and most considerable change of nature proper to this way of approach to the Divine Being. But for the purpose of an integral transformation this too is not enough; there must be a transmutation of the thinking mind and all the vital and physical parts of consciousness in their own character.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-936, “It is only through these decisive movements that the true character of the evolution becomes evident; for till then there are only preparatory movements, a pressure of the psychic Entity on the mind, life and body to develop a true soul action, a pressure of the spirit or self for liberation from the ego, from the surface ignorance, a turning of the mind and life towards some occult Reality, — preliminary experiences, partial formulations of a spiritualised mind, a spiritualised life, but no complete change, no probability of an entire unveiling of the soul or self or a radical transformation of the nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-887, “It is evident that if we can live thus deeper within and put out steadily the inner forces into the outer instrumentation or raise ourselves to dwell on higher and wider levels and bring their powers to bear on physical existence, not merely receive influences descending from them, which is all we can now do, there could begin a heightening of our force of conscious being so as to create a new principle of consciousness, a new range of activities, new values for all things, a widening of our consciousness and life, a taking up and transformation of the lower grades of our existence, — in brief, the whole evolutionary process by which the Spirit in Nature creates a higher type of being.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-751, 9: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-629, 10: “Because the two are usually confused under the general term of “yogic discipline”, although the goals they aim at are very different: for one it (Psychic Being) is a higher realisation upon earth, for the other (Spiritual Being) an escape from all earthly manifestation, even from the whole universe, a return to the unmanifest.” TMCW-12/On Education/p-35, (In integral Yoga Psychic is given more importance than the Spiritual being, because of the escapist tendency of the latter.) 11: Sri Aurobindo/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-340, 12: The Mother/TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-343, 13: "All the difficulty in dealing spiritually with the works of Life arises because the Will-in-Life for its purposes in the Ignorance has created a false soul of desire and substituted it for that spark of the Divine which is the true psyche. All or most of the works of life are at present or seem to be actuated and vitiated by this soul of desire; even those that are ethical or religious, even those that wear the guise of altruism, philanthropy, self-sacrifice, self- denial, are shot through and through with the threads of its making. This soul of desire is a separative soul of ego and all its instincts are for a separative self-affirmation; it pushes always, openly or under more or less shining masks, for its own growth, for possession, for enjoyment, for conquest and empire. If the curse of disquiet and disharmony and perversion is to be lifted from Life, the true soul, the psychic being, must be given its leading place and there must be a dissolution of the false soul of desire and ego. But this does not mean that life itself must be coerced and denied its native line of fulfilment; for behind this outer life soul of desire there is in us an inner and true vital being which has not to be dissolved but brought out into prominence and released to its true working as a power of the Divine Nature. The prominence of this true vital being under the lead of the true inmost soul within us is the condition for the divine fulfilment of the objects of the Life-Force. Those objects will even remain the same in essence, but transformed in their inner motive and outer character. The Divine Life-Power too will be a will for growth, a force of self-affirmation, but affirmation of the Divine within us, not of the little temporary personality on the surface, — growth into the true divine Individual, the central being, the secret imperishable Person who can emerge only by the subordination and disappearance of the ego. This is life’s true object: growth, but a growth of the spirit in Nature, affirming and developing itself in mind, life and body; possession, but a possession by the Divine of the Divine in all things, and not of things for their own sake by the desire of the ego; enjoyment, but an enjoyment of the divine Ananda in the universe; battle and conquest and empire in the shape of a victorious conflict with the Powers of Darkness, an entire spiritual self-rule and mastery over inward and outward Nature, a conquest by Knowledge, Love and Divine Will over the domains of the Ignorance." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-175-176, 14: "There is however no invariable rule as to the order of the opening. By concentration on the heart centre that can open first liberating the psychic action, which is veiled by the emotional, into free play. In many there is first some opening of the vital centre and for a long time there is an abundant but unpurified play of experiences on the vital plane. In the Tantric discipline there is a process of opening all the centres from the Muladhara upward. In our Yoga very often the Power descends from above and opens the Ajnachakra first, then the others in order. But it is perhaps fi.. The psychic cannot lose its consciousness in the enjoyment of experiences; when it is in free action, it has the unfailing discrimination of which you speak. It has besides no push to outward enjoyment, though it has Ananda. It is the vital that is carried away by enjoyment and carries away with it the mind and other lower parts — and it can also cover up the psychic; but then what happens is not that the psychic loses its own consciousness, which is impossible, but that the sadhak loses for the time being the full possession of the psychic consciousness. But it can always be recovered by a rectification of the wrong movement. But if one lives firmly in the psychic, there is not much danger of this aberration. What one must not do is to throw oneself out into the mind and vital; one must live within and from there command one’s experience." CWSA-30/Letters on Yoga-III/p-351-352, 15: "Nobody said it [the opening of the psychic] must be done necessarily from above. Naturally it is done direct and is most effective then. But when it is found difficult to do direct, as it is in certain natures, then the change begins from above, and the consciousness descending from there has to liberate the heart centre. As it acts on the heart centre, the psychic action becomes more possible." CWSA-30/Letters on Yoga-III/p-352, 16: "His slumber is an Almightiness in things, Awake, he is the Eternal and Supreme." Savitri-682 Download this WEB PAGE in PDF format: "A human being is made of many different parts and it takes time and conscious effort to harmonise and unify all these parts. When you surrendered, it is not the whole of your being that did so. Little by little some other part that had not surrendered came to the surface and the joy of the surrender vanished and was replaced by dullness and indifference. But after some time this part also gets converted and thus the happy condition comes back." The Mother TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-333 "The human being is made of different parts, sometimes clearly separated. They can unite only under the psychic influence and action. Persist in your endeavour and you are sure to succeed. Blessings." The Mother TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-336 "There's such a wonderful passage in The Synthesis of Yoga ("The Yoga of Self-Perfection"), where he (Sri Aurobindo) mentions four things (you surely remember this), four things the disciple needs (I have just translated it). I knew this, of course, but the passage is especially timely now – particularly after that last experience, which is a jolt for a physical being. The fourth thing is wonderful. The first three we know: equality, peace and (a hard one) a spiritual ease in all circumstances. He added the word "spiritual" so people wouldn't think only of material ease – it's an ease in feelings, in sensations, in everything. But when you have a lot of pain it's obviously not so easy! When physical pain keeps you from sleeping and eating, when you are plagued by constant physical pain – or rather by a whole host of physical pains! – well, that bodily "ease" becomes difficult. It's the one thing that has seemed difficult to me; but anyway, it's being investigated – I think it was sent for me to investigate... But the last thing he mentions is a marvel – the joy and laughter of the soul. And it's so true, so true! Always, all the time, no matter what happens, even when this body is in dreadful pain, the soul is laughing joyously within. Always, always, always. " The Mother The Mother's Agenda/May 22, 1962

Sri Matriniketan Ashram Sri Aurobindo Centre "Her spirit fulfilled in his spirit, rich with all Time, As if Love’s deathless moment had been found," Savitri-579 "Organisations, however vast and complete they may be, can achieve nothing permanent unless a new force, more divine and all-powerful, expresses itself through a perfected human instrument ." The Mother TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277 “I am beginning to understand why Sri Aurobindo always said it was woman (Mother caresses Sujata’s cheek with her finger) that could build a bridge between the two. I am beginning to understand. One day, I’ll explain. I am beginning to understand. Sri Aurobindo used to say: it is woman that can build a bridge between the old world and the supramental world. Now I understand.” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-26.04.1972, Ashram is an ancient Indian terminology used for collective Divine living and if one individual at its centre is having direct contact with the Divine, then this collective living around this Soul Centre is identified as the Divine Centre. Sri Aurobindo pointed out ⁵⁰ that Divine Centres through religious movements in the past did not succeed much due to the want of complete Spiritual experience and evolved collectivity. Without waiting for the realisation of complete union with Supreme Sachchidananda and Gnostic community, a Divine Centre like this can be an exceedingly privileged centre of action of New Consciousness when one recognises that his Psychic Being and Spiritual Being are open towards The Mother and Sri Aurobindo's strong Presence from within and above, supported by Their universal Divine Presence from without, represented and subordinated by its immaculate Soul Centre. The Mother proposes that the Ashram must be a field of ceaseless consecrated action without 'rest and enjoyment'⁴³ and must be subsequently transformed into the second Divine Call of bringing 'God down to the world on earth we came,'⁶⁰ and 'whatever does not move forward is bound to fall back.'⁵⁴ This trend can minimise the misuse of Ashram opportunities and misunderstanding of Integral Wisdom. Abode of the Divine Mother The literal meaning of Sri Matriniketan Ashram is the abode, niketan of the Divine Mother, Matri , which is surrounded, concentrated and protected by Her vast harmony and opulence, Sri , subordinated by Her destined children whose mind, life and body have received Soul initiation and shelter, the Ashram . She has chosen this place as a field of manifestation of Her Divinity. She fulfils some of Her special mission of elevation of Consciousness towards Spiritual knowledge and power which will transform the law and Nature of external form and of discovery of the ‘greatest possible spiritual fulfilment’¹ directed towards ‘the most difficult transformation of all’² in resolving harmoniously ‘all problems of existence’²⁹ through dynamic Divine union. It is situated ten kilometres west of the Bay of Bengal , eleven kilometres north-west away, in the outskirts of Brahmapur city in the state of Odisha , dedicated to dynamise Sri Aurobindo’s comprehensive vision and action, initially through activation of Spiritualised Intellect, Buddhi Yoga, ³³ and later through opening and realisation of the Cosmic Self, Vasudevah Sarvamiti .³² Anchor 1a Anchor 2a Anchor 29a Anchor 33a Anchor 32a Garden gladiolus Receptivity A Perfect Vessel The contents, innovations, adventures and splendours of the Spirit cannot be exhausted³ by the profound revelations, exulted narrations and inspired writings of Saints and Seers of all Time. If the Divine Potter¹⁹ shapes one human pot more perfectly than another, then ‘the merit lies not in the vessel but the Maker.'¹⁹ It is ‘an exceedingly good fortune’⁴ for a seeker of integral Yoga as Sri Aurobindo pointed to meet a perfect vessel or ‘one who has realised or is becoming That’⁴ and it reproduces, multiplies and universalises through ‘an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other’⁵ unknown Souls in distant lands of our terrestrial humanity. In addition to it, all the creatures of the world are ‘seen and felt as the Divine manifested in many disguises become by that very fact part of integral Yoga.’⁶ The sons of Men, Nara , are also revered and adored as the sons of Gods, Narayana ,and when both the faculties are equally paced then that localises the evolutionary thrust to lift up the general Consciousness of the race. They are at once the leader of all that are behind them in consciousness and follower of all that are ahead of them in cognition. The greatest Master is much less a Teacher, Instructor, Exemplar, Propagator, Orator, Writer, Savant, Scholar, Forecaster, Healer and Preacher than an Influence and Presence pouring down ‘the divine consciousness and its constituting light and power and purity and bliss into all who are receptive around him.’⁷ A Sadhaka of integral Yoga is primarily preoccupied with Self-concentration and secondarily preoccupied with self-expansion where the latter is identified as an outcome of universalised Consciousness activated through the rigorous self-disciplines of the former. Thus, he primarily emerges as a symbol of seven-fold indispensable self-concentration that of the follower, seeker of truth, disciple, servant, slave, instrument and child of Their limitless Divine Consciousness. The Divine demands from him ‘subordination and service ’²⁰ for annulment of his ego and 'service and obedience' ²⁴ for taming the lower Nature in his being. If he consents to become a slave of any human instrument for a long period then his fitness² ⁸ for a higher life and Spiritual future is secured. His immediate aim and real business in the world is an 'ascent to the divine Life'²⁵ and 'not to become animals, living like cats and dogs'²⁶ and not to harbour a brute in him which is 'lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl.'²⁷ He secondarily experiences union with the Impersonal Divine followed by union with the Divine’s sevenfold personality of the Creator Father, Creatrix Mother, all-embracing Lover, hidden Master of all works, evolving as a child God, the inner Guide and compassionate Friend of all creatures. And his tertiary objective culminates in the distant aim of becoming above self-expansive sevenfold³⁰ Divine personalities. This is identified as the fitness to hold Savitri's comprehensive Divine Love. The evolving Savitri (the Mother ) within a Sadhak will always be aware and unite with the evolving Satyavan (the Master ) within, in each birth and they wait for the destined meeting with this profound Spirit: " Among the many who came drawn to her Nowhere she found her partner of high tasks, The comrade of her soul, her other self Who was made with her, like God and Nature, one." Savitri-366 "No equal heart came close to join her heart," Savitri-367 "Still she found not the one predestined face For which she sought amid the sons of men." Savitri-385 Anchor 19a Anchor 3a Anchor 4a Anchor 5a Anchor 6a Anchor 7a Anchor 20a Anchor 24a Anchor 28a Anchor 25a Anchor 26a Anchor 27a Anchor 30a Sri K. Anurakta A profound Yogi and Occultist, established himself in Supreme Consciousness, a Britisher by birth and yet harmonised and synthesised the great traditions of the West and the East, universalised all Deities to realise the One; he lived in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry . In his little hut inside the Sri Aurobindo Hand Made Paper Factory , he was found deeply united with The Mother pouring down Her infinite Love, Compassion and Help to the bereaved. Seeing his close relation with Indian deities, particularly Lord Sri Ganesh , out of curiosity we had asked him long years ago, around the year 2002, whether he is an emanation of Lord Sri Kartikeya , he nodded with monosyllable ‘Yes’, and when asked where his Consciousness is actually established, he explained to us that it is higher than Overmind; when again asked whether he lived in Consciousness where World, Self and God were reconciled, he confirmed with the single syllable ‘Yes.’ His recent state of Consciousness (around the year 2013) had established in absolute Divine state and when asked about his present state he explained that he was holding together The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in the heart, who were preoccupied in transforming his physical cells. The Mother gave his name Anurakta , which means ‘especially and exceedingly devoted to the Divine;’ he later added the prefix Kartikeya , to his name due to his special contact with the south Indian deity Murugan . He was a part and conscious channel of The Mother’s present most difficult action of transforming the earth’s Subconscient hell, ‘where the gods and demons battle in night.’¹³ We got the special opportunity to meet in him ‘the Lover’s everlasting Yes’¹² and Sri Matriniketan Ashram grows under his all embracing Compassion and Grace, holding together the Dual Divine Power within him. S. A. Maa Krishna She was instrumental in developing Sri Matriniketan Ashram from a collective aspiration of a study circle and a school for small children in 1991 with the conviction that the Jiva is a partial manifestation of the Lord, mamaivamsah. One can aspire to begin this integral Yoga with ceaseless remembrance of the Divine, constant sacrificial action and rigorous self-control, without least human attachment, without desire towards earthly enjoyment and 'to fix oneself in the resolution to go to the end whatever happens, whatever difficulties arise.'³⁵ This is also a field of constant Divine giving, which is also 'an outflowing of the knowledge, light, strength, love, joy, helpful shakti ' to the world. One should develop the patience to arrive at the end of this Yoga, not in one life span but an endeavour extending over a thousand years through Spiritual rise and fall in successive rebirths. She followed a long passage to move the Consciousness with the aid of her limited personality and traditional Bhakti Yoga with full of adverse trials, arduous difficulties, worst threats, flat failures and prolonged sufferings. She works out gradually the Divine’s dream of perennial Joy, imperishable Truth, ineffable Beauty, supreme creative Will and detailed organisation and execution of Divine Work with grace, faith, patience and courage. Thus, a shifting of concentration from single Avatara in the heart through partial Divine union of the existing traditional Teaching has extended the hope towards the intense movement of vertical Consciousness which leads one towards realisation of oneness with the universal and transcendent Divine and realisation of dual Avatara in the heart leading towards integral Divine union. The path she follows or the lessons learned from The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in successive years gives this conviction and certainty ‘I carry no power, no knowledge, no capacity to solve any problem, no ability to do thing’ and offer all to the Lord who is Omnipotent and Omniscient source of our existence. He decides everything and is responsible for whatever small or big work is executed through our consecration. He can give large Spiritual experiences which includes the realisation of the One and the Eternal in Impersonal Self, Nirguna Brahman and its extension as Cosmic Manifestation, Saguna Brahman , the infinite depths of universal Silence and the infinite largeness of the universal Action and working of the Divine Force in Subconscient and Inconscient sheaths, contact with Overmental Gods, the subtle physical wideness to reject falsehood and increasing intensity of Light to bridge the gulf between the higher planes of Consciousness and the gross physical world, Psycho-Spiritual communication and interchange with The Mother and the Master to mark the passing out of our limitation and transition in sadhana , confirming that Their each occasional personal appearance and constant impersonal Presence are special privilege to meet the hour of crisis, overcome the critical hour of the difficult gulf that all must cross. The future hope of this endeavour is the activation of seven-fold personal Divine Presence that predominates over the constant impersonal Divine once the Consciousness is established in the Universalised Psychic plane. She received the inner call to serve The Mother in all life through inner and outer collective action, limit-breaking personality and step by step Her Soul saving Divine Consciousness will be established. This is a collective action with twice-born Souls who are linked with The Mother and Sri Aurobindo from past births⁴ ² and the Time proves that they are not separated from each other in successive births and bodies. The literal meaning of her name is the Jivatma’s symbolic oneness with Paramatma ,⁴⁰ represented through triple Avatara , or the Psychic turn to the call of the child-God Krishna fluting to rapture lifted her being briefly to Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness resulting in the partial transformation of Nature of The Mother possessed outer life, one with the Love of Her limit breaking Love, Ananda of Her overwhelming flame-intense Bliss, the Consciousness of Her world-shaking Consciousness, of which she is a symbol of the living channel and emanation.³⁹ Her frontal Nature is open towards Mahakali Force, who 'acts most naturally through the higher vital which is the instrument of force and power.'⁵⁹ We have nourished a long hope of arriving at 'a pure perfection and shadowless bliss'⁶² in all life and the special privilege of our this birth is meeting in her frontal nature the Divine's 'hands of joy.'⁶³ Anchor 13a Anchor 12a Anchor 35a Anchor 42a Anchor 40a Anchor 39a Her realisation or understanding follows the Mother-nature’s Intentions towards existence; that of firstly, the emergence of the Divine is slow in the mass as their outer Nature is closed between two mental firmaments of brute outwardness and domination of sense activities that refuse to go within whereas its pace can be swift and uninterrupted with the rare gifted individual Soul known as Divine Instrument, Yantra , Emanation, Vibhuti and Incarnation, Avatara; secondly, the basis of Divine collective living, sadhunam rajyam , begins with the discernment of Truth from falsehood, by loss of separative identity in the Divine and it can be more organised and harmonious by going deep into silence to create an atmosphere of Oneness; thirdly, all manifestation, sthabarajangamam,¹⁷ takes place by union of Spirit with Matter and the Creator of this world, even though exceeding His creation, He is Immanent in it as evolving Psychic Consciousness; fourthly, all evolving knowledge is useful for a brief period of time and becomes obsolete afterwards and in order to prevent a knowledge from becoming out dated and remain new for a long time to come, it must be constantly renewed till it witnesses a descent from a very high universal and transcendental plane; fifthly, an individual’s help to collectivity and all humanity is dependent on his degree of realisation of Truth or accumulation of Soul Force by transcending ego which can be measured through his catholicity of universal action, descended knowledge through speech and writings, overflowing expression and captivating Divine Love and he can discharge his greatest service to humanity when he possesses the highest Knowledge which illumines, integralises, harmonises all Knowledge and cures all Ignorance; sixthly, an individual’s capacity in reconciling the Matter and the Spirit is dependent on activation of Psychic and Spiritual Being and the exclusive movement these dynamic Consciousness from the nether Inconscient plane to the highest Supracosmic plane; seventhly, all destruction, small or big, executed either through human agency or through the Nature’s intervention is generally the outcome of Kali’s wrath and Her limit breaking world action, and the extent of damage gives the measure of human imperfection and unwillingness to change and whatever remains untouched by these disaster and destruction is considered Divine in its essence. 'For God the Time-Spirit does not destroy for the sake of destruction , but to make the ways clear in the cyclic process for a greater rule and a progressing manifestation, rajyam samruddham .' ⁴¹ And lastly, all Spirituality or possession of God’s power of Omnipotence and Omniscience is to be generalised in humanity either through Nature’s unconscious Yoga of popular Religion stumblingly through an elementary stage of propaganda or through Nature’s semi-conscious Yoga of less popular Ascetic schools and the emergence of multiple liberated Souls as Sannyasa has been ‘widely preached and numerously practiced’¹⁶ or through conscious Yoga of lesser popular ancient Vedantic schools with its ideal freedom and self-ruling universalised king Consciousness of the few individuals or through largely developed Yoga of least popular ancient Vedic schools of thought with its ideal of Divine transformation of Nature and of physical Immortality, which is an action left for the last Avatar⁶⁶ to accomplish and the physical Presence of successive Avatars organise immense evolutionary movement as They sign ‘salvation's testament’¹⁵ with Their blood and bear the law of earth’s pain and death. And all the above formulations can lead existence far ahead beyond our imagination through the intervention of Nature’s most creative power of Bliss action through a prepared conscious human vessel. Anchor 41a Anchor 15a Anchor 17a Anchor 16a Her task of becoming the beginner of endless integral Yoga, God’s obedient slave who demands subordination and service, The Mother’s consecrated child by becoming absolutely truthful, mediocre action in consciousness to uncover the infinitely superior Divine wisdom or the entire range of Sri Aurobindo’s vision are that; firstly, her liberated existence before the spaceless Infinity and timeless Eternity appears to be nothing but a tiny grain of dust;⁴⁸ secondly, within this limited boundary her physical sheath seems to have large enduring capacity ‘to bear the wounds of Time’¹⁸ which stands as indispensable condition for cellular transformation and her vital sheath is made up of increasing clear purity and intense capacity to hold the divine Love; her mental sheath aspires to liberate herself from all twilight thoughts by walking alone with her Psychic being; thirdly, Divine’s action and Yoga move ahead both in proportion and newness as one unveils initially a Spiritual path of his own fulfilling the norm that the ‘perfection of the integral Yoga will come’¹⁰ when each Sadhaka ‘is able to follow his own path of Yoga’¹⁰ in conformity with its aim with ‘considerable free diversity in the self expression’⁸ and finally all effort, all self-discipline, all set method is transcended by ‘natural, simple, powerful and happy disclosing of the flower of the Divine Shakti out of the bud of a purified and perfected nature;’¹¹ fourthly, integral Yoga of Self-perfection can begin after one is thoroughly established in traditional Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga and direct the perfect Spirit to penetrate into imperfect Matter; 'A perfect equality not only of the self, but in the nature is'⁴⁹ identified as fitness to pursue Yoga of Self-perfection; fifthly, the Divine has created a commune through her minimised instrumental guidance³¹ in which the gulf between inner Spiritual life and outer untransformed Nature of a Seeker is bridged through double evolution of Mind and Spirit or slow evolution by movement of three modes of Nature, Gunas and swift Spiritual evolution by movement of Psychic and Spiritual Consciousness and the collective living ‘would create its own body of the life of the spirit’⁸ for the unrestricted prolonged free flow of Psychic and Spiritual Intuition and subsequently seven streams of Overmental Truth, Light, Word, Love, Force, Life-Radiances and Substance-Energy; sixthly, His Yoga will attain culmination by synthesis, integration and universalisation of all Yoga, all Evolution, all the Powers and Personalities of the Mother , all the Occult Science and all Education, and entire love for Him, His Law and His human collectivity for which Sri Matriniketan Ashram is preparing its base and lastly, through ceaseless consecrated Divine action combined with provisional intermittent self-isolation to reduce the hour of outward activities, one can concentrate on the worlds beyond this material world, their universal rhythm, mighty energies, self-existent laws, in order to give instrumental thrust to the pioneering incarnated large subjective action in Consciousness of Their unfinished Evolution in the visible world which is a very small extension of Their already accomplished present invisible action in the subtle world. In brief, we are here in this Ashram, dependent only on the vision-based Divine Action ("A few rare intimations come as guides," Savitri-51), overhead descended Divine Wisdom ("Immense divining flashes cleave her brain," Savitri-51) and ecstatic brief motiveless Divine Love ("The clasp was remembered of the Wonderful," Savitri-237). Anchor 18a Anchor 10a Anchor 8a Anchor 11a Anchor 31a Anchor 8a It is deeply felt that there is no other hope,²³ joy and aspiration other than Their Divine Presence received by giving Them equal service and equal entry into Their Teachings. Their Teachings insist on remaining Truthful under all circumstances and keeping mind, life and body untouched from world perversion and invasion of Subconscient impurity; They further insist to realise total consecration through rigorous Self-control/Concentration extending over a long period and to move the Consciousness vertically by activation of double consecration of Vedantic and Vedic sacrifice. From Them, she understands that what she has known is nothing in comparison to what remains to be known and her service to the Divine is just the starting point and her manifesting action, a mere ripple in the Infinite representing the whole quantum of Divine Mission. All her perception is a long beginning of tracing one’s own unique path in Sadhana , the preliminary stumble of a novice, an infant longing, a forceful determination to leave nothing unchanged within and without and offered this limited understanding of Their vast and catholic Teachings at Their Lotus FEET. Sri Matriniketan Ashram grows under her loving care, purity of Soul and Nature, vital being untouched by lower nature and her loving presence reminds us of three dream visions of collective living from Savitri, 'I witnessed the virgin bridals of the dawn'³⁶ , symbolising purity of collective living, 'Ourselves are citizens of that mother State...'³⁷ , symbolising selfless Spiritual fosterers and ‘nude god-children’⁵⁶ who ‘steeped existence in their youth of soul.’⁵⁶ A Divine Life free from the influence of lower nature, an action guided by Divine Will and 'A blank pure consciousness had replaced the mind'⁴⁴ are the tasks left for us in this birth to accomplish. One can live in this small Ashram yet untouched by corruption and politics till the last breath if he realises this place as the only and the best shrine for his adventure into the unknown growing Divine, who is at once Transcendent, Universal and Individual Psychic being. Anchor 37a Anchor 36a Anchor 23a Hibiscus Power of Consciousness Why Sri Matriniketan Ashram? "But, in the beginning (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry in 1926), the first condition for coming here was that you would have nothing more to do with your family!.... In the beginning, it was very, very strict – for a long time... The first condition was: ‘Nothing more to do with your family ...’ ...this is an indispensable condition because as long as you hang on to all these cords which bind you to ordinary life, which make you a slave to the ordinary life, how can you possibly belong to the Divine alone?"⁶¹ The Mother Many have enquired with curiosity about the objective outer life without contact/attachment with family members and subjective inner action with patient inner unfolding of the Unknowable at Sri Matriniketan Ashram . Some expressed their doubt and impatience regarding the completeness and fulfillment of this effort that can change the principle and persistent character of human life and pursue its immaculate Divine living beyond all sects, clans, language, religions or its striving towards long slow ultimate human perfection whose highest terms are Immortality, the satisfied delight of the whole being, Omnipotence, freedom and mastery over Self, God and World extending over All Life, replacing either the quest of hurried, immediate, practical, mundane and human achievements of this life or to make itself light and comfortable for the race by throwing away its impedimenta or the indifference to the cry that rises up from a labouring helpless humanity or the selfishness that cares not what becomes of those who left behind us in Consciousness. Few recognise it as a fortress where the highest Spiritual ideal and the motiveless quest could maintain itself in its most absolute purity and the Presence of the eternal Vrindavan , where the imperishable union and oneness of the eternal lover Sri Krishna is entrenched between the intoxicating sweetness of the Divine beloved Sri Radha and the all-embracing ecstasy of His manifestation, the Gopis . In brief, the only and one business in this Ashram living is to count how much Divine Force has descended towards earth, every day and every moment through the aspiration of our instrumental vessel, and satisfaction comes when we work out this 'the intense original Flame'⁷⁰ and cosmic vision thoroughly and sincerely. Sri Matriniketan Ashram aspires to become a bridge of all that Sri Aurobindo had attempted in accumulating the lost Spiritual Truth of the past and enlarging them into hierarchies of Consciousness in Time through His tapasya and the present Sri Aurobindo through His subtle physical Presence extending far ahead of His future Divine action and vision. Present Sri Aurobindo in the subtle physical is more powerful³⁸ than the past Sri Aurobindo in his bodily existence. Similarly, future Sri Aurobindo is more powerful in the subtle body than the present Sri Aurobindo . In addition to this growing concept of the Divine, we go back to the ancient Aryan truth³⁸ that the earth had forgotten and push forward to some new and unknown Truth descending from the highest Self. This Supreme action enforces change in the individual, group, community, State, Nation and the World through the discovery of the Psychic and Spiritual Being and Subconscient transformation of a few select individuals. This change accepts all the problems of existence, including all that are most obstinate, hostile and infirm as a field of slow infiltration of Divine Force. This Force heals the apparent opposition between the Spiritual life and that of the present imperfect World, reconciles life’s discord with the Integral Divine Truth and insists ceaselessly on our waking surface mentality to be wholly Spiritualised and dynamises waking and non-waking trance that can permit adventure through movement in multiple planes of Consciousness. Anchor 38a “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.”⁶⁹ The Mother The human thought and intellect have the habit of limiting the mental preoccupation to practical and immediate problems of material existence and are helpless and oblivious of the ultimate and lasting solution of the race. When the individual realises that his mind is like a barren mother constantly preoccupied with creation of an unreal child and the experience of a world utterly false, accidental, divided and short-lived, then he permits the mind to fall silent of ideas, constructions and opinions through rigorous Self-control and utilises it as a pure channel for the Light and Truth of Divine Knowledge and the ocean of Infinite Mother Force flows through him and moves all his action. The highest truth and the integral self-knowledge are gained not by leaping into static indeterminate absolute Sachchidananda state but by patient transit beyond the Spiritual mind into dynamic Truth-consciousness where the ‘Infinite can be felt, seen, experienced and known in all the fullness of its unending riches.’¹⁴ Vigorous Tapasya is practicable after Psychic and Spiritual Beings are made open. The passionate aspiration of the few upward to unite with the Divine must be related sufficiently to the descending movement of the Divine, leaning downward to transform eternally its manifestation or the descending Divine Force must invade extensively by breaking down the surface mental, vital and physical sheaths, followed by the ascent of Consciousness in order to lift the earth nature to the Divine height. These double exercises of ancient Vedantic and Vedic sacrifices respectively were disturbed in the immediate past, extending through many centuries, as all voices of sacred Saints were joined in one great consensus of the intermediate interim solution, of individual happiness in the kingdom of heaven beyond far exceeding the earthly reward and escape even from the kingdom of heaven into self-absorbed bliss in the impersonal infinity. This escapist, exclusive Spiritual tendency could be transcended; if few could gather together who had reached the all-embracing and all-reconciling Overmental perfection, then a new earth of Divine creation could take shape here and a world of Truth Light could invade the earth’s atmosphere with inexhaustible opportunities, and new discoveries in the midst of receding darkness. Common laburnum Descent of the Light Anchor 14a Bougainvillea Protection "The (Ashram ) 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....(5) ‘during a certain stage restrictions in eating'⁶⁸... 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."⁶⁷ The Mother Sri Matriniketan Ashram is a formative fortress of the Divine Mother which is intermittently and frequently invaded, possessed, embraced and conquered by the Supreme Lord manifested as Sri Krishna , who wears the glory of Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness, fulfilling one of the great assurances and visions of The Mother . The Mother was meeting regularly Sri Krishna during Her pre and post Pondicherry life. Later She verified that it was Sri Aurobindo who was coming to Her in that form. When Sri Aurobindo left His body, He used to come often to The Mother in His own form. Day by day this experience was so intense that She started thinking, “Why look after people and things, I want to remain like this forever!”⁹ Sri Aurobindo caught Her thought and stopped walking with Her in subtle Form. Then, the Mother attempted Her effort and tried a lot to persuade the Supreme Lord to walk with Her with His own form. In this exercise, She felt Him, the absolutely concrete Presence, more and more clearly in an impersonal manner. And it was the Supreme Lord who told Her, “First Krishna , then Sri Aurobindo , then I. (which means the Supreme Lord)”⁹ The Divine Mother’s interaction and fusion with Sri Krishna, Sri Aurobindo and the Supreme Lord are the different circumstances of the manifesting Lila of the One in ascending order. This indicates that a diversity of experience is required to pursue integral Yoga and not to remain satisfied with experience in any one plane of Consciousness. Aspiring the highest is divided into two parts. One is a static union with the Supreme Self and the other is a dynamic union with the Supreme Self. The problem of existence cannot be resolved with union with the static Supreme Self and all problems of existence can be resolved by dynamic union with the Supreme Self. It is the Divine who uses the individual as a centre, means of His pure receiving and transmitting channel, Consciousness as universal Witness and world action cannot proceed without this Witness, collectivity as a condition and field of action, human race as a dual union of Nara-Narayana , seeks to express in them some image of unity, omniscience and omnipotence. Its strong aspiration to pursue Sadhana in 'double seclusion'³⁴ that of an outcast from the privilege of light of the outer world and renouncing the enjoyment of five senses, is further complemented by its aspiration to become the Naimisaranya , the ancient Spiritual Centre, a forest land which was famous for its accumulation of Yoga Shakti to such degree that even the Yama , the king of Death was unable to enter that protected forest. All remained ever young including birds and animals and there was no disharmony, violence, suffering, old age, decay and death. Or as described in Savitri , “Age never came, care never lined the face.”²¹ or “His young unaging look on deathless things, His (Divine’s) joy in our escape from death and Time, His immortality and light and bliss.”²² The above vision may appear impossible, but "In the Yoga as in life it is the man who persists unwearied to the last in the face of every defeat and disillusionment and of all confronting, hostile and contradicting events and powers who conquers in the end and finds his faith justified because to the soul and Shakti in man nothing is impossible."⁴⁶ From the above point of view, Sri Matriniketan Ashram's collectivity stands to bridge partly the highest individual aspiration and the ultimate Spiritual destiny of the race. "The soul that can live alone with itself meets God... Forbidding to him rest and earthly ease,"⁴³ are identified as the basis of discovering the Psychic being. Integral Yoga proposes to become truthful and virgin as its indispensable twin foundation⁵¹ for pursuing Spiritual life or 'Only the pure in soul can walk in light.'⁵⁵ Those who ‘follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga.’⁵² Sri Aurobindo confirms in The Synthesis of Yoga that a 'strong (man) but crude vital natures'⁵³ cannot become the true leader of men . The Mother confirms that a real Guru must have 'an unmixed vital and mental purity.'⁶⁴ One who lives in the Virgin Mother Influence —within, as the Psychic Being,'⁶⁵ and without, as the physical presence of S.A. Maa Krishna —has his spiritual future considered safe and secure. He can enter double and multiple protection with his realisation of ‘Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light’⁵⁷ and 'Heaven’s leaning down to embrace from all sides earth'⁵⁸ respectively. In contrast, ordinary life⁴⁷ often crucifies⁴⁵ the Psychic Being from within and rarely encounters any virgin Influence from without. Against this backdrop, this Ashram has developed as an isolated cave of tapasya , with deep internal Silence and Peace of The Mother possessed Consciousness extending its Influence directly to the world. Those who step into Sri Matriniketan Ashram, the Guru’s Grace, Force, Light, Peace, Ananda and Protection follow behind them from within and without² in abundance. OM TAT SAT References 1: "A Transcendent who is beyond all world and all Nature and yet possesses the world and its nature, who has descended with something of himself into it and is shaping it into that which as yet it is not, is the Source of our being, the Source of our works and their Master. But the seat of the Transcendent Consciousness is above in an absoluteness of divine Existence — and there too is the absolute Power, Truth, Bliss of the Eternal — of which our mentality can form no conception and of which even our greatest spiritual experience is only a diminished reflection in the spiritualised mind and heart, a faint shadow, a thin derivate. Yet proceeding from it there is a sort of golden corona of Light, Power, Bliss and Truth — a divine Truth-Consciousness as the ancient mystics called it, a Supermind, a Gnosis, with which this world of a lesser consciousness proceeding by Ignorance is in secret relation and which alone maintains it and prevents it from falling into a disintegrated chaos. The powers we are now satisfied to call gnosis, intuition or illumination are only fainter lights of which that is the full and flaming source, and between the highest human intelligence and it there lie many levels of ascending consciousness, highest mental or overmental, which we would have to conquer before we arrived there or could bring down its greatness and glory here. Yet, however difficult, that ascent, that victory is the destiny of the human spirit and that luminous descent or bringing down of the divine Truth is the inevitable term of the troubled evolution of the earth-nature ; that intended consummation is its raison d’eˆtre, our culminating state and the explanation of our terrestrial existence. For though the transcendental Divine is already here as the Purushottama in the secret heart of our mystery, he is veiled by many coats and disguises of his magic world-wide Yoga-Maya; it is only by the ascent and victory of the Soul here in the body that the disguises can fall away and the dynamis of the supreme Truth replace this tangled weft of half-truth that becomes creative error, this emergent Knowledge that is converted by its plunge into the inconscience of Matter and its slow partial return towards itself into an effective Ignorance." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-254, "Love is the power and passion of the divine self-delight and without love we may get the rapt peace of its infinity, the absorbed silence of the Ananda , but not its absolute depth of richness and fullness. Love leads us from the suffering of division into the bliss of perfect union, but without losing that joy of the act of union which is the soul’s greatest discovery and for which the life of the cosmos is a long preparation. Therefore to approach God by love is to prepare oneself for the greatest possible spiritual fulfilment. " CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-547, 2: "The first step on this long path is to consecrate all our works as a sacrifice to the Divine in us and in the world; this is an attitude of the mind and heart, not too difficult to initiate, but very difficult to make absolutely sincere and all-pervasive. The second step is to renounce attachment to the fruit of our works; for the only true, inevitable and utterly desirable fruit of sacrifice — the one thing needful — is the Divine Presence and the Divine Consciousness and Power in us, and if that is gained, all else will be added. This is a transformation of the egoistic will in our vital being, our desire-soul and desire-nature, and it is far more difficult than the other. The third step is to get rid of the central egoism and even the ego-sense of the worker. That is the most difficult transformation of all and it cannot be perfectly done if the first two steps have not been taken; but these first steps too cannot be completed unless the third comes in to crown the movement and, by the extinction of egoism, eradicates the very origin of desire. " CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-247, " Two rules alone there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger . One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru , the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga... A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga ." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-187, 3: “The Self and Spirit cannot be expressed by the mind’s abstract generalizations; all the inspired descriptions of the seers and mystics cannot exhaust its contents and its splendours.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296 4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130, “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. This is the universal and essential element; the rest belongs to individual person and circumstance. It is this dynamic realisation that the sadhaka must feel and reproduce in himself according to his own nature; he need not strive after an imitation from outside which may well be sterilising rather than productive of right and natural fruits.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-67 5: “Therefore, whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is a tendency to an extension and even to an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity and, — who knows? — perhaps even beyond the terrestrial consciousness.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-45, “The stone lying inert upon the sands which is kicked away in an idle moment, has been producing its effect upon the hemispheres.” Sri Aurobindo/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-229, (Earth) “Knows that one high step might enfranchise all.” Savitri-371, "And for everything: when something hurts, for instance, when things resist or grate or howl inside there, instead of your saying, "Oh, how it hurts! "you call the Lord in there: "Come in here," and then you stay calm, not thinking of anything – you simply stay still in your sensation. And more than a thousand times, you know, I was almost bewildered: "Look! The pain is gone!" You didn't even notice how it went. So people who want to lead a special life or have a special organization to have experiences, that's quite silly – the greatest possible diversity of experiences is at your disposal every minute, every minute. Only you must learn not to have a mental ambition for "great" things. Just the other day, I was shown in such a clear way a very small thing I had done ("I," it's the body speaking), a very small things that had been done by the Lord in this body (that's a long sentence!), and I was shown the terrestrial consequence of that very small thing – it was visible, I mean, as my hand is visible to my eyes – and the terrestrial correspondence. Then I understood.” The Mother’s Agenda/20.11.1963, “Whatever one does, it becomes useful if one puts a spark of true consciousness into it …The consciousness one has is much more important than the act one performs. And the most apparently useless acts can become very productive if they are performed with the true consciousness. ” The Mother/TMCW-14/p- 37, "Certainly, a great step will be taken when it becomes natural for man to seek to perfect himself instead of expecting perfection in others …. That reversal is at the basis of all true progress. The first human instinct is, “It’s the fault of circumstances, it’s people’s fault, it’s … See how this fellow is, how that fellow is, how …” And it goes on indefinitely. The FIRST STEP, the very first step is to say, “If I were as I should be, or if the body were as it should be, all would be perfectly all right for it.” If, to make progress, you wait for others to do so, you can wait indefinitely...That’s the first thing that should be spread everywhere...Never lay the blame on others or on circumstances because whatever the circumstances may be, even apparently the worst, if you are in the true attitude and have the true consciousness, it doesn’t matter in the least for your inner progress, not in the least –and I’ll say, including death... That really seems to be the first lesson to be learned." The Mother's Agenda/December 10/1969, "The best way of helping others is to transform oneself. Be perfect and you will be in a position to bring perfection to the world." The Mother/TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-276, 6: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-165, 7: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-67, 8: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1068-69, 9: The Mother’s Agenda-6/p-131-136, 10: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-57, 11: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-87, 12: Savitri-310, 13: Savitri-686, 14: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296, 15: Savitri-445, 16: SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-90, 17: “All manifestation, sthabarajangamam , takes place by the union between Field, Matter, Kshetra and Knower of the Field, Spirit, Kshetrajn a.” The Gita-13.27, 18: Savitri-647, 19. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-250, “The Maker shall recast us and impose A plan of godhead on the mortal’s mould Lifting our finite minds to his infinite, Touching the moment with eternity.” Savitri-67, 20. CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-106, 21. Savitri-126, 22. Savitri-484, 23: “In the beginning of the Yoga you are apt to forget the Divine very often. But by constant aspiration you increase your remembrance and you diminish the forgetfulness. But this should not be done as a severe discipline or a duty; it must be a movement of love and joy. Then very soon a stage will come when, if you do not feel the presence of the Divine at every moment and whatever you are doing, you feel at once lonely and sad and miserable. Whenever you find that you can do something without feeling the presence of the Divine and yet be perfectly comfortable, you must understand that you are not consecrated in that part of your being. That is the way of the ordinary humanity which does not feel any need of the Divine. But for a seeker of the Divine Life it is very different. And when you have entirely realised unity with the Divine, then, if the Divine were only for a second to withdraw from you, you would simply drop dead; for the Divine is now the Life of your life, your whole existence, your single and complete support. If the Divine is not there, nothing is left.” The Mother/TMCW-3/Questions and Answers-1929-1931/p-26–27, "It is the lesson of life that always in this world everything fails a man — only the Divine does not fail him, if he turns entirely to the Divine. It is not because there is something bad in you that blows fall on you, — blows fall on all human beings because they are full of desire for things that cannot last and they lose them or, even if they get, it brings disappointment and cannot satisfy them. To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-625, 24: CWSA-17/Isha Upanishad/p-195, 25: “The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man’s real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-48 26: "We are here to give up all desires and to turn towards the Divine and to become conscious of the Divine. To realize and manifest the Divine in our life is the way, not to become animals, living like cats and dogs." The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-30.03.1972, "Man can bring an enlightened will, an enlightened thought and enlightened emotions to the difficult work of his self-development; he can more and more subject to these more conscious and reflecting guides the inferior function of desire. In proportion as he can thus master and enlighten his lower self, he is man and no longer an animal. When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards the superman; he is on his upward march towards the Divine." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-80, "To be a man, discipline is indispensable... Without discipline one is only an animal... One begins to be a man only when one aspires to a higher and truer life and when one accepts a discipline of transformation. For this one must start by mastering one’s lower nature and its desires." The Mother/The Mother's Centenary Works/Vol-14/p-46 27: "In street and house, in councils and in courts Beings he met who looked like living men And climbed in speech upon high wings of thought But harboured all that is subhuman, vile And lower than the lowest reptile’s crawl." Savitri-215 28: “There are two who are unfit for greatness and freedom, the man who has never been a slave to another and the nation that has never been under the yoke of foreigners.” SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-115, 29. "For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony. They arise from the perception of an unsolved discord and the instinct of an undiscovered agreement or unity. To rest content with an unsolved discord is possible for the practical and more animal part of man, but impossible for his fully awakened mind, and usually even his practical parts only escape from the general necessity either by shutting out the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined compromise." CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-4, "The discords of the worlds are God’s discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastnesses of his transcendent and his cosmic Ananda. " CWSA-19/Essays of the Gita/p-382 "It [trying to help someone through words] is a relative and partial help, of course, but it is sometimes useful. A radical help can only come from within through the action of the Divine Force and the assent of the being." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-317, "In other words a will of entire self-giving opens wide all the gates of the spirit and brings in response an entire descent and self-giving of the Godhead to the human being, and that at once reshapes and assimilates everything in us to the law of the divine existence by a rapid transformation of the lower into the spiritual nature. The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle... but when the soul gives up its ego and its works to the Divine, God himself comes to us and takes up our burden. To the ignorant he brings the light of the divine knowledge, to the feeble the power of the divine will, to the sinner the liberation of the divine purity, to the suffering the infinite spiritual joy and Ananda. " CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-335, “This high consummation of the Yoga will at once solve or rather it will wholly remove and destroy at its roots the problem of action. Human action is a thing full of difficulties and perplexities, tangled and confused like a forest with a few more or less obscure paths cut into it rather than through it; but all this difficulty and entanglement arises from the single fact that man lives imprisoned in the ignorance of his mental, vital and physical nature. He is compelled by its qualities and yet afflicted with responsibility in his will because something in him feels that he is a soul who ought to be what now he is not at all or very little, master and ruler of his nature. All his laws of living, all his dharmas must be under these conditions imperfect, temporary and provisional and at best only partly right or true. His imperfections can cease only when he knows himself, knows the real nature of the world in which he lives and, most of all, knows the Eternal from whom he comes and in whom and by whom he exists. When he has once achieved a true consciousness and knowledge, there is no longer any problem; for then he acts freely out of himself and lives spontaneously in accordance with the truth of his spirit and his highest nature. At its fullest, at the highest height of this knowledge it is not he who acts but the Divine, the One eternal and infinite who acts in him and through him in his liberated wisdom and power and perfection." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-591, "When we live in unity with the Divine in ourselves and the spirit of the universe, these imperfections (the assailing touch of grief, wrath, hatred, fear, inequality of love, trouble of joy, pain of sorrow) fall away from us and disappear in the calm and equal strength and delight of the inner spiritual existence. Always that is within us and transforms the outward touches before they reach it by a passage through a subliminal psychic soul in us which is the hidden instrument of its delight of being. By equality of the heart we get away from the troubled desire-soul on the surface, open the gates of this profounder being, bring out its responses and impose their true divine values on all that solicits our emotional being. A free, happy, equal and all-embracing heart of spiritual feeling is the outcome of this perfection." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-704, “In sum it may be safely affirmed that no solution offered can be anything but provisional until a supramental Truth-consciousness is reached by which the appearances of things are put in their place and their essence revealed and that in them which derives straight from the spiritual essence. In the meanwhile our only safety is to find a guiding law of spiritual experience – or else to liberate a light within that can lead us on the way until that greater direct Truth-consciousness is reached above us or born within us.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-137, "In the supramental consciousness, there are no problems — the problem is created by the division set up by the Mind. The Supramental sees the Truth as a single whole and everything falls into its place in that whole. The Supramental is also spiritual, but the old Yogas reach Sachchidananda through the spiritualised mind and depart into the eternally static oneness of Sachchidananda or rather pure Sat (Existence) absolute and eternal or else a pure Non-existence absolute and eternal. Ours having realised Sachchidananda in the spiritualised mind plane proceeds to realise it in the supramental plane. ” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-133-134, “If you keep your faith unshaken and your heart always open to me, then all difficulties, however great, will contribute to the greater perfection of your being.” The Mother/TMCW/Vol-14/p-227, " When external difficulties subside, when the body becomes passive and quiet, when it is not constantly demanding attention, then you can LIVE in this supramental consciousness and it does not seem so difficult; you feel it is so victorious in its essence that it will end all difficulties . " The Mother’s Agenda/ December 13, 1960, " All mornings are difficult. It's odd: life as a whole goes by with almost dizzying speed – weeks and months go by like that – and mornings, about three hours every morning, last like a century! Each minute is won at the cost of an effort. It is the time of the work in the body, for the body, and not just one body: for instance, all the vibrations from sick people, all those problems of life come from everywhere. And for those three hours, there is tension, struggle, acute seeking for what should be done or for the attitude to be taken.... It's at that time that I have tested the power of the mantra. For those three hours, I repeat my mantra automatically, without stopping; and every time the difficulty increases, a kind of Power comes into those words and acts on Matter. And that's how I know: without the mantra, that work couldn't be done. But that's why I say it has to be YOUR mantra, not something you received from whomever – the mantra that arose spontaneously from your deeper being (gesture to the heart), from your inner guide. That's what holds out. When you don't know, when you don't understand, when you don't want to let the mind intervene and you are ...THAT is there; the mantra is there; and it helps you to get through. It helps to get through. It saves the situation at critical moments, it's a considerable support, considerable." The Mother’s Agenda/September 23, 1964, "The will of self-giving forces away by its power the veil between God and man; it annuls every error and annihilates every obstacle." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-335, “So if That is established in a permanent way, there CAN NO LONGER be illness it is impossible. There can no longer be accidents, there can no longer be illness, there can no longer be disorders, and everything should harmonize (probably in a progressive way) just as that was harmonized: all the objects… were full of a joyful enthusiasm – everything obeyed, everything!” The Mother's Agenda/June 6, 1958, "He explores the ceaseless miracle of himself, Till the thousandfold enigma has been solved In the single light of an all-witnessing Soul." Savitri-68 30: “(The Divine is) the perfect Personality capable of all relations even to the most human, concrete and intimate; for he is friend, comrade, lover, playmate, guide, teacher, master, ministrant of knowledge or ministrant of joy, yet in all relations unbound, free and absolute. This too the divinised man becomes in the measure of his attainment...” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-141, “But behind all these and in them he (a Sadhaka ) has felt a Divinity who is all these things, a Bringer of Light, a Guide and All-Knower, a Master of Force, a Giver of Bliss, Friend, Helper, Father, Mother, Playmate in the world-game, an absolute Master of his being, his soul’s Beloved and Lover. All (the seven-fold personal) relations known to human personality are there in the soul’s contact with the Divine; but they rise towards super human levels and compel him (a Sadhaka) towards a divine nature.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-129, “Discipleship to God the Teacher, sonship to God the Father, tenderness of God the Mother, clasp of the hand of the divine Friend, laughter and sport with our comrade and boy-Play-fellow, blissful servitude to God the Master, rapturous love of our divine Paramour, these are seven beatitudes of life in the human body. Canst thou unite all these in a single supreme and rainbow-hued relation? Then hast thou no need of any heaven and thou exceedest the emancipation of the Adwaitin .” SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-137 31: “Distrust a man who has never failed and suffered; follow not his fortune, fight not under his banner.” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL-17/The Hour of God/p-115, “Help men, but do not pauperise them of their energy; lead and instruct men, but see that their initiative and originality remain intact; take others into thyself, but give them in return the full godhead of their nature. He who can do this is the leader and the guru.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-208, "This “helping others” is a perilous business — it brings the “guru” ego or else you very uncertainly rid others of their difficulties and very certainly get them yourself. “Why do you have all these disciples?” said a sage to some Maratha saint (I have forgotten the names); “to have disciples means to add all their difficulties to your own.” “Helping others” has the same disadvantage." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-318, "In “helping” one often gets part of the other’s inconvenience and many Yogis refuse to take disciples because they will have to assume others’ burdens as well as their own. There are also other dangers — growth of ego etc." CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-319, 32. “After many births of preparation, a Jnana Yogi with a strong foundation of Karma and Bhakti Yoga , attains My Purushottama or Supramental state of Consciousness. He also realises the intermediate stair that all this existence is Divine, the Cosmic Consciousness, Vasudevah sarvamiti . Such great Soul or integral Yogi is very rare.” The Gita-7.19, “That is precisely the distortion in the Western attitude as opposed to the attitude of the Gita. It is extremely difficult for the Western mind to understand in a living and concrete manner that everything is the Divine.” The Mother/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-101, 33. “But still this line of development too is necessary, because there must be a bridge between the spirit and the intellectual reason: the light of a spiritual or at least a spiritualised intelligence is necessary for the fullness of our total inner evolution, and without it, if another deeper guidance is lacking, the inner movement may be erratic and undisciplined, turbid and mixed with unspiritual elements or one-sided or incomplete in its catholicity. For the transformation of the Ignorance into the integral Knowledge the growth in us of a spiritual intelligence ready to receive a higher light and canalise it for all the parts of our nature is an intermediate necessity of great importance.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-913, "The test that we have done this is the presence of an undisturbed calm in the mind and spirit. The sadhaka must be on the watch as the witnessing and willing Purusha behind or, better, as soon as he can manage it, above the mind, and repel even the least indices or incidence of trouble, anxiety, grief, revolt, disturbance in his mind. If these things come, he must at once detect their source, the defect which they indicate, the fault of egoistic claim, vital desire, emotion or idea from which they start and this he must discourage by his will, his spiritualised intelligence, his soul unity with the Master of his being. On no account must he admit any excuse for them, however natural, righteous in seeming or plausible, or any inner or outer justification. If it is the prana which is troubled and clamorous, he must separate himself from the troubled prana, keep seated his higher nature in the buddhi and by the buddhi school and reject the claim of the desire-soul in him; and so too if it is the heart of emotion that makes the clamour and the disturbance. If on the other hand it is the will and intelligence itself that is at fault, then the trouble is more difficult to command, because then his chief aid and instrument becomes an accomplice of the revolt against the divine Will and the old sins of the lower members take advantage of this sanction to raise their diminished heads. Therefore there must be a constant insistence on one main idea, the self-surrender to the Master of our being, God within us and in the world, the supreme Self, the universal Spirit. The buddhi dwelling always in this master idea must discourage all its own lesser insistences and preferences and teach the whole being that the ego whether it puts forth its claim through the reason, the personal will, the heart or the desire-soul in the prana, has no just claim of any kind and all grief, revolt, impatience, trouble is a violence against the Master of the being.... This complete self-surrender must be the chief mainstay of the sadhaka because it is the only way, apart from complete quiescence and indifference to all action, — and that has to be avoided, — by which the absolute calm and peace can come. The persistence of trouble, asanti , the length of time taken for this purification and perfection, itself must not be allowed to become a reason for discouragement and impatience. It comes because there is still something in the nature which responds to it, and the recurrence of trouble serves to bring out the presence of the defect, put the sadhaka upon his guard and bring about a more enlightened and consistent action of the will to get rid of it. When the trouble is too strong to be kept out, it must be allowed to pass and its return discouraged by a greater vigilance and insistence of the spiritualised buddhi . Thus persisting, it will be found that these things lose their force more and more, become more and more external and brief in their recurrence, until finally calm becomes the law of the being. This rule persists so long as the mental buddhi is the chief instrument; but when the supramental light takes possession of mind and heart, then there can be no trouble, grief or disturbance; for that brings with it a spiritual nature of illumined strength in which these things can have no place. There the only vibrations and emotions are those which belong to the anandamaya nature of divine unity.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-722-724, “Buddhiyoga is fulfilled by karmayoga ; the Yoga of the self-liberating intelligent will finds its full meaning by the Yoga of desireless works. Thus the Gita founds its teaching of the necessity of desireless works, niskama karma , and unites the subjective practice of the Sankhyas — rejecting their merely physical rule — with the practice of Yoga.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-109, "Works are far inferior to Yoga of the intelligence , O Dhananjaya ; desire rather refuge in the intelligence; poor and wretched souls are they who make the fruit of their works the object of their thoughts and activities. One whose intelligence has attained to unity, casts away – even here in this world of dualities – both good doing and evil doing. Therefore strive to be in Yoga; Yoga is skill in works. The sages who have united their reason and will with the Divine renounce the fruit which action yields and, liberated from the bondage of birth, they reach the status beyond misery. When thy intelligence shall cross beyond the whirl of delusion, then shalt thou become indifferent to Scripture heard or that which thou hast yet to hear. When thy intelligence which is bewildered by the Sruti, shall stand unmoving and stable in Samadhi, then shalt thou attain to Yoga." The Gita-2.49-53, “We may say that here in India the reign of Intuition came first, intellectual Mind developing afterwards in the later philosophy and science. But in fact the mass of men at the time, it is quite evident, lived entirely on the material plane, worshipped the Godheads of material nature, sought from them entirely material objects. The effort of the Vedic mystics revealed to them the things behind through a power of inner sight and hearing and experience which was confined to a limited number of seers and sages and kept carefully secret from the mass of humanity secrecy was always insisted on by the mystics. We may very well attribute this flowering of intuition on the spiritual plane to a rapid reemergence of the essential gains brought down from a previous cycle. If we analyse the spiritual history of India we shall find that after reaching this height there was a descent which attempted to take up each lower degree of the already evolved consciousness and link it to the spiritual at the summit. The Vedic age was followed by a great outburst of intellectual philosophy which yet took spiritual truth as its basis and tried to reach it anew, not through a direct intuitive or occult process as did the Vedic seers, but by the power of the mind’s reflective, speculative, logical thought ; at the same time processes of Yoga were developed which used the thinking mind as a means of arriving at spiritual realisation, spiritualising this mind itself at the same time. Then followed an era of the development of philosophies and Yoga processes which more and more used the emotional and aesthetic being as the means of spiritual realisation and spiritualised the emotional level in man through the heart and feeling. This was accompanied by Tantric and other processes which took up the mental will, the life-will, the life of sensations and made them at once the instruments and the field of spiritualisation. In Hathayoga and in the various attempts at divinisation of the body there is also a line of endeavour which attempted to arrive at the same achievement with regard to living matter; but this still awaits the discovery of the true characteristic method and power of spirit in the body. We may say therefore that the universal Consciousness after its descent into Matter has conducted the evolution there along two lines, one of ascent to the discovery of the self and spirit, the other of descent through the already evolved levels of mind, life and body so as to bring down the spiritual consciousness into these also and to fulfil thereby some secret intention in the creation of the material universe. Our Yoga is in its principle a taking up and summarising and completing of this process, an endeavour to rise to the highest possible supramental level and bring down its consciousness and powers into mind, life and body .” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-267-268, “The Shakti in her workings will strike ruthlessly at all forms of ignorance and blindness and all even that trusts wrongly and superstitiously in her, and we must be prepared to abandon a too persistent attachment to forms of faith and cling to the saving reality alone. A great and wide spiritual and intelligent faith, intelligent with the intelligence of that larger reason which assents to high possibilities, is the character of the sraddha needed for the integral Yoga. ” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-774 34: "Outcast from empire of the outer light, Lost to the comradeship of seeing men, He sojourns in two solitudes, within And in the solemn rustle of the woods." Savitri-403, 35: CWSA-32/The Mother and Letters on the Mother/p-294, 36: Savitri-401, 37: Savitri-262, 38: "And the human search does not stop there, but leaves these formulations too, goes back to some past truth it had rejected or breaks forward to some new truth and powe r, but is always in search of the same thing, the law of its perfection, its rule of right living, its complete, highest and essential self and nature." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-479, " He (Sri Aurobindo ) himself-he himself has a greater action, a greater power of action now than when he was in his body. Besides, that’s why he left-because it had to be done that way... It’s very tangible, you know. His action has become very tangible. Of course, it isn’t something mental at all. It is from another region. But it isn’t ethereal or-it’s tangible. I could almost say material." Dec-20/1972/The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-13/P-326-328, "…we had a meditation here on the 15th, (15th, August 1962) at ten o’clock. At quarter to ten, I was sitting here at the table in a total silence. And then ... I can’t say Sri Aurobindo came, for he is always here, but he manifested in a special way.... Concretely, in the subtle physical, he became so tall that, sitting cross-legged as they do here, he covered the whole compound — even extended a bit beyond it! He was literally sitting upon the compound; so to the extent that the people meditating were not closed, they were all inside him.... I have often seen him in his supramental light; he has come very often (he used to come when I went to the balcony; sometimes he was above the Samadhi; he came very often). But that ... first of all, the proportions were enormous - sitting down, I tell you, he extended beyond the compound; and he materialized in a way that could be physically felt. And there was such confidence, such joy, such certainty; everything was so sure, so altogether certain, as though all had been accomplished....He has given us a beautiful gift. All his sweetness and all his splendor and all his power and all his calm were there — and far stronger and clearer than when he was in his body! .... And even when I was working, all the while I would feel him behind me, doing everything. But this was much stronger. Much stronger." The Mother's Agenda/August 18, 1962, "...the Divine of yesterday is only an apprentice to the Divine of tomorrow ..." The Mother's Agenda/October 8, 1956 39: "The Mother’s Vibhutis would normally be feminine personalities most of whom would be dominated by one of the four personalities of the Mother . The others you mention would be personalities and powers of the Ishwara, but in them also, as in all, the Mother’s force would act. I do not quite catch the question about the transformation of the Vibhutis. All creation and transformation is the work of the Mother. ... If you mean the divine personalities of the Mother — the answer is yes. It may even be said that each Vibhuti draws his energies from the Four, from one of them predominantly in most cases, as Napoleon from Mahakali, Rama from Mahalakshmi, Augustus Caesar from Mahasaraswati. ” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram/p-113, 40: “The natural attitude of the psychic being is to feel itself as the child, the son of God, the Bhakta ; it is a portion of the Divine, one in essence, but in the dynamics of the manifestation there is always even in identity a difference. The Jivatman , on the contrary, lives in the essence and can merge itself in identity with the Divine; but it too, the moment it presides over the dynamics of the manifestation, knows itself as one centre of the multiple Divine, not as the Parameshwara . It is important to remember this distinction; for, otherwise, if there is the least vital egoism, one may begin to think of oneself as an Avatara … ” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga/p-61, “But still the Vibhuti is not the Avatar ; otherwise Arjuna, Vyasa, Ushanas would be Avatars as well as Krishna , even if in a less degree of the power of Avatarhood . The divine quality is not enough; there must be the inner consciousness of the Lord and Self governing the human nature by his divine presence. The heightening of the power of the qualities is part of the becoming, bhutagrama , (The Gita-8.19, 9.8) an ascent in the ordinary manifestation; in the Avatar there is the special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, atmanam srijami, (The Gita-4.7) and conscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature.” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-161, 41: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-387, (The Gita-11.33), " This is the figure of the supreme and universal Being, the Ancient of Days who is for ever, sanatanam purusam puranam , (The Gita-18.38) this is (1) he who for ever creates, for Brahma the Creator is one of the Godheads seen in his body, he who keeps the world always in existence, for he is the guardian of the eternal laws, but (2) who is always too destroying in order that he may new-create, who is Time, who is Death, who is Rudra the Dancer of the calm and awful dance, who is Kali with her garland of skulls trampling naked in battle and flecked with the blood of the slaughtered Titans, who is the cyclone and the fire and the earthquake and pain and famine and revolution and ruin and the swallowing ocean. " CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-380-381, 42: "We have all met in previous lives. Otherwise we would not have come together in this life. We are of one family and have worked through ages for the victory of the Divine and its manifestation upon earth." The Mother/The Mother's Centenary Works/Vol-3/p-3, 43: Savitri-460, 339, (The Mother said this at the age of 94) “The body has some difficulty, so I can’t be active, alas. It is not because I am old-I am not old. I am not old, I am younger than most of you. If I am here inactive, it is because the body has given itself definitely to prepare the transformation. But the consciousness is clear and we are here to work-rest and enjoyment will come afterwards, Let us do our work here.” April-2/1972/Mother’s Agenda/Vol-13/P: 125, 44: Savitri-545, 45: "She carries crucified God upon her breast." Savitri-180 “And in the cradle slay the divine Child.” Savitri-224 “Each soul is the great Father’s crucified Son,” Savitri-500 " It is finished, the dread mysterious sacrifice, Offered by God’s martyred body for the world; Gethsemane and Calvary are his lot, He carries the cross on which man’s soul is nailed;" Savitri-445, "Mind keeps the soul prisoner, we are slaves to our acts; We cannot free our gaze to reach wisdom’s sun." Savitri-53 "Time has he none to turn his eyes within And look for his lost self and his dead soul." Savitri-165 46: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-773, "The difficulty of the endeavour is a known thing, but the difficult is not the impossible — it is the difficult that has always been accomplished and the conquest of difficulties makes up all that is valuable in the earth’s history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be so.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-100, " Man is given faith in himself, his ideas and his powers that he may work and create and rise to greater things and in the end bring his strength as a worthy offering to the altar of the Spirit. This spirit, says the Scripture, is not to be won by the weak, nayam atma balahınena labhyah . All paralysing self-distrust has to be discouraged, all doubt of our strength to accomplish, for that is a false assent to impotence, an imagination of weakness and a denial of the omnipotence of the spirit. A present incapacity, however heavy may seem its pressure, is only a trial of faith and a temporary difficulty and to yield to the sense of inability is for the seeker of the integral Yoga a non-sense, for his object is a development of a perfection that is there already, latent in the being, because man carries the seed of the divine life in himself, in his own spirit, the possibility of success is involved and implied in the effort and victory is assured because behind is the call and guidance of an omnipotent power." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-779-780, 47: "To serve ego and desire without aspiration to a higher nature and a higher law is to have the mind and the temperament of the Asura .” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-280-281, “The evil doers attain not to Me, Souls bewildered by the Maya of three gunas resort to the nature of being of Asura. ” The Gita-7.15, "The soul that fails to get faith in the higher truth and law, must return into the path of ordinary mortal living subject to death and error and evil:" CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-309-310, 48: " LET us shun the paths that are too easy and ask no effort, the paths which give us the illusion of having reached our goal; let us shun that negligence which opens the door to every downfall, that complacent self-admiration which leads to every abyss. Let us understand that however great may have been our efforts, our struggles, even our victories, compared with the distance yet to be travelled, the one we have already covered is nothing; and that all are equal — infinitesimal grains of dust or identical stars — before Eternity." TMCW-1/Prayers and Meditations/p-50, "To be humble means for the mind, the vital and the body never to forget that without the Divine they know nothing, are nothing and can do nothing; without the Divine they are nothing but ignorance, chaos and impotence. The Divine alone is Truth, Life, Power, Love, Felicity... Therefore the mind, the vital, and the body must learn and feel, once and for all, that they are wholly incapable of understanding and judging the Divine, not only in his essence but also in his action and manifestation... This is the only true humility and with it come quiet and peace...This is also the surest shield against all hostile attack. Indeed, in the human being it is always the door of pride at which the Adversary knocks, for it is this door which opens to let him enter." TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-152-153, 49: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-702, 50: "Another possible conception akin to the religious solution is the guidance of society by men of spiritual attainment, the brotherhood or unity of all in the faith or in the discipline, the spiritualisation of life and society by the taking up of the old machinery of life into such a unification or inventing a new machinery. This too has been attempted before without success; it was the original founding idea of more than one religion: but the human ego and vital nature were too strong for a religious idea working on the mind and by the mind to overcome its resistance. It is only the full emergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power of the Spirit and the consequent replacement or transformation and uplifting of our insufficient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and supramental supernature that can effect this evolutionary miracle." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1096, 51: “(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, “Brahmacharya (celibacy) is not binding in bhaktimarga or karmayoga , but it is necessary for ascetic jnanayoga as well as for Raja and Hatha yogas. It is also not demanded from Grihastha yogis. In this (integral) Yoga the position is that one must overcome sex, otherwise there can be no transformation of the lower vital and physical nature ; all physical sexual connection should cease, otherwise one exposes oneself to serious dangers. The sex-push must also be overcome but it is not a fact that there can be no sadhana or no experience before it is entirely overcome, only without that conquest one cannot go to the end and it must be clearly recognised as one of the more serious obstacles and indulgence of it as a cause of considerable disturbance.” CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-542, "I have tried many things, a great many, I have looked a great deal, and I see only one that’s absolute – only one that’s absolute and can bring the absolute result, it’s this (gesture turned Upward): the complete annulment of all that, leaving it all, "To You, Lord – You, You, to You." And it isn’t a being with a form, that’s not it; it isn’t a formless force, it’s ... It has nothing to do with thought, only with this: the contact. And the contact, an unmistakable contact, which nothing can imitate – nothing, nothing at all has the power to imitate it. And for every difficulty, every time, whatever it is, simply this: "Everything to You, Lord. Everything for You, to You. You alone can do it, You, You alone, You alone. You alone are the Truth; You alone are the Power." And those words are nothing, they are only the very clumsy expression of something ... a stupendous Power....It’s only the incapacity, the clumsiness, the lack of faith we mix into it that takes away His power. The minute we are truly pure, that is, under His influence alone, there are no limits, no limits – nothing, nothing, there is nothing, no law of Nature that can resist, nothing, nothing.... Only, the whole thing is that the time must have come, there must be only That left – all the rest spoils, whatever it is, even the highest, purest, noblest, most beautiful and marvelous things: all that spoils. Only That.” The Mother's Agenda/ March 26, 1966, “The supramental is not only Truth itself, but also the very negation of falsehood. The supramental will never come down, settle and manifest in a consciousness harbouring falsehood... Naturally the first condition for conquering falsehood is to stop telling lies, though this is only a preliminary step. An absolute, integral sincerity must finally be established in the being and all its movements if the goal is at all to be attained.” The Mother/TMCW-15/p-90, "If you are not sincere, what happens is that your own consciousness is veiled. Take, for example, a man who tells lies; his consciousness gets veiled and after a while, he can no longer distinguish falsehood from truth. He sees images and calls them truth. One who is wicked loses his aspiration, loses his capacity of realisation, loses all possibility of understanding, feeling and realising. That is the punishment. One puts veils, obstacles between oneself and the Divine” TMCW-5/Questions and Answers-1953/p-21 "At last there wakes in us a witness Soul That looks at truths unseen and scans the Unknown; Then all assumes a new and marvellous face: " Savitri-168 “In transparent systems bodied termless truths,” Savitri-273 "Above the parting of the roads of Time, Above the Silence and its thousandfold Word, In the immutable and inviolate Truth For ever united and inseparable, The radiant children of Eternity dwell On the wide spirit height where all are one." Savitri-282 "Bliss was the pure undying truth of things ." Savitri-324 "A scout of victory in a vigil tower, Her aspiration called high destiny down; A silent warrior paced in her city of strength Inviolate, guarding Truth’s diamond throne. " Savitri-358 (Supreme Said) “O Savitri, thou art my spirit’s Power, The revealing voice of my immortal Word, The face of Truth upon the roads of Time Pointing to the souls of men the routes to God.” Savitri-703 "But first high Truth must set her feet on earth And man aspire to the Eternal’s light And all his members feel the Spirit’s touch And all his life obey an inner Force." Savitri-708 (Satyavan said) “What high change is in thee, O Savitri? Bright Ever thou wast, a goddess still and pure , Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts Earth gave thee making thee yet more divine.” Savitri-718 52: “This will be to him (a Sadhaka of Integral Yoga) his exceeding good fortune if he can meet one who has realised or is becoming That which he seeks for and can by opening to it in this vessel of its manifestation himself realise it.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130, "Two rules alone there are that will diminish the difficulty and obviate the danger. (1) One must reject all that comes from the ego, from vital desire, from the mere mind and its presumptuous reasoning incompetence, all that ministers to these agents of the Ignorance. (2) One must learn to hear and follow the voice of the inmost soul, the direction of the Guru, the command of the Master, the working of the Divine Mother. Whoever clings to the desires and weaknesses of the flesh, the cravings and passions of the vital in its turbulent ignorance, the dictates of his personal mind unsilenced and unillumined by a greater knowledge, cannot find the true inner law and is heaping obstacles in the way of the divine fulfilment. Whoever is able to detect and renounce those obscuring agencies and to discern and follow the true Guide within and without will discover the spiritual law and reach the goal of the Yoga... A radical and total change of consciousness is not only the whole meaning but, in an increasing force and by progressive stages, the whole method of the integral Yoga." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-187, "The ego cannot see where it is being led; it revolts against the leading, loses confidence, loses courage. These failings would not matter; for the divine Guide within is not offended by our revolt, not discouraged by our want of faith or repelled by our weakness; he has the entire love of the mother and the entire patience of the teacher." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-64, 53: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-249, 54: “In Nature everything is in movement; thus, whatever does not move forward is bound to fall back.” TMCW/Vol-12/On Education/p-63, 55: Savitri-448, 56: Savitri-126-127, 57: Savitri-531, 58: Savitri-716, 59: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-66, Anchor 1 Anchor 2 Anchor 29 Anchor 32 Anchor 33 Anchor 19 Anchor 3 Anchor 4 Anchor 5 Anchor 6 Anchor 7 Anchor 8 Anchor 9 Anchor 10 Anchor 11 Anchor 12 Anchor 13 Anchor 14 Anchor 15 Anchor 16 Anchor 17 Anchor 18 Anchor 20 Anchor 21a Anchor 34a Anchor 9a Anchor 21 Anchor 22 Anchor 23 Anchor 24 Anchor 25 Anchor 26 Anchor 27 Anchor 28 Anchor 30 Anchor 31 Anchor 35 Anchor 36 Anchor 37 Anchor 38 Anchor 39 Anchor 40 Anchor 41 Anchor 42 Anchor 22a Anchor 34 Anchor 43a Anchor 43 60: "My (Savitri's) soul and his indissolubly linked.... To bring God down to the world on earth we came," Savitri-692, 61: "(Q) Mother, previously things were very strict in the Ashram, but not now. Why? Yes, I have always said that it changed when we had to take the very little children. How can you envision an ascetic life with little sprouts no bigger than that? It’s impossible! But that’s the little surprise package the war left on our doorstep. When it was found that Pondicherry was the safest place on earth, naturally people came wheeling in here with all their baby carriages filled and asked us if we could shelter them, so we couldn’t very well turn them away, could we?! That’s how it happened, and in no other way ... But, in the beginning, the first condition for coming here was that you would have nothing more to do with your family! If a man was married, then he had to completely overlook the fact that he had a wife and children – completely sever all ties, have nothing further to do with them. And if ever a wife asked to come just because her husband happened to be here, we told her, ‘You have no business coming here!’ In the beginning, it was very, very strict – for a long time. The first condition was: ‘Nothing more to do with your family ...’ Well, we are a long way from that! But I repeat that it only happened because of the war and not because we stopped seeing the need to cut all family ties; on the contrary, this is an indispensable condition because as long as you hang on to all these cords which bind you to ordinary life, which make you a slave to the ordinary life, how can you possibly belong to the Divine alone? What childishness! It is simply not possible. If you have ever taken the trouble to read over the early ashram rules, you would find that even friendships were considered dangerous and undesirable ... We made every effort to create an atmosphere in which only ONE thing counted: the Life Divine ." The Mother's Agenda/August 25, 1954, "Happiness is not the aim of life. The aim of ordinary life is to carry out one’s duty, the aim of spiritual life is to realise the Divine." The Mother/TMCW-14/p-7 62: "And pure perfection and a shadowless bliss Are this afflicted creature’s mighty fate." Savitri-340 " Again the mighty yearning raised its flame That asks a perfect life on earth for men And prays for certainty in the uncertain mind And shadowless bliss for suffering human hearts And Truth embodied in an ignorant world And godhead divinising mortal forms." Savitri-369 63: " As in a mystic and dynamic dance A priestess of immaculate ecstasies Inspired and ruled from Truth’s revealing vault Moves in some prophet cavern of the gods, A heart of silence in the hands of joy Inhabited with rich creative beats A body like a parable of dawn That seemed a niche for veiled divinity Or golden temple-door to things beyond." Savitri-15 “Thy peace, O Lord, a boon within to keep Amid the roar and ruin of wild Time For the magnificent soul of man on earth. Thy calm, O Lord, that bears thy hands of joy .” Savitri-696 " Thou shalt be attracted helplessly to all. Men seeing thee shall feel my hands of joy, " Savitri-701 64: The Mother’s Agenda/11.03.1962, 65: "In her bosom bearing the eternal Will, No guide she needed but her luminous heart: No fall debased the godhead of her steps, No alien Night had come to blind her eyes." Savitri-128 "The unfelt Self within who is the guide , The unknown Self above who is the goal." Savitri-168 "Always he builds, but finds no constant ground, Always he journeys, but nowhere arrives; He would guide the world , himself he cannot guide; He would save his soul, his life he cannot save." Savitri-337 "Thy soul has strength and needs no other guide Than One who burns within thy bosom’s powers. There shall draw near to meet thy approaching steps The second self for whom thy nature asks, He who shall walk until thy body’s end A close-bound traveller pacing with thy pace, The lyrist of thy soul’s most intimate chords Who shall give voice to what in thee is mute." Savitri-374 "One force shall be your mover and your guide, One light shall be around you and within ; Hand in strong hand confront Heaven’s question, life:" Savitri-374-375 "Ascend from Nature to divinity’s heights; Face the high gods, crowned with felicity, Then meet a greater god , thy self beyond Time.” Savitri-375 "If there is a yet happier greater god , Let him first wear the face of Satyavan (Satyavan is there in the Psychic heart centre.) And let his soul be one with him I love; So let him seek me that I may desire." Savitri-614 (Savitri is there in the Psychic heart centre.) "And Spirit’s fires shall guide the earth’s blind force;" Savitri-707 66: " But when the hour of the Divine draws near The Mighty Mother shall take birth in Time (last Avatar) And God be born into the human clay In forms made ready by your human lives. Then shall the Truth supreme be given to men:" Savitri-705 " One yet may come armoured, invincible; (last avatar) His will immobile meets the mobile hour; The world’s blows cannot bend that victor head; Calm and sure are his steps in the growing Night; The goal recedes, he hurries not his pace, He turns not to high voices in the night; He asks no aid from the inferior gods; His eyes are fixed on his immutable aim." Savitri-449 "Fate’s deaf resistance cannot break his will." (last Avatar) Savitri-449 "He must call light into its dark abysms, (last Avatar) Else never can Truth conquer Matter’s sleep And all earth look into the eyes of God." Savitri-450 "Then shall be ended here the Law of Pain. Earth shall be made a home of Heaven’s light, A seer heaven-born shall lodge in human breasts; The superconscient beam shall touch men’s eyes And the truth-conscious world come down to earth Invading Matter with the Spirit’s ray, Awaking its silence to immortal thoughts, Awaking the dumb heart to the living Word. This mortal life shall house Eternity’s bliss, The body’s self taste immortality. Then shall the world-redeemer’s task be done." (the last Avatar) Savitri-451 "(Q) Will the Avatars still need to take birth on earth once the supramental consciousness is firmly established? (Answer) This question will be easier to answer when the supermind is manifested in living beings on earth. I had always heard that Sri Aurobindo was “the last Avatar”; but he is probably the last Avatar in a human body — afterwards, we do not know....” 23 September 1969 The Mother/TMCW-10/On the Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-253 “(Q) Has this solution any connection with the date, August fifteenth? Is there any connection between the Feast of the Assumption in the Catholic Church and the date of Sri Aurobindo’s birth? (Ans:) Yes. And he has also said it himself. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary is the divinisation of Matter. And this is the aim of the last Avatar. ” TMCW-8/Questions And Answers-1956/p-269 “In the eternity of becoming, each Avatar is only the announcer, the forerunner of a more perfect realisation.” The Mother/CWM, Vol. 15, p. 185 “Disciple: One year Janmastami fell on the 15th August. Sri Aurobindo: 15th August is specially significant; that is the day of the ascension of the Virgin Mary—that implies that the physical nature is raised to divine nature. Virgin Mary refers to Nature—Jesus is the divine soul born in man; thus he is both the son of God as well as the son of man. The Catholic priests know this inner significance but they do not express that.” Sri Aurobindo’s conversation with Sri Anilbaran Roy/30th August-1926, 67: TMCW/Vol-13/Words of the Mother-1/p-107-108, 68: The principal Teaching, The Synthesis of Yoga points out that ‘during a certain stage restrictions in eating and drinking are useful to our inner progress.’ (CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-344) Rigorous self-control through food habits and ‘to make the future opulent with all that is best in the past’ (CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-p-55) drives this Ashram living to follow Jain Spirituality. Jain food may seem like a narrow mental doctrine, but it is safe for beginners in Yoga and confirms sattvic living. This trend discourages a certain kind of food that depresses the consciousness towards animality. Again, to waste time towards thought of food and depend only on food to draw nourishment of body are ‘very tamasic way of absorbing energy’ (The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-7/p-60-63) and draws down the consciousness towards Inconscience. So, to reduce food either spontaneously only under Divine impulsion or mechanically through self-control of food recognised by the tradition and to draw universal energies, preferably Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental forces to nourish the body, is identified as a Spiritual approach towards life. This Jain standardisation and mechanisation of food habits seems to limit the plasticity, catholicity and universality of Spiritual law and limit the trend of unity in myriad diversity but is purposeful in choosing food as a secondary means of drawing vital energy and an application of Vedantic approach of non-injury and non-violence, ahimsa, in everyday activities. This sattwic approach towards life is superior to tamasic food and rajasic food. Out of them tamas is identified as accumulated negative energy of the body through many births, the greatest enemy of Spiritual life and to remove them from every nook and corner is the responsibility of active Psychic and Spiritual energy. The dwarf movement of tamasic body, rajasic vital and sattwic intellect can be accelerated by opening of the Annamaya, Pranamaya and Manomaya Purusha, respectively. In integral Yoga, the rigorous self-control of the Vedantic approach of restriction in food and Tantric approach of accepting and universalising wide range of food are reconciled and not the ascetic renunciation of food but ‘equanimity and non-attachment’ (: CWSA-31/ Letters on Yoga-IV/p-422) towards all food is the integral attitude. In higher consciousness, ‘the food we take can be reduced by contrary habit and new relation to a minimum without the mental or vital vigour being in any way reduced.’ (CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-344) In Supramental Consciousness ‘to eat or not to eat, to sleep or not sleep, all this has no longer any importance.’ (The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/Vol-9/p-118) In this Consciousness one may even ‘forget to eat.’ (The Mother’s Centenary Works (second edition)/Vol-9/p-118) A similar oblivion may be extended towards narrow objective of money earning, procreation and its maintenance and the whole chemistry of life is extended to utilise time and space exclusively towards (1) Jivatma’s union with Paramatma, (2) Jivatma’s union with Paraprakriti, (3) Paramatma’s union with Para-prakriti in the heart centre and (4) Para-prakriti’s union with Apara-prakriti in Ignorance. Through these quadruple exercises, the Soul Force multiplies and with the accumulation of Soul Force one can confront Ignorance, Falsehood, Suffering and Death and this Soul Force will accompany him in succeeding births after the fall of the mutable body. “A sadhak must eat to satisfy the needs of his body and not to meet the demands of his greed.” TMCW/Vol-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-251, “The Jain philosophy is concerned with individual perfection. Our effort is quite different. We want to bring down the Supermind as a new faculty. Just as the mind is now a permanent state of consciousness in humanity, so also we want to create a race in which the Supermind will be a permanent state of consciousness …The Jain realisation of an individual godhead is all right so far as it goes — its defect is that it is too individual and isolated.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-428, “Yoga, is one of the many absurdities that seem so profusely current among the sadhaks in this Asram about her ways and motives. The Mother is obliged to arrange for neutral (plain and simple), not tasteless food, for the reason that any other course has been proved to be impracticable. There are ninety people here, from different countries and provinces whose tastes are as the poles asunder. What is tasty food to the Gujarati is abomination to the Bengali and vice versa. The European cannot stand an avalanche of tamarind or chillies; the Andhra accustomed to a fiery diet would find French dishes tasteless. Experiments have been tried before you came, but they were disastrous in their results; a few enjoyed, the majority starved, and bad stomachs began to be the rule. On the other hand, neutral food can be eaten by all and does not injure the health, — that at least is what we have found, — even if it does not give any ecstasy to the palate.” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram-773, “I thought I had said more than that. Because inwardly I said a lot, a whole lot about the organization of food and so on.... We are going to try things out…Some things are really interesting. For instance, I'd like ... To begin with, every country will have its pavilion, (in Auroville) and in the pavilion, there will be a kitchen from that country, which means that the Japanese will be able to eat Japanese food if they want to (!), and so on, but in the township itself, there will be food for vegetarians, food for non-vegetarians, and also a sort of attempt to find "tomorrow's food." The idea is that all this work of assimilation which makes you so heavy (it takes up so much time and energy from the being) should be done BEFORE, that you should be able to immediately assimilate what you are given, as with things they now make; for instance, they have those vitamins that can be directly assimilated, and also (what do they call it?... [Mother tries to remember] I take them every day.... Words and I aren't on very good terms!) ... proteins. Nutritive principles that are found in one thing or another and aren't voluminous – you need to take a tremendous quantity of food to assimilate very little. So now that they are clever enough on the chemical level, that could be simplified. People don't like it, simply because ... they take an intense pleasure in eating (!), but when you no longer take pleasure in eating, you need to be nourished and not to waste your time with that. The amount of time lost is enormous: time for eating, time for digesting, and the rest. So I would like an experimental kitchen to be there, a sort of "culinary laboratory," for a try. And according to their tastes and tendencies, people would go here or there…And you don't pay for your food, but you must give work, or ingredients: for example, those who had fields would give the produce of their fields; those who had factories would give their products; or else your own work in exchange for food…That alone does away with much of the internal circulation of money…And in every field things of that sort could be found.... Ultimately, it must be a town for studies – studies and research on how to live both in a simplified way and in a way such that the higher qualities have MORE TIME to develop. There. It's only a small beginning.” The Mother’s Agenda/ December 30, 1967, “I was personally vegetarian out of taste – everything is out of taste, not on principle. I became vegetarian at the beginning of the century, oh, a long time ago ... (yes, it must have been more than sixty years ago), because in my childhood I was forced to eat meat, and it disgusted me (not the idea: it was the taste I didn't like, it disgusted me!) and the doctor said I should be given pickles and all sorts of things to mask the taste. So as soon as I was independent and free, I said, "Finished! (laughing) Ah, no! I won't eat meat anymore" – not as a rule,…” The Mother’s Agenda/ June 14, 1965, “I have a feeling there already exists a certain type of food – an intermediary type of food – which is no longer like the old kind but isn’t yet ... [the direct absorption of energy], and which has a minimal material basis. But we don’t know anything about it, we don’t know, nobody knows, we are still inexperienced; we have to find it – but how?” The Mother’s Agenda/March 29, 1972, “One thing we want to know is how much you are eating and whether you sleep regularly and sufficiently. These two points are of great importance, for a sadhana of this kind demands in order to bear it that the mind and body and nervous system should not be weakened by undernourishment and lack of sleep.” TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p48, “The spiritual seeker often, like the Jain ascetics, seeks refuge in long and frequent fasts which lift him temporarily at least out of the clutch of the body’s demands and help him to feel in himself a pure vacancy of the wide rooms of the spirit. But all this is not liberation and the question may be raised whether, not only at first but always, the divine life also must submit to this necessity. But it could only deliver itself from it altogether if it could find out the way so to draw upon the universal energy that the energy would sustain not only the vital parts of our physicality but its constituent matter with no need of aid for sustenance from any outside substance of Matter. It is indeed possible even while fasting for very long periods to maintain the full energies and activities of the soul and mind and life, even those of the body, to remain wakeful but concentrated in Yoga all the time, or to think deeply and write day and night, to dispense with sleep, to walk eight hours a day, maintaining all these activities separately or together, and not feel any loss of strength, any fatigue, any kind of failure or decadence. At the end of the fast one can even resume at once taking the normal or even a greater than the normal amount of nourishment without any transition or precaution such as medical science enjoins, as if both the complete fasting and the feasting were natural conditions, alternating by an immediate and easy passage from one to the other, of a body already trained by a sort of initial transformation to be an instrument of the powers and activities of Yoga.” CWSA-13/ Essays in Philosophy and Yoga-544-545, 69: TMCW (second edition)/Vol-10/p-15, "Nevertheless, there is somewhere an absolute control , a real Ishwara. He is aware of it and knows that if he can find it, he will enter into control, become not only the passive sanctioning witness and upholding soul of her will, but the free powerful user and determiner of her movements. But this control seems to belong to another poise than the mentality. Sometimes he finds himself using it, but as a channel or instrument; it comes to him from above. It is clear then that it is supramental, a power of the Spirit greater than mental being which he already knows himself to be at the summit and in the secret core of his conscious being. To enter into identity with that Spirit must then be his way to control and lordship. He can do it passively by a sort of reflection and receiving in his mental consciousness, but then he is only a mould, channel or instrument, not a possessor or participant in the power. He can arrive at identity by an absorption of his mentality in inner spiritual being, but then the conscious action ceases in a trance of identity. To be active master of the nature he must evidently rise to some higher supramental poise where there is possible not only a passive, but an active identity with the controlling spirit. To find the way of rising to this greater poise and be self-ruler, Swarat, is a condition of his perfection." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-637-638, “Integral tapasya: the whole being lives only to know and serve the Divine.... Perfect tapasya : that which will reach its goal.” The Mother/TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-45, 70: “If once it met the intense original Flame, An answering touch might shatter all measures made And earth sink down with the weight of the Infinite.” Savitri-18 “Awake not the immeasurable descent, Speak not my secret name to hostile Time; Man is too weak to bear the Infinite’s weight. Truth born too soon might break the imperfect earth.” Savitri-335, Download this WEB PAGE in PDF format: ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust ’ was registered on the auspicious Siddhi Day of 24th November 1997 and all its necessary forms and manifestations were chosen by THEIR Divine Grace. The Trust was formed by the pressure of a Supracosmic vision revealed to me (S. A. Maa Krishna) as its Central Representative. In the vision, I had been to a world of greater tranquil sweetness where there was no soil and no ground but a subtle ether’s field. People were walking, but not on the soil but floating on the surface with feet downward. In that world, trees were there but they had no roots in the soil. I was sitting on a chair whose legs were floating in the space. There was joy everywhere. In the vision, I told myself that this is the Supramental world where there is no Time and Space, no aging and no death and form is represented by the Soul’s brightness. I was sitting near a tree and at the end of the vision, a leaf came to my hand from the air in which it was written ‘Mother’s International Centre ’. During that time, from June 1997 to November 1997, I was living in full of inner pain in the being and was concentrating on my future mission. After that inner seeking, one day I saw this vision. Sri K. Anurakta , our Spiritual Fosterer, consented to form a Trust based on this vision by incorporating a small correction, which reads ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust . ’ Two types of seekers (dvija) are considered fit to become inmates/members of Sri Matriniketan Ashram. They are mostly insatiable seekers of the Vedanta. In the long run they strive to ascend to the third stage of self-development: " (The first type) One must first acquire an inner Yogic consciousness and replace by it our ordinary view of things, natural movements, motives of life; one must revolutionise the whole present build of our being. (The Second type) Next, we have to go still deeper, discover our veiled psychic entity and in its light and under its government psychicise our inner and outer parts, turn mind-nature, life-nature, body-nature and all our mental, vital, physical action and states and movements into a conscious instrumentation of the soul. Afterwards or concurrently we have to spiritualise the being in its entirety by a descent of a divine Light, Force, Purity, Knowledge, freedom and wideness. (The third type) It is necessary to break down the limits of the personal mind, life and physicality, dissolve the ego, enter into the cosmic consciousness, realise the self, and acquire a spiritualised and universalised mind and heart, life-force, physical consciousness." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/281-282

Photo Gallery "A bright pure image in a priestless shrine," Savitri-368 "It is not a question of preparing students to read these or some other works. It is a question of drawing all those who are capable of it out of the usual human routine of thought, feelings, action; of giving those who are here every opportunity to reject the slavery of the human way of thinking and acting; of teaching all those who want to listen that there is another, truer way of living, and that Sri Aurobindo taught us to become and to live the true being and that the purpose of education here is to prepare the children for this life and to make them capable of it." The Mother The Mother's Agenda, 10.08.1960 This photo gallery is proposed to be designed for small children in such a manner that they will understand the All-inclusive Integral Education spontaneously in a very simple manner that "Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech:" (Savitri-375). These pictures can assist them to open their Soul or through ‘a soul-understanding, that chose the pictures.’ The Mother observed, “What I see is almost a children's book, for a whole generation aged ten to eighteen, thousands of children. With lovely pictures.” (Refer The Mother’s Agenda-29.05.1962) ଏହି ଫଟୋ ଗ୍ୟାଲେରୀଟି (ଚିତ୍ର ପ୍ରଦର୍ଶନୀ) ଛୋଟ ପିଲାମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଏଭଳି ଭାବରେ ପ୍ରସ୍ତୁତ କରିବାକୁ ପ୍ରସ୍ତାବ ଦିଆଯାଇଛି, ଯେପରି ସେମାନେ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଗ୍ରହଣୀୟ ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣାଙ୍ଗ ଶିକ୍ଷାକୁ ଅତି ସହଜ ଓ ସ୍ୱାଭାବିକ ଭାବରେ ବୁଝିପାରିବେ ଏବଂ ସେମାନେ 'ଭଗବାନଙ୍କ ମୁଖମଣ୍ଡଳ ଦର୍ଶନ କରିବେ ଏବଂ ତାଙ୍କ ଦିବ୍ୟ ବାଣୀ ଶ୍ରବଣ କରିପାରିବେ।' ଏହି ଚିତ୍ରଗୁଡ଼ିକ ସେମାନଙ୍କ ଆତ୍ମାକୁ ଉନ୍ମୁକ୍ତ କରିବାରେ କିମ୍ବା ଚିତ୍ରଗୁଡ଼ିକୁ ଚୟନ କରିଥିବା ଏକ 'ଆତ୍ମିକ-ବୋଧ' ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ସହାୟତା କରିପାରିବ। ଶ୍ରୀମା କହିଥିଲେ, 'ମୁଁ ଯାହା ଦେଖୁଛି ତାହା ପ୍ରାୟତଃ ପିଲାମାନଙ୍କର ସୁନ୍ଦର ସୁନ୍ଦର ଚିତ୍ରଗୁଡ଼ିକ ସହିତ ଏକ ବହି, ଯାହାକି ଦଶରୁ ଅଠର ବର୍ଷ ବୟସର ଏକ ସମଗ୍ର ପିଢ଼ିର ହଜାର ହଜାର ପିଲାମାନଙ୍କ ଚିତ୍ରକୁ ନେଇ ସଂଗଠିତ।' (ଦ୍ରଷ୍ଟବ୍ୟ: ଦ ମଦର୍ସ ଏଜେଣ୍ଡା - ୨୯.୦୫.୧୯୬୨) "Sri Aurobindo is constantly among us and reveals himself to those who are ready to see and hear him." The Mother TMCW/Vol-13/p-11, "ଶ୍ରୀଅରବିନ୍ଦ ସଦାସର୍ବଦା ଆମ ମଧ୍ୟରେ ବିଦ୍ୟମାନ ଏବଂ ଯେଉଁମାନେ ତାଙ୍କୁ ଦେଖିବା ଓ ଶୁଣିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ପ୍ରସ୍ତୁତ, ସେମାନଙ୍କ ନିକଟରେ ସେ ନିଜକୁ ଆତ୍ମପ୍ରକାଶ କରନ୍ତି।" ଶ୍ରୀମା “In men, says the Upanishad , the Self-Existent has cut the doors of consciousness outward, but a few turn the eye inward and it is these who see and know the Spirit and develop the spiritual being.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1064 "ଉପନିଷଦ କହେ, ମଣିଷ ମଧ୍ୟରେ ସ୍ୱୟଂଭୂ (ଭଗବାନ) ଚେତନାର ଦ୍ୱାରଗୁଡ଼ିକୁ ବହିର୍ମୁଖୀ କରି ଗଢ଼ିଛନ୍ତି; କିନ୍ତୁ କ୍ୱଚିତ୍ ବ୍ୟକ୍ତି ନିଜ ଦୃଷ୍ଟିକୁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ମୁଖୀ କରନ୍ତି ଏବଂ ସେହିମାନେ ହିଁ ପରମାତ୍ମାଙ୍କକୁ ଦର୍ଶନ କରନ୍ତି ଓ ଜାଣନ୍ତି, ଏବଂ ନିଜର ଆଧ୍ୟାତ୍ମିକ ସତ୍ତାକୁ ବିକଶିତ କରନ୍ତି।" ଶ୍ରୀ ଅରବିନ୍ଦ “The (Katha-2.1.1) Upanishad tells us that the Self-existent has so set the doors of the soul that they turn outwards and most men look outward into the appearances of things; only the rare soul that is ripe for a calm thought and steady wisdom turns its eye inward, sees the Self and attains to immortality. To this turning of the eye inward psychological self observation and analysis is a great and effective introduction.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-303 "(କଠ) ଉପନିଷଦ ଆମକୁ କହେ ଯେ ସ୍ୱୟଂଭୂ (ପରମେଶ୍ୱର) ଆତ୍ମାର ଦ୍ୱାରଗୁଡ଼ିକୁ ଏପରି ଭାବରେ ସ୍ଥାପନ କରିଛନ୍ତି ଯେ ସେଗୁଡ଼ିକ ବାହାର ଆଡ଼କୁ ଖୋଲେ ଏବଂ ଅଧିକାଂଶ ମନୁଷ୍ୟ ବାହ୍ୟ ଜଗତର ବସ୍ତୁର ରୂପରଙ୍ଗକୁ ହିଁ ଦେଖନ୍ତି; କେବଳ କୌଣସି ଏକ ବିରଳ ଆତ୍ମା, ଯିଏ ଶାନ୍ତ ଚିନ୍ତା ଓ ସ୍ଥିର ପ୍ରଜ୍ଞା ପାଇଁ ପରିପକ୍ୱ ହୋଇଥାଏ, ସେ ନିଜର ଦୃଷ୍ଟିକୁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ମୁଖୀ କରେ, ଆତ୍ମସାକ୍ଷାତ୍କାର କରେ ଏବଂ ଅମରତ୍ୱ ଲାଭ କରେ। ଦୃଷ୍ଟିକୁ ଏହିଭଳି ଅନ୍ତର୍ମୁଖୀ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ମନସ୍ତାତ୍ୱିକ ଆତ୍ମ-ନିରୀକ୍ଷଣ ଓ ବିଶ୍ଳେଷଣ ଏକ ମହତ୍ତ୍ୱପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଏବଂ ପ୍ରଭାବଶାଳୀ ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପଦକ୍ଷେପ।" — ଶ୍ରୀ ଅରବିନ୍ଦ Offering of the Physical A Tribute to Pranab Da Power to Progress Ashram Foundation Day 2025 Successful Future under the Supramental Influence Ashram Foundation Day 2023 Opening of the Vital to the Divine Love Ashram Foundation Day 2021 Body consciousness undergoing the Supramental transformation Ashram Foundation Day 2019 Nobility Ashram Foundation Day 2017 Realisation of the new Creation Ashram Foundation Day 2015 Aspiration for Spiritual Intensity Ashram Foundation Day 2013 Supramentalised Psychic Activity Ashram Foundation Day 2011 Wisdom in the Physical Mind World Hindu Summit 2013 Supramental Influence Seeker's Questions Supramental Manifestation Ashram Foundation Day Photo-01.02.2026 Purity in Cells Yoga Sadhana Camp Manual-2026 for Participant School Children Supramental Influence in the Cells Yoga Sadhana Camp Manual-2026 for Participant Members Supramental Immortality Sri K Anurakta Supramental Manifestation Ashram Foundation Day 2024 Progress of the New Creation Ashram Foundation Day 2022 Descent of the Light Ashram Foundation Day 2020 Peace Ashram Foundation Day 2018 Flame of Aspiration Ashram Foundation Day 2016 Supramental Consciousness Ashram Foundation Day 2014 Sincerity in the Vital Ashram Foundation Day 2012 Supramentalised Plasticity Gurusangam 2012 Aspiration in the Physical for The Supramental Light The World Hindu Wisdom Meet 2014 Supramental Rain The Spirit of the Youth To Live only for the Divine Photo of the fourth Anniversary of Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir-01.08.2026 Supramental Influence in the Cells Yoga Sadhana Camp Manual-2026 for Participant Members (Supreme Lord said to Savitri) "Men seeing thee shall feel my hands of joy," Savitri-701 "(Q) Where does God live? Can I ever see Him? (The Mother's Answer) God lives everywhere and in everything, and you will be able to see Him if you can find Him deep inside yourself." The Mother New Words of the Mother/p-241 "Ramakrishna is supposed to have said to Vivekananda , “You can see the Lord just as you see me and hear His voice just as you hear mine.” Some people understood this as an announcement that the Lord was on earth in flesh and blood. I said (laughing): “No, it is not that! What he meant is that if you enter the true consciousness, you can hear Him — I say, hear much more clearly than you hear physically and see much more clearly than you see physically." The Mother TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-205) "The Yogins who strive, see the Lord in themselves, pasyanti; but though they strive to do so, the ignorant perceive Him not, as they are not formed in the Spiritual mould... Some see the Divine, pasyanti, through meditation; some realise the Divine as 'of the Self, by the Self and in the Self,' atmani atmanam atmana; others see the Divine, pasyanti, through Sankhya and Karma Yoga. .. " (The Gita-15.11, 13.25) “When I was five years old...well I began with a consciousness. Of course I had no idea what it was. But my first experience was of the consciousness here (gesture above the head), which I felt like a Light and a Force; and I felt it there at the age of five. It was very pleasant sensation. I would sit in a little armchair made especially for me, all alone in my room, and I had a very pleasant feeling of something very strong, very luminous, and it was here (above the head) .... Then I would pull it down, for it was...it was truly my raison d’être. ” The Mothe r The Mother's Agenda- July 25, 1962

Integral Supramental Education "His slumber is an Almightiness in things, Awake, he is the Eternal and Supreme." Savitri-682 “Those who are ready within, who are open and in touch with the higher forces, those who have had a more or less direct personal contact with the Supramental Light and Consciousness, are capable of feeling the difference in the earth atmosphere... But for this ... only like can know like. Only the Supramental Consciousness in an individual can perceive the Supramental acting in the earth atmosphere. Those who, for whatever reason, have developed this perception can see it. But those who are not even remotely conscious of their inner beings, who would be quite at a loss to say what their souls look like, are certainly not ready to perceive the difference in the earth atmosphere. They still have quite a way to go for that. Because, for those whose consciousness is more or less exclusively centered in the outer being – mental, vital and physical – things need to have an absurd or unexpected appearance to be noticeable. And then they call it a miracle... But we do not call a miracle the constant miracle of the forces that intervene to change circumstances and human natures and which have very far reaching consequences, for we see only the appearance, and this appearance seems quite natural. But in truth, if you were to reflect upon the least thing that happens, you would be forced to acknowledge that it is miraculous.... It is simply because you do not reflect upon it and assume things to be as they are, what they are, unquestioningly; otherwise you would have quite a number of opportunities everyday to say to yourself, ‘But look! That is absolutely amazing! How did it happen?’" The Mother The Mother's Agenda/May 2 1956 Supramental Education: “Hardly for a moment glimpsed viewless to Mind, As if a torch held by a power of God, The radiant world of the everlasting Truth Glimmered like a faint star bordering the night Above the golden Overmind’s shimmering ridge.” Savitri-41 "Thus we draw near to the All-Wonderful Following his rapture in things as sign and guide; Beauty is his footprint showing us where he has passed, Love is his heart-beats’ rhythm in mortal breasts, Happiness the smile on his adorable face." Savitri-112 “At her will the inscrutable Supermind leans down To guide her force that feels but cannot know, Its breath of power controls her restless seas And life obeys the governing Idea.” Savitri-121 “There in a world of everlasting Light, In the realms of the immortal Supermind Truth who hides here her head in mystery, Her riddle deemed by reason impossible In the stark structure of material form, Unenigmaed lives, unmasked her face and there Is Nature and the common law of things.” Savitri-661-662 “The incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door, Eternal supermind touch earthly Time.” Savitri-705 “The supermind shall be his nature’s fount, The Eternal’s truth shall mould his thoughts and acts, The Eternal’s truth shall be his light and guide. All then shall change, a magic order come Overtopping this mechanical universe.” Savitri-706 “The supermind shall claim the world for Light And thrill with love of God the enamoured heart And place Light’s crown on Nature’s lifted head And found Light’s reign on her unshaking base.” Savitri-707 The Supramental Education is defined in its three poises, that of firstly, it is the original self-concentration which endeavours to realise the Knowledge of the One, Vidya ; secondly , the diffusion and apparent disintegration of all that is concentrated in its unity which gives birth to the Knowledge of the Many, Avidya, or limitation of knowledge and form; thirdly , it upholds the diffusion and prevents the existence from its real disintegration, maintains unity in utmost diversity and stability in utmost mutability. Or, Supramental Education is at once the Knowledge of the One, the Knowledge of the Many and the holding together of the Knowledge of the One and the Many. Mental Education is established on the basis of Ignorance seeking exclusive Knowledge and growing into it. Psychic and Spiritual Education are the knowledge of intermediate Worlds and without them one cannot rise to the Universal and Supramental plane. Supramental Education is established here on the basis of comprehensive Knowledge and growing into its own greater Knowledge. The gulf between mind and Supermind can be bridged by opening a passage in the Psychic and Spiritual plane through vertical movement of ascent and descent of Consciousness, where there is now void, gap, gulf and silence. Here in order to visualise integral transformation through Supramental Education, a comparative study has been made between the Supramental Education hinted in the Gita and that which is further developed in Savitri. “A complete and radical change can only be brought about by bringing in persistently the spiritual light and intimate experience of the spiritual truth, power, bliss into the recalcitrant elements until they too recognise that their own way of fulfilment lies there, that they are themselves a diminished power of the spirit and can recover by this new way of being their own truth and integral nature. This illumination is constantly opposed by the Forces of the lower nature and still more by the adverse Forces that live and reign by the world’s imperfections and have laid down their formidable foundation on the black rock of the Inconscience.”¹¹ Supramental Education hinted in The Gita: Five gradations of All-inclusive Supramental Education:- “24th November, 1926 was the descent of Krishna into the Physical. Krishna is not the Supramental Light. The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually, the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the Anandamaya ; he supports the evolution through the Overmind leading it towards the Ananda.” ¹ ² Sri Aurobindo “The Gita at its cryptic close may seem by its silence to stop short of that solution for which we are seeking; it pauses at the borders of highest spiritual mind and does not cross them into the splendours of the Supramental Light.”¹³ Sri Aurobindo “The Blessed Lord said: Hear, O Partha , how by practicing Yoga with a mind attached to Me and with Me as asraya thou shalt know Me integrally, samagram mam, without any remainder of doubt. I will speak to thee without omission or remainder the exclusive knowledge, Jnanam , attended with all-inclusive knowledge, Vijnanam, by knowing which there shall be no other thing here left to be known.” The Gita-7.1, 2 “Among the thousands of men one here and there strives after perfection, siddhi, and of those who strive and attain to perfection one here and there knows Me Integrally, in all principles of my existence, samagram mam .” The Gita-7.3 “The Blessed Lord said: What I am going to tell thee, the uncarping, is the most secret thing of all, the exclusive knowledge, Jnanam, followed by all-inclusive knowledge, Vijnanam, by knowing which thou shalt be released from evil. The Gita-9.1 “He who undeluded thus has knowledge of Me as the Purushottama , adores Me with the whole knowledge in every way of nature, sarvavit sarvabhavena .” The Gita-15.19 “This same ancient and original Yoga has been today declared to thee by Me, for thou art My devotee and My friend; this is the highest secret, rahasyam uttamam .” The Gita-4.3 The four exclusive quests are related to the ascension of Psychic and Spiritual Consciousness, whereas the five all-inclusive Supermind are related to the descent of Supreme Consciousness. The ‘psychic and the spiritual transformation must be far advanced, even as complete as may be, before there can be any beginning of the third and consummating supramental change.’¹⁵ But there are certain Supramental experiences in which ‘a consciously felt descent is not indispensable’²³ and there are still unknown higher sources of Supramental where ‘actual feeling of a descent is not there.’²³ The similar experience is also observed in The Mother’s experience of ‘Divine Love’ on the night of 12-13th April, 1962. Since in the Gita , the particular experience of the descent of Divine Consciousness to Apara prakriti is hinted as Jagat Dharayete (which means Para-prakriti has penetrated, purified, transformed and perfected the Apar-prakriti ) but not explored, so in our concentration, we can rest satisfied with that Supramental action without having an actual feeling of the descent. Here, the concept will be that since the presence of Sachchidananda is everywhere, so ‘if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and farthest chambers of the outer being.’²³ The highest secret, rahasyam uttamam,² ¹ is the Supramental¹⁷ revealed as Purushottama, the integral Divine, who is Nameless, Formless, all-embracing and all-exceeding Sachchidananda and is capable of assuming all Name and Form. In Supramental, all things find their secret truth of Oneness with all existence, universalised order, great harmony and their perfect reconciliation and the sense of separative individual identity is lost in the sole ecstasy of the Divine Beloved. The five gradations of Supermind represent the action of the same Purushottama Consciousness in varying intensity, while capturing all the worlds, sarvaloka . The literal meaning of Sadharmyam, Sva Prakriti, Madbhava and Param Bhava are same that of becoming the nature of the Divine, but here in this essay, they have been used for different gradations of Divine Nature. Supramental manifestation is the promise of tomorrow and the vision of the latest spiritual developments, but we can return to the Gita for large inspiration, necessary guidance and support. 1) Guhya Vijnana of Supermind and corresponding transformation Sadharmyam :- “It is like the message of the Gita as Sri Aurobindo explained it: not overmental, but Supramental. It is Oneness, the experience of Oneness.”¹ The Mother “(Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual Experience at Alipore jail ) is Supramental. Yes, the Supramental experience. He called it Narayana because he was Indian .”¹ The Mother “Very rare is the great soul who knows that all things are Brahman , Vasudevah Sarvamiti .” The Gita-7.19 “The man whose self is in Yoga, sees the Brahman in all things and all things in the Brahman , he is equal visioned everywhere.” The Gita-6.29 “He who sees Brahman everywhere and sees all in Brahman , to him Brahman does not get lost, nor does he get lost to the Brahman .” The Gita-6.30 “The Blessed Lord said: I will again declare the supreme Knowledge, the highest of all knowings, which having known, all the sages have gone hence to the highest perfection. Having taken refuge in this knowledge and become of like nature and law of being with Me, sadharmyam agatah …” The Gita-14.1, 2 The secret formula of Supermind was first discovered by Sri Aurobindo at Alipore jail during His spiritual experience of Vasudevah sarvamiti , whereas the same was revealed to Sri Krishna during His evolving relation with Sri Radha and it was further developed through universalization of His manifestation, symbolised as the Gopis. Sri Aurobindo’s discovery of the Supramental attained further momentum, strength and concrete form with the Mother’s arrival. ‘A vast universality of soul and an intense unity with all is the base and fixed condition of the supramental consciousness and spiritual life. In that universality and unity alone can we find the supreme law of the divine manifestation in the life of the embodied spirit; in that alone can we discover the supreme motion and right play of our individual nature. In that alone can all these lower discords resolve themselves into a victorious harmony of the true relations between manifested beings who are portions of the one Godhead and children of one universal Mother.’⁵ Sri Aurobindo was interested to invert the gained Supramental power towards earth nature as He was destined to carry evolution ahead through the transformation of the earth. ‘When the higher descends into the lower consciousness, it alters the lower but is also modified and diminished by it; when the lower ascends, it is sublimated but at the same time qualifies the sublimating substance and power.’¹⁴ Sri Krishna’s Avatara role was directed to liberate the then humanity from the tyranny of asuras , evolve the svadharma and svabhava of spiritual law of the race and descend supreme universal Ananda to the earth represented through the Gopis . He corrected, synthesised completed and perfected the earlier available six ancient Spiritual disciplines and reconciled their mutual opposition and developed the most profound theory of Karma Yoga for people of all time and all ages, which will serve as a base for the Supramental realisation. His contact with Supramental was neither systemized, nor streamlined and left it as a Supreme mystery which can neither be expressed in words, sabdabrahmativartate ²⁴ , nor heard through illumined seers, srotavyasya srutasya ca²⁵ but to be lived through new means of expression. But the work He initiated on earth will advance and will be completed through Supramental manifestation, and His support to carry this action is an important leverage for Sri Aurobindo’s action, as the latter contains within Himself all the Powers and Presence of the past Avataras. Sri Aurobindo developed, systemized and perfected the secrets hinted in the Gita, the Upanishads, the Vedas and the Tantras and universalised their exclusive quests and multiplied the acceleration of present evolution through His entry into Integral concentration. The direct Divine touch of profound intensity received by the then Gopis in their relation with Sri Krishna and the more profound subtle physical Divine contact received by the Mother’s children through their direct relation with the Divine Mother are the preliminary Supramental experience intended to transform the individual and collective or universalise mind, life and body. The former relation left permanent memory of Divine touch in the mind of the race, smriti, which can activate and repeat in the numberless souls of same Divine intensity till the supreme Ananda is established; whereas the latter relation is a step ahead in learning the lesson of subtle physical Divine touch to percolate in to the physical sheath and bringing an opportunity of physical transformation of the race. 2) Guhyatara Vijnana of Supermind and corresponding Supramental transformation of Sva Prakriti :- “There are two worlds adjacent to this material world, Superconscient and Subconscient; Superconscient world has already been described at length: hear from Me, O Partha , the Subconscient, asuric world.” The Gita-16.6 “Out of compassion for them, I, lodged in their self, lift the blazing lamp of knowledge and destroy the darkness which is born out of the Subconscient Ignorance.” The Gita-10.11 “Leaning—pressing down upon My own Nature, Sva Prakriti , I create all this multitude of existence, all helplessly subject to the control of Nature.” The Gita-9.8 Like Sri Aurobindo, The Mother had the experience of Supermind up above in the Supramental sheath and down below in the Inconscient sheath during Her Spiritual training at Tlemcen , before Her actual contact with Sri Aurobindo . So the frightful battle of Subconscient sheath resumed again and attained momentum with Sri Aurobindo during Their systematic joint work of Supramental descent to mind domain first, then to vital, physical and Subconscient sheaths respectively. The Veda described this domain as darkness hidden by darkness, an ocean without mental consciousness. All possible difficulties in the Subconscient rose up en mass; it is a domain hopelessly weak, dull, enslaved to everything. One has to fight against all those dark lower forces, irrational habits, chronic illnesses, aggressive ill will, that are unwilling to change, all that dominates the world. It unfolds night after night, unimaginable quantity of Subconscient impressions recorded and stored, heaped one on top of the other, piling up helplessly. These difficulties had hounded Sri Aurobindo ferociously and the Mother had to face the same problems in a relentless fashion. When the Mother and Sri Aurobindo descended together from plane to plane and reached the Subconscient, They discovered that it was no longer individual Subconscient but it was terrestrial. There are three ways in which the Subconscient problems can be handled. First one is to act from above through intervention of Divine force; by this exercise one can keep these problems under control, hold them in place and prevent them from any unpleasant events and even mastery over these forces can be gained but nothing is transformed through this exercise; secondly, one has to enter into the Subconscient plane along with the Divine force; this is done by rising to summit of Consciousness through progressive ascent that one unites with the Supermind, then one can redescend with Supramental consciousness to Subconscient plane and can experience permanent transformation of nature; thirdly, to experience the same Divine force in the Subconscient plane through invasion of Divine force from Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self; with the experience of union with Supermind through ascension of consciousness, one discovers a presence of Supermind in the heart of Subconscient and Inconscient during the process of descent and with the activation of Supermind in the Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self, one experiences direct invasion of Supramental to Subconscient plane and experiences the permanent transformation of nature. 3) Guhyatamam Vijnana of the most secret Supermind and corresponding Supramental Transformation, Madbhava :- “If thou art one in heart and consciousness with Me (Purushottama) at all times, then by My grace thou shalt pass safe through all difficult and perilous passages of Inconscient sheath…” The Gita-18,58 “Threefold are the doors of hell (of Inconscient world)…—desire, wrath and greed…by following the own higher good (of Supramental descent), he arrives at the highest soul status and liberated from these triple doors of darkness.” The Gita-16,21-22 “Delivered from the Inconscient problems of sense attachment, fear and wrath, full of Me, take refuge in Me, many purified by the austerity of knowledge arrived at My Nature, Mad bhavam agatah .” The Gita-4,10 The Mother’s experience of the first Supramental manifestation on 29th February, 1956, marked an important transition in universal event. It was not a complete descent, a part of the Supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow and was immediately absorbed and swallowed by the Inconscient sheath. This experience indicates that the earth’s darkest zone has the greatest thirst towards the highest Divine. While transformation work continued in the Subconscient sheath, the higher intensities of Supramental force resumed action due to more identification with the Supreme, in the still nether most incredible dark dregs of mud of Inconscient Sheath. So it has become clear that it is impossible to manifest the Divine integrally without everything below being offered to the Supreme Light and one cannot go to the very bottom of Inconscient unless one goes to the very heights of Supermind. The present Inconscient is not as unconscious as the Inconscient at the beginning of creation. So the Supramental action in Inconscient will have two results, firstly, more and more Inconscient problems will rise and enter subconscient planes for transformation; secondly, it will purify all those darkest realms in their own home and spread the supreme Light and supreme Vibrations. 4) Param Guhyatamam Vijnana or the supreme most secret Supermind concealed in the Inconscient and the corresponding Supramental Transformation of Param bhava :- “At the very bottom of the Inconscient, most hard and rigid and narrow and stifling, I struck upon an almighty spring that cast up forthwith into a formless, limitless Vast, vibrating with the seeds of a new world.”²² The Mother “I have entered into this form of (inconscient) earth and sustain by My might these multitudes…” The Gita-15.13 “In the egoism of their strength and power, in the violence of their wrath and arrogance they hate, despise and belittle the God concealed (in the inconscient cave)…” The Gita-16.18 “Those, whose mind are deluded by Inconscient Ignorance, despise Me lodged in the human body (The Lord seated in the Inconscient sheath) because they know not my supreme Nature, Param bhava , the Lord of all existence.” The Gita-9.11 “As the one sun illumines the entire earth, so the Lord concealed in the Field (which constitute our mind, life, body, subconscient and inconscient sheath) illumines the entire Field, O Bharata. ” The Gita-13.34 The Mother has given the assurance that one can realize the Divine in the Inconscient as soon as one has found the Divine within. Because realization of the Divine within helps to ascent the Consciousness to unite with the Supermind above. As soon as this union is achieved one gets the passage of entry into Inconscient sheath and meets the Supermind concealed in the Inconscient Self. The Mother’s experience of 24-25 July, 1959, gave more clear details about its working, “for the first time the Supramental light entered directly into my body, without passing through the inner beings. It entered through the feet and it climbed up and up. And as it climbed, the fever also climbed because the body was not accustomed to this intensity. As all this light neared the head, I thought I would burst and that the experience would have to be stopped…”²⁶ The discovery of the Supramental in the Inconscient made another passage clear for the direct action of It on the body. Since this force is already dynamised in Earth’s atmosphere, so contact with It can be restored by concentration below the feet centre. The experience of this kind can be repeated till the experience becomes constant and established. 5) Juxtaposition of Madbhava and Parambhava of Guhyatamam Vijnana, Daivi Prakriti: - “When into all the doors in the body (nine doors, navadwara) there comes a flooding of light…” The Gita-14.11 ‘The light of the sun that illumines all these worlds… that light know as from Me.” The Gita-15.12 “The great-souled, O Partha , who dwell in the Divine Nature, daivi Prakriti , or ‘two Oceans of Light’ know Me (the Godhead lodged in human body) as the Imperishable from whom all existences originate and so knowing they turn to Me with a sole and entire love.” The Gita-9.13 “Powerful and prolonged penetration of the Supramental forces into the body, it was pressing to enter, from everywhere, but everywhere at the same time… it was not a current flowing in, it was an atmosphere penetrating from everywhere. It lasted for at least four to five hours.”¹⁹ The Mother In Integral Yoga all the ten Selves, or the Divine contained in all the ten Sheaths, are dynamised, and all these Divine Selves act on the respective Sheaths or higher Selves on the lower Sheaths or lower Selves on the higher Sheaths; bring the required transformation and build each sheath to the extent of Their full perfection. With the progress of this experience of diffusion of the Divine from all Centres one meets the Divine from all ends, capturing all the sheaths of the body, and this experience can be repeated till It becomes constant and established. This is probably the normal state of the greatest Integral Yogi, yoginam api sarvesam, ²⁰ and the highest secret, rahasyam uttamam ,²¹ manifested in normal human life. Supramental Education developed in Savitri: Six gradations of All-inclusive Supramental Education through Ananda:- “His single freedom could not satisfy, Her light, her bliss he asked for earth and men.” Savitri-315 “Too far thy heavens for me from suffering men Imperfect is the joy not shared by all.” Savitri-686 All-inclusive enjoyment is the capacity to retain the perennial joy as it is, which is behind the root of all things. For such retention to be practicable, the humanity has to go through the process of strong subtle and causal body formation. It will be executed by the pressure of Supramental force. Supramental Ananda (or Light, Love, Will, Force, Peace, Knowledge etc.) is having three simultaneous movements; firstly, it supports individual evolution; secondly, it accelerates the universal evolution; thirdly it unites all things of the manifestation and unites individual with the cosmic and transcendent principle; when the reflection of Supermind falls on our purified self we lose the sense of our separate individuality; when It falls on our purified nature it gives the sense of melting into our greater universal Self. Supramental action through prepared individuals will force the unconscious humanity to open themselves towards Supreme Ananda and drive the whole diversity of individuals towards some miraculous change. 1) First discovery or all mighty Supramental Descent ¹⁶ :- “A last and mightiest transformation came. His soul was all in front like a great sea Flooding the mind and body with its waves; His being, spread to embrace the universe, United the within and the without To make of life a cosmic harmony, An empire of immanent Divine. In this tremendous universality Not only his soul-nature and mind-sense Included every soul and mind in his, But even the life of flesh and nerve was changed And grew one flesh and nerve with all that lives; He felt the joy of others as his joy, He bore the grief of others as his grief; His universal sympathy upbore, Immense like ocean, the creation’s load As earth upbears all beings’ sacrifice, Thrilled with the hidden Transcendent’s joy and peace. There was no more division’s endless scroll; One grew the Spirit’s secret unity, All Nature felt again the single bliss.” Savitri-318-19 “When unity is won, when strife is lost And all is known and all is clasped by Love Who would turn back to ignorance and pain?” Savitri-633 “A mighty transformation came on her. A halo of the indwelling Deity, The Immortal’s lustre that had lit her face And tented its radiance in her body’s house, Overflowing made the air a luminous sea. In a flaming moment of apocalypse The Incarnation thrust aside its veil. A little figure in infinity Yet stood and seemed the Eternal’s very house, As if the world’s centre was her very soul And all wide space was but its outer robe.” Savitri-664-665 Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual experience of Vasudeva sarvamiti at Alipore jail is Supramental experience of lower range, where He realised that this world, Jagat is as real as the Brahman and the relation between the Jagat and the Brahman has been reinforced through triple realisation of Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman and all things are Brahman . To live permanently within the physical Presence of the Divine is one of the characteristics of this experience. After this experience He first directed Sat, Chit-Tapa s and Ananda through Supramental, Vijnana towards the Mind centre for its full transformation and as the result was not effective due to complex relation of the mind centre with the physical and vital centres, so He further directed It towards the vital and physical centres. Supramental Ananda can fully capture these triple centres and intense Ananda is totally established. These centres will experience part transformation of nature and for full transformation, the root of all these three centres are to be assessed, which are identified as Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths. The lowest range of Supramental¹⁸ can be assessed by intensification of the aspiration of the psychic and spiritual faculties. This discovery annuls the division of things in a universalised individual Consciousness and supports the process towards the discovery of higher ranges of the Supramental. The Mother gave importance to this Supramental education in following words, “In contrast with the types of education we have mentioned previously, which progress from below upwards by an ascending movement of the various parts of the being, the supramental education will progress from above downwards, its influence spreading from one state of being to another until at last the physical is reached. This last transformation will only occur visibly when the inner states of being have already been considerably transformed. It is therefore quite unreasonable to try to recognise the presence of the supramental by physical appearances. For these will be the last to change and the supramental force can be at work in an individual long before anything of it becomes perceptible in his bodily life.”³⁰ 2) Second discovery or the higher range of Supramental working in the Subconscient Sheath:- “A low muttering rose from the subconscient caves, The stammer of the primal ignorance; Answer to that inarticulate questioning, There stooped with lightning neck and thunder's wings A radiant hymn to the Inexpressible And the anthem of the superconscient light.” Savitri-30 “An old pull of subconscious cords renews; It draws the unwilling spirit from the heights, Or a dull gravitation drags us down To the blind driven inertia of our base. This too the supreme Diplomat can use, He makes our fall a means for greater rise.” Savitri-34 “A divinising stream possessed his veins, His body’s cells awoke to spirit sense, Each nerve became a burning thread of joy: Tissue and flesh partook beatitude. Alight, the dun unplumbed subconscient caves Thrilled with prescience to her longed for tread And filled with flickering crests and praying tongues.” Savitri-334 “A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell And take the charge of breath and speech and act And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns And every feeling a celestial thrill. Often a lustrous inner dawn shall come Lighting the chambers of the slumbering mind; A sudden bliss shall run through every limb And Nature with a mightier Presence fill.” Savitri-710 After 1926 siddhi, Sri Aurobindo entered higher ranges of Supramental action where the power of penetration of Divine force was more intense. With the discovery of higher ranges of Supramental, through the ascension of Consciousness, the Supermind is able to enter the universal and individual Subconscient domain in addition to its earlier penetration in mind, life and body centres. In this nether world, there are occult shadows, tenebrous Powers, Titan, Fury, Djinn and demon powers. These awful guests hide in man’s lower nature and through earth-ways they break out from all doors with horror, carnage, blood-lust and will to slay. Slain thoughts, old longings, rejected nature and dead passions live again and they recur in mind’s nocturnal walks in sleep. An old pull of subconscious cord, a dull gravitation and blind driven inertia drag us down. In successive Supramental encounters of this higher range, many of these dark forces were killed, some bore the pressure of new light and suffered transformation of nature and many others escaped to their inconscient home. In this Book ten of Savitri we deal with special importance because it deals (1) with Subconscient transformation and (2) The Mother had translated this whole book ten with its four Cantos, into French language. For the last many years, She was undergoing transformation of this twilight world. Those who wish to collaborate in Her Divine work are to become part of this unfinished Subconscient transformation action. This action can go unconsciously in everybody and consciously with those who are open to Her Supramental Consciousness. Book-10, Canto-1, gives the hint about the border world between Inconscient and Subconscient sheath and subsequently, after the transformation of the Inconscient sheath (Book-9, Canto-1 & 2) it gives a hint about the twilight Subconscient world. Entry into Subconscient plane is a terrible battle against the forces of darkness and in the Mother’s language, “I am given the awareness of how huge this thing (Divine descent) is one drop at a time…so I won’t be crushed,”² or ‘Light conquered now even by that feeble beam:’³ and this Subconscient transformation could be done ‘only in deep meditation…and not in any other time, in activity or even in concentration.’⁴ 3) Third discovery or the highest range of Supramental Working in the Inconscient Sheath:- “The persistent thrill of a transfiguring touch Persuaded the inert black quietude And beauty and wonder disturbed the fields of God.” Savitri-3 “Lightnings of glory after glory burned, Experience was a tale of blaze and fire, Air rippled round the argosies of the Gods, Strange riches sailed to him from the Unseen; Splendours of insight filled the blank of thought, Knowledge spoke to the inconscient stillnesses, Rivers poured down of bliss and luminous force, Visits of beauty, storm-sweeps of delight Rained from the all-powerful Mystery above.” Savitri-37 “With Truth-Light strike earth’s massive roots of trance, Wake the dumb self in the inconscient depths And raise a lost Power from its python sleep That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time And the world manifest the unveiled Divine.” Savitri-72 “A small thinking being watched the works of Time. A difficult evolution from below Called a masked intervention from above; Else this great, blind inconscient universe Could never have disclosed its hidden mind, Or even in blinkers worked in beast and man The Intelligence that devised the cosmic scheme.” Savitri-146-147 “Its saviour light the inconscient universe. And when that greater Self comes sea-like down To fill this image of our transience, All shall be captured by delight, transformed: In waves of undreamed ecstasy shall roll Our mind and life and sense and laugh in a light Other than this hard limited human day The body’s tissues thrill apotheosised, Its cells sustain bright metamorphosis.” Savitri-171 “A golden fire came in and burned Night’s heart; Her dusky mindlessness began to dream; The Inconscient conscious grew, Night felt and thought.” Savitri-601 While purification and transformation work continued in these Subconscient domains, the Supramental Ananda (and also Light, Force, Truth etc.) further penetrates into still nether domain of the Inconscient sheath for greater transformation of the individual and the world. This Supramental action of highest range is entrusted to lead all towards the discovery of the Eternal who ‘wraps his head in black pall’6 in the Inconscient sheath and successive possession of darkest layer of universal Inconscient by the Supreme Ananda . The experience of this highest range of Supramental Ananda confirms the possibility of the whole transformation of nature and annihilation of all the problems of existence from their root. In the past spiritual quests, a comprehensive solution of the problems of existence was not dared due to inaccessibility to these highest ranges. 4) Fourth discovery of Subconscient Self or Supramental Concealed in the Subconscient Sheath: “A throe that came and left a quivering trace, Gave room for an old tired want unfilled, At peace in its subconscient moonless cave To raise its head and look for absent light, Straining closed eyes of vanished memory, Like one who searches for a bygone self And only meets the corpse of his desire.” Savitri-2 “Into the abysmal secrecy he came Where darkness peers from her mattress, grey and nude, And stood on the last locked subconscient’s floor Where Being slept unconscious of its thoughts And built the world not knowing what it built.” Savitri-231 “In a narrow passage, the subconscient’s gate, She breathed with difficulty and pain and strove To find the inner self concealed in sense.” Savitri-489 “O human copy and disguise of God Who seekst the deity thou keepest hid And livest by the Truth thou hast known, Follow the world’s winding highway to its source. There in the silence few have ever reached, Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone And deep cavern of thy secret soul.” Savitri-501 “A spirit moved in black immensities And built a thought in ancient Nothingness; A soul was lit in the God’s tremendous Void, A secret laboring glow of nascent fire.” Savitri-622 “Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night:” Savitri-624 Through overhead Supramental descent into Subconscient sheath, the Subconscient Self opens. Thus, a Supramental Centre is established in the Subconscient sheath. Its discovery is described in Savitri as ‘Lord in the shadow and the Night.’²⁷ It is identified as a priceless gift whose ‘value could have saved the world.’¹ 5) Fifth discovery of Inconscient Self or the highest range of Supramental concealed in the Inconscient Sheath:- “A fire in the Night is its mighty action’s blaze.” Savitri-56 “In this drop from consciousness to consciousness Each leaned on the occult Inconscient’s power,” Savitri-89 “The Inconscient found its heart of consciousness, The idea and feeling groping in Ignorance At last clutched passionately the body of Truth, The music born in Matter’s silences Plucked nude out of the Ineffable’s fathomlessness The meaning it had held but could not voice; The perfect rhythm now only sometimes dreamed An answer brought to the torn earth’s hungry need Rending the night that had concealed the Unknown, Giving to her her forgotten soul. A grand solution closed the long impasse In which the heights of mortal effort end.” Savitri-89-90 “Because eternal eyes turned on earth’s gulfs The lucent clarity of a pure regard And saw a shadow of the Unknowable Mirrored in the Inconscient’s boundless sleep, Creation’s search for self (Inconscient Self) began its stir.” Savitri-101 “The Force concealed broke dumbly, slowly out.” Savitri-156 “Impelled by an unseen Will there could break out Fragments of some vast impulse to become And vivid glimpses of a secret self, And the doubtful seeds and force of shapes to be Awoke from the inconscient swoon of things.” Savitri-158 “She turned her dream towards some high Unknown; A breath was felt below of One supreme.” Savitri-159 “The bliss which sleeps in things and tries to wake” Savitri-165 “The secret power (Inconscient Self) in the inconscient depths, Compelling the blinded Godhead to emerge,” Savitri-272 “A black veil has been lifted; we have seen The mighty shadow of the omniscient Lord; But who has lifted up the veil of light And who has seen the body of the King?” Savitri-311 “All seemed to have perished that was undivine: Yet some minutest dissident might escape And still a centre lurk of the blind force. For the Inconscient too is infinite; The more its abysses we insist to sound, The more it stretches, stretches endlessly. Then lest a human cry should spoil the Truth He tore desire up from its bleeding roots And offered to the gods the vacant place. Thus could he bear the touch immaculate.” Savitri-318 “At first glimmering like an unshaped idea Passive she lay sheltered in wordless sleep, Involved and drowned in Matter’s giant trance, An infant heart of the deep-caved world-plan In cradle of divine inconscience rocked By the universal ecstasy of the suns.” Savitri-354 “All in inconscient ecstasy lain wrapped Or under imagination’s coloured lids Held up in a large mirror-air of dream, Broke forth in flame to recreate the world, And in that flame to new things she was born.” Savitri-395 “A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff, A bliss is born that can remake our life.” Savitri-397-98 “Across an intangible border of soul-space He passed from Mind into material things Amid the inventions of the inconscient Self And the workings of a blind somnambulist Force.” Savitri-415 “He sang the Inconscient and its secret self, Its power omnipotent knowing not what it does, All-shaping without will or thought or sense, Its blind unerring occult mystery, And darkness yearning towards the eternal Light, And Love that broods within the deem abyss And waits the answer of the human heart, And death that climbs to immortality.” Savitri-416 “All underwent a high celestial change: Breaking the black Inconscient’s blind mute wall, Effacing the circles of the Ignorance, Powers and divinities burst flaming forth; Each part of the being trembling with delight Lay overwhelmed with tides of happiness And saw her hand in every circumstance And felt her touch in every limb and cell.” Savitri-529 After the activation of the highest ranges of Supramental, which took Sri Aurobindo straight to the innermost chamber of Inconscient sheath and led Him to the discovery of the same intensity of Divine force concealed there as Inconscient Self. The activation of this Self opened new vistas in the transformation action of the world. This Supramental ananda, while dispersing the inconscient sheath, also captures the physical, vital and mental sheaths for transformation action. The revelation of Supramental Energy in the Inconscient Sheath is ‘a grand solution’²⁹ and a confirmation of the acceleration of the individual and universal transformation of nature. This discovery of Inconscient Self is also identified as ‘the last transcendent power,’²⁸ where ‘Matter still slept empty of its Lord.’²⁸ The fundamental difference between the third and fifth discovery is that in the former the Divine force rushes in from head and penetrates the mind, vital and physical centres respectively and finally enter the Subconscient and inconscient sheaths; whereas in the latter the Divine force rushes in from the feet and travels upward from inconscient sheath towards Subconscient, physical, vital and mental sheaths respectively. 6) Sixth discovery or the juxtaposition of the Supramental revealed in the highest plane above the head and the lowest planes below the feet:- “During the experience (of Supreme Ananda), I knew there would be another one, which is yet to come, which would join with this one to form a third, and that junction will change something in the appearances. I don’t know when it will come.”⁸ The Mother “For the evolution proceeded in the past by (1) the upsurging at each critical stage, of a concealed (Supramental) Power from its involution in the Inconscience, but also (2) by a descent from above, from its own plane, of that (Supramental) Power already self-realised in its own higher natural province.”⁹ Sri Aurobindo “A supramental change of the whole substance of the being and therefore necessarily of all its characters, powers, movements takes place when (1) the involved supermind in Nature emerges to meet and join (2) with the supramental light and power descending from Supernature.”¹⁰ Sri Aurobindo “(1) the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and (2) the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition.”⁶ Sri Aurobindo “In other respects the process will be identical, (1) --a Supramental inflow from above, the descent of a Gnostic being into the nature and (2) an emergence of the concealed Supramental force from below; the influx and unveiling between them will remove what is left of the nature of the Ignorance. (2) The rule of the Inconscience will be hanged by the outburst of the greater secret Consciousness within it, the hidden Light, into what it always was in reality, a sea of the secret Superconscience. A first formation of a gnostic consciousness and nature will be the consequence.”⁹ “Impure, degraded though her motions are, Always a heaven-truth broods in life’s deeps; In her obscurest members burns that fire.” Savitri-138-39 “I (Satyavan) sat with the forest sages in their trance: There poured awakening streams of diamond light, (Supramental Self) I glimpsed the presence of the One in all. But still there lacked the last transcendent power (Inconscient Self) And Matter still slept empty of its Lord.” Savitri-405 “This world is a vast unbroken totality, A deep solidarity joins its contrary powers; God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss.” Savitri-541 “The eyes of love gaze starlike through death’s night, The feet of love tread naked hardest worlds. He labours in the depths, exults on the heights; He shall remake thy universe, O Death.” Savitri-592 “The truth above shall wake a nether truth,… The Spirit’s tops and Nature’s base shall draw Near to the secret of their separate truth And know each other as one deity.” Savitri-709 “To meet me in the abyss and on the height… And love me in the noble and vile, In beautiful things and terrible desire.” Savitri-700 “This too the supreme Diplomat can use, He makes our fall a means for greater rise. For into ignorant Nature’s gusty field, Into the half-ordered chaos of mortal life The formless Power, the Self of eternal light Follow in the shadow of the spirit’s descent; The twin duality for ever one Chooses its home mid the tumults of the sense. He comes unseen into our darker parts And, curtained by the darkness, does his work, A subtle and all-knowing guest and guide, Till they too feel the need and will to change.” Savitri-34-35 “Protecting no more a dual eternity ” Savitri-82 (Divine existence above the head and below the feet.) “Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the supramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda .”³² “It (Spirit) is within, below, without, above.” Savitri-98 "Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light , We have turned space into a gulf of peace And made the body a Capitol of bliss." Savitri-531 "On Savitri listening in her tranquil heart To the harmony of the ensnaring voice A joy exceeding earth’s and heaven’s poured down, The bliss of an unknown eternity, A rapture from some waiting Infinite. A smile came rippling out in her wide eyes, Its confident felicity’s messenger As if the first beam of the morning sun Rippled along two wakened lotus-pools . " Savitri-685 “Lain like an infant spirit unaware…. of two consenting worlds.” Savitri-716 “The first and the highest are truth; in the middle there is falsehood, but it is taken between the truth on both sides of it and it draws its being from the truth.” Brihadaranyaka Upanishad-V.5.1. (The meaning of the above line can be interpreted as, that there is a Truth-consciousness or Supramental concealed in the Inconscient sheath below and revealed in the Superconscient sheath above. In to intermediate sheaths of mental, vital and physical planes, falsehood can enter. Truth-consciousness is pressing from both ends to turn the misconstruction and transform the three sheaths into the truth of life and truth of spirit.) “Extended within the Infinite…headless and footless, concealing his two ends.” Rig Veda-IV.1.7,11 (The meaning of the above line can be interpreted as the Supramental is all-pervading and can penetrate all the sheaths and can be approached from the two gates of head and feet.) "All was made wide above, all lit below." Savitri-41 “Two golden serpents round the lintel curled, Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength, Looked out with wisdom’s deep and luminous eyes.” Savitri-524 “Assailed by my infinitudes above, And quivering in immensities below,… A swimmer lost between two leaping seas By my outer pains and inner sweetnesses Finding my joy in my opposite mysteries Thou shat respond to me from every nerve.” Savitri-700 “Two powers from one original ecstasy born… One leans to earth, the other yearns to the skies:” Savitri-684 “Heaven’s leaning down to embrace from all sides earth, A quiet rapture, a vast security.” Savitri-716-17 “If the chamber’s door is even a little ajar, What then can hinder God from stealing in Or who forbid his kiss on the sleeping soul?” Savitri-649 “And bear the splendour of the Divine’s rush And his impetuous knock at unseen doors.” Savitri-709 When the third and fifth discoveries are sustained in the physical substance, then it paves the path clear for the simultaneous action of two Ananda from both ends. The Mother explained that with the activation of this experience, the very appearance of matter would have changed. It is observed that the above five stages of Supramental action culminate in the last experience of possession of the Supramental from all sides. Once these six stages are dynamised in Earth’s atmosphere, they need not adhere to strict sequences of action as there is wide plasticity and catholicity of its function. Depending on the opening of our inner doors, we can undergo any of these experiences and the intensities of these experiences are also controlled automatically by the Supramental force, depending on the preparation of our adhara . Now the Supramental is already dynamised³¹ in all the six stages on earth’s atmosphere and few prepared souls are ready to experience either of the six experiences or all the six experiences constantly and the whole of humanity is exposed unconsciously to such experience intermittently and with lower intensity so that now earth is on the verge of new era of physical transformation. OM TAT SAT References: 1: Savitri-42, 2: The Mother’s Agenda-July 15, 1961, 3: Savitri-601, 4: The Mother’ Agenda- December 11, 1963, 5: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-204-205, 6: “For a real transformation there must be a direct and unveiled intervention from above; there would be necessary too a total submission and surrender of the lower consciousness, a cessation of its insistence, a will in it for its separate law of action to be completely annulled by transformation and lose all rights over our being. If these two conditions can be achieved even now by a conscious call and will in the spirit and a participation of our whole manifested and inner being in its change and elevation, the evolution, the transformation can take place by a comparatively swift conscious change; (1) the supramental Consciousness-Force from above and (2) the evolving Consciousness-Force from behind the veil acting on the awakened awareness and will of the mental human being would accomplish by their united power the momentous transition. There would be no farther need of a slow evolution counting many millenniums for each step, the halting and difficult evolution operated by Nature in the past in the unconscious creatures of the Ignorance.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-956-957, 7: “In order that the involved principles of Overmind and Supermind should emerge from their veiled secrecy, the being and powers of the superconscience must descend into us and uplift us and formulate themselves in our being and powers; this descent is a sine qua non (an essential condition) of the transition and transformation.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-955-956, “But the transition from the mind-self to the knowledge-self is the great and the decisive transition in the Yoga. It is the shaking off of the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance and our firm foundation in the Truth of the things, in a consciousness infinite and eternal and inviolable by obscurity, falsehood, suffering or error.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-475, 8: The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-5/p-79 9: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1002-1003, 10: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-997, 11: CWSA-22/The Life Divinep-970, 12: SABCL-26/On Himself/p-119, 13: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-94-95, 14: “This or something more largely planned on these lines might be regarded as the schematic, logical or ideal account of the spiritual transformation, a structural map of the ascent to the supramental summit, looked at as a succession of separate steps, each accomplished before the passage to the next commences. It would be as if the soul, putting forth an organised natural individuality, were a traveller mounting the degrees of consciousness cut out in universal Nature, each ascent carrying it totally as a definite integer, as a separate body of conscious being, from one state of its existence to the next in order. This is so far correct that a sufficient integration of one status has to be complete before an ascent to the next higher station can be entirely secure: this clear succession might also be the course followed by a few even in the early stages of this evolution, and it might become too a normal process after the whole stair-flight of the evolution had been built and made safe. But evolutionary Nature is not a logical series of separate segments; it is a totality of ascending powers of being which interpenetrate and dovetail and exercise in their action on each other a power of mutual modification. When the higher descends into the lower consciousness, it alters the lower but is also modified and diminished by it; when the lower ascends, it is sublimated but at the same time qualifies the sublimating substance and power. This interaction creates an abundant number of different intermediate and interlocked degrees of the force and consciousness of being, but it also makes it difficult to bring about a complete integration of all the powers under the full control of any one power. For this reason there is not actually a series of simple clear-cut and successive stages in the individual’s evolution; there is instead a complexity and a partly determinate, partly confused comprehensiveness of the movement. The soul may still be described as a traveller and climber who presses towards his high goal by step on step, each of which he has to build up as an integer but must frequently re- descend in order to rebuild and make sure of the supporting stair so that it may not crumble beneath him: but the evolution of the whole consciousness has rather the movement of an ascending ocean of Nature; it can be compared to a tide or a mounting flux, the leading fringe of which touches the higher degrees of a cliff or hill while the rest is still below. At each stage the higher parts of the nature may be provisionally but incompletely organised in the new consciousness while the lower are in a state of flux or formation, partly moving in the old way though influenced and beginning to change, partly belonging to the new kind but still imperfectly achieved and not yet firm in the change. Another image might be that of an army advancing in columns which annexes new ground, while the main body is still behind in a territory overrun but too large to be effectively occupied, so that there has to be a frequent halt and partial return to the traversed areas for consolidation and assurance of the hold on the occupied country and assimilation of its people. A rapid conquest might be possible, but it would be of the nature of an encampment or a domination established in a foreign country; it would not be the assumption, total assimilation, integration needed for the entire supramental change.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-990-991, 15: “It follows that the psychic and the spiritual transformation must be far advanced, even as complete as may be, before there can be any beginning of the third and consummating supramental change; for it is only by this double transmutation that the self-will of the Ignorance can be totally altered into a spiritual obedience to the remoulding truth and will of the greater Consciousness of the Infinite.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963, 16: “And yet (1) the law of participation and (2) the law of surrender are imperative; at each step of the transition (1) the assent of the Purusha is needed and (2) there must be too the consent of each part of the nature to the action of the higher power for its change. (1) There must be then a conscious self-direction of the mental being in us towards this change, this substitution of Supernature for the old nature, this transcendence. (2) The rule of conscious obedience to the higher truth of the spirit, the surrender of the whole being to the light and power that come from the Supernature, is a second condition which has to be accomplished slowly and with difficulty by the being itself before the supramental transformation can become at all possible.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963, 17: “It must become the normal nature of a new type of being ; as mind is established here on a basis of Ignorance seeking for Knowledge and growing into Knowledge, so supermind must be established here on a basis of Knowledge growing into its own greater Light. But this cannot be so long as the spiritual-mental being has not risen fully to supermind and brought down its powers into terrestrial existence. For the gulf between mind and supermind has to be bridged, the closed passages opened and roads of ascent and descent created where there is now a void and a silence. This can be done only by the triple transformation to which we have already made a passing reference : there must first be the psychic change , the conversion of our whole present nature into a soul-instrumentation; on that or along with that there must be the spiritual change, the descent of a higher Light, Knowledge, Power, Force, Bliss, Purity into the whole being, even into the lowest recesses of the life and body, even into the darkness of our subconscience; last, there must supervene the supramental transmutation, — there must take place as the crowning movement the ascent into the supermind and the transforming descent of the supramental Consciousness into our entire being and nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-924, "The mental man that we are is changed into the gnostic soul, the truth-conscious godhead, the vijnanamaya Purusha . Seated on that level of the hill of our ascension we are in a quite different plane from this material, this vital, this mental poise of the universal spirit, and with this change changes too all our view and experience of our soul-life and of the world around us. We are born into a new soul-status and put on a new nature; for according to the status of the soul is the status of the Prakriti. At each transition of the world-ascent, from matter to life, from life to mind, from mind bound to free intelligence, as the latent, half-manifested or already manifest soul rises to a higher and higher level of being, the nature also is elevated into a superior working, a wider consciousness, a vaster force and an intenser or larger range and joy of existence. But the transition from the mind-self to the knowledge-self is the great and the decisive transition in the Yoga. It is the shaking off of the last hold on us of the cosmic ignorance and our firm foundation in the Truth of things , in a consciousness infinite and eternal and inviolable by obscurity, falsehood, suffering or error." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-475, 18: “For action it may still depend upon the mental, vital, bodily instruments, or it may allow them to act according to their own nature and itself remain satisfied with self-experience and self-knowledge, with an inner liberation, an eventual freedom: but it may also and usually does exercise a certain authority, governance, influence on thought, life movement, physical action, a purifying uplifting control compelling them to move in a higher and purer truth of themselves, to obey or be an instrumentation of an influx of some diviner Power or a luminous direction which is not mental but spiritual and can be recognised as having a certain divine character, — the inspiration of a greater Self or the command of the Ruler of all being, the Ishwara. Or the nature may obey the psychic entity’s intimations, move in an inner light, follow an inner guidance. This is already a considerable evolution and amounts to a beginning at least of a psychic and spiritual transformation. But it is possible to go farther; for the spiritual being, once inwardly liberated, can develop in mind the higher states of being that are its own natural atmosphere and bring down a supramental energy and action which are proper to the Truth-consciousness; the ordinary mental instrumentation, life-instrumentation, physical instrumentation even, could then be entirely transformed and become parts no longer of an ignorance however much illumined, but of a supramental creation which would be the true action of a spiritual truth-consciousness and knowledge.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-888, 19: The Mother’s Agenda, August 28, 1968, 20: The Gita-6.47, 21: The Gita-4.3, 22: The Mother’s Agenda, November 7, 1961, 23: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-967-968, 24: The Gita-6.44, 25: The Gita-2.52, 26: The Mother’s Agenda, October 6, 1959, 27: Savitri-624, 28: Savitri-405, 29: Savitri-90, 30: TMCW/Vol-12/On Education/p-38, 31: "The manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognize it." The Mother's Agenda/April-24/1956, 32: CWSA-32/The Mother with letters on the Mother/p-25 Down load this WEB PAGE as a PDF file: "Individually, each one’s goal was to make himself ready, to enter into a more or less intimate individual relationship with this Force (Supramental Force), so as to help the process; or else, if he could not help, at least be ready to recognize and be open to the Force when it would manifest. Then instead of being an alien element in a world in which your OWN inner capacity remains unmanifest, you suddenly become THAT, you enter directly, fully, into the very atmosphere: the Force is there, all around you, permeating you . .. If you had had a little inner contact, you would have recognized it immediately, don’t you think so?... Well, in any event, that was the case for those who had a little inner contact; they recognized it, they felt it, and they said, ‘Ah, there it is! It has come!’" The Mother The Mother's Agenda/May 2, 1956 "If we follow that (the Mother draws a great curve towards the future), he (Sri Aurobindo) foresaw that one day the earth would be a supramental creation – the entire earth ... entirely changed. That means a long, long way ahead. In other words, later, among the supramental race, they will say, "That's all very well, but it's only the beginning. Now, the entire earth has to become a supramental manifestation." Just as from mental man the supramental being was born, so also from the supramental being will be born the powers that will transform the earth.... Do you see it?! It's interesting." The Mother The Mother's Agenda-July 27, 1963

Sri Karthikeya Anurakta "But where is the Lover’s everlasting Yes," Savitri-310 The Vision of Superman "A strict obedience to the wise and intuitive leading of a Guide is also normal and necessary for all but a few specially gifted seekers.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940-941 (This decade-old letter on spiritual and occult experience is produced here after getting consent from Sri K. Anurakta , who had undergone considerable adventure in Consciousness by the time.) Date: 23.08.2002. Dear Maa Krishna, I am posting a reply today to your wonderful E-mails. “The Descent” also received today. With love at Their Feet. Anurakta. Om Namo Bhagavate The Mother's House Brahmapur 22.08.2002 Divine Amar Atman!, My Adorable Father, My deep love and pranam at your feet. To-day is Rakhya Purnima . Yesterday (night of 21.08.2002 from 10 pm. to 12 midnight) I saw an illumined vision on you. I discovered myself in Pondicherry . I was thinking of going to you since it was Rakhya Bandhan day. I met a young Ashramite and asked him whether he can bring for me a Rakhee from the market. He agreed and brought one Rakhee, it was golden colour and there was capital letter 'N' written on it. So I asked him why he brought this type of Rakhee , he replied since your brother's name begins with N so I brought this Rakhee. I told him to bring another Rakhee for me. Then he gave me another Rakhee with the letter Om on it. This Rakhee is intended for you. I took these two Rakhees to Maha Samadhi to get it touched. Then I went to your house. It was not the house of Handmade paper factory but a house in another world… You were in your house in bare body ( upper part). Seeing me you searched for your Dhoti . Your two attendants were also there. They searched for your Dhoti but there were no Dhoti in your house. I felt sorrow and I searched from the nearby almira and got one Dhoti with bluish-white colour. Then I thought whenever I will come from Brahmapur I will bring one Dhoti for you. Then I went to the market in order to purchase two Dhotis for you. When I returned from the market I saw you were meeting two or three nos of beggars who came to meet you. Then you went to your inner chamber. I followed you to that room. Then from your body I saw the Superman (Supramental being) is coming out. I was astonished and thought that since Superman is emerging from your body so no dress is required for you and dresses are vanishing from your house. I also got the instruction to keep this event secret. Kindly acknowledge the receipt of the August issue of 'The Descent' that you will receive soon (it was sent on 19.08.2002). After seeing this dream I am hopeful and getting Ananda . With our deep love and prayer. At Their Lotus Feet S.A. Maa Krishna. N.B. As later recollected initially in the dream your body colour was yellowish white. When Superman came out of your body, the colour of the body of Superman was shining copper. The vibration of the event was exceptional as great action took place. OM SRI AUROBINDO MAA 23.08.2002 Very Dear Maa Krishna, Thank you very much for your E-mail of 22.08.2002 which have really overwhelmed me. (I am not E-mailing this letter/ acknowledgement as my Email are sent by a staff member and for this I cherish privacy.) The clarity, truth and force of your vision and The Mother’s confirmation of its accuracy have been much more than I could have anticipated. I have been aware for a year or so that an area of my body not to the bottom (lowest) Chakra have Supramental vibrations, but this amounts to a few hundred cells compared with the vast number of cells in the body. So is because of this that my legs and left foot have been reacting so strangely. I have few visions as my vital being separates itself from ‘me’ very easily and leaves me to sleep and dream with little higher vitality. But from the few ‘visions’ and am permitted to remember they all concern themselves with defending the Ashram from powerfully negative occult forces. So the experience described by you comes as a heavy impact for I have no visions or dreams of my life in the Ashram at any level. My highest (or deepest) yearning or aspiration is to fully surrender to Sri Aurobindo and to unite with His Consciousness. But I am of course dedicated to continuing Their work in this body for as long as it is needed. Your observation about Dhotis is nicely relevant and also amusing as I have so many Dhotis it seems after giving older ones away. But of course, the transformed being will not need such things. The reference to meeting beggars is most appropriate as not only do I have the highest admiration for Avadhoots but I feel it is also important that in our aspiration for Supramentality we do not leave the beggar and very poor people too far behind. I am keeping your E-mail as a ‘treasure’ to remind me of the higher aspect of my Sadhana during the continuous days of effort and service! The Mother confirms that the shining Copper is the correct body colour in this context. I will acknowledge ‘The Descent’ as soon as I receive it. (Just arrived on my Desk!!) My love to you…. And my gratitude for your spiritual clarity. At Their Feet, Signed Sri K. Anurakta “Either man must fulfil himself by satisfying the Divine within him or he must produce out of himself a new and greater being who will be more capable of satisfying it. He must either himself become a divine humanity or give place to a Superman.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-222 “All that [ideas such as “everything will soon be spiritualised”] is absurd. The descent of the supramental means only that the Power will be there in the earth consciousness as a living force just as the thinking mental and the higher mental are already there. But an animal cannot take advantage of the presence of the thinking mental Power or an undeveloped man of the presence of the higher mental Power — so too everybody will not be able to take advantage of the presence of the supramental Power. I have also often enough said that it will be at first for the few, not for the whole earth, — only there will be a growing influence of it on the earth life.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-290 “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.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-288-290 Sri Matriniketan Ashram Sri Aurobindo Centre, Managed by The Mother’s International Centre Trust, Regd.No-146/24.11.97. Vill: Ramachandrapur, PO: Kukudakhandi-761100, Via: Brahmapur, Dist: Ganjam, State: Odisha, India https://www.srimatriniketanashram.com/education/photo Sri K Anurakta's Photos Sri K Anurakta's Childhood Photos Sri K Anurakta and the Evolution of Sri Matriniketan Ashram (Kindle Book) Sri K. Anurakta’s surface personality is hinted from the following information:- Date of Birth: 5th February-1932, 7.30 A.M., Place of Birth: Bournemouth, U.K. Name given by parents: ANTONY DAVID ROCHELLE The Mother gave the name ‘ANURAKTA’ in November 1961 and he added the prefix KARTIKEYA later on. Met the Mother at Pondicherry at the age of 28, in the year 1960 and stayed permanently. Name in the passport: ANTONY DAVID KARTIKEYA ANURAKTA . Date of departure of earthly body: 25.09.2014. We felt in Sri K. Anurakta the Presence of perfect Arya and our exceedingly good fortune in meeting him: “ The perfect Arhat (Arya) is he who is able to live simultaneously in all these three apparent states of existence (a consciousness which is at once transcendental, universal and individual), elevate lower into higher, receive higher into the lower, so that he may represent perfectly in the symbols of the world that with which he is identified in all parts of his being, the triple and triune Brahman .” "This will be to him his (a Sadhaka of Integral Yoga) exceeding good fortune if he can meet one who has realised or is becoming That which he seeks for and can by opening to it in this vessel of its manifestation himself realise it." "The safest way is to follow the guidance of someone who has himself attained to mastery in the path. Only that guidance should be implicitly and sincerely followed; one’s own mind and its ideas and fancies must not be allowed to interfere. It goes without saying that it must be a true guidance, not the leading of a tyro or an impostor." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-444, CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130 CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-810 “And it shall also be a sign of the teacher of the integral Yoga that he does not arrogate to himself Guruhood in a humanly vain and self-exalting spirit. His work, if he has one, is a trust from above, he himself a channel, a vessel or a representative. He is a man helping his brothers, a child leading children, a Light kindling other lights, an awakened Soul awakening souls, at highest a Power or Presence of the Divine calling to him other powers of the Divine. Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-67-68 “As for the disciple, I would tell him: “In all cases, be faithful to your guru whoever he is; he will lead you as far as you can go. But if you have the good fortune to have the Divine as your guru, there will be no limit to your realisation.”" The Mother TMCW-12/On Education/p-63,

The Mother and Integral Tantra "My (Savitri's) soul and his indissolubly linked.... To bring God down to the world on earth we came," Savitri-692 “…when Sri Aurobindo and I were working to bring down the Supramental forces, a descent from the mental plane to the vital plane, He was always telling me that everything I did (when we meditated together, when we worked)—all my movements, all my gestures, all my postures (mudras ), all my reactions—was absolutely tantric, as if I had pursued a tantric discipline. But it was spontaneous, it did not correspond to any knowledge, any idea, any will, nothing, and I thought it was like that simply because, as He knew, naturally I followed.”¹⁷ “When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric – and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras .”¹³ “And he gave me his own example (I had mine, too) of certain things considered dangerous or bad, which we both did independently and spontaneously and which were a great help to us!”¹⁸ The Mother The Mother and Integral Tantra “Even Vaishnavism and Tantra are in the end other-worldly; mukti is the aim of their efforts and anything else could be only incidental and secondary or a result on the way.”⁸ “Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here (in Integral Yoga) the object is the divine fulfilment of life.”⁸ Sri Aurobindo The Supreme manifested as Lord Sri Krishna, who guided¹⁹ Sri Aurobindo to trace the passage of the Supramental, hinted and lying neglected in some of the verses of the Vedas and the Upanishadas and this guidance of calling down the Supramental Force to mind continued till The Mother’s final arrival at Pondicherry in 1920. She further guided²⁰ Sri Aurobindo to trace the Supramental or calling down It to the Vital, Physical, Subconscient and Inconscient Sheath, about which She had already undergone experience in Algeria ,²¹ before Her coming to Pondicherry. The Supramental action They had come to intensify were initiated from the very beginning of Their Sadhana life from Alipore jail in 1908 and from Algeria in 1904 respectively. The above incidence indicates that the Divine’s extraneous support in the form of the Mothe r is of far-reaching value compared to the Divine’s essential subtle guidance in the form of Sri Krishna and both are complementary to complete Sri Aurobindo’s Spiritual action on earth. The above incidence also hints that the Mother’s Tantric foundation¹⁷ of the Developed Soul appears to be ‘more bold and forceful’⁵ than Sri Aurobindo’s more subtle and Spiritually secured Vedantic foundation, though Their path and goal are same²² and complementary to each other. For us, Sri Aurobindo is the symbol of Supramentalised Spiritual Being with movement of comprehensive Consciousness. The Mother is the symbol of Supramentalised Psychic Being with the same comprehensive Consciousness destined for physical transformation. The other superiority of the Tantra is that the elements which are identified as enemy of Spiritual life in the Vedanta are accepted here as means of attaining the dynamic Divine union. From the Mother’s life we observe that the elements that are forbidden¹⁸ for the Spiritual seekers are utilised as means of Supreme realisation. That is Her Divine prerogative and Sri Aurobindo was not only the Mother possessed but also the Mother guided, the Mother consecrated and the Mother protected. Thus, few can collaborate to Her Divine Call and very few can unite with Her Divinity in totality and possess Her endurance that is felt indispensable for Cellular transformation.²³ Also from above Spiritual experiences, integral Yoga has evolved the double movement (1) of escape into higher Nature by rejection of lower Nature and (2) of transformation of lower Nature by the invasion of higher Nature. The Vedanta insists on union with static Divine,² Paramatma , and Tantra insists on union with dynamic Divine Mother, Para-prakriti and in integral Yoga both the truths are reconciled. Integral Yoga accepts the Vedantic methods of self-discipline and rejects the old Tantric methods of self-discipline or ‘Tantra deals more with forms and processes and organised powers — all these could not be taken as they were.’⁷ Integral Tantra Yoga is a many-sided supernormal Spiritual science which ‘needs to develop its own forms and processes,’⁷ and it has developed its own great and powerful system of self-discipline and self-realisation. It has accepted methods of traditional Occultism as dispensable means of self-discipline and the essence of ‘other Tantrik knowledge are there behind the process of transformation.’⁷ Integral Yoga relies on its own pure Spiritual truth and strength, discourages the occult knowledge¹⁶ and powers as dangerous lures and entangling obstacles and seeks ‘a Tantrik knowledge behind the process of transformation’¹⁰ through safe mystic inward Psychisization and Spiritualization and sheer contact with the Spiritual Reality. All life is Yoga of absolute adoration of the Divine Mother, the worship of Shakti , Energy, the movement of dynamic Consciousness by which one will arrive at the perfection of Self, perfection of Nature and perfection of Life. Integral Yoga accepts the aims of Tantra wholly while rejecting its methods in the preliminary state, but after the Yoga is established on a safe Spiritual foundation, an Integral Yogi can return upon the methods of Tantra or the Psycho-Physical Sciences as the special means of integration. An Integral Tantra Yogi will be preoccupied with the secret of subtle mental, subtle vital, subtle physical and their hidden energies and knowledge of this Supraphysical, Supravital and Supramental Science are necessary for the completion of physical, vital and mental knowledge. The method of traditional Tantra Yoga differs from Integral Tantra Yoga in the sense that in the former discipline the opening of six psycho-physical chakras are pursued from below¹¹ through upward rise of serpent power¹² while in the latter this may be optionally used at certain stage of sadhana but are not indispensable;¹¹ here the reliance is stressed on the power of higher being to change the lower existence; the opening of six chakras are experienced from above down ward¹⁰ and therefore to make this experience practicable⁹ the development of superior power of Gnosis of Spiritual and Supramental Self will be awaited as precondition of instrumentative change. The other disadvantage of traditional tantra is that it is often misused³ by those who are not Tantrics and for opening of the Kundalini , this Yoga asks the physical presence of the Guru . Integral Tantra Yoga can begin by disciplining Desire, the great unquiet harasser and troubler of man and cause of every kind of Spiritual fall and it will be transformed into the Divine Delight of its purest form. Firstly, we have to recognise the craving-life force or desire soul overlap as multiple layers over the inmost Psychic being and teach them to renounce all other desire and concentrate itself on the passion of the Divine only; secondly, after strengthening this capital point one has to further train to desire not for its own separate sake, but for the God in ourselves, God in the world and God in the Transcendence. Our sadhana will not seek for any personal Spiritual gain, because that is the basis of egoistic existence, but to universalize that experience and great work can be done through us for others and we can be instrumental in the glorious fulfilment of the Divine in the world through high incoming manifestation so that the Divine Truth can be sought and lived and enthroned for ever; lastly, the most difficult lesson is to learn to desire not in its egoistic way but in the way of the Divine. It must renounce the strong insistence of separative will and its own manner of fulfilment and its own dream of possession, its own idea of right and desirable; it must learn the lesson to fulfil the greater and larger Divine Will and consent to wait upon a less interested and ignorant guidance. If our sense-mind, emotional mind, intellectthought mind could act free from the intrusions of desire and if that energy could be made to obey their right action instead of imposing its own yoke on our existence, all human problems would move harmoniously to their right solution. Integral Tantra Yoga revives the old Vedic Sacrifice of worship of all things, all the four instrumental natures as offering to the Divine Shakti. It will use all mundane knowledge, all untransformed nature as lever of supreme Divine union and Divine transformation. Its method will be the finding of the Self by agitating, exciting, wrestling, disciplining and conquering the Nature. It can use the mantra or japa or repetition of a significant name of traditional Tantra to bring ‘the divine energy into the body and prepares for and facilitates the concentration in Samadhi ’¹ in four degrees of status: the Waking Self, the Dream Self, the Sleep Self and the final absolute trance of Turiya . The double advantages of Japa in Integral Tantra Yoga are its mechanical repetition will help the transformation of the physical mind and its conscious repetition will help to dynamise the Vedic sacrifice and activate Subconscient transformation. The revival of the double Vedic movement in Integral Tantra Yoga are that (1) the descent and birth of the gods in the human creature or first the descent of Divine Force is experienced by breaking down the veils of instrumental nature known as physical mind, emotional mind, vital mind, sensory mind and intellectual mind through activation of Nature annulling the false gulf between the Divine and His Manifestation and (2) we can then take up through the Truth-mind all our mental, vital and physical experience and offer it up to the spiritual –to be converted into the terms of the infinite truth of Sachchidananda or ascent of the human powers that struggle towards the Divine knowledge, power and delight and climbs into the Godheads, the result of which was a possession of the One, the Infinite, the Beatific existence, the union with God, the Immortality. By possession of this Ideal plane, we break down entirely the opposition of the lower and higher existence, the false gulf created by the Ignorance between the finite and the Infinite, God and Nature, the One and the Many, opens the gates of the Divine, fulfils the individual in the complete harmony of the Cosmic Consciousness and realises in the cosmic being the epiphany of the transcendent Sachchidananda . The Message of The Mother book: “There is one divine Force which acts in the universe and in the individual and is also beyond the individual and the universe. The Mother stands for all these, but She is working here in the body to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here—it is so that you should regard her as the Divine Shakti working here for that purpose.”²⁴ Sri Aurobindo “But, as the spiritual consciousness is intrinsic and self-existent, so too this force of our spiritual being must be intrinsic, automatic in action, self- existent and self-fulfilling.”³² Sri Aurobindo “But when new capacities come as an inevitable result of the growth into a greater consciousness and a greater life and that growth is part of the very aim of the spiritual being within us, this bar (misuse of power) does not operate; for a growth of the being into supernature and its life in supernature cannot take place or cannot be complete without bringing with it a greater power of consciousness and a greater power of life and the spontaneous development of an instrumentation of knowledge and force normal to that supernature.”³³ Sri Aurobindo ‘The Mother’ book is recognised by few as a continuation of sadhana of ‘Yoga of Self-perfection’ revealed in Sri Aurobindo’s principal teachings, The Synthesis of Yoga . The objective of this book is to enter into a dynamic relation with the Divine through the activation of the Soul in the mind. This discovery of Spiritual Self and dynamising it as four-fold Divine Mahashakti paves the passage clear for ‘largest development’ in ‘shortest way’²⁵ and ‘shortest time.’ This principal Shastra gives utmost importance to the accumulation of fourfold Soul Force and fourfold Spiritual Force and their activation can be utilised as a means of Divine Perfection. Thus, the whole range of human life experiences liberation of Soul and transformation of Nature. Since The Mother book appears to be a book of practice for developed Souls who have received the second Divine Call of union with dynamic Divine Mother, so, for us, as developing Souls, this is a book of supreme awareness of higher Spiritual life and this awareness will help in succeeding births to pursue this Yoga seriously and entirely. The Mother book gives the message of drawing benefit from The Mother’s external Avatarahood, who is worshipped throughout the ages under myriad names and forms. She reveals Herself in the physical world with some tiny ray of Her Divine Power, Divine Quality and Divine Presence through ‘limited temperament and action’⁴² of Divine Workers, illumined Disciples, inner Warriors, ideal Sadhakas , good Trustees, Instruments, Emanations and King Children. Through Her help, one can ascend the ladder of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental planes and can experience the largest development in the shortest possible time. Here the Soul’s (Jivatma) relation with the Divine (Paramatma) in the form of Divine and Devotee, Teacher and Disciple, Master and Slave, ‘the Father and the Son of certain symbolisms, the Divine Being (Narayana ) and the divine Man (Nara )’⁴³ is transformed into the Mother and consecrated Child relation and one will be established in the Consciousness of Soul’s childhood after one ascends in the stair of Worker, Servant, Instrument and Slave. This state of oneness with the Divine Mother is a developed Soul status closer to the Supramental world and is different from the unripe ‘child-soul’⁴⁴ as hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga and the unripe child-soul, bala,⁴ as hinted in the Gita . The Mother’s mission on earth is to build our Soul and Nature into the Divine Truth in consistent with the decrees of the Supreme and draws us irresistibly towards the supreme ecstasies, the highest heights, the noblest aims and the largest vistas. Thus, She lifts Her Psychicised and Spiritualised children into the supramental status after prolonged training through partial Divine union and subsequently through complete Divine union. Our Mission or the one and only purpose for which our life is destined is the Divine Work without all desire and self-regarding ego; all our life and not a part of life must be an offering to the Supreme and we must give ourselves completely without condition, demand and reservation and our only object in action shall be (1) to serve selflessly, (2) to receive inner growth, (3) to fulfil the Mother’s Presence, (4) to become a manifesting instrument of the Divine Shakti in Her works. The perfection sought by us is to be one with Her in Her highest Spiritual and Universal action and to realise and possess the fullness of Her Shakti in our individual life. Integral Yoga can begin with the aid of this book. Here, simultaneous growth of triple aspiration, triple rejection and triple surrender of lower Nature, Apara Prakriti of mind, life and body followed by triple growth of sincerity and triple faith, are to be practised. The simultaneous growth of the above fifteen faculties is practicable only in Multiple and Integral concentration, and since we at present live with our mind with its exclusive concentration so we can concentrate on the development of one faculty at a time and thus one by one we will have to concentrate on the development of the fifteen faculties. Aspiration is the unveiling of the pure flame of the Purusha . The withdrawal of the deformed nature of Apara prakriti by the indwelling Purusha is defined as rejection. Prakriti’s submission before Purusha is defined as surrender. Prakriti’s concentration around the Purusha is defined as Sincerity. The flow of Purusha’s attributes of Force, Love, Delight, Peace, and Silence into the untransformed Prakriti is supported by faith. The above five self-disciplines are initially pursued by personal effort of mind and finally by the pressure of Divine Shakti . The ego’s faltering endeavour to unite with the Divine is defined as personal effort. Shakti as the Divine’s dynamic Consciousness, replaces the personal effort in higher planes of Consciousness. Aspiration, rejection and surrender are related with ascending movement of consciousness and a contact with the static Divine is established. Similarly, faith, sincerity and surrender are related with manifestation of dynamic Divine in the lower sheaths through the descent of Divine consciousness. A balance between the Divine union and Divine manifestation can be established by strengthening all five elements of Yoga. Out of these, surrender is treated as the crown and central truth of integral Yoga, which can be increased by the practice of concentration, samyama , through the rejection of lower Nature. Ascending movements of surrender are identified as tamasic surrender, rajasic surrender, sattwic surrender, surrender of Kshara, Akshara and Uttama Purusha . Absolute surrender to the Divine Shakti is identified as the right condition to live in Divine’s permanent Supramental Presence through prolonged Psychic and Spiritual transformation. The Psychic training¹⁴ is the energising of the Psychic sheath in the heart by opening the Psychic being and leading towards the emergence of a new faculty of law of consecration, awareness of true motive of life, knowledge on past, present and future, limitless expansion of Consciousness to arrive at universality. Psychic opening draws one towards the immortal life, ever progressive change, unbroken continuity in the world of forms, meets the Immanent God dwelling in each form. The true Psychic Soul is the flame of the Godhead, always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness which obscures our outward life. It is the flame born out of the luminous Divine inhabitant in the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the Divine heights and largeness. Our true Soul is a pure power of light, love, joy, beauty and harmony. It is the individual Soul, the Chaitya Purusha , supporting Mind, Life and Body and standing behind the subtle mental, vital and physical being, watching and profiting by their development in us. This inmost Psychic entity puts forward a Psychic personality which flowers as the saint, the sage and the seer and it changes, grows and develops from life to life; for this is also the traveller from birth to death and from death to birth and our nature is its manifold changing robe. The Spiritual training¹⁵ is the energising of the Spiritual sheath above the head by opening the Spiritual being and leading towards the discovery of a vast static and silent Self which we feel as our real basic existence, realise our extinction, a Nirvana both of our active Nature and of the sense of Self into a Reality that is indefinable and inexpressible and we realise that this Self is not only our Spiritual being but the true self of all others or cosmic Self. The Spiritual opening throws one outside all creation, draws to live in infinite and eternal consciousness, which is timeless and spaceless, and meets the transcendent God beyond all forms. The Mother’s Spiritual Consciousness mediates between the sanction of the Supramental Grace from above and the fixed unfailing human aspiration that calls from the Psychic being below. Thus, it is the very highest Supramental Force descending from above and an opening towards it from below (mind, life and body) can victoriously handle and transform the difficulties of physical Nature. The three elements of transformation are identified as Consciousness, Plasticity and unreserved Surrender. The unreserved glad surrender of inner and outer being will awaken consciousness everywhere and bring plasticity into all the parts of nature. Even the body too will awake at last to the touch of the Supramental Force and feel all Her powers permeating from above the head, below the feet and all around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda . The starting point of the Mother’s Yoga is to detect first what is false or obscure in a seeker and persistently reject it. Life’s flowering is dependent on degree of rejection of falsehood, ignorance and rejection of ‘the slavery of the human way of thinking and acting.’⁴⁵ This will permit the unfailing aspiration to rise like a flame from his Psychic being and burn upward towards heaven. Then, the submission of his Prakriti near the Purusha which is identified as surrender, permits the Prakriti to merge with Purusha and the partial Divine Union is realised. This Divine union causes Prakriti to concentrate more and more around Purusha, which is identified as sincerity. Through sincerity, his union with the Divine is prolonged and Sraddha becomes active in which the Purusha pours down into Prakriti its attributes in the form of Truth, Love, Delight, Will, Wisdom and the Divine Shakti is realised. Then this action of divine Shakti becomes frequent and constant and one realises oneness with the Shakti . This is identified as the last stage of perfection and he is completely identified with the Divine Mother and feels himself to be no longer another and separate being, worker, servant, instrument and slave but truly a Child and eternal portion of Her Supramental Consciousness and Force. This Consciousness and Force utilises each moment to transform mind, life and body and shape in the midst of imperfection for the perfection that is to come and when the Four Spiritual Mahashaktis have founded their harmony and freedom of movement, then the Supermind and those other rarer Powers of Supreme Ananda manifest in the earth movement and they lift his being as Gnostic and Bliss Soul. He meets the Mother directly as Supramental Mahashakti and the Supramental action becomes possible. In the Supramental, all the movements are the steps of Truth and possess his outer life with the purity of Divine Love and for the perfection of outer life, the Money and Power are to be reconciled with Divine Love. Thus, wealth is brought under perfect Supramental control and a Sadhaka carrying Supramental energy, not the intermediate Psychic and Spiritual energy, has to reconquer wealth for the Divine to whom it belongs and uses it divinely for the Divine life only. The Important Secret of The Mother Book or Dynamic Divine union: ‘The last stage of this perfection will come when you are completely identified with the Divine Mother and feel yourself to be no longer another and separate being, instrument, servant or worker but truly a child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force. Always she will be in you and you in her; it will be your constant, simple and natural experience that all your thought and seeing and action, your very breathing or moving come from her and are hers. You will know and see and feel that you are a person and power formed by her out of herself, put out from her for the play and yet always safe in her, being of her being, consciousness of her consciousness, force of her force, ananda of her Ananda . When this condition is entire and her Supramental energies can freely move you, then you will be perfect in divine works; knowledge, will, action will become sure, simple, luminous, spontaneous, flawless, an outflow from the Supreme, a divine movement of the Eternal.’³⁴ The More Important Secret of The Mother Book or complete Divine union: “There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below (Psychic Being) and a supreme Grace (Supramental Being) from above that answers.”³⁵ Its complementary line: “The Supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But that the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below (Annamaya Purusha, Pranamaya Purusha, Manamaya Purusha and Chaitya Purusha ) with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above (Vijnanmaya Purusha and Anandamaya Purusha ).”³⁶ The Most Important Secret of The Mother Book or Total Dynamic Divine Transformation: “Even the body will awake and unite at last its consciousness subliminal no longer to the Supramental superconscious Force, feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda .”³⁷ The above words can be linked with following lines: “Our life is entrenched between two rivers of Light, We have turned space into a gulf of peace And made the body a Capitol of bliss.” Savitri-531 "Then in the process of evolving Time All shall be drawn into a single plan, A divine harmony shall be earth’s law, Beauty and joy remould her way to live: Even the body shall remember God, " Savitri-707 “The first and the highest are truth; in the middle there is falsehood, but it is taken between the truth on both sides of it and it draws its being from the truth.” Brihadaranyaka Upanishad-V.5.1. (The meaning of above line can be interpreted as, there is a Truth-Consciousness or Supramental concealed in the Inconscient sheath below and revealed in the Superconscient sheath above. In between these two, the intermediate sheaths of Subconscient, Physical, Vital, Mental, Psychic, Spiritual and Universal planes exist where falsehood can enter or ‘All was a chaos of true and false,’ (Savitri-244). Truth-consciousness is pressing from both ends to turn the misconstruction and transform the seven sheaths into the truth of life and truth of spirit.) “Extended within the Infinite…headless and footless, concealing his two ends.” Rig Veda-IV.1.7, 11 (The meaning of the above line can be interpreted as the Supramental is all pervading and can penetrate all the sheaths and can be approached from the two gates of head and feet.) In The Mother book, the first secret of receiving Divine call, “a fixed unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers,”²⁷ and the last secret of physical transformation, “feel all her powers permeating from above and below and around it and thrill to a supreme Love and Ananda ,”²⁸ are included in its discussion. Cellular transformation is the last transition through which humanity can proceed through development of the three elements of Yoga that of awakening integral consciousness in all parts of being, integral plasticity of Para and Apara-Prakriti and integral surrender known as combination of Purusha Yajna and Prakriti Yajna . The Intermediate and the Highest Hinted Secret of The Mother Book: The Mother book hints about executrix and creatrix Mother Powers but never developed it. But it has developed sufficiently the powers and personalities of the Mediatrix Spiritual Mother. The Executrix Psychic Mother: “Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature (four-fold Psychic Mother) and see her with the psychic vision (through essential concentration) that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten their psychic elements your mind (with Brahma Shakti ) and heart (with Kshetra Shakti ) and life (with Vaisya Shakti ) and physical consciousness (with Shudra Shakti ) and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.”³⁷ (The four-fold Psychic Mother Powers are hinted here but never developed. It is developed in The Synthesis of Yoga and hinted in the Gita as chaturvarnam mayasrustam . (The Gita-4.13)) The Creatrix Supramental Mother: “...it is only the very highest supramental Force descending from above and opening from below (recognition of this Force by mind, life and body) that can victoriously handle the physical Nature and annihilate its difficulties…”³⁵ The Creatrix Bliss Mother: “There are other great Personalities of the Divine Mother, but they were more difficult to bring down and have not stood out in front with so much prominence in the evolution of the earth-spirit. There are among them Presences indispensable for the Supramental realisation, --most of all one who is her Personality of that mysterious and powerful ecstasy and Ananda ("The eyes of the creatrix Bliss are closed" Savitri-628) ("The Bliss that made the world has fallen asleep." Savitri-628) which flows from a supreme divine Love, the Ananda that alone can heal the gulf between the highest heights of the Supramental spirit and the lowest abysses of the Matter, the Ananda that holds the key of a wonderful divinest Life and even now supports from its secrecies the work of all the other Powers of the universe.”³⁸ “Some rapture of the bliss that made the world,” Savitri-704 “The bliss that made the world in his body lived,” Savitri-682 (The Bliss Mother stationed in the heart centre.) "The All-Blissful sat unknown within the heart;" (the King Aswapati was not aware of the Bliss Mother coming down to live in the heart centre.) Savitri-43 The Supreme Word of The Mother book: The Mahavakya or the supreme word of The Mother book is identified as : The power that mediates between the sanction of Supramental Force and the call of Mind, Life, Body and Psychic being is the Spiritual presence and power of the Mediatrix Divine Mother. The Creatrix Mother’s Supramental power and not any human Mental endeavour, intermediate Psychic and Spiritual tapasya can alone rend the lid of Over mind⁴⁸ and tear the golden covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Supramental Truth and Supramental Light and Life Divine and the immortal’s Ananda. ³⁶ This supreme word is linked with The Life Divine as: “A long, difficult stage of constant effort, energism, austerity of the personal will, tapasya, has ordinarily to be traversed before a more decisive stage can be reached in which a state of self-giving of all the being to the Supreme Being and the Supreme Nature can become total and absolute.”³⁹ “The method of detachment from the insistence of all mental and vital and physical claims and calls and impulsions, a concentration in the heart, austerity, self-purification and rejection of the old mind movements and life movements, rejection of the ego of desire, rejection of false needs and false habits, are all useful aids to this difficult passage: but the strongest, most central way is to found all such or other methods on a self-offering and surrender of ourselves and of our parts of nature to the Divine Being, the Ishwara .”⁴⁰ This supreme word is linked with The Synthesis of Yoga as: “This character of our actually realised being and therefore our Yoga imposes on us certain limitations and primary difficulties which can only be overcome by (1) divine help (by consecration) or (2) an arduous practice, and in reality (3) only by the combination of both these aids.”⁴¹ This supreme word of The Mother book can be linked with the supreme word, paramam vacah, of the Gita which repeats: “Sarva dharman paritejya mam ekam saranam braja . (The Gita-18.66) Abandon all laws of mind, life and body and take refuge in My supreme Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being alone.” Or “Listen again to My supreme word, the most secret truth of all; intimate beloved art thou of Me, therefore shall I speak this for thy highest good. Become My-minded, My lover and adorer, a sacrificer to Me, bow thyself to Me; to Me thou shalt come, this is My pledge and promise to thee, for dear art thou to Me. Abandon all lower dharmas , laws of mind, life and body and take refuge in Me alone, My highest Dharma . I will deliver thee from all sin and evil of apara prakriti , do not grieve.” The Gita-18.64, 65, 66. The supreme word of The Mother book can be linked with the supreme word, paramam vacah , of Savitri , where we can meet the consecrated Satyavan as: “If there is a yet happier greater god, Let him first wear the face of Satyavan And let his soul be one with him I love; So let him seek me (Savitri alone) that I may desire.” Savitri-614 Like the Supreme secret, rahasyam uttamam , the Supreme Word, Paramam vacah of the Gita and integral Yoga are almost the same, which is the highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide, Purushottama . “Abandon all dharmas, give thyself to the Divine alone, to the supreme Godhead above and around and within thee: that is all that thou needest, that is the truest and greatest way, that is the real deliverance.”²⁹ In integral Yoga, the Purushottama state is also dynamised as Para Prakriti , the Divine Mother, the Supramental Mahashakti, carrying within Herself the Akshara and Kshara ; regarding Akshara, She is the intermediate Para Shakti of fourfold Spiritual Power, holding the Immutable Purusha in Her Self; in regard to Kshara , She is the intermediate Para Prakriti of fourfold Soul force, mobile cosmic energy manifesting all beings and becoming, holding the mutable Purusha within Her. In integral Yoga, the Vedanta or the Gita and the Tantra are synthesised; the former draws back from world nature and leans on the Ishwara aspect of the Divine for supreme realisation, whereas the latter possesses and dominates the world nature and leans on the Ishwari aspect of the Divine for supreme realisation. The Mother book asks the truth seekers who have received the second Divine call, to fulfil at least four conditions for the constant flow of Supreme Grace that can annihilate all difficulties of Physical nature. These four conditions are “total and sincere surrender,” “exclusive self opening to the divine Power,” “constant and integral choice of the Truth that is descending,” and “constant and integral rejection of falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth Nature.”³⁰ The highest declaration with which it confirms the transformation action is to depend on The Mother’s Supramental Power alone in preference to any human mental endeavour and Spiritual tapasya, which alone can bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal’s Ananda .³¹ Recapitulation: “An almighty occultist erects in Space This seeming outward world which tricks the sense; He weaves his hidden threads of consciousness, He builds bodies for his shapeless energy; Out of the unformed and vacant Vast he has made His sorcery of solid images, His magic of formative number and design, The fixed irrational links none can annul, This criss-cross tangle of invisible laws; His infallible rules, his covered processes, Achieve unerringly an inexplicable Creation where our error carves dead frames Of knowledge for a living ignorance.” Savitri-84 “Occultism is a science and it is the knowledge of invisible forces and the capacity to handle them, as one has the capacity of handling material forces if one has studied them scientifically.”⁴⁷ The Mother “Occultism is in its essence man’s effort to arrive at a knowledge of secret truths and potentialities of Nature which will lift him out of slavery to his physical limits of being , an attempt in particular to possess and organise the mysterious, occult, outwardly still undeveloped direct power of Mind upon Life and of both Mind and Life over Matter.”⁴⁶ Sri Aurobindo In traditional schools, the exclusive worship²⁶ of the Divine Mother for all attainment gets momentum in Tantra . The traditional Tantric Yoga differs from Integral Tantra Yoga in the sense that the former perfection of suddhi, siddhi, mukti and bhukti are universalized and Supramentalised in the latter, as All-Purification, All-Perfection, All-Liberation and All-Delight and the worship of the personal Mother is realised in Her Individual, Universal and Transcendent form. In traditional Tantra the Divine Mother is the giver of the four boons that of artha , opulence, kama , pure enjoyment, dharma, the right Law of life and Mokhya , liberation; the same boon is transformed in integral Tantra Yoga of (1) conquest of all the money power of the earth for the Divine, (2) all delight born out of integral union with the Divine, (3) the Divine Law of Truth born out of Divine Will, Knowledge and Love whose outward and external form is the plastic Norms of Integral Yoga and the (4) liberation of Soul, universalisation of Soul, transformation of whole individual Nature and individual becoming the centre of world transformation. The consecration to the One Mother can be entire and complete if it includes the adoration of myriad living virgin Mothers and Feminine Deities of our time, All-Mother of All Time, all Godheads, Men, Creatures and Objects. In Integral Tantra Yoga the One whom we adore as the embodied Divine Mother is also the Universal and Transcendent Mother of all Time, extended through all life and Her Infinite Consciousness is that which rests on the One and acts in the All, resulting in infinite Action, Creation, Ananda, Love and Beauty. To know Sri Aurobindo entirely, the integrated tapasya or askesis aspect of King Aswapati and the integrated consecration of Satyavan at the feet of the Divine Mother must be reconciled and experienced extensively. For the entire knowledge on The Mother one has to explore Savitri’s Yogic force, Mother force and Virgin force of Para-prakriti or Executrix Psychic Mother power, Mediatrix Spiritual Mother power and Creatrix Supramental and Bliss Mother power, through exploration of the book The Synthesis of Yoga, The Mother and Savitri respectively and realise how Her immaculate Consciousness gives Divine touch to all like Sun Light and yet She remains untouched, pure and virgin eternally. Or Her Divine Birth, Divine Play and all Her Divine action are identified as descent of Para-prakriti into Apara-prakriti by which this world is upheld and the new Supramental creation is under formation. Her three Mother Powers are also to be linked with Her fourth Power, Chetana Shakti , Consciousness Power, as explored in The Life Divine . Here, all life is seen and realised in the realm of Consciousness and through the lessons of the movement of Consciousness as ascent of Soul and descent of Shakti, one can know Them partly and then through intensification of this movement and realisation of comprehensive Consciousness, one can know Them wholly. To restate again, to build an integral personality asks entire knowledge of The Mother as Creatrix Bliss Consciousness, Chit Shakti , which can lead one to the perfection of integral Karma Yoga , entire knowledge of Sri Aurobindo as Creator Being, Sat Purusha, that will lead one to the perfection of integral Jnana Yoga and entire knowledge on Their supreme relation of dual Godhead, that will lead one towards the descent and establishment of Bliss Self in the heart and the perfection of integral Bhakti Yoga. We cannot be satisfied with the exclusive achievement to either of the above three self-disciplines and move our higher Consciousness to reconcile all three partial realisations and rightly master the three equal opportunities of existence. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-540, 2: “This is something new he has accepted, because the Supreme doesn’t usually appear in tantrism – they are in contact with the Shakti and don’t bother about the Supreme. But here he has come to accept it.” The Mother’s Agenda-8.8.1961, 3: “We observe, first, that there still exists in India a remarkable Yogic system which is in its nature synthetical and starts from a great central principle of Nature, a great dynamic force of Nature; but it is a Yoga apart, not a synthesis of other schools. This system is the way of the Tantra. Owing to certain of its developments Tantra has fallen into discredit with those who are not Tantrics; and especially owing to the developments of its left-hand path, the Vama Marga, which not content with exceeding the duality of virtue and sin and instead of replacing them by spontaneous rightness of action seemed, sometimes, to make a method of self-indulgence, a method of unrestrained social immorality. Nevertheless, in its origin, Tantra was a great and puissant system founded upon ideas which were at least partially true. Even its twofold division into the right-hand and left-hand paths, Dakshina Marga and Vama Marga , started from a certain profound perception. In the ancient symbolic sense of the words Dakshina and Vama , it was the distinction between the way of Knowledge and the way of Ananda, — Nature in man liberating itself by right discrimination in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities and Nature in man liberating itself by joyous acceptance in power and practice of its own energies, elements and potentialities. But in both paths there was in the end an obscuration of principles, a deformation of symbols and a fall.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-42-43, 4: The Gita-5.4, 5: “There is yet another, the Tantric, which though less subtle and spiritually profound, is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of the Gita, — for it seizes even upon the obstacles to the spiritual life and compels them to become the means for a richer spiritual conquest and enables us to embrace the whole of Life in our divine scope as the Lila of the Divine; and in some directions it is more immediately rich and fruitful, for it brings forward into the foreground along with divine knowledge, divine works and an enriched devotion of divine Love, the secrets also of the Hatha and Raja Yogas, the use of the body and of mental askesis for the opening up of the divine life on all its planes, to which the Gita gives only a passing and perfunctory attention. Moreover it grasps at that idea of the divine perfectibility of man, possessed by the Vedic Rishis but thrown into the background by the intermediate ages, which is destined to fill so large a place in any future synthesis of human thought, experience and aspiration.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-9-10 6: “The Gita like the Tantra and on certain sides the later religions attempts to preserve the ancient balance: it maintains the substance and foundation of the original synthesis, but the form has been changed and renovated in the light of a developing spiritual experience. This teaching does not evade the difficult problem of reconciling the full active life of man with the inner life in the highest self and spirit; it advances what it holds to be the real solution. It does not at all deny the efficacy of the ascetic renunciation of life for its own purpose, but it sees that that cuts instead of loosening the knot of the riddle and therefore it accounts it an inferior method and holds its own for the better way. The two paths both lead us out of the lower ignorant normal nature of man to the pure spiritual consciousness and so far both must be held to be valid and even one in essence: but where one stops short and turns back, the other advances with a firm subtlety and high courage, opens a gate on unexplored vistas, completes man in God and unites and reconciles in the spirit soul and Nature.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-527-528, 7: “Veda and Vedanta are one side of the one Truth; Tantra with its emphasis on Shakti is another. In this Yoga all sides of the Truth are taken up, not in the systematic forms given them formerly, but in their essence and carried to the fullest and highest significance. But Vedanta deals more with the principles and essentials of the divine knowledge and therefore much of its spiritual knowledge and experience has been taken bodily into the Arya (Journal). Tantra deals more with forms and processes and organised powers — all these could not be taken as they were, for the integral Yoga needs to develop its own forms and processes , but the ascent of the consciousness through the centres and other Tantrik knowledge are there behind the process of transformation to which so much importance is given by me — also the truth that nothing can be done except through the force of the Mother. ” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-459, “The occult atmosphere of tantric pujas invokes forces that do not coincide with the completely different atmosphere and the completely different attitude of the supramental yoga.” The Mother’s Agenda/25.10.1958, 8: “Even Vaishnavism and Tantra are in the end other-worldly; mukti is the aim of their efforts and anything else could be only incidental and secondary or a result on the way.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-401, “Even Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the release from life; here (in Integral Yoga) the object is the divine fulfilment of life.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-400, “All the Puranic tradition, it must be remembered, draws the richness of its contents from the Tantra.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-9, “The systems of the Puranas and Tantras are full of the ideas of the Sankhya, though subordinated to the Vedantic idea and mingled with many others.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-84 9: “The ascension and descent of the Force in this Yoga accomplishes itself in its own way without any necessary reproduction of the details laid down in the books [on Tantra]. Many become conscious of the centres, but others simply feel the ascent or descent in a general way or from level to level rather than from centre to centre, that is to say, the Force descending first to the head, then to the heart, then to the navel and still below. It is not at all necessary to become aware of the deities in the centres according to the Tantrik description, but some feel the Mother in the different centres. In these things our sadhana does not cleave to the knowledge given in the books, but only keeps to the central truth behind and realises it independently without any subjection to the old forms and symbols. The centres themselves have a different interpretation here from that given in the books of the Tantriks.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-459-460, 10: “The process of the Kundalini awakened rising through the centres as also the purification of the centres is a Tantrik knowledge. In our Yoga there is no willed process of the purification and opening of the centres, no raising up of the Kundalini by a set process either. Another method is used, but still there is the ascent of the consciousness from and through the different levels to join the higher consciousness above; there is the opening of the centres and of the planes (mental, vital, physical) which these centres command; there is also the descent which is the main key of the spiritual transformation. Therefore there is, I have said, a Tantrik knowledge behind the process of transformation in this Yoga.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-460, “There is [in the Integral Yoga] no willed opening of the chakras, they open of themselves by the descent of the Force. In the Tantrik discipline they open from down upwards, the Muladhara first — in our Yoga, they open from up downward. But the ascent of the force from the Muladhara does take place.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-460, “In the Tantra the centres are opened and Kundalini is awakened by a special process, its action of ascent is felt through the spine. Here (in integral Yoga) it is the pressure of the Force from above that awakens it (Kundalini) and opens the centres. There is an ascension of the consciousness going up till it joins the higher consciousness above. This repeats itself (sometimes a descent also is felt) until all the centres are open and the consciousness rises above the body. At a later stage it (consciousness) remains above and widens out into the cosmic consciousness and the universal Self. This is a usual course, but sometimes the process is more rapid and there is a sudden and definite opening above.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-460-461, “It [a force in the navel region rising upward in a coiling, pulsating movement] is what is meant by the Kundalini rising towards the Brahmarandhra — not the whole of it, but something of it is released coiling or circling upward with vibrations (spandana) from the Muladhara. It is not always felt like that. Sometimes one simply feels currents or a Force of some kind rising up or just an ascending movement of consciousness. But in all cases it is the release of the Yogic consciousness which is shut up in the chakras and its ascent to meet the Divine Consciousness above. It is this and the corresponding descent from above that make Yogic experiences and realisations possible.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “It [the Kundalini] is the Yogic force asleep in the Muladhara and covered up in the other centres by the ordinary consciousness. When it is liberated, it rises up to join the Brahmic (Divine) consciousness above passing through the centres on its way.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “There is no Kundalini Shakti above the head. Above the head is the universal or Divine Consciousness and Force. The Kundalini is the latent power asleep in the chakras.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “The Energy in the Kundalini is the Mother’s.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-461, “In the Yogic consciousness one is not only aware of things, but of forces, not only of forces, but of the conscious being behind the forces. One is aware of all this not only in oneself but in the universe. There is a force which accompanies the growth of this new consciousness and at once grows with it and helps it to come about and to perfect itself. This force is the Yoga shakti. It is here asleep and coiled up in all the centres of our inner being (chakras) and is at the base what is called in the Tantras the Kundalini Shakti. But it is also above us, above our head as the Divine Force — not there coiled up, involved, asleep, but awake, scient, potent, extended and wide; it is there waiting for manifestation and to this Force we have to open ourselves — to the power of the Mother. In the mind it manifests itself as a divine mind-force or a universal mind-force and it can do everything that the personal mind cannot do; it is then the Yogic mind- force. When it manifests and works in the vital or physical in the same way, it is then apparent as a Yogic life-force or a Yogic body-force. It can awake in all these forms, bursting outwards and upwards, extending itself into wideness from below; or it can descend and become there a definite power for things; it can pour downwards into the body, working, establishing its reign, extending into wideness from above, link the lowest in us with the highest above us, release the individual into a cosmic universality or into absoluteness and transcendence.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-192 11: “I am afraid the attempt to apply scientific analogies to spiritual or Yogic things leads more often to confusion than to anything else, — just as it creates confusion if thrust upon philosophy also. Kundalini coiled in the Muladhara is asleep, plunged in the inconscience, supporting the play of the Ignorance. Naturally if she heaves up from there, there may be a disturbance or disruption of the states of the Ignorance, but that would be rather a salutary upheaval and helpful to the purpose of Yoga. Kundalini becoming conscious rises up to meet the Brahman in the thousand-petalled lotus. A mere ejection from her uniting with the higher consciousness would hardly lead to a radical change. Of course she need not abandon connection with the physical centre altogether; but she is no longer coiled there: if she were, the great occult force residing there would not be liberated. The usual image of her risen and awake is, I believe, that of a serpent standing erect, the tail touching the lowest centre, the head the highest at the Brahmarandhra. Thus with all the centres open and active she unites the two poles, superior and inferior, of the being, the spirit with Matter.” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-462, 12: “Lifting the heavy curtain of the flesh He stood upon a threshold serpent-watched, And peered into gleaming endless corridors, Silent and listening in the silent heart For the coming of the new and the unknown.” Savitri-28 “Along a path of aeons serpentine In the coiled blackness of her nescient course The Earth-Goddess toils across the sands of Time.” Savitri-50 “His splendour grasped her, her puissance to him clung; She crowned the Idea a king in purple robes, Put her magic serpent sceptre in Thought’s grip, Made forms his inward vision’s rhythmic shapes And her acts the living body of his will.” Savitri-125 “The first writhings of the cosmic serpent Force Uncoiled from the mystic ring of Matter’s trance; It raised its head in the warm air of life. It could not cast off yet Night’s stiffening sleep Or wear as yet mind’s wonder-flecks and streaks, Put on its jewelled hood the crown of soul Or stand erect in the blaze of spirit’s sun.” Savitri-138 “A subtler breath quickened dead Matter’s forms; The world’s set rhythm changed to a conscious cry; A serpent Power twinned the insensible Force.” Savitri-156 “An inexorable evil’s worshipper, She made vileness great and sublimated filth; A dragon power of reptile energies And strange epiphanies of grovelling Force And serpent grandeurs couching in the mire Drew adoration to a gleam of slime.” Savitri-213 “A formless void oppressed his struggling brain, A darkness grim and cold benumbed his flesh, A whispered grey suggestion chilled his heart; Haled by a serpent-force from its warm home And dragged to extinction in bleak vacancy Life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath; Lapped was his body by a tenebrous tongue.” Savitri-218 “A formidable voice cried from within: “Back, creature of earth, lest tortured and torn thou die.” A dreadful murmur rose like a dim sea; The Serpent of the threshold hissing rose, A fatal guardian hood with monstrous coils, The hounds of darkness growled with jaws agape, And trolls and gnomes and goblins scowled and stared And wild beast roarings thrilled the blood with fear And menace muttered in a dangerous tongue.” Savitri-489 “Two golden serpents round the lintel curled, Enveloping it with their pure and dreadful strength, Looked out with wisdom’s deep and luminous eyes.” Savitri-524 “Out of the Inconscient’s soulless mindless night A flaming Serpent rose released from sleep. It rose billowing its coils and stood erect And climbing mightily, stormily on its way It touched her centres with its flaming mouth; As if a fiery kiss had broken their sleep, They bloomed and laughed surcharged with light and bliss.” Savitri-528 “In the deep place where once the Serpent slept, There came a grip on Matter’s giant powers For large utilities in life’s little space; A firm ground was made for Heaven’s descending might.” Savitri-530 “It wandered like a lost ray of the moon Revealing to the night her soul of dread; Serpentine in the gleam the darkness lolled, Its black hoods jewelled with the mystic glow; Its dull sleek folds shrank back and coiled and slid, As though they felt all light a cruel pain And suffered from the pale approach of hope.” Savitri-585 “It poured into her navel’s lotus depth, Lodged in the little life-nature’s narrow home, On the body’s longings grew heaven-rapture’s flower And made desire a pure celestial flame, Broke into the cave where coiled World-Energy sleeps And smote the thousand-hooded serpent Force That blazing towered and clasped the World-Self above, Joined Matter’s dumbness to the Spirit’s hush And filled earth’s acts with the Spirit’s silent power.” Savitri-665, 13: The Mother’s Agenda/4.11.1958, 14: “In the integral Yoga psychical experience, especially of the kind associated with what is often called occultism and savours of the miraculous, should be altogether subordinated to spiritual truth and wait upon that for its own interpretation, illumination and sanction. But even in the purely spiritual domain, there are experiences which are partial and, however attractive, only receive their full validity, significance or right application when we can advance to a fuller experience.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-778-779, 15: “Accordingly when we rise from mind to supermind, the new power of consciousness does not reject, but uplifts, enlarges and transfigures the operations of our soul and mind and life. It exalts and gives to them an ever greater reality of their power and performance. It does not limit itself either to the transformation of the superficial powers and action of the mind and psychic parts and the life, but it manifests and transforms also those rarer powers and that larger force and knowledge proper to our subliminal self that appear now to us as things occult, curiously psychic, abnormal. These things become in the supramental nature not at all abnormal but perfectly natural and normal, not separately psychic but spiritual, not occult and strange, but a direct, simple, inherent and spontaneous action. The spirit is not limited like the waking material consciousness, and the supermind when it takes possession of the waking consciousness, dematerialises it, delivers it from its limits, converts the material and the psychic into the nature of the spiritual being.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-841, 16: “There are however two different kinds of action of these inner ranges of the consciousness. The first is a more outer and confused activity of the awakening subliminal mind and life which is clogged with and subject to the grosser desires and illusions of the mind and vital being and vitiated in spite of its wider range of experience and powers and capacities by an enormous mass of error and deformations of the will and knowledge, full of false suggestions and images, false and distorted intuitions and inspirations and impulses, the latter often even depraved and perverse, and vitiated too by the interference of the physical mind and its obscurities. This is an inferior activity to which clairvoyants, psychists, spiritists, occultists, seekers of powers and siddhis are very liable and to which all the warnings against the dangers and errors of this kind of seeking are more especially applicable. The seeker of spiritual perfection has to pass as quickly as possible, if he cannot altogether avoid, this zone of danger, and the safe rule here is to be attached to none of these things, but to make spiritual progress one’s sole real objective and to put no sure confidence in other things until the mind and life soul are purified and the light of the spirit and supermind or at least of the spiritually illumined mind and soul are shed on these inner ranges of experience. For when the mind is tranquillised and purified and the pure psyche liberated from the insistence of the desire soul, these experiences are free from any serious danger, — except indeed that of limitation and a certain element of error which cannot be entirely eliminated so long as the soul experiences and acts on the mental level. For there is then a pure action of the true psychical consciousness and its powers, a reception of psychical experience pure in itself of the worse deformations, although subject to the limitations of the representing mind, and capable of a high spiritualisation and light. The complete power and truth, however, can only come by the opening of the supermind and the supramentalising of the mental and psychical experience.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-874-875, 17: The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-1/p-417, 18: The Mother’s Agenda-4/p-134, 19: “Sri Krishna has shown me the true meaning of the Vedas, not only so, but he has shown me a new Science of Philology showing the process and origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed and the new interpretation of the Veda based upon it. He has also shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not understood either by Indians or Europeans. I have therefore to re-explain the whole Vedanta and Veda in such a way that it will be seen how all religion arises out of it and is one everywhere. In this way it will be proved that India is centre of the religious life of the world and its destined saviour through the Sanatana Dharma .” Sri Aurobindo/SABCL-27/433-34, “And then what Krishna must I challenge, — the Krishna of the Gita who is the transcendent Godhead, Paramatma, Parabrahma, Purushottama, the cosmic Deity, master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the immanent in the heart of all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and Dwarka and Kurukshetra and who was the guide of my Yoga and with whom I realised identity?” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram-p-431-432, 20: “When I returned from Japan and we began to work together, Sri Aurobindo had already brought the Supramental light into the mental world and was trying to transform the Mind. ‘It’s strange,’ He said to me, ‘it is an endless work! Nothing seems to get done—everything is done and then constantly has to be done all over again.’ Then I gave Him my personal impression, which went back to the old days with Theon: ‘It will be like that until we touch bottom.’ So instead of continuing to work in the Mind, both of us (I was the one who went through the experience…how to put it? …practically, objectively; He experienced it only in His consciousness, not in the body—but my body has always participated), both of us descended immediately (it was done in a day or two) from the Mind into the Vital, and so on quite rapidly, leaving the Mind as it was, fully in the light but not permanently transformed.” The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-2/379, 21: “I think I made this experiment in 1904, so when I arrived here it was all a work accomplished and a well-known domain; and when the question of finding the Supermind came up, I had only to resume an experience I was used to – I had learned to repeat it at will, through successive exteriorizations. It was a voluntary process.” The Mother’s Agenda/ November 7, 1961, 22: “There is no difference between the Mother’s path and mine ; we have and have always had the same path, the path that leads to the supramental change and the divine realisation; not only at the end, but from the beginning they have been the same…The attempt to set up a division and opposition of this kind, putting the Mother on one side and myself on another and opposite or quite different side, has always been a trick of the forces of the Falsehood when they want to prevent a sadhaka from reaching the Truth. Dismiss all such falsehoods from your mind.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81, “I wrote once before that these ideas about the separation between the Mother and myself and our paths being different or our goal different are quite erroneous. Our path is the same; our goal too is the same — the Supramental Divine. ” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81, “When in your heart and thought you will make no difference between Sri Aurobindo and me, when to think of Sri Aurobindo will be to think of me and to think of me will mean to think of Sri Aurobindo inevitably, when to see one will mean inevitably to see the other, like one and the same Person, - then you will know that you begin to be open to the supramental force and consciousness. ” The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-13/p-32 23: “And so I looked. "Is it something particular to this body?" I wondered. To everyone who has lived closely with it, my body gives the impression of two things: (1) a very concentrated, very stubborn will, and ...(2) such endurance! Sri Aurobindo used to tell me he had never dreamed a body could have such endurance. And that's probably why. But I don't want to curtail this ability in any way, because it is (1) a CELLULAR will, and (2) a cellular endurance too – which is quite intriguing. It's not a central will and central endurance (that's something else altogether) – it's cellular. That's why Sri Aurobindo used to tell me this body had been specially prepared and chosen for the Work – because of its capacity for obstinate endurance and will. But that's no reason to exercise this ability uselessly! So I am making sure it relaxes now; I tell it constantly, " Now, now! Just let go! Relax, have some fun, where's the harm in it?" I have to tell it to be quiet, very quiet. And it's very surprised to hear that: "Ah! Can I live that way? I don't have to hurry? I can live that way?"” The Mother’s Agenda-January-1, 1962, 24: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/-p-50, 25: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-613, 26 : The Gita-4.3, 27: The Mother-1, 28 : The Mother-57, 29: CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-556, 30: The Mother-2, 31: The Mother-61-62, 32 : CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1060, 33: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1080, 34: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-13, 35: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-3, 36: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-26, 37: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-25, 38: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-23, 39: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-963-64, 40: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940, 41: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-392, 42: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-14, 43: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-162, 44: “It is binding on the developing (Soul) but not yet perfectly developed individual in the shape of social duty, family obligation, communal or national demand, so long as it is not in conflict with his growing sense of the higher Right. But the sadhaka of the Karmayoga will abandon this also to the Lord of works. After he has made this surrender, his social impulses and judgments will, like his desires, only be used for their exhaustion or, it may be, so far as they are still necessary for a time to enable him to identify his lower mental nature with mankind in general or with any grouping of mankind in its works and hopes and aspirations. But after that brief time is over, they will be withdrawn and a divine government will alone abide. He will be identified with the Divine and with others only through the divine consciousness and not through the mental nature.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-210-11, “Hatred and disliking and scorn and repulsion, clinging and attachment and preference are natural, necessary, inevitable at a certain stage: they attend upon or they help to make and maintain Nature’s choice in us. But to the Karmayogin they are a survival, a stumbling-block, a process of the Ignorance and, as he progresses, they fall away from his nature. The child-soul needs them for its growth; but they drop from an adult (Soul) in the divine culture.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-223, “The fruit we covet may be a reward of internal pleasure; it may be the accomplishment of some preferred idea or some cherished will or the satisfaction of the egoistic emotions, or else the pride of success of our highest hopes and ambitions. Or it may be an external reward, a recompense entirely material, wealth, position, honour, victory, good fortune or any other fulfilment of vital or physical desire. But all alike are lures by which egoism holds us. Always these satisfactions delude us with the sense of mastery and the idea of freedom, while really we are harnessed and guided or ridden and whipped by some gross or subtle, some noble or ignoble, figure of the blind Desire that drives the world.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-102, “There is too, on a higher level, the equality of the stoic, the equality of a devout resignation or a sage detachment, the equality of a soul aloof from the world and indifferent to its doings. These too are insufficient; first approaches they can be, but they are at most early soul-phases only or imperfect mental preparations for our entry into the true and absolute self-existent wide evenness of the spirit.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-103, 45: The Mother’s Agenda/10.08.1960, 46: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-906-907, 47: The Mother/TMCW- 7/Questions and Answers/p-267, 48: “In its nature and law the Overmind is a delegate of the Supermind Consciousness, its delegate to the Ignorance. Or we might speak of it as a protective double, a screen of dissimilar similarity through which Supermind can act indirectly on an Ignorance whose darkness could not bear or receive the direct impact of a supreme Light. Even, it is by the projection of this luminous Overmind corona that the diffusion of a diminished light in the Ignorance and the throwing of that contrary shadow which swallows up in itself all light, the Inconscience, became at all possible. For Supermind transmits to Overmind all its reali- ties, but leaves it to formulate them in a movement and according to an awareness of things which is still a vision of Truth and yet at the same time a first parent of the Ignorance. A line divides Supermind and Overmind which permits a free transmission, allows the lower Power to derive from the higher Power all it holds or sees, but automatically compels a transitional change in the passage. The integrality of the Supermind keeps always the essential truth of things, the total truth and the truth of its individual self-determinations clearly knit together; it maintains in them an inseparable unity and between them a close interpen- etration and a free and full consciousness of each other: but in Overmind this integrality is no longer there. And yet the Over- mind is well aware of the essential Truth of things; it embraces the totality; it uses the individual self-determinations without being limited by them: but although it knows their oneness, can realise it in a spiritual cognition, yet its dynamic movement, even while relying on that for its security, is not directly determined by it. Overmind Energy proceeds through an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity. It takes each Aspect or Power and gives to it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance and is able to work out, we might say, its own world of creation.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-293 Download this WEB PAGE in PDF Format: "Now, you know that Sri Aurobindo and I are always one and the same consciousness, one and the same person. Only, when this unique force or presence is felt in your individual consciousness, it assumes different forms or appearances depending upon your temperament, your aspirations, your needs, the particular cast of your nature. Your individual consciousness is like a filter, a pointer, as it were; it makes a choice and settles upon one possibility in the infinity of divine possibilities. In truth, the Divine gives to each one exactly what he expects from Him. If you believe the Divine to be distant and cruel, He will be distant and cruel, because it may be necessary for your supreme wellbeing to feel the wrath of God. He will be Kali’ for the worshippers of Kali, and bliss for the bhakta. He will be the All-Knowledge of seekers after Knowledge, the Transcendent Impersonal of the illusionist. He will be an atheist for the atheist, and the love of the lover. He will be fraternal and near, an ever faithful friend, ever helpful, to those who feel him as the inner guide of each movement, at each minute. And if you believe that He can erase everything, He will erase all your faults, all your errors, tirelessly, and at each moment you will feel his infinite Grace. In truth, the Divine is what you expect of Him in your deep aspiration. The Mother The Mother's Agenda/Vol-1/Undated 1957 “There is no difference between the Mother’s path and mine; we have and have always had the same path, the path that leads to the supramental change and the divine realisation; not only at the end, but from the beginning they have been the same…The attempt to set up a division and opposition of this kind, putting the Mother on one side and myself on another and opposite or quite different side, has always been a trick of the forces of the Falsehood when they want to prevent a sadhaka from reaching the Truth. Dismiss all such falsehoods from your mind.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81 “I wrote once before that these ideas about the separation between the Mothe r and myself and our paths being different or our goal different are quite erroneous. Our path is the same; our goal too is the same — the Supramental Divine. ” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-81,

Handbook of The Synthesis of Yoga "Content abide not with one conquered realm; Adventure all to make the whole world thine," Savitri-536 Editor's Note "I am continuing my reading of the Veda. I had to stop for some days because of a sore throat. But anyway, I’m starting again...The Vedas , after all, were written by people who remembered a radical experience , which must have taken place on earth at a given moment, as an example of what was to come. (This always happens in the yoga: a first radical experience comes like a herald of the future realization.) So in the terrestrial yoga – in the yoga of the earth, of the planet earth – there was a moment when it came; they who are called the forefathers must have created, through their effort and their yoga, at least an image of the supramental realization. And those who wrote the Vedas , who composed all these hymns, remembered or kept the tradition of that experience . And oh, mon petit, it had the same effect on me as when I read the ‘Yoga of Self-Perfection ’ in The Synthesis of Yoga (the Mother catches her breath): there is such a gulf between what we are, what life on earth and human consciousness now are, even among the most enlightened, the most advanced, and THAT! ... " The Mother The Mother's Agenda/April 7, 1961 "One day ... (I’m translating the last section of The Synthesis of Yoga, ‘The Yoga of Self-Perfection’ – it plunges you into bottomless gulfs ... ) and one day (I think I’ve told you this), I had a vision of the gap between ... not even what ought to be, because we probably haven’t the slightest idea of that, but between our concept of what we would like to be and what is. And it was so dreadful that the body was thrown into, oh ... an anguish, a horror; and along with it an intensity of aspiration, a prayer. The gap seemed so tremendous: ‘Is it possible?’....‘This body thirsts for perfection, not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego...’ (it was so clear to me that everything human beings conceive of as perfection is simply the ego wanting to magnify itself for its own greater glory) ‘... not this human perfection which is the perfection of the ego and bars the way to the divine Perfection, but that one perfection .. (these repeated ‘perfections’ are deliberate: it’s like a litany) ... but that one perfection which has the POWER to manifest upon earth the eternal Truth .’" The Mother The Mother's Agenda/December 16, 1961 Here, the Mother confirms that The Synthesis of Yoga is a book whose wisdom has descended from the Universal and Supramental world, and by concentrating on this book, one will be drawn towards a brief experience of that Supreme plane. This book is the principal Shastra of Integral Yoga and is the culmination of Sri Aurobindo’s concentrated Sadhana , which spanned four decades in complete seclusion at Pondicherry. . The Synthesis of Yoga is basically a book that culminates with Yoga of Self-perfection, which is activated after the synthesis of the central truth of all the traditional schools of Yoga or after one is thoroughly established in Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga . Or the Yoga of Self-Perfection is regarded as the extension of three paths of Works, Knowledge and Love, and here thirty-six exclusive siddhis and forty-six sub-siddhis are concentrated, followed by all-inclusive siddhis in the Supramental plane. Thus, the transformation of Nature wide opens in Cosmic consciousness and Sri Aurobindo has foreseen that an isolated individual transformation of Nature is not practicable. As Yoga of Self-Perfection is an incomplete account of Sri Aurobindo's sadhana , so more experience in these lines are explored in The Life Divine, The Mother, Savitri, and the Mother’s Agenda. The highest secret, hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga , is identified as the basis of its self-exceeding. First, it declared that the synthesis is possible not by including all the methods of traditional Yoga schools but by discovering their central secrets, central faith, central dynamic process and directing them to move toward the Source, the Sachchidananda . So an evolution of the integral method is recommended in which all the faculties related with integral perfection is included. The integral method itself is a progressive and evolving method which are initially dynamised with the three Purushas, that of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being and finally a more comprehensive approach of entering all the planes of Consciousness through the ten Purushas that of Inconscient, Subconscient, true Physical, true Vital, true Mental, Psychic, Higher Mental or Spiritual, Universal, Supramental and Bliss Self. The uncovering of the ten Purushas and the perfection of their encircling ten koshas, sheaths, subtle bodies are the subject of our final concern. The Synthesis of Yoga has hinted that we are surrounded with many subtle bodies but never get the opportunity to develop them elaborately. It also hinted about the absolute trance into which few can enter but all cannot return to earthly existence. The other criteria and utility of absolute trance in Integral Yoga was vividly narrated elsewhere. It spoke elaborately about exclusive concentration to which all traditional schools of Yoga lean but developed little about Integral Concentration in which Integral Yoga must proceed and still less developed about the intermediate stairs between exclusive and Integral Concentration. Similarly, it maintains silence or hinted little about intermediate planes of Consciousness like Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and Overmind and proposes to leap from ordinary mind to Intuition and from Intuitive mind to Supermind. So the study and practice of It hinted little about seven-fold self-concentration and seven-fold integral Knowledge and also hinted little about four-fold Psychic and Spiritual Mother powers. An entry into The Synthesis of Yoga will be considered incomplete without similar study and practice of its three complementary books, The Life Divine, The Mother and Savitri in which many of the uncovered realms of Consciousness are restated, systematized, extensively developed and made available for further exploration to the human race. The Yoga of Self-perfection concentrates on multiple perfections in the Overmental plane. The thirty-six siddhis are : samata, shanti, sukha, hasya, viryam, shaktih, chandibhavah, sraddha, Jnanam, trikaladristih, samadhi, vyapti, prakamya, aisvarya, isita, vasita, mahima, laghima, anima, garima, arogyam, utthapana, saundaryam, vividhanandah, krishnah, kali, kamah, karma, sarvam brahma, anantam brahmah, jnanam brahmah, anandam brahmah, suddhi, mukti, bhukti and siddhi. The forty-six sub-siddhis are: titiksa, udasinata, nati, rasah, pritih, anandah, jnanalipsa, jnanaprakasho, brahmovarcasyam, sthairyam, abhayam, sahasam, yasolipsa, atmaslagha, danam, vyayah, kausalam, bhogalipsa, kamah, prema, dasyalipsa, atmasamarpanam, mahattva-bodhah, balaslagha, laghuta, dharanasamarthyam, purnata, prasannata, samata, bhogasamarthya, snigdhata, tejahslagha, kalyanasraddha, premasamarthyam, visuddhata, prakasah, vichitrabodhah, jnana dharanasamarthya, saktyam, bhagavati, dristih, srutih, smritih, pratibodha, vrutte tu karmani, satyadharma. OM TAT SAT Download this WEB PAGE in PDF format: The First Condition of Practice of Integral Yoga: The written truth or the Shastra of Integral Yoga ‘must provide infinite liberty in the receptive human soul’ towards its constant renovation, revivement and restatement by fresh in streaming of the Spiritual experience and descended knowledge instead of formulating the rigidity of a strict and precise mental rule or following a fixed Shastra . It accommodates the fixed injunctions of ancient Vedantic Scriptures for a liberated spirit which is no more than a provisional solution for tiding over the transition from ascension of life in the world to a life in the Transcendent. The Second Condition of Practice of I ntegral Yoga: The revolution attempted in Integral Yoga cannot obstruct the eternal on flow of Divine Will, Wisdom and Love through the erection of absolute standards but this can be substituted by temporary higher and higher standards as long as they are helpful to integrate the Divine call, the Divine union and the Divine transformation. The Third Condition of Practice of Integral Yoga: After the Law one experiences the Liberty, after the personal, the general, the universal standards one enters the impersonal plasticity, the divine freedom, the standardless Spiritual and Supramental mode of working and the unwalled wideness of the infinite Consciousness. In a Divine Government, he will be identified with the individual, collectivity, humanity and the Divine only through the Divine Consciousness without subjection to the mental standard. The Fourth Condition of Practice of Integral Yoga: And lastly, we must be aware of the injunction issued in Integral Shastra that ‘object of the integral Yoga must be accepted wholly by those who follow it’. And this ‘entire definition of the aim of integral Yoga’ does not exclude the entire knowledge of its indispensable and dispensable methods and the entire awareness of possible danger and distraction of this path leading to success in Yoga. The Practice of Integral Yoga through the Handbook I of The Synthesis of Yoga The Handbook II of The Synthesis of Yoga The Central Truth of The Synthesis of Yoga “So now I do not mind finishing (I usually translated The Synthesis of Yoga (into French language) in the afternoons.) The Synthesis of Yoga . I was little bothered because I have no other books by Sri Aurobindo to translate that can help me in sadhana : There was only The Synthesis (of Yoga) .” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-3/p-348 “Personally, of all those I have read, it is the book (The Synthesis of Yoga ) that has helped me the most. It comes from a very high and very universal inspiration, in the sense that it will remain new for a long time to come.” The Mothe r The Mother’s Agenda-13/p-66 When I read what Sri Aurobindo writes in The Synthesis , how things should be and what they are now, when I see the two, that’s when I feel we’re turning in circles... It’s more and more a universal yoga – the whole earth – and it is like that day and night, when I walk and when I speak and when I eat. It’s constantly like that. As if the whole earth were ... it’s like kneading dough to make it rise... But when I read his Yoga of Self-Perfection and see ... simply what we are ... phew! What yeast we would need to make all that rise!... But this is not true: HE alone is doing it, it’s always He... And sometimes things stagnate, they seem so absolutely obscure and stupid. And then, if you simply go like this (gesture of offering), simply, truly – do it, not think it – it’s instantly like a shower of bliss ... A tiny point, something very small which looks stubbornly stupid and obstinate, if only you do this (and if you want, you can): ‘Take, take!’ Give it to Him, simply, like this, truly give it to Him: ‘It’s You, it’s Yours, take it, do with it what You want.’ And instantly, instead of this shrinking and this painful feeling – ‘What in the world can I do with all this?’ – a shower, it comes like a shower. Truly Ananda. Of course, if you are stupid enough to call back the difficulty, it returns. But if you remain quiet, if you keep your head quiet, it goes – finished, cured. But there are thousands and thousands and thousands of such points ... The Mother The Mother's Agenda-July 12, 1960

The Mother's Ideal Integral School “One must be a saint and a hero to be a good teacher. One must be a great yogi to be a good teacher. One must have a perfect attitude to be able to exact a perfect attitude from the students. You cannot ask anyone to do what you don’t do yourself. That is a rule. So look at the difference between what is and what ought to be, and you will be able to estimate the extent of your failure in class.” The Mother TMCW-8/Questions and Answers-1956/p-354 The Mother's Ideal Integral School “The child’s education ought to be an out bringing of all that is best, most powerful, most intimate and living in his nature; the mould into which the man’s action and development ought to run is that of his innate quality and power. He must acquire new things, but he will acquire them best, most vitally on the basis of his own developed type and inborn force.”¹ Sri Aurobindo “Therefore a time must come when man has to look below the obscure surface of his egoistic being and attempt to know himself; he must set out to find the real man: without that he would be stopping short at Nature’s primary education and never go on to her deeper and larger teachings; however great his practical knowledge and efficiency, he would be only a little higher than the animals.”² Sri Aurobindo “Intellectual, volitional, ethical, emotional, aesthetic and physical training and improvement are all so much to the good, but they are only in the end a constant movement in a circle without any last delivering and illumining aim, unless they arrive at a point when they can open themselves to the power and presence of the Spirit and admit its direct working. This direct working effects a conversion of the whole being which is the indispensable condition of our real perfection.”³ Sri Aurobindo “A change of education and social institutions is the outward means adopted or an inner self-training and development is preferred as the true instrumentation.”⁴ Sri Aurobindo “But it is within us that the Reality must be found and the source and foundation of a perfected life; no out-ward formation can replace it: there must be the true self realised within if there is to be the true life realised in world and Nature.”⁴⁵ Sri Aurobindo The Mother’s Ideal Integral School is The (Divine) Mother’s home of learning, the School, through immediate training of constructing mind to reveal progressively Her standards of material and scientific knowledge, emotional feeling, intellectual manipulation, character, aesthesis, greater interests, physical soundness, regulated action and just efficiency that She essays to turn into universal Ideal Education of fully developed mind, vital and physical and fully evolved science. She seeks to develop the loftier and the larger reaches of our mentality, vitality and physicality and its aim is limited to a terrestrial perfection of the normal human life, some order of right relations, right use of mind, right use of happiness and beauty of life and right use of body. She again reveals that these partial unfoldings of consciousness through Ideal Education are too narrow and pale radiations for the vastness of the Spirit and asks to enter the ocean of the Infinite through Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental extension identified as Integral Education , comprehensive learning and total unfolding of consciousness. The Mother’s Ideal Integral School is preparing for Sri Aurobindo’s Integral future vision through its existing foundation of mental ideal, ideal teachers and world inclined ideal students (who are accepted as children of half-light and half-darkness) with the ability to enlarge the knowledge on the World, the Self and God through mental formulation. The immediate objective of this school is to provide an ideal education within a strong Spiritual atmosphere and the ultimate objective is to replace this status of bound Souls with an integral vision, integral Teachers and integral perfect students with the ability to reconcile entirely the God, the Self and the World. When the Spiritual force possesses the surrounding atmosphere of the School, both Teacher and Student consent themselves spontaneously with love to become slave of each other, then they are recognised to enter right relation without ego and become ‘fit integral Teacher’¹⁵ and ‘fit integral student.’¹⁶ They emerge out of intense self-control, samyama , of past births and in this birth again they are destined to work together and the appetite to learn the lesson endlessly and tirelessly in this birth becomes a normal and natural condition. OM TAT SAT Ideal Education: “So long as there is only an intellectual, ethical and other self-training for the now normal purposes of life which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body, we are still only in the obscure and yet unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature; we are still in pursuit of only an ordinary human perfection.”³ Sri Aurobindo “A mental control can only be a control, not a cure; a mental teaching, rule, standard can only impose an artificial groove in which our action revolves mechanically or with difficulty and which imposes a curbed and limited formation on the course of our nature. A total change of consciousness, a radical change of nature is the one remedy and the sole issue.”¹² Sri Aurobindo “Ethics deals only with the desire-soul and the active outward dynamical part of our being; its field is confined to character and action. It prohibits and inhibits certain actions, certain desires, impulses, propensities, — it inculcates certain qualities in the act, such as truthfulness, love, charity, compassion, chastity. When it has got this done and assured a base of virtue, the possession of a purified will and blameless habit of action, its work is finished.”³⁸ Sri Aurobindo “At any rate, in schools like ours and in universities sports have now a recognised and indispensable place; for even a highest and completest education of the mind is not enough without the education of the body. Where the qualities I have enumerated are absent or insufficiently present, a strong individual will or a national will may build them up, but the aid given by sports to their development is direct and in no way negligible.”⁴⁶ Sri Aurobindo The objectively-subjective doctrine of Ideal Education is to pursue subjective and objective development of the students with the help of outer aids, bahya avalambana , and external machinery. Ideal education has its root in natural Evolution, preoccupying the mind of the modern man that affirms an objective Reality as the only entire truth and an objective knowledge as entirely reliable education, which will build the student as a perfected social being in a perfected economic society. And so, the secret of the success of Ideal education can be possible when each ideal Teacher is capable of concentrating sufficiently on the materials of education through the faculty of exclusive concentration and his central faith will be preoccupied with the evolution and perfection of material and mental Nature and his watchword is progress. And perfection of Ideal education can come when each teacher can follow their own innovative, powerful and impressive line of teaching and discharge that developmental urge in the life of students. So the real business of ideal education is to prepare the student’s mind, life and bodily existence for the more potent, more perfect higher status of Integral education. The high aim of ideal education through intellectual training is a freedom from compulsory and entangled conditions of our physical and vital being, better information and more efficient machinery for its self-affirmation. The characteristic energy of ideal education is change, continual enlargement, improvement, a better arrangement of its gains, and a continual passage from smaller and simpler to larger and more complex perfection. The highest achievement of ideal education is a regulated pattern of mind, a fabricated pattern of life and a cultivated pattern of conduct. The method of ideal education is an increasing mechanisation, a standardisation, a fixing of everything into an artificially arranged unity of a common mould in order to ensure harmony and it obliges us to live in an apparent surface existence, oblivious of true Self and the whole nature of things. Limitations of Ideal Education: “The spirit stood back effaced behind its frame. Admired for the bright finality of its lines A blue horizon limited the soul; Thought moved in luminous facilities, The outer ideal’s shallows its swim-range: Life in its boundaries lingered satisfied With the small happiness of the body’s acts.” Savitri-114 “Or else for the body of some high Idea A house was build with too close-fitting bricks; Action and thought cemented made a wall Or small ideals limiting the soul.” Savitri-497 “The spirit’s almighty freedom was not here: A schoolman mind had captured life’s large space,” Savitri-496 “My teachers lesson me in slavery, I am shown God’s stamp and my own signature Upon the sorry contract of my fate.” Savitri-506 “When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.” Savitri-574 Mental effort have had an immense effect on the earth life in carrying humanity from the status of a mere human animal to what it is now with its ideal of organised power, the cult of reason, the interpretation of life by a critical intellectual thought and the last outcome of this inspiration is the government of life by Modern Science. The ideal education is an ill-lighted purposeful training of mind to grow through its conscious stress of material and economic life, a constructed half-rightness mixed with much that is wrong and unlovely and unhappy, half automatic use of opportunities with many blunders, lapses, relapses and apparent discords in Ignorance which can succeed in mechanisation of the system but cannot change or recreate it from within. On the one side ideal education may be richer, fuller, more rationally plausible and externally effective pursuit of ideal truth, good and beauty but it cannot create and construct anything that goes beyond the Nature. Scientific knowledge is itself a construction of mind, a mass of formulas, masterful in the process of knowledge, a creation of apt machinery but ignorant of the individual Self and the world-Self and cannot utilise their influence in perfecting the nature and the life. The serious obstacle to the mind’s endeavour towards perfection is that mind cannot wholly mentalise life and matter; there are still considerable part of life and body which remain in the realm of Submental, Subconscient and Inconscient control. Ideal education unduly limited the pupils’ scope of learning by overdoing and exclusiveness and ignored the highest and the largest possibility and missed the full pursuit of its own object. The other danger is that the ideals constructed by the human mind are selective and relative and to shape the students’ nature rigidly according to them is to limit their growth into larger, wider and higher being. Despite all these limitations, the mind and life are the Soul’s only instrumentation until a higher instrumentation develops and free harmonious play of life and mind is essential for the highest growth of Ideal Education. ‘The passage through sattwa is the ordinary idea of Yoga, it is the preparation and purification by the yama-niyama of Patanjali or by other means in other Yogas , e.g., saintliness in the bhakti schools, the eightfold path in Buddhism etc., etc. In our Yoga (Integral Yoga) the evolution through sattwa is replaced by the cultivation of equanimity, samata, and by the psychic transformation .’⁷⁸ “…for mind is a twilight preparing for light, an ignorance seeking after knowledge, a bondage to Nature groping after freedom and mastery over Nature. It is not on mind, on its self-modifying ignorance and bondage or even on its half-light, half-mastery, half-knowledge that the next step can base itself. It must base itself on soul consciousness, consciousness of the spirit and self for so only can there be the full light, the spontaneous mastery, the intimate and real knowledge.”⁷⁹ OM TAT SAT Objective of Ideal Education: “His activity is centred in a progressive mind which aims at perfecting itself as well as the house in which it dwells and the means of life that it uses, and is capable of awaking by a progressive self-realisation to its own true nature as a form of the Spirit.”¹⁰³ Sri Aurobindo “By itself the control of the mind and moral being only puts our normal consciousness into the right preliminary condition; it cannot bring about that evolution or manifestation of the higher psychic being which is necessary for the greater aims of Yoga.”³⁷ Sri Aurobindo “The mind liberated from a lower control and preoccupation introduces into life a government, an uplifting, a refinement, a finer balance and harmony; the vital and physical movements are directed and put into order, transformed even as far as they can be by a mental agency; they are taught to be the instruments of reason and obedient to an enlightened will, an ethical perception and an aesthetic intelligence: the more this can be accomplished, the more the race becomes truly human, a race of mental beings.”⁴⁸ Sri Aurobindo The objective of ideal Education is to elevate the students’ state of Consciousness from the unaryan tamasic Shudra way of life to the Aryan sattwic way of life by identifying the full account of his tamasic and rajasic imperfection and elevating them to the limited sattwic perfection. So, the objective of ideal education in the language of India’s ancient tradition is to foresee limited human perfection and to produce sattwic man with limited knowledge, light, happiness, peace, love, freedom and sense of beauty. The characteristic of Tamasic, Rajasic and Sattwic man are identified in the Gita more vividly than any other available written truth. Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas are three Gunas born of the movement of Prakriti and they bind the Soul to the Apara-prakriti. Sattwa is the giver of illumination, calmness, equality, order, accomplished harmony and well-being. It binds the Soul by attachment to limited happiness and limited knowledge. When through all the doors of the body, light of knowledge shines forth, there is increase of Sattwa and it imposes on itself an impersonal ethical, social and religious law, a Dharma, a Shastra , right understanding and a disinterested search of truth. When in Sattwa, one leaves the body ; he attains the spotless worlds of the knowers of the Highest. In this state fruit of the work is rightly and naturally enjoyed. Those who dwell in Sattwa , their consciousness rises upward and knowledge is gained. Sattwic man offers a sacrifice to God or the partial Godhead. This true sacrifice is extended according to the right principle, without desire for fruit, with a mind concentrated and fixed on the truth of things. The food that augments life, vitality, strength, health, joy and cheerfulness, which are succinct, soft, sustaining and agreeable, is dear to sattwic persons. Askesis done with faith and with no desire for fruit is said to be sattwic . Serenity of mind, gentleness, silence, self-control and purity of feeling are called sattwic askesis of mind . The writing/oration which gives no offence, truthful, pleasant and beneficial and regular study and practice of Shastra are sattwic askesis of the vital/speech . The true sattwic Askesis of the body i s done through purity, straightforwardness, virginity, non-violence and the worship offered to Godhead, Teacher, Wise and the twice-born Soul. When the gift is given for the sake of giving to one from whom no benefit in return is expected, and in the right place, at the right time and to the right person, that gift is said to be sattwic. When one Imperishable Being is seen in all Beings and one indivisible Being is realised among the multiplicities of divisions, know that knowledge as sattwic . An action which is rightly regulated by renouncing the fruit of action, attachment and without liking and disliking, know that work as sattwic action. When one performs rightly regulated action by renouncing attachment to action and the fruit of action, know that as sattwic renunciation . One who is free from attachment, egoless, endowed with steadfastness and zeal, unaffected by success and failure, he is a sattwic doer . ‘The sattwic doer is free from all this attachment, this egoism, this violent strength or passionate weakness; his is a mind and will unelated by success, undepressed by failure, full of a fixed impersonal resolution, a calm rectitude of zeal or a high and pure and selfless enthusiasm in the work that has to be done.’¹⁸ That which knows in essence action and withdrawal from action, what ought to be done and what ought not to be done, fear and fearlessness, bondage and liberation, clarity of mind, that understanding is sattwic. That unwavering persistence by which one controls the activities of mind, life and senses, know that persistence of mastering intelligence as sattwic. That happiness which seems like a poison initially but ends as nectar, that happiness is said to be sattwic, born out of clear understanding. A Student whose mind is concentrated on his studies, relates rightly with the surrounding world and is aware constantly of his objective aim of life, know him as Sattwic in Nature. A Teacher concentrated in his profession, loves the students genuinely without attachment and takes the responsibility of their inner and outer health, know him as Sattwic in Nature. An Institution/School with uncorrupt and dedicated management, teachers with attitude of giving selfless service to the Divine through educating the pupils, general cleanliness and manifestation of beauty in the outward surroundings, know that institution as Sattwic in Nature. After exploring the limitation of tamasic mind and rajasic mind Savitri came across ‘a brilliant ordered Space’ of Sattwic mind. Here we observe a reason’s balanced reign, ‘adamant walls of law,’ ‘a small world or rule and line,’ and limited freedom. Here, the sattwic mind is divided into three parts of schoolman mind, fixed mind and outer mind. They have three characteristics of fear, doubt and impatience respectively and through these attributes they limit the Illimitable. The Schoolman mind occupies life’s large space, fixed pillars of thought, lives in its dreams. ‘Its thoughts (are) an army ranked and disciplined.’ It does not dare to pursue ‘great and difficult’ adventure,’ does not call down the ‘flaming god;’ cannot set the world ablaze with the inner Fire. It limits the Soul with narrow ideal, adores an exclusive God, meditation is done to realise a narrow end; shuts its door to Divine Love and dries the heart with a rational religion. Its sacrifice is cold and flameless, Shastra is a sealed book devoid of Spiritual influence. The Mother said, ‘‘It seems to me that unless the teachers themselves get out of this ordinary intellectuality (!), they will never be able to fulfill their duty.’⁷⁰ The Fixed mind is a quiet country where sense hunger is partly quenched, doubt is replaced with fixed faith. This is a firm and settled space of intelligence where all things are kept in their proper place. This fixed mind appears to be the creator of this apparent world, substitute of the mighty Soul. Aspirant of limited perfection, limited truth and limited harmony. This is the home of elite who are satisfied with their exclusive achievement, victory of single truth, clarity of the sword of limited Light. It does not want to go beyond itself to discover the Psychic being. Fixed mind is satisfied with truth’s rounded outcome and ordered knowledge of apparent things. This is the world of artists, scientists, writers, philanthropists who are satisfied with their single achievement and do not show interest to go beyond their exclusive confident life and maimed achievements. Then Savitri came to the world of outer mind, where all are in haste and all are impatient to save the God’s world. Here no Divine Light and mystic Voice are received. Outer mind cannot receive the Divine messengers of subliminal world. It is not aware of waking trance, dreams of unborn Reality and strange goddesses with deep pooled magical eyes. Savitri book gives the message that those who are deeply dissatisfied with the limitations of schoolman mind, fixed mind and outer mind can trace their Psychic being and subsequently their Spiritual being. This is identified as rebirth of an Ideal Teacher or the new birth of integral Teacher. The three immediate tasks before a newborn integral Teacher is: 1: “If you unite your consciousness with the Supreme Consciousness and manifest It, all you think, feel or do becomes luminous and true. It is not the subject of the teaching which is to be changed, it is the consciousness with which you teach that must be enlightened.”⁷¹ 2: “Your difficulty comes from the fact that you have still the old belief that in life, there are some things high and some things low. It is not exact. It is not the things or the activities that are high or low, it is the consciousness of the doer which is true or false....”⁷¹ 3: “If your calm is integral, that is, both inner and outer, founded on the perception of the Divine Presence, and unchanging, that is to say, constant and unvarying in all circumstances, it will undoubtedly be all-powerful, and the children will necessarily be influenced by it and the class will certainly become, spontaneously and almost automatically, what you want it to be.”⁹⁴ OM TAT SAT Ideal Teacher: “A poor self-righteous virtue is her stock And reason’s pragmatic grope and abstract sight, Or the technique of a brief hour’s success She teaches, an usher (or guide) in utility’s school.” Savitri-626 “Ideals, systems, sciences, poems, crafts Tirelessly there perished and again recurred, Sought restlessly by some creative Power; But all were dreams crossing an empty vast.” Savitri-642 “There are two kinds of knowledge — mental knowledge such as you describe here which is usually necessary as a mental preparation or for guidance and the real knowledge which is spiritual. One receives the mental knowledge from the Guru in the shape of instruction and guidance, but that is only a part of what he gives — for the man who gives only mental or what you call indirect knowledge is not a Guru but only a teacher, Acharya .”⁶³ Sri Aurobindo “Whatever imperfections the teachers and instructors here may have, they will always be better than those from outside. For all who work here do so without remuneration and in the service of a higher cause. It is clearly understood that each one, whatever his worth or capacity, can and must progress constantly to realise an ideal which is still much higher than the present realisation of humanity.”⁵² The Mother “By doing what they (teachers) can, knowing that they have everything to learn. In this way they will gain experience and do things better and better. That is the best way to learn, and if they do it in all sincerity, in two or three years they will become experts and will be truly useful. Naturally, work done in this way becomes really interesting and makes the teachers as well as the students progress.”⁶² The Mother “It is true that the guru himself is subject to the same rule of silence with regard to what concerns him personally. In Nature everything is in movement; thus, whatever does not move forward is bound to fall back. The guru must progress even as his disciples do, although his progress may not be on the same plane. And for him too, to speak about his experiences is not favourable: the greater part of the dynamic force for progress contained in the experience evaporates if it is put into words. But on the other hand, by explaining his experiences to his disciples, he greatly helps their understanding and consequently their progress. It is for him in his wisdom to know to what extent he can and ought to sacrifice the one to the other. It goes without saying that no boasting or vain glory should enter into his account, for the slightest vanity would make him no longer a guru but an imposter.”⁶¹ The Mother A living teacher or guru or representative influence occupies a larger place in the life of students. In India , a great authority and high reverence is attached to the guru , the traditional teacher ‘who has received the Shastra by tradition and realised it in practice guides the disciples along the immemorial tracks’⁵ and his task is to reinforce and illumine ‘the methods taught in a Scripture.’⁵ The modern age replaced it by ideal teacher who guides the student along the well-established track of fixed, mechanised and mundane perfection which is conceived as something outward, social, rational dealing with the fellow beings, a better and more efficient citizenship with discharge of duties, harmonious associated enjoyment of the opportunities of existence, an expansion and refinement of the intellect and knowledge and action based on utilitarian, technical and scientific skill and he will try to harmonise and implement the old virtues and ideals in order to make up the deficiencies of existing set up. He ignores all that other greater Spiritual element of our being, opposes any very great upward change and leaves it either undeveloped or insufficiently satisfied. An ideal Teacher examines only one side of existence, only one province or district of truth and leaves all the rest unexplained and without any special significance. The ‘elementary virtues’²⁴ of an ideal Teacher with Sattwic Nature as indicated in the Gita ²³ is fearlessness, purity of temperament, steadfastness in the aim of life, giving, self-control, sacrifice, concentration on the study material, askesis, candour, straightforwardness, harmlessness, truth speaking, absence of wrath, self-denial, calm, absence of fault finding, compassion to all beings, absence of greed, gentleness, modesty, freedom from restlessness, affirmative energy, forgiveness, patience, clearness, absence of envy and pride. ‘It is quite elementary: never take notice of evil, never speak of the evil present in others, never perpetuate the vibrations of evil by observation, criticism or giving undue attention to the evil deed. This is what Buddha taught: each time you mention an evil you help spread it.’⁷² In order to cure evil and ugliness, the Mother proposed two steps, negative and positive cooperation: 1: (First negative step): “it is not through ignorance or unconsciousness or indifference that you fail to see evil – you can see and even feel it, but you refuse to collaborate in spreading it by giving it the force of your attention or the support of your consciousness. And for that, you must yourself be above the perception and sensation – able to see evil or ugliness without suffering, without feeling shocked or troubled. You see them from a height where such things do not exist, yet you have the conscious perception of them – they don’t affect you, you are free. This is the first step.”⁷² 2: (second positive step): “The second step is to be POSITIVELY conscious of the supreme Goodness and Beauty behind all things and supporting all things, permitting them to exist. Once you have seen Him, you can perceive Him behind the mask and the distortion – even ugliness, even cruelty, even evil are a disguise for that Something which is essentially good or beautiful, luminous, pure.”⁷² The passage from ideal Teacher to integral Teacher opens through Sattwic renunciation, Sattwic concentration, Sattwi c askesis and Sattwic consecration. The Gita ²⁶ further hints that a Sattwic man, Jijnasu, or ideal Teacher, or a traditional realised Teacher, becomes a Yogi with Psychic and Spiritual opening after many births of Spiritual preparation, and a Yogi becomes an integral Yogi or integral Teacher with possession of Cosmic Consciousness after many births of Spiritual Self-discipline. In Ideal education, all life is considered as unconscious Yoga of Nature and in integral education, all life is a conscious Yoga of Nature. The gulf between ideal Education and integral Education can be bridged if son of man, Nara , shows willingness to become son of God, Narayana . The son of man limits his life to money earning, procreation of family and its maintenance. The desire to earn money, the desire to procreate a family and desire take care of them throughout his life can be exhausted after many births of preparation or it can be exhausted in one birth if the Soul is sufficiently evolved in the past births. ‘The outer apparent man, an ephemeral being subject to the constraints of his material embodiment and imprisoned in a limited mentality, has to become the inner real Man, master of himself and his environment and universal in his being. In a more vivid and less metaphysical language, the natural man has to evolve himself into the divine Man; the sons of Death have to know themselves as the children of Immortality. It is on this account that the human birth can be described as the turning-point in the evolution, the critical stage in earth-nature.’⁹¹ The son of God will exclusively preoccupy his time and small habitation of space in accumulating Spiritual energy by learning four lessons in many births or in one birth if Soul is sufficiently evolved. The four lessons are (1) Jivatma’s union with Paramatma, ( 2) Jivatma’s union with Paraprakriti , (3) Paramatma’s union with Paraprakriti in the heart centre and (4) Para-prakriti’s union with Apara-prakriti. Here, Jivatma is a Psychic and Spiritual being combined.⁹³ Paramatma is the Supreme Self, the Turiya state of Consciousness. Para-prakriti i s the Supreme Mother, dynamic state of Supreme Turiya . Apara-prakriti is the Subconscient and Inconscient sheath with their extension of negative energy in mind, life and body. OM TAT SAT Integral Teacher “To be a good teacher one must have the insight and knowledge of a Guru with an unfailing patience.”⁴¹ The Mother 19 January 1972 “Just as we organise the school in such a way as to be able to discover and help outstanding students, in the same way, the responsibility for classes should be given to outstanding teachers. So I ask each teacher to consider his work in the school as the best and quickest way of doing his Yoga. Moreover, every difficulty and every difficult student should be an opportunity for him to find a divine solution to the problem.”⁶⁴ The Mother “Help men, but do not pauperise them of their energy; lead and instruct men, but see that their initiative and originality remain intact; take others into thyself, but give them in return the full godhead of their nature. He who can do this is the leader and the guru .”⁶⁰ Sri Aurobindo “In fact, this is what we have said more than fifty thousand times: that all is the Divine and that consequently all is One; that it is only your consciousness which is separated and in a state of unconsciousness because it is separated; but that if you remove this unconsciousness and this sense of separation, you become divine.”⁵⁸ The Mother “The Yogin’s distinction from other men is this that he lives in a higher and vaster spiritual consciousness; all his work of knowledge or creation must then spring from there: it must not be made in the mind, — for it is a greater truth and vision than mental man’s that he has to express or rather that presses to express itself through him and mould his works, not for his personal satisfaction, but for a divine purpose.”⁵⁹ Sri Aurobindo “This earth is not alone our teacher and nurse; The powers of all the worlds have entrance here.” Savitri-153 “A few can climb to an unperishing sun, Or live on the edges of the mystic moon And channel to earth-mind the wizard ray.” Savitri-689 “Earth is the chosen place of mightiest souls; Earth is the heroic spirit’s battle field, The forge where the Archmason shapes his works.” Savitri-686 Sri Babaji Maharaj Here, the Guru is not a person, but a principle of the Eternal, a universal energy or a state of ascending and descending Consciousness, that manifests through a human form. He is not a separative identity oblivious of the Divine, but a channel and out-flow of the Divine Power and he is also one with the seven-fold personalities of the Divine. Similarly, here Divine is not a Person²¹ but a static pure absolute Consciousness extended over multiple Selves and the Divine Mother is a hierarchy of ascending and descending dynamic Consciousness extending Her action over multiple subtle bodies and subtle worlds. In principle, an integral Teacher is more a learner of endless truth⁴² and Spiritual influence and less an exemplar and instructor. He is primarily a servant, slave and follower of the Divine’s limitless Consciousness and secondarily a leader, path finder and mentor of limiting Consciousness represented by students. If an integral Teacher has to replace the traditional realised and contemporary ideal Teacher then he has to call down all the large and consummating wisdom and universalise the individual Divine realisation of traditional guru and the ego born of individual liberation is annulled by the possession of universal and transcendent Divine; he will not reject anything that is essential in the mundane perfection pursued by the contemporary ideal Teacher, but enlarges it, finds and lives in its greater, wider and truer values now hidden from it, transfigures it from a limited, earthly and mortal thing to a figure of Infinite, Immortal values and Divine perfection. His main business will be to reconcile the World, the Self and the God through his dynamic Supracosmic Influence and Presence which will be subordinated by the truth of cosmic Spiritual influence or Spiritual endeavour and individualised psycho-physical instructions and guidance. A Teacher of Integral Education is primarily a Spiritual influence and secondarily an exemplar and instructor and his environmental subtle body or universalized subtle body ‘must be so steeped in the spiritual light and spiritual substance that nothing (no world influence) can enter into it without undergoing this transformation…’⁵⁴ His Nature of living will be ‘an accomplished inner existence whose light and power will take perfect body in the outer life.’⁵⁵ He will turn his aspiration always to the height beyond the ideal aim of mind which imperfectly and fragmentarily attempts only his poor and rigid travesty of spontaneous and illimitable integral perfection. He is directed to act by the pressure from new suggestions from the Infinite. The concentration of an ideal Teacher is on the object of education which is identified as perfection of outer living while concentration of an integral Teacher goes behind the objective education to the Lord of Education and goes beyond the fragmentary knowledge to complete self-knowledge in all things and all moments and the mantra of an ideal Teacher intending to become an integral Teacher is in biblical language, “My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up.”¹³ The personality of an ideal Teacher is restricted by an isolated entity within ‘the inefficient mental ideal of brotherhood’⁶ whereas the personality of an integral Teacher is not limited by a separative individuality; he universalises the brotherhood to realise ‘unity of all’⁷ and develops seven-fold ecstatic Divine personality²⁵ that of entire love and tenderness of the Mother, of total compassion of the Father, of complete patience of the Teacher, of tireless action of the Divine Master, of full joy of the Playmate, of unprecedented help of the Friend and of the everlasting affirmation of the Divine Lover and he will consider his student as uninterrupted seeker of eternal Knowledge, child God, growing God and the future Godhead of the race. His nature is the characteristic law of Spirit which ‘is self-existent perfection and immutable infinity.’¹⁰³ OM TAT SAT Integral Student: “There is no end to the world’s stupendous march, There is no rest for the embodied soul. It must live on, describe all Time’s huge curve. An Influx presses from the closed Beyond Forbidding to him rest and earthly ease, Till he has found himself he cannot pause.” Savitri-339 "How shall the child already be the man? Because he is infant, shall he never grow? Because he is ignorant, shall he never learn? In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks, In a tiny gene a thinking being is shut; A little element in a little sperm, It grows and is a conqueror and a sage." Savitri-623 We have always remembered that a Sadhaka of Integral Yoga is primarily a student of Integral Education and, secondarily, a Teacher. His appetite to learn has extended to multiple planes of Consciousness, including the limitation of modern Knowledge. A student of integral Education is a 'child of Immortality chosen by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother .'¹¹⁴ For him, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo are material embodiments of the Divine. They are at once symbols of Divine Love, Divine Action, comprehensive movement of Consciousness, and a primary Source. A concentration on Their supreme relation opens the Supramental door. A personal and impersonal relation with Them can be strengthened by awakening the Soul or Psychic Being in the heart Centre and the Spiritual being above the head, respectively. For him Integral Teacher is a symbol of perfect Arya, having triple realisation of the Divine in Psychic, Spiritual and Universal planes, a secondary Source, a Spiritual influence and he is ‘a child leading children, a Light kindling other lights, an awakened Soul awakening souls, at highest a Power or Presence of the Divine calling to him other powers of the Divine.’⁹⁸ For him, his fellow brothers and sisters in the school are tertiary Source , Divine inhabiting in a human vessel, brings fulfilment, joy and laughter of the Soul in his collective identity. For him, birth parents are the quaternary Source , indispensable fosterer and protector of his mind, life and body’s once-born Soul status. A mutual debt binds them in this birth. For higher Spiritual pursuit and shifting of inner consciousness from this life to all life, this parental debt is paid in the passage of time. If he does tapasya or self-control through purified intellect, then he is identified as ideal student and he can bring happiness in his birth parents and the parental debt is paid. If he pursues hard tapasya or rigorous self-control through Psychic and Spiritual opening, then he is identified as an integral Student and thus he satisfies the Divine, the primary Source and God’s debt is paid. The task given to Primary Source is to liberate the prepared vessel from the yoke of lower nature. The task of the secondary Source is to strengthen the contact with the primary Source. The task of the tertiary Source in collective living is to replace sense enjoyment with Soul enjoyment. The task of the quaternary Source is to stabilse and establish the existing earth-bound life through earthly enjoyment. For a student of integral Education, his birth from the mother’s womb gives him once born Soul status and he ‘does Nature’s inferior works; he assures the basis for her higher activities; but not to him easily are opened the glories of her second birth.’¹⁰² This material birth can be further evolved in the few as a new second birth of the Soul. This identity of the twice-born Soul, Dvija, is generally the outcome of the askesis of past births. Divine deputes for him Spiritual fosterer replacing birth parents⁴⁰ who are symbols of conjugal human love and further representing as descendants of Adam and Eve,¹⁰¹ too old and obsolete for his future Soul growth. In Spiritual rebirth, if a twice-born Soul's direct contact with the Divine is not supported by a living Spiritual fosterer or is not in the Love and Care of the living Spiritual Influence, then he is identified here as an orphan divine child in the cradle and may recoil to his once-born Soul status. The universalisation and completeness of the integral Education movement is realised when the human race becomes master of the lower Nature or ‘When all mankind becomes boys and girls together with God revealed as Krishna and Kali, the happiest boy and strongest girl of the crowd, playing together in the gardens of Paradise.’¹⁰¹ A Dvija can concentrate the Teachings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo , who have left behind unimaginable, vivid, overhead Spiritual wisdom and knowledge for the seekers of the new age. But the ‘most authoritative scripture is in the heart in which Eternal has His dwelling’⁹⁹ and the Supreme guide of the integral Yoga ‘is the inner Guide, the World-Teacher, jagad-guru , secret within us.’¹⁰⁰ Living Guru i s a Spiritual fosterer, indispensable for the twice-born Soul and dispensable when the latter ascends to still higher Spiritual Consciousness of Instrument and Emanation. If he can establish a firm contact with the inner Guru, the Psychic being, the Soul in the heart, or the Divine Presence within himself, then that can substitute the need for a living Teacher. After the first birth from the Mother’s womb, there is a second birth of the Soul, known as twice born, dvija . A dvija is in need of a Spiritual Father, a Spiritual Mother, a Spiritual Master and a Spiritual Guru for his survival and is in need of a Playmate, a Friend and a Lover for Soul flowering; otherwise, his Soul will suffer decay and death. Then he leads an ordinary, earthbound life. The Divine Centre is the cradle of Superman. At its centre there must be an individual Soul Centre who is having direct contact with the Divine and his brotherhood status must be fulfilled by the development of the above sevenfold Divine personality. Without this condition Divine Centre can deform as a soul-slaying cradle where the newborn dvijas are killed and they are forced to lead an ordinary earth-bound life. This presence of an Asuric Teacher in most of the Spiritual Centres is hinted in Savitri as, "And in the cradle slay the divine Child." (Savitri-224) Most of the Spiritual Teachers of traditional Schools of Yoga are satisfied with partial Divine union and show little interest in making this union comprehensive; hence, they are considered Asuric in Nature. OM TAT SAT Integral Education: “King-children born on Wisdom’s early plane, Taught in her school world-making’s mystic play.” Savitri-266 “Insatiate seeker, he has all to learn:” Savitri-133 “The Infants of the monarchy of the worlds, The heroic leaders of a coming time, King-children nurtured in that spacious air Like lions gambolling in sky and sun Received half-consciously their godlike stamp:” Savitri-382 Sri K. Anurakta Integral Education includes (1) pre-natal education⁷⁷ or education in the mother’s womb where the mother in this gestation period is educated in a harmonious, beautiful and protected atmosphere free from all vulgarities; (2) education of the child between birth to first five years of formative⁵⁷ and the most important period of integration where birth mother⁶⁵ is identified as the first and the foremost teacher; (3) conventional mental education received after five years in an education centre where the child further educates himself through a trained teacher; (4) education of all life or education continuing from past births to future forthcoming births which is possible if one will live an inner life and consciousness of triple time, trikaladristi, and during this period he will receive education of multiple Selves and Sheaths either through movement of all the planes of Consciousness or through increase of self-concentration or through practice of Yoga; (5) internatal education or training during the transition period between death of the body and new physical birth; during that transition the individual receives rigorous training in multiple subtle worlds before he is considered fit to take new birth from universal plane. A path of protection is to be built in the vital world so that a dead Soul can travel securely from terrestrial vital world to the Psychic world.⁶⁶ After death, each aspiring soul travels/adventures like a sailor⁸⁰ from one unknown Ocean to another unknown Ocean of subtle physical, subtle vital, subtle mental, Psychic and Spiritual planes for experience and Cosmic Self is his final training ground and resting place from which his rebirth is decided. The undeveloped Souls may take birth¹⁹ either from subtle vital or subtle mental wandering without arriving at the home of the Psychic/Universal Being. Integral Education has identified countless tamasic and rajasic imperfections and countless sattwic limited human perfections which are to be purified and transformed into Divine perfection and we must fulfil/perfect ‘the immense lacuna we have made.’⁸¹ It will not reject interest in the Arts, the Science, the Technology and Life but lifts them out of their limitations with the aid of Comprehensive Spiritual Knowledge. In the Integral Education, the complete triune unity and knowledge on the World, the Self and the God is the sure foundation of perfection and this perfection is extended towards fullness of Being, Consciousness and Life. The subjectively-objective doctrine of Integral Education is to pursue the subjective and objective development of the students with the help of inner aids, which are again helped and subordinated by outer aids. Integral education is a knowledge of the truth of all sides of existence, inner and outer training, a disappearance of limitation, a breaking down of separativeness, an overpassing of boundaries, a recovery of our essential and whole Reality of Self and Nature and a reconciliation of the apparently opposite terms of One and Many, Form and the Formless, Finite and the Infinite. Integral Education replaces the knowledge that can be learned by constructing mind of confused crab-motion of Ideal Education by a rapid, conscious and self-directed evolution; so the success of the former can come when the Integral Teacher transcended far beyond the capacity of exclusive concentration of Ideal Teacher and is capable of developing essential, multiple and integral Concentration which is the extension of partial mental consciousness towards the Infinite extending over multiple subtle worlds or he becomes at once the centre of large Subliminal action, universal action and of limitless transcendent action. The perfection foreseen in Integral Education is to take up all the truth of instrumental existence of mind, life and body and give them the orientation of oneness, integration and harmony and this perfection is a sovereignty and self-effectuation of the Spiritual Reality into all the elements of our nature. The perfection of Integral Education can come when the Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental influence of the integral Teacher would create the order of Spiritual freedom, an authentic, automatic and plastic order and harmony which is extended towards the outer world. The healthiness of an Integral Education Centre is dependent on harmonious combination of all the developmental faculties, striving to contribute the best in proportion to their capacity. This healthiness is further enforced through regular study circle, an external aid to substitute the more profound inner aid of the Soul, in which the commerce between the Divine, the Lord of Integral Education, Dharma, the law and principles of Integral Education and Sangha , the collectivity which includes teachers, students and guardians are worked out and its effective dynamisation brings abundant Divine Grace, Ananda and swift Evolution. Regular study circle for school children within the school premises is meant to make them aware of higher mental and Spiritual life and initiate their Soul through the cultivation of their Soul faculties, dikshya , which complements their routine and regular surface mental, vital and physical education, sikshya. The study circle has other objectives of elevating the common man to the need of Spiritual life. It cannot insist but make aware of the professional teacher to increase his capacity by renunciation, self-concentration and self-consecration and turn into a devotee. Since a devotee has received the Divine’s touch so he has the possibility of becoming Integral Yogi or constant union/embrace with the Divine, either in this life through gradual intensification of faith, sincerity and surrender or arrives at the same status after succession of many births. So if a devotee after receiving the Divine’s touch on the surface of his Nature remains satisfied with this unequal concentration of Consciousness in his whole being, then he will feel secured to remain as an eternal devotee through part self-giving or on the other hand if he can direct the gained Divine touch sufficiently inward beyond the surface nature, then he can spread and experience equal concentration of Consciousness on all the parts of his Being and Nature and thus he multiplies the capacity of Self-surrender and intensity of Divine union in this life. As an immediate remedy, a growing devotee seeking liberation of Soul is made aware of becoming an Ashramite by consecrating his outer life entirely to the Divine. Since an Ashramite has received the Divine’s Call to lead a Divine Life, he is made aware to become a Sadhaka by rejecting all earthly enjoyments and old earth-bound associations and turning his effort towards purification, concentration and identity and manifesting in him the norms of Integral Yoga. A Sadhaka is made aware to turn into a consecrated Child by entire self-giving of inner and outer life to the Divine and the outer law of integral Yoga is substituted by inner Psychic and Spiritual Law. A Child is made aware to become an Integral Yogi and becomes the living Supramental channel of the Divine. The Gita confirms that a seeker of Truth, after many births of preparation, becomes a Yogi and a Yogi with Psychic and Spiritual opening, after many births of preparation, becomes an integral Yogi with universalised Consciousness.⁶⁹ Thus, The Mother’s saying that a Teacher must be a Yogi¹⁰⁸ is realised in order to experience the extreme enhancement of his existing capacity in terms of God’s Omnipotence and Omniscience. Integral Yoga foresees the perfection and universalisation of this direct Divine faculty of God the Teacher and the personality of Guru force or the Nameless Divine Influence develops as one ascends in the path of Integral Jnana Yoga . Study Circle is Prakriti Yajna. If it is done rightly, then there will be a large descent of Divine Will, Divine Wisdom and Divine Love. The Earlier trend of using this as a platform for giving upadesha (advice) and lokasangraham (gathering together of people) has renewed their significance before the new movement of Consciousness through Prakriti Yajna or Vedic sacrifice. In Study circle, our firm motive is to “Ask for nothing but the divine, spiritual and supramental Truth, its realisation on earth and in you and in all who are called and chosen and the conditions needed for its creation and its victory over all opposing forces…Where there is affinity to the rhythms of the secret world-bliss and response to the call of the All-Beautiful and concord and unity and the glad flow of many lives turned towards the Divine, in that atmosphere she (Mahalakshmi) consents to abide.”⁶⁷ The other guideline for the study circle is that we have to discern Soul Slaying truth from Soul saving truth, where the manifestation of the former divides life⁷⁴ and the manifestation of the latter unites⁷⁵ individuals, collective groups and the existing life. OM TAT SAT Objective of integral Education: “The aim of education is not to prepare a man to succeed in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to its utmost.”²⁷ The Mother “It is not a rationalisation but a supramentalisation, not a moralising but a spiritualising of life that is the object of the Yoga… All must be taken to a spiritual height and placed upon a spiritual basis; the presence of an inner spiritual change and an outer transformation must be enforced upon the whole of life and not merely on a part of life; all must be accepted that is helpful towards this change or admits it, all must be rejected that is incapable or inapt or refuses to submit itself to the transforming movement.”³⁶ Sri Aurobindo “The object must be the training of the body and the development of certain parts of mind and character so far as this can be done by or in connection with this training, and I have already indicated in a previous number how and in what directions this can be done. It is a relative and human perfection that can be attained within these limits; anything greater can be reached only by the intervention of higher powers, psychic powers, the power of the spirit. Yet what can be attained within the human boundaries can be something very considerable and sometimes immense: what we call genius is part of the development of the human range of being, and its achievements, especially in things of the mind and will, can carry us half-way to the divine. Even what the mind and will can do with the body in the field proper to the body and its life, in the way of physical achievement, bodily endurance, feats of prowess of all kinds, a lasting activity refusing fatigue or collapse and continuing beyond what seems at first to be possible, courage and refusal to succumb under an endless and murderous physical suffering, these and other victories of many kinds sometimes approaching or reaching the miraculous are seen in the human field and must be reckoned as a part of our concept of a total perfection.”⁴⁴ Sri Aurobindo “His perfection will not be a sattwic purity, but a thing uplifted beyond the gunas of Nature, a perfection of spiritual knowledge, spiritual power, spiritual delight, unity and harmony of unity; the outward perfection of his works will be freely shaped as the self-expression of this inner spiritual transcendence and universality.”⁶⁸ Sri Aurobindo The first object of Integral Education is perfection of the body or ‘an intensive physical training which has given form to the sports and athletics’⁴³ and this type of training has benefits for both National and International life. This initial effort of physical training will make the foundation strong towards realisation of total perfection. So the objective of Integral Education is to attain integral perfection which in the language of India’s ancient tradition is to create a Spiritual Man with unlimited opening towards Divine Will, Knowledge, Light, Joy, Peace, Love, Freedom and a sense of Beauty. This perfection has been further extended in integral Yoga as the Gnostic Soul and Bliss Soul. Spiritual Man: “The spiritual man is one who has discovered his soul: he has found his self and lives in that, is conscious of it, has the joy of it; he needs nothing external for his completeness of existence. The gnostic being starting from this new basis takes up our ignorant becoming and turns it into a luminous becoming of knowledge and a realised power of being.”⁷⁶ Sri Aurobindo “To discover the spiritual being in himself is the main business of the spiritual man and to help others towards the same evolution is his real service to the race…”¹⁰⁵ Sri Aurobindo S.A. Maa Krishna The Gita issues injunctions¹¹⁵ on the Spiritual man that he must practice four self-disciplines ceaselessly without rest. They are identified as ceaseless action of memorising the Divine, ceaseless consecrated action, ceaseless action of giving, Dana, and ceaseless askesis or tapasya through self-control. A Spiritual man or a developed Soul needs nothing external for completeness of his existence because self-fulfilment comes by spontaneous union of the Soul with the Divine. His approach towards God is primarily Impersonal and secondarily adoration of the personal aspect of monotheistic and polytheistic Deities. His objective is primarily realisation of the eternal and immutable Self and secondarily to establish a true relation between the eternal Self and the mutable existence. He realises Divine primarily as fundamental Being of the highest state of Turiya and secondarily as the effectual becoming of the sleep Self, dream Self and waking Self. For him, the Divine is primarily ineffable, unmanifest and secondarily as His manifestation of infinite being, consciousness and bliss, embracing the universe and its play. He moves primarily in essential, universal, eternal and comprehensive Truth of Being, infinite Power of being, infinite Delight of Being and secondarily with finite aspect of applications, sequences, harmonies and the potentialities of the truths of Being. He experiences time primarily as continuity of manifestation from past successive lives to future forthcoming lives, is aware of timeless being, Eternal’s manifestation in time through successive many planes of Consciousness and secondarily as concentration on the limitation of present time of succession of moments and pragmatic surface reality. His vision of things is primarily a derivative of Omniscience, a vision from above the head, from within the heart and from Occult subliminal plane and secondarily the discord of present external facts, phenomena and appearance. His will and action is primarily a derivative of Omnipotence, action from dominating height of Divine Will with longer movement in time and a large range of potencies and secondarily a personal will and action from three modes of Nature. His Consciousness moves primarily in between Kshara and Akshara Purusha, or in between Psychic and Spiritual Being and secondarily in between tamas, rajas and sattwa . He lives primarily in the freedom of the universal, Transcendence and in God in all beings and things and secondarily shuts himself in limiting ego, mind’s abstractions and intellectual constructions. His mind, life and body live primarily in the infinity of the Spirit with their right value, place and purpose and secondarily accept and record their limitation. He primarily ceases to judge other men and things by their outward appearance and delivers himself and others from any hostile and contradictory ideas and emotions; for he sees, seeks and finds the Soul everywhere and all other inferior relations are of secondary importance and are not having any absolute values in them. He does good of all creatures primarily by extension of his Spiritual realisation and secondarily by diminutive mental effort. He lives alone with the Divine in the fortress of the Self within and his outer life must be sealed against the vibration and influence of the surrounding world through some secured Spiritual Fortress without. Again for a Spiritual movement, dependency will be more on the subtle action than any external machinery and few can spread and expand Consciousness without the support of outward means. So he must station himself within a strong fence of protection and infrastructure of collective living. Integral Yoga asks a strong Spiritual Being to be subordinated by a strong Mental Being and all primary Spiritual faculties and secondary mental faculties suffer equal Divine transformation by invasion of dynamic Spirit into the kingdom of mind, life and body. A Spiritual man’s evolution is decreed towards the evolution of the Gnostic Soul where even the widest mental Spirituality of one-sided, exclusive and imperfect power of self-expression of life is transcended. Gnostic Soul: The transition from Manomaya Purusha of Spiritual Man to Vijnanamaya Purusha of Gnostic Soul is a great and decisive transition of integral Yoga. It is the middle or link plane of creative wisdom, power and joy and not the highest plane of Consciousness. The ultimate transition is the change of Consciousness from Vijnanamaya Purusha of Gnostic Soul to Anandamaya Purusha of the Bliss Soul. A Gnostic Soul shakes off the last hold of cosmic Ignorance. He establishes a firm foundation in truth of things, in a Consciousness eternal and infinite and is untouched by obscurity, falsehood, suffering and error. He sees through direct self-illumining process of Supramental vision which is the very centre and pouring fount of truth, directly grasps the truth of things and penetrates to its original and eternal nature. His sense gets into relation with things by an unveiled oneness and identity. He has no need of any truth seeking and self-discipline and possesses the body of truth and light spontaneously, constantly and easily. He is capable of knowing all things simply, convincingly and directly without the aid of the sense organs. All his actions are free from doubt, self-evident, self-existent, unanswerable and absolute. In him, mental imagination is replaced by truth-inspiration, mental judgement is replaced by self-luminous discernment, uncertain mental memory is replaced by a memory at once of past, present and future. He dominates time by a subtle link of past, present and future and not by a mental perception of succession of moments. His knowledge does not recognise any real division and dwells in unity; he knows finite things only in their relation to the infinite. He pours out on the existence in the form of wealth of Divine Knowledge, Divine Will and Divine Ananda. In his Consciousness, truths of the eternal are not in conflict with each other and all opposite things of this imperfect world are happily fused. A Gnostic Soul creates a voluntary limitation for his world action and movement of knowledge and he is even having a particular luminous aura of his being in which he moves and yet he identifies with all beings and all existences. OM TAT SAT The True Physical Education The Subtle Physical Education: “Into a dense of subtle Matter packed, A cavity filled with a blind mass of power, An opposition of misleading gleams, A heavy barrier of unseeing sight, She forced her way through body to the soul.” Savitri-489 “Only our souls have left Death’s night behind, Changed by a mighty dream’s reality, Illumined by the light of symbol worlds And the stupendous summit self of things,” Savitri-718 “Earth’s bodies shall be conscious of a soul; Mortality’s bondslaves shall unloose their bonds, Mere men into spiritual beings grow And see awake the dumb divinity.” Savitri-709 “The physical being of man has always been felt by the seekers of perfection to be a great impediment and it has been the habit to turn from it with contempt, denial or aversion and a desire to suppress altogether or as far as may be the body and the physical life. But this cannot be the right method for the integral Yoga. The body is given us as one instrument necessary to the totality of our works and it is to be used, not neglected, hurt, suppressed or abolished. If it is imperfect, recalcitrant, obstinate, so are also the other members, the vital being, heart and mind and reason. It has like them to be changed and perfected and to undergo a transformation. As we must get ourselves a new life, new heart, new mind, so we have in a certain sense to build for ourselves a new body.”¹⁴ Sri Aurobindo “At any rate a full development of the general mental and physical faculties and experiences attainable by humanity through Yoga must be included in the scope of the integral method.”⁴⁹ Sri Aurobindo “Health and strength are the first conditions for the natural perfection of the body, not only muscular strength and the solid strength of the limbs and physical stamina, but the finer, alert and plastic and adaptable force which our nervous and subtle physical parts can put into the activities of the frame. There is also the still more dynamic force which a call upon the life-energies can bring into the body and stir it to greater activities, even feats of the most extraordinary character of which in its normal state it would not be capable.”⁴⁷ Sri Aurobindo “Apart from the obscurity, frailties and limitations, which this change will overcome, the body-consciousness is a patient servant and can be in its large reserve of possibilities a potent instrument of the individual life, and it asks for little on its own account: what it craves for is duration, health, strength, physical perfection, bodily happiness, liberation from suffering, ease.”⁵⁰ Sri Aurobindo “A light and power, a knowledge and force are felt which first take possession of the mind and remould it, afterwards of the life part and remould that, finally of the little physical consciousness and leave it no longer little but wide and plastic and even infinite.”⁹² Sri Aurobindo Integral Education proposes ‘rigorous discipline’³⁹ of which physical education is identified as rigorous self-control of the body. The Mother confirms, ‘all education of the body, if it is to be effective, must be rigorous and detailed, far-sighted and methodical. This will be translated into habits; the body is a being of habits. But these habits should be controlled and disciplined, while remaining flexible enough to adapt themselves to circumstances and to the needs of the growth and development of the being.’⁵⁶ We have two physical substances, one that of the gross body, bound by its past evolution in Matter and there are other and subtler grades of substance known as subtle physical with a finer law and a greater power which support the denser body and provides the substance for our physical, vital and mental sheaths and at the core of subtle physical sheath there is true physical being. Subtle physical in us is open towards the universal force-formation of cosmic Matter, enters into the ranges of consciousness belonging to them and imposes that finer law and power on our dense matter and substitute their purer, higher and intenser conditions of being for the grossness and limitation of our present physical life and impulses and habits. The learning capacity, plasticity and new moulding of the gross body is much slower than the subtle physical sheath, Annamaya Kosha and the true physical being, the Annamaya Purusha. The true physical education lies behind the surface physical education, which trains the physical substance to its utmost strength, capacity, plasticity and vigour. The outward character of the body has two deficiencies; firstly, that of limitations in terms of its capacity and secondly, it has a Subconscient consciousness of its own which is an obstinate fidelity to past habits and past nature and automatically opposes and obstructs any very great upward change and radical transformation of the whole nature. The physical substance is our base and foundation and if we ignore it or belittle it for any higher Spiritual quest, then we do not become perfect but only shift the field of our imperfection. The aim of true physical education is firstly, the discovery of the surface physical self, the true physical, annamaya Purusha , the Divine stationed in the physical sheath, secondly, purification and transformation of the Physical sheath, subtle physical, the annamaya kosha and finally, the perfection of the physical sheath. The perfection of body is of four types that of a greatness of sustaining force, mahattva , an abounding strength, energy and puissance of outgoing and managing force, bala , a lightness, swiftness and adaptability of the nervous and physical being, laghuta and a capacity to hold higher Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental energy in the whole physical substance, dharana-samarthya . ‘And finally the body must develop a perfect power to hold whatever force is brought into it by the spirit and to contain its action without spilling and wasting it or itself getting cracked… This faculty of holding, dharana-shakti, in the physical consciousness, energy and machinery is the most important siddhi or perfection of the body.’⁹⁷ Physical substance requires training to overcome the states of constant obscure parts, moments of unconsciousness, long obstinate habit, temporary inclination of weak resignation, dull acceptance, constitutional feebleness, movements of fatigue, negligence and indolence, lapses into ignorance, incapacity, depression and fear, cowardly recoil, submission to the environment and to the pressure of the men and events and forces. In its place, physical substance attains calm passivity, immobile tranquillity, dynamic peace and silence. This opens the passage through subtle physical to discover the true physical being. This discovery helps the physical substance to experience purification, transformation and perfection of the subtle physical substance and the gross physical substance, the annamaya kosha. The perfection of the body foreseen in ideal education is attained mechanically by physical exercises and other corporeal means. This can attain more flexibility with the assistance of Hathayoga, but still mechanically by Asana and Pranayama. In Integral Education these physical trainings, right use and control of physical things would exist, not for any inferior enjoyment and pleasure but as expression of the truth of the Spirit and beauty and delight of physical existence and a regulation of the physical life-force which liberated them from some of the ordinary physical habits or so-called laws thought by physical science to be inseparable from life in the body. In Integral Education, the perfection of the true and gross physical substance can be attained by three methods; firstly, by development of the will in mind and widely opening itself to and potently calling down the universal pranic Shakti and holding and fixing its more powerful working in the body. Secondly, by the will in mind opening itself rather to the Spiritual power above the head and calling in higher Spiritual pranic energy from above, the Spiritual pranic energy; thirdly, the final step is the opening towards highest Supramental will of the Spirit and it will enter in and take up directly the perfection of the body. The three stages through which integral Education proposes to train the body is that firstly, it considers the body as a mutable dress to be replaced repeatedly in all life and the body must develop the perfect capacity to hold whatever Spiritual energy without spilling, wasting or getting itself cracked and it is considered as foundation of our highest development without entering any attachment towards it; secondly, the body consciousness is to be transcended and exceeded of its limitations and subjection to death, decay and suffering and this faculty of holding higher Spiritual energy, dharana shakti, is considered as important achievement of the perfection of the body and to consider the body as an instrument and minor outward formation of annamaya Purusha , the Self in the body; thirdly, the bodily consciousness is universalised to feel its physical oneness with all material existence. The universalisation of physical consciousness has three stages in which firstly, the body is identified with universal suffering and pain and bears a part of the earthly burden which is too difficult for ordinary human consciousness to bear, secondly, gradual transformation of this universal suffering into Delight and lastly, achieving the state of absolute Delight from which all earthly sufferings are instantly healed and universal order and harmony are permanently restored. OM TAT SAT The Subtle Vital Education: “A mighty life-self with its inner powers Supports the dwarfish modicum we call life; It can graft upon our crawl two puissant wings.” Savitri-485 “Her being entered into the inner worlds. In a narrow passage, the subconscient’s gate, She breathed with difficulty and pain and strove To find the inner self concealed in sense.” Savitri-489 “It is only if the inner or true vital being replaces the outer life-personality that the drive of the vital ego can be wholly overcome and the life-force become the servant of the soul and a powerful instrumentation for the action of our true spiritual being.”³¹ Sri Aurobindo “The prominence of this true vital being under the lead of the true inmost soul within us is the condition for the divine fulfilment of the objects of the Life-Force. Those objects will even remain the same in essence, but transformed in their inner motive and outer character. The Divine Life-Power too will be a will for growth, a force of self-affirmation, but affirmation of the Divine within us, not of the little temporary personality on the surface, — growth into the true divine Individual, the central being, the secret imperishable Person who can emerge only by the subordination and disappearance of the ego. This is life’s true object: growth, but a growth of the spirit in Nature, affirming and developing itself in mind, life and body; possession, but a possession by the Divine of the Divine in all things, and not of things for their own sake by the desire of the ego; enjoyment, but an enjoyment of the divine Ananda in the universe; battle and conquest and empire in the shape of a victorious conflict with the Powers of Darkness, an entire spiritual self-rule and mastery over inward and outward Nature, a conquest by Knowledge, Love and Divine Will over the domains of the Ignorance.”³⁴ Sri Aurobindo We have two lives, one is outer life, bound by past evolution in matter which has birth, decay and death and the other is the subliminal force of life which is not cabined between the narrow boundaries of physical birth and death and the true vital being is at the core of subtle vital, our real vital existence. The subtle vital in us is open towards the universal force of the cosmic Life. The learning capacity, plasticity and new moulding of surface vital force is much slower than that of the subtle vital sheath, Pranamaya Kosha and true vital Self, the Pranamaya Purusha . The true Vital Education lies behind the surface Vital Education which is to train the surface emotion to its utmost intensity of beauty, joy, love and harmony of its vital Nature, prana, along with the surface mind and body. ‘The inner vital and physical are quite different — they have a larger, plastic, subtler, freer and richer consciousness than the surface vital and physical, much more open to the Truth and in direct touch with the universal.’⁹⁰ The aim of true vital education is firstly the discovery of vital Self, the true vital Being, the pranamaya Purusha, the Divine stationed in the vital sheath, secondly the purification and transformation of the vital sheath, the subtle vital, the pranamaya kosha and finally the perfection of the vital sheath. ‘It is when there is this death of desire and this calm equal wideness in the consciousness everywhere, that the true vital being within us comes out from the veil and reveals its own calm, intense and potent presence. For such is the true nature of the vital being, pranamaya purusa ; it is a projection of the Divine Purusha into life, — tranquil, strong, luminous, many-energied, obedient to the Divine Will, egoless, yet or rather therefore capable of all action, achievement, highest or largest enterprise. The true Life-Force too reveals itself as no longer this troubled harassed divided striving surface energy, but a great and radiant Divine Power, full of peace and strength and bliss, a wide-wayed Angel of Life with its wings of Might enfolding the universe.’³⁵ The perfection of the vital, or psychic prana, is of four types that of fullness, purnata , clear purity and gladness, prasannata, equality, samata , capacity of calling down higher Spiritual energy for possession and enjoyment, bhoga-samarthya . The perfection of emotion, chitta is of four types that of sweetness and mildness, saumya , strength and force, raudra , faith, kalyana-sraddha , illimitable, widest and intensest capacity to call down and hold the Divine Love, prema-samarthya . Vital substance requires training for overcoming its emotions, governed by egoistic passion, blind instinctive affections, all the play of the life-impulses with their imperfections, perversions, often sordid degradations, a heart besieged and given over to the lusts, desires, wraths, intense or fierce demands or little greed and mean pettiness of an obscure and fallen life-force and debased by its slavery to any and every impulse. One enters the passivity, immobility and silence of the emotive heart and sensational hungering vital either by the ordinary method of artistic and aesthetic activities or through Yogic practices. So, behind the subtle physical sheath, one enters the subtle vital sheath and in the innermost chamber of the subtle vital sheath, the true vital Being is discovered. This discovery helps to purify, transform and perfect the subtle vital sheath, pranamaya kosha. Gayatri and Bhagyashree The perfection of ideal education, through vital training is arts, songs, music, painting, dance and various outer enjoyments. These can be refined and subtilised by the ancient psycho-physical science of Hathayoga , psychic science of Rajayoga and spiritual science of traditional Bhakti Yoga or as proposed in Integral Yoga is to combine the two methods of Sankhya and Yoga or the method of witness Purusha with the method of consecrated action before integrating the emotional and vital part of the Bhakti Yoga. In Integral Education, these arts and crafts would exist not for any inferior mental or vital amusement, entertainment, excitement and pleasure but for the expression and means of the truth of the Spirit, the manifestation of love, beauty and delight of vital existence. Life would no longer be tyrannous masters demanding their satisfaction, but a means of expression of the power of the Spirit. To recollect The Mother’s childhood experience, ‘Then at a very young age (about eight or ten), along with my studies I began to paint. At twelve I was already doing portraits. All aspects of art and beauty, but particularly music and painting, fascinated me. I went through a very intense vital development during that period, with, just like in my early years, the presence of a kind of inner Guide; and all centered on studies: the study of sensations, observations, the study of technique, comparative studies, even a whole spectrum of observations dealing with taste, smell and hearing – a kind of classification of experiences. And this extended to all facets of life, all the experiences life can bring, all of them – miseries, joys, difficulties, sufferings, everything – oh, a whole field of studies! And always this presence within, judging, deciding, classifying, organizing and systematizing everything.’⁹ Integral Education proposes three methods for perfection of subtle and gross vital substance; firstly that of awakening the emotion in mind and vital sensation of mind towards universal divine Love and experience purification of Nature through the universal Pranic Shakti, which supports emotional and vital activities; secondly, the emotional and vital part are opened towards higher Spiritual Love or higher Spiritual Pranic Shakti , which descends from the Supramental plane; thirdly, the final step is to call down the Supramental Love that meets successfully all human contacts and takes the responsibility of perfecting the vital being and vital sheath. OM TAT SAT The Subtle Mental Education: “The truth mind could not know unveils its face, We hear what mortal ears have never heard, We feel what earthly sense has never felt, We love what common hearts repel and dread; Our minds hush to a bright Omniscient; A Voice calls from the chambers of the soul; We meet the ecstasy of the Godhead’s touch In golden privacies of immortal fire.” Savitri-48 “Late will he know, opening the mystic script, Whether to a blank port in the Unseen He goes or, armed with her fiat, to discover A new mind and body in the city of God And enshrine the Immortal in his glory’s house And make the finite one with Infinity.” Savitri-72 “A human seeking limited by its gains, To her they seemed the great and early steps Hazardous of a young discovering spirit Which saw not yet by its own native light; It tapped the universe with testing knocks Or stretched to find truth mind’s divining rod; There was a growing out to numberless sides, But not the widest seeing of the soul, Not yet the vast direct immediate touch, Nor yet the art and wisdom of the Gods.” Savitri-361 “In waking Mind, the Thinker built his house.” Savitri-622 “"Spiritual things"!. They teach history OR spiritual things, they teach science OR spiritual things. That's where the stupidity lies! In history, there is the Spirit; in science, there is the Spirit – the Truth is everywhere. And what's needed is to teach it not in an untruthful but in a true way.”¹⁰ The Mother “The Yogin’s aim in the Arts should not be a mere aesthetic, mental or vital gratification, but, seeing the Divine everywhere, worshipping it with a revelation of the meaning of its own works, to express that One Divine in ideal forms, the One Divine in principles and forces, the One Divine in gods and men and creatures and objects.”¹⁰⁴ Sri Aurobindo “To arrive then at the whole truth of our self and Spirit and the knowledge, greatness, bliss of our free and complete being must be the object of the purification, liberation and perfection of the buddhi.”⁹⁵ Sri Aurobindo “One effective way often used to facilitate this entry into the inner self is the separation of the Purusha, the conscious being, from the Prakriti, the formulated nature. If one stands back from the mind and its activities so that they fall silent at will or go on as a surface movement of which one is the detached and disinterested witness, it becomes possible eventually to realise oneself as the inner Self of mind, the true and pure mental being, the Purusha; by similarly standing back from the life activities, it is possible to realise oneself as the inner Self of life, the true and pure vital being, the Purusha; there is even a Self of body of which, by standing back from the body and its demands and activities and entering into a silence of the physical consciousness watching the action of its energy, it is possible to become aware, a true and pure physical being, the Purusha. So too, by standing back from all these activities of nature successively or together, it becomes possible to realise one’s inner being as the silent impersonal self, the witness Purusha.”⁹⁶ Sri Aurobindo We have two minds,³² one that of surface mind evolved out of Matter and evolutionary ego and another that of subliminal mind which is something large, powerful and luminous and at the core of subliminal mind there is true mental being. The subtle mind in us is open to the universal knowledge of the cosmic Mind. The learning capacity, plasticity and new moulding of surface mind is much slower than the capacity of subtle mental sheath, manomaya Kosha and true mental being or the mental Purusha . The aim of the true mental education is firstly the discovery of the lower mental Self, the truth mind, a portion of Manomaya Purusha , the Divine stationed in the mind, secondly the purification and transformation of mental sheath, subtle mind, a portion of Manomaya kosha , and finally the perfection of mental sheath. The perfection of mental sheath is of four types that of purity, visuddhi , clear and strong radiance emanating from the sun of the Truth, prakasha, capable of variety of understanding, supple, rich, flexible, brilliant with all the flame and various with all the colours of the manifestation of the Truth, vichitra-bodha and integral capacity to hold all kind of exclusive and comprehensive knowledge, sarva-jnana-samarthya. If this quest of mental perfection is left to the unripe mind and untrained intellect then it lends itself to most perilous distortions and misleading imaginations; if they are exposed to mixed functioning of emotional desire and nervous impulses, then it will create the danger of illuminating confusion rather than clarifying the truth. The effort of unchastened mind and unpurified intellect are always dangerous for a higher Spiritual quest and they cannot bring about a transformation of earth life. Any utilitarian system grows obsolete and stands as a barrier to the self-development of the individual and the race if it is subjected to unrestrained indulgence of outer impulses, stagnation by the mechanisation of the system and dull convention. The Ideal Education through mind can spread in three directions; (1) it concentrates on the individual development and perfection of surface nature, thought, outer dynamic, practical and utilitarian action in the world and our personal relation with the world around us; (2) it concentrates on the outer world itself, making it better suited to our ideas, conceptions and temperaments and (3) it concentrates on our own inner Psychic and Spiritual growth, systemised idea of a goal, the method and principles of highest development of our nature. The ideal education through the mind makes up its deficiency by (1) memory, (2) imagination, (3) thought and idea symbols of various kinds and it is fulfilled in Integral Education by the emergence of integral Consciousness. Similarly, the main functions of the mind are sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch and it can function as substitute of the inner subliminal mind which has the capacity of subtle sight, hearing, power of contact of its own without depending on physical organs. The mind’s passage to the subliminal mind can be traced by complete withdrawal of sense activity and silencing the mind. These subtle faculties can be further heightened to direct vision and vision through identity through the extension of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental experience. Similarly, Ideal Education through reason or intellect is (1) primarily a function of understanding, (2) secondarily critical, analytic and discriminating and (3) finally organising, controlling and formative. The reason makes up its deficiency by (1) intellectual reflection, vichara, (2) right discernment, vivek and (3) a settled ordering of knowledge and will and it is fulfilled in Integral Education by the emergence of Vijnanabuddhi. As long as higher faculties have not evolved, the reason must be our main force of effectuation and should base on a clear, pure and severely trained austerity and it can function as a substitute of Supermind. The reason’s passage to Supermind can be traced through its highest action which concerns itself disinterestedly with a pursuit of pure Truth and right Knowledge. To recollect The Mother’s childhood experience, “Then, school years. I was a very bright student, always for the same reason: I wanted to understand. I wasn't interested in learning things by heart like the others did – I wanted to understand them. And what a memory I had, a fantastic memory for sounds and images! I had only to read a poem aloud at night, and the next morning I knew it. And after I had studied or read a book and someone mentioned a passage to me, I would say, "Ah, yes – that's on page so and so." I would find the page. Nothing had faded, it was all still fresh. But this is the ordinary period of development.’⁹ Now the time has come in the universal history to establish a link between the ordinary sense limiting mind and the Knowledge through identity of the Supermind. Education is directed now to depart from its surface physical realm and enter more and more in to Supra-physical, Supra-vital and Supra-rational domains. Mind cannot be the perfect instrument of the Spirit, because to separate, divide and limit is its very character, which again gives birth to diseases like fear, desire and sorrow. The error of the practical reason is an excessive subjection to the apparent fact of phenomenal existence and an insufficient courage in carrying profounder facts of potentiality to their logical conclusion. ‘‘Avoid also the error of the ignorant mind’s demand on the Divine Power to act always according to our surface notions of omniscience and omnipotence. For our mind clamours to be impressed at every turn by miraculous power and easy success and dazzling splendour; otherwise it cannot believe that here is the Divine.’⁸⁴ So mind has to be taught some lessons of purity that will enable it to make the intellect a fit instrument towards the reception of higher Superconscient faculties beyond mind. When mind is open towards Self-Knowledge, then it is observed that Divine will and thought begin to descend from above and become overtly active in the mind. Mind can be educated in the following direction:- 1) All relations or associations of the past mutable personality that are related to the ordinary material living are to be scrapped or as it stands as a block in the newly evolved Spiritual journey. Or “At every moment we must shake off the past like falling dust, that it may not soil the virgin path which, at every moment also, opening before us.”²⁰ 2) The sense-dominated mind of the present humanity is preoccupied with the exclusive learning that can resolve the immediate and practical problems of the material existence, which affects various mechanisations, manipulations, developments and formulations. A superficial happiness, material success, money getting, procreation of a family and its maintenance are very much desirable for our vital appetite, ego and manhood of yesterday, but they are not the object and main preoccupation of higher Mental Education, nor desirable for future Supermanhood. 3) If all the written truth and practices are too strictly formulated by mind, then it becomes old and loses much of its vigour and strength, if not all of its purity and efficacy; so it must be ‘constantly renovated’²² by the fresh instreaming of overhead Spiritual experience. Research into the field of Occult or Subliminal sciences that are beyond the scope of mind and intellect is always the demand of the Time-Spirit, because by that the safety, stability and growth of the schools of Integral Education and Integral Yoga are ensured. Study and practice of Shastra or written truth is an ideal Sattwic action but restating them through long concentration, contemplation and meditation is a trigunatita action or action from the higher plane of Consciousness. Integral action begins with the emergence of integral Knowledge. 4) In this path, the most humiliating (Spiritual) fall’¹⁸ is also identified as an indispensable step in integral perfection extending over all life. So efforts must continue to rise and overcome the period of oblivion after each Spiritual fall of consciousness without discouragement and despondency. 5) The mind must be pacified and must be trained to go beyond and preoccupy oneself with the ultimate and lasting solution of existence; that of living in the freedom of the Universal, in God, Light, Bliss and Immortality and in all Beings. This will again be subordinated by the preoccupation with resolving the immediate and practical problems of individual and collective living. 6) The transition between ordinary Ideal Education and the true Integral Education can be transcended if the reverse movement of exclusive concentration of mind is activated. Which means forward movement of mind’s exclusive concentration is utilised to realise many immense and innumerable minute discoveries of physical science and the material gain, whereas opposite movement is turned to trace the inner living, discovery of subliminal Self, Psychic Self and Spiritual Self. 7) "The buddhi dwelling always in this master idea (self-surrender) must discourage all its own lesser insistences and preferences and teach the whole being that the ego whether it puts forth its claim through the reason, the personal will, the heart or the desire-soul in the prana , has no just claim of any kind and all grief, revolt, impatience, trouble is a violence against the Master of the being." ¹⁰⁹ The ignorant mind must be taught to become an impartial and discerning witness, sakhi , and know every intricacy of the complex nature. As he proceeds in this knowledge, he will be able to be the giver of sanction, anumanta , and no longer remain as an ignorant tool of the three modes of nature, that of sattwa, rajas and tamas. Then subsequently the imperfect human intelligence will be replaced by master of nature, Ishwara, which is identified in ascending hierarchies as higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind and Supermind; it transforms the three modes of nature to their Divine equivalent, that of Divine illumination and bliss, Divine dynamis, Tapas, and supreme repose and calm respectively. 8) The intellect can arrive at two kinds of perfection, 'first, a greater and greater detachment from the control of the lower suggestions; secondly, an increasing discovery of a self-existent Being, Light, Power and Ananda which surpasses and transforms the normal humanity. The ethical mind becomes perfect in proportion as it detaches itself from desire, sense suggestion, impulse, customary dictated action and discovers a self of Right, Love, Strength and Purity in which it can live accomplished and make it the foundation of all its actions. The aesthetic mind is perfected in proportion as it detaches itself from all its cruder pleasures and from outward conventional canons of the aesthetic reason and discovers a self-existent self and spirit of pure and infinite Beauty and Delight which gives its own light and joy to the material of the aesthesis. The mind of knowledge is perfected when it gets away from impression and dogma and opinion and discovers a light of self-knowledge and intuition which illumines all the workings of the sense and reason, all self-experience and world-experience. The will is perfected when it gets away from and behind its impulses and its customary ruts of effectuation and discovers an inner power of the Spirit which is the source of an intuitive and luminous action and an original harmonious creation. The movement of perfection is away from all domination by the lower nature and towards a pure and powerful reflection of the being, power, knowledge and delight of the Spirit and Self in the buddhi .’⁵¹ 9) “Mankind has first to seek this knowledge through the external life; for until its mentality is sufficiently developed, spiritual knowledge is not really possible, and in proportion as it is developed, the possibilities of spiritual knowledge become richer and fuller.”⁸⁵ “But Nature’s major preoccupation must necessarily be still and for a long time the evolution of mind to its greatest possible range, height, subtlety; for only so can be prepared the unveiling of an entirely intuitive intelligence, of overmind, of supermind, the difficult passage to a higher instrumentation of the Spirit.”⁸⁶ "Eventually their (purified intelligence and will, buddhya visuddhaya , The Gita-18.51) response can be opened up to the perfect discernings, intuitions, inspirations, revelations of the supermind and proceed by a more and more luminous and even infallible action."⁸⁶ 10) In the past, most of the noble army of Saints have never dared to inquire the problems of existence sufficiently and have satisfied themselves in some interim intermediate solution of kingdom of Heaven beyond in this life. Lasting solutions are beyond the scope and capacity of mind. What is proposed here is that sufficient inquiry is to be made of all the problems of existence through Vedantic sacrifice of ascent followed by descent of Divine Consciousness and Vedic sacrifice of descent followed by ascent of Divine Consciousness, extending over all life reviving its golden significance of resolving all problems of existence through the invasion of Truth Consciousness. Through these two exercises the higher faculties beyond mind can activate and direct themselves in perfecting the human vessel. 11) The Mother ⁸⁷ and Sri Aurobindo ⁸⁸ confirm that integral Yoga can begin only after opening either of the Psychic or Spiritual being and if the Psychic being in the heart opens first then by its ascent the Spiritual being above the head opens or if the Spiritual being opens first then by its descent as dynamic Divine Shakti, the Psychic being opens. By these openings an aspirant Soul, Jijnasu, sattwic man becomes twice born Soul, Dvija . When a Dvija is born, it is Divine’s responsibility to depute a Spiritual fosterer for nourishment and growth of the Soul like as He deputes birth parents for once-born Soul for evolution of his mind, life and body. So a Dvija has the possibility of double evolution,⁸⁹ one that of evolution of external life and another that of evolution of his inner life. By activation of three Gunas or by horizontal movement of Consciousness, he will experience slow mental evolution of external life and by movement of Psychic and Spiritual being or vertical movement of Consciousness, he will experience swift Spiritual evolution of inner life. Thus his slow material evolution is complemented by swift Spiritual evolution and this movement culminates in the reconciliation of perfect Spirit with imperfect Matter. The Ideal Education through mind proposes full development of mental faculties through all the developmental methods invented by the Mother Nature and universalisation of all its mental achievements for the well-being of the race and in Integral Education this fully developed mind is utilised to enter beyond mind higher formulation of Shakti or "A blank pure consciousness had replaced the mind." ¹¹⁰ The three methods of Integral Education through mind are; firstly, the intellect in mind is turned towards the pure universal mental energy and liberates itself from all separative and divided instincts and enlarges itself from all narrowness and limitations; thus more effectively bring our mind formulations into harmony with the higher powers of being ; secondly, the intellect in mind is further opened towards Spiritual energy above the head and permit it to enlighten and enlarge the mental capacity and lastly, the purified intellect in mind is directly opened towards Supermind and it takes the full responsibility of perfecting the mind. OM TAT SAT The Subtle Psychic Education: “But for such vast spiritual change to be, Out of the mystic cavern in man’s heart The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil And step into common nature’s crowded rooms And stand uncovered in that nature’s front And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.” Savitri-486-487 “The soul, the psychic entity, then manifests itself as the central being which upholds mind and life and body and supports all the other powers and functions of the Spirit; it takes up its greater function as the guide and ruler of the nature. A guidance, a governance begins from within which exposes every movement to the light of Truth, repels what is false, obscure, opposed to the divine realisation: every region of the being, every nook and corner of it, every movement, formation, direction, inclination of thought, will, emotion, sensation, action, reaction, motive, disposition, propensity, desire, habit of the conscious or subconscious physical, even the most concealed, camouflaged, mute, recondite, is lighted up with the unerring psychic light, their confusions dissipated, their tangles disentangled, their obscurities, deceptions, self-deceptions precisely indicated and removed; all is purified, set right, the whole nature harmonised, modulated in the psychic key, put in spiritual order.”²⁸ Sri Aurobindo “But the Gita discourages any excess of violence done to oneself; for the self within is really the Godhead evolving, it is Krishna, it is the Divine; it has not to be troubled and tortured as the Titans of the world trouble and torture it, but to be increased, fostered, cherished, luminously opened to a divine light and strength and joy and wideness.”¹⁰⁶ Sri Aurobindo There is the double Soul or Psychic term, one is the surface-desire soul which works as vital cravings, emotions, aesthetic faculty, mental seeking for power, knowledge and happiness and the another is the subliminal Psychic entity, the true Psychic being, a pure power of light, love, joy and refined essence of being. So the true Soul is the inner consciousness which aspires to its own complete self-realisation and is open in us towards the universal delight of cosmic Self. So the opening towards Psychical Consciousness enables us to become aware of the Powers, Presences and Influences of inner and higher planes who help to change and harmonise our external being and life. The learning capacity, plasticity and new moulding of the surface desire soul is much slower than the learning capacity and plasticity of true Psychic Being. The aim of true Psychic education is primarily the discovery of the individual Soul, the Chaitya Purusha, the Divine stationed in the heart centre, the ever pure flame of Divinity in things, watching and profiting the development and experience of mind, vital and body, secondarily the transformation of Psychic sheath, the Chaitya Kosha and adjacent sheaths of mind, life, and body and finally the perfection of Psychic sheath, puts forward a Psychic personality which changes, grows and develops from life to life and is uplifted and united with the original Delight which is the occult Source of this creation. After the physical, vital and mental sheaths are silenced, behind the subtle physical, subtle vital, subtle mental there is the Psychic sheath in whose innermost chamber there is true Psychic being, the Divine stationed in the heart. The true Psychic being is surrounded by the thick cloud of desire soul and the former is missioned to lead man in Ignorance towards the Light of Divine Consciousness and takes the essence of all experience to form the nucleus of Soul-growth until desire soul, mind, life and body are ready to be a luminous instrumentation of the Divine. It points always towards Truth, Right, Beauty, Love and Harmony and persists till these things become the major need of our life. The Psychic being has its three stages of realisation; in the first stage it becomes aware of the eternal Companion, Paramatma, and elects to live forever in His Eternal Presence in an imperishable union and oneness; this Psychic being is no bigger than the man’s thumb as described in the Upanishad , can by Spiritual influx enlarge itself and embrace the whole world with intimate oneness; secondly, the Psychic being develops the capacity of knowledge of three time, trikaladristi , the knowledge of past retrospective vision, circum-vision of the present and pre-vision of the future happenings; thirdly, based on this triple time knowledge it develops the capacity of changing the individual fixed destiny into higher Spiritual destiny and further extension of its capacity towards the change of the destiny of the collectivity and the race. All that is experienced through the Psychic being can be further stabilised by repetition of same experience in the Spiritual plane and all these Spiritual changes have to be completed, integrated, exceeded and uplifted by their absolute state through Supramental experience. OM TAT SAT The Spiritual Education: "Impersonal, signless, featureless, void of forms A blank pure consciousness had replaced the mind." Savitri-545 “A refugee from the domain of sense, Evading the necessity of thought, Delivered from Knowledge and from Ignorance And rescued from the true and the untrue, She shared the Superconscient’s high retreat Beyond the self-born Word, the nude Idea, The first bare solid ground of consciousness; Beings were not there, existence had no place , There was no temptation of the joy to be.” Savitri-548-549 “A light descends and touches or envelops or penetrates the lower being, the mind, the life or the body; or a presence or a power or a stream of knowledge pours in waves or currents, or there is a flood of bliss or a sudden ecstasy; the contact with the superconscient has been established. For such experiences repeat themselves till they become normal, familiar and well understood, revelatory of their contents and their significance which may have at first been involved and wrapped into secrecy by the figure of the covering experience. For a knowledge from above begins to descend, frequently, constantly, then uninterruptedly, and to manifest in the mind’s quietude or silence; intuitions and inspirations, revelations born of a greater sight, a higher truth and wisdom, enter into the being, a luminous intuitive discrimination works which dispels all darkness of understanding or dazzling confusions, puts all in order; a new consciousness begins to form, the mind of a high wide self existent thinking knowledge or an illumined or an intuitive or an overmental consciousness with new forces of thought or sight and a greater power of direct spiritual realisation which is more than thought or sight, a greater becoming in the spiritual substance of our present being; the heart and the sense become subtle, intense, large to embrace all existence, to see God, to feel and hear and touch the Eternal, to make a deeper and closer unity of self and the world in a transcendent realisation.”²⁹ Sri Aurobindo “The physical being could only endure, if by some means its physical causes of decay and disruption could be overcome and at the same time it could be made so plastic and progressive in its structure and its functioning that it would answer to each change demanded of it by the progress of the inner Person; it must be able to keep pace with the soul in its formation of self-expressive personality, its long unfolding of a secret spiritual divinity and the slow transformation of the mental into the divine mental or spiritual existence.”³³ Sri Aurobindo “And Krishna and Radha for ever entwined in bliss, The Adorer and Adored self-lost and one.”⁸ (“The Gods, who in their highest secret entity are powers of this supermind, born of it, seated in it as in their proper home, are in their knowledge “truth-conscious” and in their possessed of the “seer-will”.”¹¹) The aim of Spiritual education is primarily the discovery of the Spiritual Self, Manomaya Purusha , the Divine stationed in the higher Mind, illumined Mind, intuitive Mind and Overmind, secondarily formation and densification of Spiritual sheath and purification and transformation of lower sheaths and finally the perfection of Spiritual sheath. Spiritual Self or the Soul in Mind is uncovered either with the help of Psychic being or through the practice of the triple Yoga of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti. After discovery of Spiritual Self, its Power and force descends towards the lower plane to transform the mental, vital, physical and Subconscient sheath. It also transforms and densify the Spiritual sheath. Spiritual Self or the Soul in Mind ascends upward towards higher planes of Consciousness which paves the passage clear for the discovery of Supramental Self above. The four-fold perfection of Spiritual living are, a power of revelatory truth seeing, dristi , a power of inspiration or truth hearing, sriti, a power of truth touch, divya sparsa , and a power of true and automatic discrimination, viveka . "A sight opened upon the invisible And sensed the shapes that mortal eyes see not, The sounds that mortal listening cannot hear, The blissful sweetness of the intangible’s touch; The objects that to us are empty air, Are there the stuff of daily experience And the common pabulum of sense and thought." Savitri-540-541 These perfections attain their full and absolute state in Supramental and are revealed as Supramental vision, Supramental word, Supramental contact and Supramental discernment, Vijnanabuddhi. In Spiritual Education, a light, power, knowledge and force are felt and it takes possession of the mind and remoulds it and afterwards possesses life and body and leaves them wide and plastic and infinite. It brings to us the abiding Spiritual sense and awareness of the infinite and eternal with great largeness of nature and immortality becomes the normal self-awareness, the Divine force working in us everywhere, the joy and the peace of the infinite are now concrete and constant in the being. The lower status of mind, life and body can arrive at its full meaning when it is restated and transformed by the light, power and joy of the higher Spiritual Consciousness. OM TAT SAT Universal Education: “Apart, living within, all lives she bore; Aloof, she carried in herself the world: Her dread was one with the great cosmic dread, Her strength was founded on the cosmic mights; The universal Mother’s love was hers.” Savitri-8 “The great World-Mother now in her arose: A living choice reversed fate’s cold dead turn, Affirmed the spirit’s tread on Circumstance, Pressed back the senseless dire revolving Wheel And stopped the mute march of Necessity.” Savitri-21 “Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. (holocaust is complete surrender) The great World-Mother by her sacrifice Has made her soul the body of our state; Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness Divinity’s lapse from its own splendours wove The many-patterned ground of all we are.” Savitri-99 "But many-visaged is the cosmic Soul ; A touch can alter the fixed front of Fate. A sudden turn can come, a road appear. A greater Mind may see a greater Truth, Or we may find when all the rest has failed Hid in ourselves the key of perfect change." Savitri-256 “Above them all she stands supporting all, The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask; The ages are the footfalls of her tread, Their happenings the figure of her thoughts, And all creation is her endless act.” Savitri-295 The Gita informs us that the all pervading Brahman, Vasudeva is endless in His self extension in the universe, nastyonto vistarasya me , and the highest power of Supreme manifestation is only a very partial revelation of the Infinite; even the whole universe is preoccupied by only one degree of His greatness, illumined by one ray of His splendour and it will still remain the perennial Source of ‘birth of all that shall come into the being.’¹⁰⁷ This Savitri, Book-7, Canto-7, speaks of a cosmic Consciousness of affirmative energy, if dynamised, can confront and transform world negations. Cosmic consciousness is the passage of discovery of Supramental Consciousness. This is the Consciousness which can penetrate mind, vital and body and transforms them. Thus in this consciousness World, Self and God are reconciled and a right relation between individual and the world is established. The present individual and world are incomplete account of integral Truth and with more and more invasion of transcendent Divine Force they can retain their total identity. Cosmic consciousness is the dynamic state of the Spiritual being. What are the characteristic natures of cosmic Consciousness? 1: “Her mortal ego perished in God’s night.” Savitri-552 “and this (dynamic Divine) union may even bring about a disappearance of the sense of individuality, a merger of the ego into the world-being.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine-561 2: “The being travelled not towards nothingness.” Savitri-552 (not towards Nirvana and all-negating absolute.) 3: “It (cosmic consciousness) seized on speech to give those flaming shape,… Her mouth was seized to channel ineffable truths,…” Savitri-553 4: “Her being, a circle without circumference,.. The world was her spirit’s wide circumference,” Savitri-554-556 5: “The world of unreality ceased to be:.. A spirit, a being saw created things And cast itself into unnumbered forms… A Truth in which negation had no place,… The sense of unreality was slain:” Savitri-554- 55 (dynamic Spirit of cosmic consciousness which is accepted as second fundamental realisation of integral Yoga. First fundamental realisation: Brahma satya jagat mithya; second fundamental realisation: the world which appears to be false is created from Brahman; third fundamental realisation: Brahma satya jagat satya and Brahman consciousness can penetrate material life and Divinise life.) Second fundamental realisation of integral Yoga: “But this is not the only line of issue; it is possible, on the contrary, for me to wait till through the silence of this timeless unfilled liberation I begin to enter into relations with that yet ungrasped Source of myself and my actions; then the void begins to fill, there emerges out of it or there rushes into it all the manifold Truth of the Divine, all the aspects and manifestations and many levels of a dynamic Infinite.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-117 6: “It was her self, it was the self of all,” Savitri-555 “This first was an immense identity In which her own identity was lost:” Savitri-557 (In cosmic consciousness Oneness with the Divine and world are realized and the separative individual identity is dissolved.) 7: “That (cosmic consciousness) held all world within one lonely breast,” “The spiritual individual acts out of that sense of oneness which gives him immediate and direct perception of the demand of self on other self, the need of the life, the good, the work of love and sympathy that can truly be done. A realisation of spiritual unity, a dynamisation of the intimate consciousness of one-being, of one self in all beings, can alone found and govern by its truth the action of the divine life.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1068 8: “All contraries were true in one huge spirit” Savitri-556 “An external unity with others must always be an outward joining and association of external lives with a minor inner result; the mind and heart attach their movements to this common life and the beings whom we meet there; but the common external life remains the foundation, — the inward constructed unity, or so much of it as can persist in spite of mutual ignorance and discordant egoisms, conflict of minds, conflict of hearts, conflict of vital temperaments, conflict of interests, is a partial and insecure superstructure. The spiritual consciousness, the spiritual life reverses this principle of building; it bases its action in the collective life upon an inner experience and inclusion of others in our own being, an inner sense and reality of oneness.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p- 1068 9: “(Cosmic Self) Was the creator and the lord of all.” Savitri-556, (Transcendent Self is the creator of Cosmic and Individual Self) 10: “Her Spirit saw the world as living God;” Savitri-556 (Here God is Cosmic Self.) 11: “Her mind became familiar with its (universal) mind, Its (world’s) body was her body’s larger frame” Savitri-556 “there is a greater openness of the mind to the cosmic Mind and its energies, to the cosmic Life and its energies, to cosmic Matter and its energies.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-562 This is the universalization of subtle body, subtle vital and subtle mind. 12: “Earth saw her born, all worlds were her colonies,” Savitri-557, “A certain sense of unity of the individual with the cosmic, a perception of the world held within one’s consciousness as well as of one’s own intimate inclusion in the world consciousness can become frequent or constant in this opening; a greater feeling of unity with other beings is its natural consequence. It is then that the existence of the cosmic Being becomes a certitude and a reality and is no longer an ideative perception.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine-562 13: “She was the single self of all these selves, She was in them and they were all in her.” Savitri-557, “But the cosmic consciousness of things is founded upon knowledge by identity; for the universal Spirit knows itself as the Self of all, knows all as itself and in itself, knows all nature as part of its nature. It is one with all that it contains and knows it by that identity and by a containing nearness; for there is at the same time an identity and an exceeding, and, while from the point of view of the identification there is a oneness and complete knowledge, so from the point of view of the exceeding there is an inclusion and a penetration, an enveloping cognition of each thing and all things, a penetrating sense and vision of each thing and all things.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-562 Now, after this realisation of Cosmic Self, Savitri is considered fit to ascend and establish her consciousness in Supramental plane. Now she is fit to confront Death in the Subconscient and Inconscient world. The Savitri , Book-7, Canto-7, confirms that both Paramatma Satyavan and Para prakriti Savitri’s main method of Yoga was Spiritual or “Her divine emptiness was their instrument.” Savitri-553 or “An impersonal emptiness walked and spoke in her.’ Savitri-552 In the previous Cantos Savitri’s main method of Sadhana was also confirmed as Spiritual. Or “Annul thyself that only God may be.” Savitri-538 Or “In a simple purity of emptiness Her mind knelt down before the unknowable.” Savitri-522 This Canto-7 confirms that Savitri had the knowledge of past, present and future birth known as All Life, about which her surrounding world was little aware: “They marvelled at her, for she seemed to know What they had only glimpsed at times afar.” Savitri-553 Its complementary line from the Gita: “The Blessed Lord said: Many are my lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna; all of them I know, but thou knowest not, O scourge of the foe.” The Gita-4.5 With the attainment of Cosmic Consciousness, the inner life changes but ‘daily human life,’ ‘outward body of the routine,’ ‘small unchanging works’ and ‘happy quiet ascetic peace’ do not change. Cosmic consciousness is the dynamic state of the Divine where ‘living spirit’ clasps her body and in this state, Matter can reconcile with Spirit and with the Spirit’s penetration into material life, Savitri experiences change in the form of purification, transformation and perfection in her outward life. She continues to pour her greatness, sweetness and light upon her surrounding little hermit world. In this Book-7, Canto-7, Savitri realized her cosmic self which is identified as the second fundamental realization of integral Yoga. First fundamental realisation: Brahma satya Jagat mithya, Divine is Real and world is an Illusion; second fundamental realisation: the world which appears to be false is created from Brahman; third fundamental realisation: Brahma satya Jagat satya and Brahman consciousness can penetrate material life and Divinise life. The characteristics of the second fundamental realisation are: “Her being, a circle without circumference,” Savitri-554 “A spirit, a being saw created things And cast itself into unnumbered forms” Savitri-554-55 “A Truth in which negation had no place,” Savitri-555 “Her spirit saw the world as living God;” Savitri-556 In the earlier Cantos, it is confirmed that those who have a Mission (aim of life) and have realised their Psychic beings, their life is fully protected by the Divine. Savitri had both the awareness of her aim and Psychic realisation. This Canto-7 proposes that if Spiritual being is made open, then also it ensures protection to life. These developments are as follows: “Heaven’s tranquil shield guarded the missioned child.” Savitri-16 “Only were safe who kept God in their hearts:” Savitri-211(Psychic opening) “And Savitri’s life was glad, fulfilled like earth’s; She had found herself, she knew her being’s aim.” Savitri-532 (Psychic being’s awareness) “Something perhaps unfelt, unseen, unknown Guarded the body for its future work,” Savitri-552 (Spiritual opening) “Guarded behind its face of ignorance:” Savitri-556 (Spiritual opening) This Canto-7 also hints that attainment of Cosmic consciousness is also the beginning of subconscient transformation. So opening of higher Selves like Psychic, Spiritual, Cosmic and Supramental Selves are utilised exclusively for purification, transformation and perfection of untransformed Nature. “The psychic and the spiritual opening with their experiences and consequences can lead away from life or to a Nirvana; but they are here being considered solely as steps in a transformation of the nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-943 “She was a subconscient life of tree and flower, The outbreak of the honied buds of spring; She burned in the passion and splendour of the rose, She was the red heart of the passion-flower, The dream-white of the lotus in its pool. Out of subconscient life she climbed to mind,” Savitri-557 These are the hidden agendas of cosmic consciousness, which is utilised for both self-concentration and self-expansion. And after the universalisation of consciousness, Subconscient transformation can begin and with the Supramentalisation of Consciousness, this transformation action can go still farther. OM TAT SAT The Supramental Education: “Only the supermind can thus descend without losing its full power of action; for its action is always intrinsic and automatic, its will and knowledge identical and the result commensurate: its nature is a self-achieving Truth-consciousness and, if it limits itself or its working, it is by choice and intention, not by compulsion; in the limits it chooses its action and the results of its action are harmonious and inevitable.”³⁰ Sri Aurobindo (Lord Sri Balabhadra, Mother Sri Subhadra and Lord Sri Jagannatha are the fundamental symbolic truth representation of the triple name of the Divine Sat (Existence), Chit (Consciousness) and Ananda (Bliss) respectively who have extended towards the manifestation of mind, life and body through Their fourth name Vijnana or the Supermind.) “An incense floated in the quivering air, A mystic happiness trembled in the breast As if the invisible Beloved had come Assuming the sudden loveliness of a face And close glad hands could seize his fugitive feet And the world change with the beauty of a smile.” Savitri-290 “One who could love without return for love, Meeting and turning to the best the worst, It healed the bitter cruelties of earth, Transforming all experience to delight; Intervening in the sorrowful paths of birth It rocked the cradle of the cosmic Child And stilled all weeping with its hand of joy; It led things evil towards their secret good, It turned racked falsehood into happy truth; Its power was to reveal divinity.” Savitri-291 “A touch that needs not hands to feel, to clasp, Were there the native means of consciousness And heightened the intimacy of soul with soul. ” Savitri-325 “It (Overmind) moves events by its bare and silent will, Acts at a distance without hands or feet .” Savitri-85 “No feet that move, no hands to take his gifts:” Savitri-609 “At last the soul turns to eternal things, In every shrine it cries for the clasp of God.” Savitri-631 The Supramental or Purushottama Consciousness is having no hand and yet this Consciousness is all embracing towards His creation. He is having no feet to move yet the movement of this Truth Consciousness is all pervading and all-inclusive and possesses all the multiple subtle worlds. ‘His hands and feet are extended on every side...and we live in His universal embrace.’¹⁷ The aim of Supramental Education is primarily the discovery of the Supramental Self, Vijnanamaya Purusha , the Divine stationed in the Supramental Sheath, Supermind, secondarily densification, Ghana, of Supramental Sheath, Vijnanamaya Kosha , and transformation of all the lower sheaths and finally the perfection of Supramental sheath. Supramental Self is uncovered either by the pressure of ascension of Psychic Self or of Spiritual Self or movement of Consciousness in between Psychic and Spiritual Self for a prolonged period. Supramental Self has the capacity to densify the Supramental sheath or the causal body and inverts itself down ward to purify and transform mental, vital, physical, subconscient and inconscient sheaths. ‘But this is difficult in the extreme; for the causal body opens itself readily to the consciousness and capacities of the spiritual planes and belongs in its nature to the higher hemisphere of existence, but it is either not developed at all in man or only as yet crudely developed and organised and veiled behind many intervening portals of the subliminal in us. It draws its stuff from the plane of the truth-knowledge and the plane of the infinite bliss and these pertain altogether to a still inaccessible higher hemisphere.’⁸² The three minimum conditions for dynamising Supramental education are, firstly, unification of entire being by breaking down of the wall between the outer and inner nature, a shifting of centre of consciousness from outer to inner self; secondly, from this new inner Self of firm foundation an opening of individual into the cosmic Consciousness and all the inner centres of Consciousness must burst open and released into action their large capacities; lastly Supramental change does admit the descent of highest light for supremely concentrated pace of evolutionary swiftness. ‘But this causal body is, as we may say, little developed in the majority of men and to live in it or to ascend to the supramental planes, as distinguished from corresponding sub-planes in the mental being, or still more to dwell consciously upon them is the most difficult thing of all for the human being. It can be done in the trance of Samadhi , but otherwise only by a new evolution of the capacities of the individual Purusha of which few are even willing to conceive. Yet is that the condition of the perfect self-consciousness by which alone the Purusha can possess the full conscious control of Prakriti; for there not even the mind determines, but the Spirit freely uses the lower differentiating principles as minor terms of its existence governed by the higher and reaching by them their own perfect capacity.’⁸³ The first objective of Supramental education will be to restore the oneness of division of all things, secondly in this state the physical presence of Divine is established; thirdly, complete union between the Supreme Soul and Supreme Nature is realised and as a result Supreme Ananda is manifested in the whole nature; fourthly, the Supramental Consciousness will work towards the whole transformation of nature and lastly, the integral Divine is manifested in Soul as Purusohottama and in Nature as Para Prakriti, holding together the multiple Soul, Kshara Purusha and Immutable Being, Akshara Purusha. Six Vedantic formulas of Supramental learning are given below, they are related with ascending intensities of Supramental realisation in order to descend and capture the whole nature for transformation. First formula of Supramental learning: The highest mystery of absolute surrender to the Divine Guide is the first formula of Supramental education, which can be expressed in the words of the Gita, “Sarvadharman parityajya mam akam saranam braja ,” (The Gita-18.66) abandon all dharmas and take refuge in Me alone. Increase of surrender is dependent on increase of concentration, samyama. Increase of concentration is dependent on increase of practice of Yoga, abhyasa . Increase of practice of Yoga is dependent on increase of renunciation, Vairagya, Tyaga . Second formula of Supramental learning related to the transformation of mind, life and body : - Simultaneous triple realisation of, “Brahman is in all things, all things are in Brahman and all things are Brahman .” (The Isha Upanishad) Brahman in all things is the realisation of Kshara Purusha, the Psychic Being. All things are within the Brahman is the realisation of Akshara Purusha , the Spiritual Being. A prolonged movement of Consciousness between Kshara and Akshara will lead towards realisation of Purushottama Consciousness or realisation of all things as Brahman . Third formula of Supramental learning related to transformation of Subconscient Sheath : - “I, the Purushottama Consciousness, lodged in the Self, lift the blazing lamp of knowledge and destroy the darkness which is born of the Subconscient Ignorance.” (The Gita-10.11) This is the experience of Supramental Consciousness transforming the Subconscient Sheath. Fourth formula of Supramental learning related with the transformation of Inconscient Sheath and the whole being : - “If you are one in heart and consciousness with Brahman at all times, then by the grace of Brahman you shall pass safe through all difficult and perilous passages of Inconscient world.” (The Gita-18.58) Below the Subconscient there is Inconscient Sheath, and Supramental transformation is extended to Inconscient sheath. Fifth formula related with transformation of whole being through discovery of Supramental concealed in the Inconscient Self: - “The Brahman has concealed into this form of (inconscient) earth and sustains by His might these multitudes.” (The Gita-15.13) The discovery of Subconscient and Inconscient Self accelerates the transformation work towards a ‘grand solution’ and save the world from being swallowed by the dark inconscient plane. Sixth formula of Supramental learning related to the transformation of the whole being: - “Into all the doors in the body there can come a flooding of light of the Brahman …” (The Gita-14.11) Possession of the Supramental from all ends is the final lesson to be learned for the complete manifestation of the Divine in the world. OM TAT SAT The Subconscient Education: (The Mother’s Consciousness is that which rests on the One and acts in the All, transcends All and denies none, sees all but lives for its transcendent task, becomes All and yet transcends the mystic whole, All ruler and is ruled by none, transcends the Light and the Darkness and yet one with the Absolute, Eternal and All-knowing it suffers mortal birth and death and in the Subconscient waits Her large unfinished task.) “In darkness’ core she dug out wells of light,” Savitri-41 “With the Light that dwells near the dark end of things,” Savitri-60 “A cave of darkness guards the eternal Light.” Savitri-305 “A treasure was found of a supernal Day. In the deep subconscient glowed her jewel-lamp; Lifted, it showed the riches of the Cave Where, by the miser traffickers of sense Unused, guarded beneath Night’s dragon paws, In folds of velvet darkness they sleep Whose priceless value could have saved the world.” Savitri-42 “It (mystic Presence) summons the spirit’s sleeping memories Up from subconscient depths beneath Time’s foam; Oblivious of their flame of happy truth, Arriving with heavy eyes that hardly see, They come disguised as feelings and desires, Like weeds upon the surface float awhile And rise and sink on a somnambulist tide. Impure, degraded though her motions are, Always a heaven-truth broods in life’s deeps; In her obscurest members burns that fire.” Savitri-138-39 “Inverting into half-thought the quickened sense She felt around for truth with fumbling hands, Clutched to her the little she could reach and seize And put aside in her subconscient cave. So must the dim being grow in light and force And rise to his higher destiny at last, Look up to God and round at the universe, And learn by failure and progress by fall And battle with environment and doom, By suffering discover his deep soul (discovery of Subconscient Self.) And by possession grow to his own vasts.” Savitri-146 “Over life and Matter only brooding bowed, Mind changed to the image of a rampant beast; It scrambled into the pit to dig for truth And lighted its search with the subconscient’s flares.” Savitri-213-214 “Assailed in the sovereign emptiness of its reign The intolerant Darkness paled and drew apart Till only a few black remnants stained that Ray.” Savitri-601 “A spirit moved in black immensities And built a Thought in ancient Nothingness; A soul was lit in God’s tremendous Void, (emergence of Subconscient Self) A secret labouring glow of nascent fire” Savitri-622 Subconscient and Inconscient Education are extensions of Supramental education. Supramental education is the extension of Psychic and Spiritual education. The Subconscient is defined as the Inconscient in the process of becoming conscious. It sustains and reinforces all that is animal in us that clings most and refuses to transform, our mechanical recurrence of unintelligent thought, feeling, sensation and our uncontrolled fixities of character. ‘The subconscient is below the waking physical consciousness — it is an automatic, obscure, incoherent, half-unconscious realm into which light and awareness can with difficulty come.’⁹⁰ The Mother confirmed, “The problem appeared again to me very intensely when I read Sri Aurobindo’s The Yoga of Self-Perfection. I was confronted with a whole formidable world to be transformed – to transform what is already luminous is quite easy, but to transform that! ... ugh – this stuff of life, so low and so coarse, so ordinary ... it’s much more difficult.’ ”⁹⁰ The aim of Subconscient education is primarily the discovery of the Subconscient Self, the Divine stationed in the Subconscient Sheath, secondarily purification and transformation of the Subconscient Sheath and finally the perfection of the Subconscient Sheath. Subconscient Sheath is below the physical sheath and above the inconscient sheath and all dark and untransformed forces rise from inconscient to physical through Subconscient Sheath. After the discovery of the Supramental Self, the Supramental force and light penetrates the Subconscient Sheath for its purification, transformation, establishes a control and uncovers the veiled Subconscient Self. After the discovery of the Subconscient Self, it engages itself of greater action of transformation of lower hemisphere including the Subconscient sheath which is indispensable for the completeness of higher life. This creation is to be wholly accepted and embraced as the manifestation of the Brahman . If the existing mind of most man is crippled; life is untaught and crude; if there exists brutal and evil activities, then they are to be accepted as incidents of Divine’s vast and varied plot; His great and dangerous drama’s needed steps. We have to meet our Lord in the nascent sleep of shadow and the Night and in the wakefulness of the stars and Sun and wait for the hour in which the high Supracosmic Source meets the low and nether Inconscient Sheath. The emergence of Divine Life on earth is possible by reconciliation of God’s Night with His fathomless Light and Life and Death become the fuel of the great world action and world existence. Savitri has to unite with Satyavan in the Subconscient and Inconscient world by calling down Divine energy there. Satyavan’s death created such an opportunity for Savitri. She has to prove her Divine Love which can transform those dark worlds. So, her task is to call down Divine Love from higher planes and the emergence of same Divine Love by activation of Subconscient Self and the ‘two rivers of Light’¹¹² wait ‘to be kindled in our secret cells.’¹¹³ We get the hint from Savitri about how the business of Death and Night fails on earth. That is possible by universalisation of Divine Love, by the attainment of unity consciousness of the Supermind and all is known and clasped by Divine Love. This paper proposes that Subconscient transformation can only be experienced in deep meditation¹¹¹ or non-waking trance. There are also many secrets of the Subconscient world which are not possible to catch at present, but a few of them are caught in this revised study. OM TAT SAT The Inconscient Education: “As a sculptor chisels a deity out of stone He slowly chipped off the dark envelope, Line of defence of Nature’s ignorance, The illusion and mystery of the Inconscient In whose black pall the Eternal wraps his head That he may act unknown in cosmic Time.” Savitri-36 “A secret spirit in the Inconscient’s sleep, A shapeless energy, a voiceless Word, He (Inconscient Self) was here before the elements could emerge, Before there was light of mind (Sattwic mind) or life (Rajasic mind) could breathe.” Savitri-60 “For the key is hid and by the Inconscient kept; The secret God beneath the threshold dwells.” Savitri-68 “The Inconscient found its heart of consciousness, The idea and feeling groping in Ignorance At last clutched passionately the body of Truth, The music born in Matter’s silences Plucked nude out of the Ineffable’s fathomlessness The meaning it had held but could not voice; The perfect rhythm now only sometimes dreamed An answer brought to the torn earth’s hungry need Rending the night that had concealed the Unknown, Giving to her her forgotten soul. A grand solution closed the long impasse In which the heights of mortal effort end.” Savitri-89 “The spirit in a finite ignorant world Must rescue so its prisoned consciousness Forced out in little jets at quivering points From the Inconscient’s sealed infinitude.” Savitri-140 “A sun of transfiguration still can come And Night can bare its core of mystic light;” Savitri-200 “The secret power in the inconscient depths, Compelling the blinded Godhead to emerge,” Savitri-272 “I (Satyavan) sat with the forest sages in their trance: There poured awakening streams of diamond light, I glimpsed the presence of the One in all. But still there lacked the last transcendent power And Matter still slept empty of its Lord.” Savitri-405 “He still must travel Hell the world to save.” Savitri-450 “He sang the Inconscient and its secret self, Its power omnipotent knowing not what it does,” Savitri-416 “A soul shall wake in the Inconscient’s house;” Savitri-707 (Inconscient transformation becomes possible through the conscious intervention of the Incarnating Dual Power, who open God's secret door to the most stubborn and recalcitrant darkest nether domain of existence.) The aim of Inconscient education is primarily the discovery of the Inconscient Self, the Divine stationed in the Inconscient Sheath, secondarily purification and transformation of Inconscient Sheath and finally the perfection and illumination of Inconscient Sheath. Inconscient Sheath is recognised as the home of Ignorance, Falsehood, Suffering and Death and they rule the earth with their firm kingdom. After the discovery of the Supramental Self, by its pressure the Divine force enters the Subconscient and Inconscient sheaths and uncovers the veiled innermost chamber of Inconscient Self, whose discovery is recognised as great transforming action in the world. Through unveiling of Inconscient Self direct and most potent Divine action is activated in all the planes of lower hemisphere including the Inconscient sheath. The dark Law of the Inconscient can disappear by outburst of greater consciousness from the direct Divine Power of Inconscient Self, at present concealed within the inconscient sheath. The Important Secret of the Inconscient Plane: “When yet the mind, a passionate learner, toiled And ill-shaped instruments were crudely moved.” Savitri-574 “But more and more this grew an alien sound, And her old intimate body seemed to her A burden which her being remotely bore.” Savitri-577 “This clotted cypher was its dark result. In the smothering stress of this stupendous Nought Mind could not think, breath could not breathe, the soul (description of inconscient sheath) Could not remember or feel itself; it seemed A hollow gulf of sterile emptiness, A zero oblivious of the sum it closed, An abnegation of the Maker’s joy Saved by no wide repose, no depth of peace.” Savitri-583 “There was no course, no path, no end or goal:” (The Inconscient journey appears to be pathless and goalless.) Savitri-584 The More Important Secret of the Inconscient Plane: “Enigma of the Inconscient’s sculptural sleep, Symbols of the approach to darkness old And monuments of her titanic reign, Opening to depths like dumb appalling jaws That wait a traveller down a haunted path Attracted to a mystery that slays, (slays the Soul) They (titans) watched across her (Inconscient sheath) road, cruel and still; Sentinels they stood of dumb Necessity, Mute heads of vigilant and sullen gloom, Carved muzzle of a dim enormous world.” Savitri-580 “Then out of the engulfing sea of trance Her mind rose drenched to light streaming with hues Of vision and, awake once more to Time, (Intense waking trance) Returned to shape the lineaments of things And live in borders of the seen and known.” (One can foresee and know much before the happening of the event.) Savitri-579 Its complementary line: “Only the spirit sees and all is known. Then a calm Power seated above our brows Is seen, unshaken by our thoughts and deeds, Its stillness bears the voices of the world: Immobile, it moves Nature, looks on life.” Savitri-571 “Now to the limitless gaze disclosed that sees” Savitri-572 “Night felt assailed her heavy sombre reign; The splendour of some bright eternity Threatened with this faint beam of wandering Truth Her empire of the everlasting Nought.“ Savitri-585 “Now in the wrestling of the splendid gods My spirit shall be obstinate and strong Against the vast refusal of the world.” Savitri-588 The Most Important Secret of Inconscient Plane: “Then suddenly there came on her the change Which in tremendous moments of our lives Can overtake sometimes the human soul And hold it up towards its luminous source.” Savitri-571 “All was the violent ocean of a will Where lived captive to an immense caress, Possessed in a supreme identity, Her aim, joy, origin, Satyavan alone.” Savitri-579 “The Woman answered not. Her high nude soul, Stripped of the girdle of mortality, Against fixed destiny and the grooves of law Stood up in its sheer will a primal force.” Savitri-581 “Armoured with light she advanced her foot to plunge Into the dread and hueless vacancy; Immortal, unappalled, her spirit faced The danger of the ruthless eyeless waste.” Savitri-582 “Mine is the labour of the battling gods: Imposing on the slow reluctant years The flaming will that reigns beyond the stars, They lay the law of Mind on Matter’s works And win the soul’s wish from earth’s inconscient Force.” Savitri-588 OM TAT SAT Recapitulation: “Akin to the eternity whence she came, No part she took in this small happiness; A mighty stranger in the human field, The embodied Guest within made no response.” Savitri-6 “This is the sailor on the flow of Time, This is World-Matter’s slow discoverer, Who, launched into this small corporeal birth, Has learned his craft in tiny bays of self, But dares at last unplumbed infinitudes, A voyager upon eternity’s seas. In his world-adventure’s crude initial start Behold him ignorant of his godhead’s force, Timid initiate of its vast design.” Savitri-69 “To eternal light and knowledge meant to rise, Up from man’s bare beginning is our climb; Out of earth’s heavy smallness we must break, We must search our nature with spiritual fire: An insect crawl preludes our glorious flight; Our human state cradles the future god, Our mortal frailty an immortal force.” Savitri-240 “A small beginning of immense ascent: Above were bright ethereal skies of mind, A packed and endless soar as if sky pressed sky Buttressed against the Void on bastioned light; The highest strove to neighbour eternity, The largest widened into the infinite.” Savitri-264 “All he had done was to prepare a field; His small beginnings asked for a mighty end:” Savitri-315 “His ways challenge our reason and our sense; By blind brute movements of an ignorant Force, By means we slight as small, obscure or base, A greatness founded upon little things, He has built a world in the unknowing Void. His forms he has massed from infinitesimal dust; His marvels are built from insignificant things.” Savitri-624 “O fragrant are the lanes thy children walk And lovely is the memory of their feet Amid the wonder-flowers of Paradise:” Savitri-686 The Ideal Education represents the mental vision, the Soul’s dream of the moon light, whose main doctrine is objectively-subjective that prepares the difficult ascent of life through outer aids and efforts and Integral Education represents the supremely optimistic Supramental vision, the Soul’s vision of the Sun Light, whose main doctrine is subjectively-objective that confirms the sure progress and intends to manifest by the inner aids and spontaneous direct pressure from the Infinite. Ideal Education fulfils the first necessity of transforming the lower mental, vital and physical life into higher mental harmony through turning its gaze downward towards earth bound sattwic perfection and around towards awareness of limited universal fulfilment of life. Integral Education fulfils the second necessity of integration by turning its gaze up ward towards the Supramental harmony and inward towards that which is Occult, Subliminal and Psychic. Loving Surrender Psychic, Spiritual, Universal Supramental, Subconscient and Inconscient Education, are least dependent on external machinery. School children are not directly associated with these educations but indirectly get some touch and influence of them in proportion to their openness towards these planes. These higher types of Education of fine, delicate and subtle realm are directly related with integral Yoga, responsible for building and densifying the subtle and causal body of the perfected vessel. Integral Education foresees the inclusion of all students to the exposure of higher Subliminal, Psychic and Spiritual education and they can follow and verify in themselves deeper Spiritual experiences, only when they have acquired the capacity to follow the inner method and verification as they have trained now their mind to follow the mathematics and difficult scientific truths. Spiritual force can take possession of the mere students and Truth shall dictate their life, thought, effort, endeavour and action. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-517, 2: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-722, 3: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-618-19, 4: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-616, 5: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-56, 6: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-166, 7: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1096, 8: Savitri-525, 9: The Mother’s Agenda-25.07.1962, 10: The Mother's Agenda-5.4.1967, 11: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-132, 12: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-650, 13: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-58, 14: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-730, 15: “To be the master of the world would indeed be supreme felicity, if one were universally loved; but for that one would have to be at the same time the slave of all humanity.” SABCL/17/The Hour of God/142, “If thou canst not be the slave of all mankind, thou art not fit to be its master…” SABCL/17/The Hour of God-95, “A spiritual or gnostic being would feel his harmony with the whole gnostic life around him, whatever his position in the whole. According to his place in it he would know how to lead or to rule, but also how to subordinate himself; both would be to him an equal delight: for the spirit’s freedom, because it is eternal, self-existent and inalienable, can be felt as much in service and willing subordination and adjustment with other selves as in power and rule.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1069 16: “There are two who are unfit for greatness and freedom, the man who has never been a slave to another and the nation that has never been under the yoke of foreigners.” SABCL/17/The Hour of God/p-115, 17: The Gita-13.14, 18: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-47, 19: “In fact entire subjection of the mind and the life to the body is the characteristic of an undeveloped humanity, as it is in an even greater degree of the infra-human animal. According to the theory of reincarnation those who do not get beyond this stage in the earthly life, cannot rise after death to the mental or higher vital worlds, but have to return from the confines of a series of physical planes to increase their development in the next earthly existence. For the undeveloped physical soul is entirely dominated by material nature and its impressions and has to work them out to a better advantage before it can rise in the scale of being.” CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga-461 20: The Mother/ CWM/1/Prayers and Meditations/p-42, 21: “The Divinity mentioned by Sri Aurobindo is not a person but a condition that will be shared by all those who have prepared themselves to receive it.” TMCW/15/104, “Petty minds think of Me, the unmanifest, as being limited by manifestation, because they know not my supreme nature of being, imperishable, most perfect.” The Gita-7.24, 22: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-5, 23: The Gita-16.1, 2, 3, 24: “The indispensable basis of our Yoga is sincerity, honesty, unselfishness, disinterested consecration to the work to be done, nobility of character and straight forwardness. They who do not practice these elementary virtues are not Sri Aurobindo’s disciples and have no place in Ashram .” The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-13/p-128-29, 25: “(The Divine is) the perfect Personality capable of all relations even to the most human, concrete and intimate; for he is friend, comrade, lover, playmate, guide, teacher, master, ministrant of knowledge or ministrant of joy, yet in all relations unbound, free and absolute. This too the divinised man becomes in the measure of his attainment ...” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita/p-141. 26: “A seeker of truth, jijnasu , after many births of preparation, purification of impurity and sin, endeavouring with sincerity, becomes a Yogi and attains the highest goal... After many births of preparation, a Jnana Yogi with a strong foundation of Karma and Bhakti Yoga , attains My Purushottama or Supramental state of Consciousness. He also realises the intermediate stair that all this existence is Divine, the Cosmic Consciousness, Vasudeva sarvamiti. Such a great Soul or integral Yogi is very rare.” The Gita-6.45/7.19, 27: TMCW/12/On Education/p-120, 28: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-941, 29: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-946-947, 30: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-951, 31: CWSA/21/The Life Divine/p-646, 32: “For we have two minds, one the surface mind of our expressed evolutionary ego, the superficial mentality created by us in our emergence out of Matter, another a subliminal mind which is not hampered by our actual mental life and its strict limitations, something large, powerful and luminous, the true mental being behind that superficial form of mental personality which we mistake for ourselves.” CWSA/21/The Life Divine/p-233, 33: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-854, 34: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-175, 35: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-178, 36: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-176, 186, 37: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-539, 38: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-644, 39: “Live always in the aspiration of realising your most complete and most true perfection…And for a beginning take care to be honest, sincere, straight- forward, noble and pure in a rigorous discipline that you will impose on yourselves.” TMCW-12/On Education-128, 40: “Take advantage of the circumstances to get rid of all attachment to the members of your family. You must learn that you have no more brothers, sister, father, mother, except Sri Aurobindo and myself, and you must feel free and unconcerned whatever happens to them. We are your whole family, your protection, your all in all.” The Mother/ The Mother’s Centenary Edition/Vol-14/p-305, "There are two things in every human being: (1) what comes from the past and has persisted because it is formed and conscious, and (2) then all that dark, unconscious mass, really muddy, that is added in every new life. Then the other thing gets into that and finds itself imprisoned, you know—adulterated and imprisoned—and generally it takes more than half one’s life to emerge from that entanglement …. That discovery I made at the age of about fifteen or sixteen, or seventeen. I began to see clearly all the “gifts” (if we can call them that) that came from father, mother, parents, grandparents, education, people who looked after me, that whole mudhole , as it were, into which you fall headfirst. And then, the quality of the vibration, the quality of the sensation, of the so-called “thoughts” (which aren’t thoughts, but are almost automatic mental reflexes of sorts) and of the feelings (if you can call them feelings: they are kinds of reactions to the milieu and to all that comes from outside)—it all swarms, swarms like worms in the mud. " The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-4/p-383-386 41: TMCW (second edition)/12/On Education-370, 42: “An endless Truth she endlessly unfolds; A timeless mystery works out in Time.” Savitri-178, “Lured at each turn by a new vicissitudes To self-discovery that could never cease.” Savitri-328, 43: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-525, 44: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-526, 45: CWSA-22/ The Life Divine/p-1057, 46: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-520, 47: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-527, 48: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-759, 49: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p- 49-50 50: CWSA/22/The Life Divine/p-1023, 51: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-668-669, 52: TMCW-12/On Education/p-358, 53: “The spiritual knowledge is then gained through meditation on the truths that are taught and it is made living and conscious by their realisation in the personal experience; the 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, 54: “Or it may force them (world influences) to receive the spiritual influence and return with a transforming power on the world they come from, for such a compulsion on the lower universal Nature is part of a perfect spiritual action. But for that the circumconscient or environmental being must be so steeped in the spiritual light and spiritual substance that nothing can enter into it without undergoing this transformation: the invading external influences have not to bring in at all their lower awareness, their lower sight, their lower dynamism.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-995, 55: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1013, 56: TMCW-12/On Education/p-12, 57: “If one wants to give an education which prevents bad habits from being formed or bad tendencies from being pursued, an education which leads children constantly into the right path (that one wants them to follow), well, when they are small it is possible, when they become bigger, it becomes hard. One cannot change the imprint easily. Even sometimes it is necessary to break things to be able to change them: as those who are not progressive, who are fixed and remain fixed, who cling with all their strength to their petty habits. While the little ones are supple, one can change their opinions, one can make them progress, give them the sense that tomorrow one must do better than today.” TMCW-6/Questions and Answers-1954/p-12, 58: TMCW-8/Questions and Answers-1958/p-78-79, 59: CWSA/23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-143, 60: CWSA-13/Essays in Philosophy and Yoga/p-208, 61: The Mother/TMCW-12/On Education/p-63, 62: The Mother/TMCW-12/On Education/p-375, 63: CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-198, 64: TMCW-12/On Education/p-173, 65: “I was brought up by an ascetic, a stoic; my mother was a woman like an iron bar, you know. When my brother and I were small she spent her time telling us over and over that we weren't on earth to have fun; that it's constant hell, but you have to put up with it, and the only possible satisfaction lies in doing your duty!... A splendid education, mon petit!...Splendid. I am infinitely grateful to her. My body has never asked for fun or well-being or anything else. "That's life," it said, "and you just have to take it as it is." And that's why when I first met someone who told me it could be otherwise (I was already past twenty), I said, "Oh, really? Is that so?" (Mother laughs) And then when he told me all about Théon's teachings and The Cosmic Life and about the inner God and a new world that would be a world of beauty and (at least) of peace and light ... well, I rushed into it headlong…But even then I was told: "It depends on YOU alone, not on circumstances – above all, don't blame circumstances; you must find it in yourself, the transformative element is within you. And you can do it wherever you are, even in a cell at the bottom of a hole." The groundwork was already done, you see, since the body never asked for anything…Well, I think that's the best education. To the children here we give the exact opposite! But that's how it is: it's a principle – it's not practical.” The Mother’s Agenda-29.05.1962 66: “These things are very interesting. They must form part of the work I have come on earth to do. Because even before encountering Theon, before knowing anything, I had experiences at night, certain types of activities looking after people who were leaving their bodies-and with a knowledge of the process; I didn’t know what I was doing nor did I seek to know, yet I knew exactly what had to be done and I did it. I was around twenty…As soon as I came upon Theon’s teaching (even before meeting him personally), and read and understood all kinds of things which I hadn’t known before, I began to work quite systematically. Every night, at the same hour, I was working to construct-between the purely terrestrial atmosphere and the psychic atmosphere-a path of protection across the vital, so that people wouldn’t have to pass through it (for those who are conscious but without knowledge it’s a very difficult passage-infernal.) I was preparing this path, doing this work (it must have been around 1903 or 1904, I don’t remember exactly) for months and months and months. All sorts of extraordinary things happened during the time-extraordinary. I could tell long series…Then, when I went to Tlemcen, I told MadameTheon about it. ‘Yes, ‘she told me, ‘it is part of the work you have come on earth to do. Everyone with even a slightly awakened psychic being who can see your Light will go to your Light at the moment of dying, no matter where they die, and you will help them to pass through,’ And this work is constant. Constant. It has given me a considerable number of experiences concerning what happens to people when they leave their bodies. I’ve had all sorts of experiences, all kinds of examples-it’s really very interesting.” The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-2/P: 231-238, 67: CWSA-32/The Mother and Letters on the Mother/p-8, 21, 68: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-645, 69: “A seeker of truth, jijnasu, after many births of preparation, purification of impurity and sin, endeavouring with sincerity becomes a Yogi and attains the highest goal.” The Gita-6.45, “After many births of preparation, a Jnana Yogi with strong foundation of Karma and Bhakti Yoga, attains My Purushottama or Supramental state of Consciousness. He also realises the intermediate stair that all this existence is Divine, the Cosmic Consciousness, Vasudevah sarvamiti. Such great Soul or integral Yogi is very rare.” The Gita-7.19, "The consciousness of supermind is a cosmic consciousness and it is in this self of universal consciousness, in which the individual knower lives and with which he is more or less closely united, that it holds before him the object of knowledge." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-857, 70: The Mother’s Agenda-10.08.1960, 71: The Mother’s Agenda-02.08.1967, 72: The Mother’s Agenda-10.01.1961, 73: 74: “So long as one is for some and against others, one is necessarily far from the Truth.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-02.08.1967, 75: “Those who serve the Truth cannot take one side or another. Truth is above conflict or opposition. In Truth all countries unite in a common effort towards progress and realisation.” The Mother/The Mother’s Agenda-17th June, 1967, 76: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-1017, 77: “I read it yesterday, because she had so much spoken of this prenatal education, saying the child is fully educated by the age of three, so I wanted to know what she proposed. But there isn't a single thing in it, she doesn't say what should be done… To do things well, we would need a small "educational booklet" for the children of the future. A "preconceptional booklet" to prepare the father and mother (especially the mother, that's the most important). Then a booklet for the first three years of life: the qualities required, the attitude to be taken.... At any rate, the father and mother should first know the possibility (at least the possibility) of a child being more than a mere animal man. Then, the conception should take place entirely outside desire. That's another very difficult condition to be fulfilled. And the mother, throughout the gestation, should be in an atmosphere absolutely protected from all degrading influences: an ideally beautiful place, a wonderful climate where everything is harmonious, and a wholly spontaneous, free and harmonious and beautiful life sheltered from all vulgarities of life. And the mother herself should have the ideal of the new child. It should be done not as a mechanical but as a conscious, willed thing in an absolutely "creative" atmosphere, we might say. All these are very difficult conditions to fulfill.” The Mother’s Agenda-19.04.1967, “It’s strange. I say ‘strange’ because it’s due to her that I took birth in this body, that it was chosen. When she was very young she had a great aspiration. She was exactly twenty years older than I; she was twenty when I was born and I was her third child. The first was a son who died in Turkey when he was two months old, I think – they vaccinated him against smallpox and poisoned him, (laughing) god knows what it means! He died of convulsions. Next was my brother who was born in Egypt, at Alexandria, and then me, born in Paris when she was exactly twenty years old. At that time (especially since the death of her first child) she had a kind Of GREAT aspiration in her: her children had to be ‘the best in the world.’ It wasn’t an ambition, I don’t know what it was. And what a will she had! MY mother had a formidable will, like an iron bar, utterly impervious to all outside influence. Once she had made up her mind, it was made up; even if someone had been dying before her eyes, she wouldn’t have budged! And she decided: ‘My children will be the best in the world.’ …one thing she did have was a sense of progress; she felt that the world was progressing and we had to be better than anything that had come before – and that was sufficient…It’s strange, but that was sufficient…Did I tell you what happened to my brother? No?... My brother was a terribly serious boy, and frightfully studious – oh, it was awful! But he also had a very strong character, a strong will, and there was something interesting about him. When he was studying to enter the Polytechnique, I studied with him – it interested me. We were very intimate (there were only eighteen months between us). He was quite violent, but with an extraordinary strength of character. He almost killed me three times, but when my mother told him, ‘Next time, you will kill her,’ he resolved that it wouldn’t happen again – and it never did. But what I wanted to tell you is that one day when he was eighteen, just before the Polytechnique exams, as he was crossing the Seine (I think it was the Pont des Arts), suddenly in the middle of the bridge ... he felt something descend into him with such force that he became immobilized, petrified; then, although he didn’t exactly hear a voice, a very clear message came to him: ‘If you want, you can become a god’ – it was translated like that in his consciousness. He told me that it took hold of him entirely, immobilized him – a formidable and extremely luminous power: ‘If you want, you can become a god.’ Then, in the thick of the experience itself, he replied, ‘No, I want to serve humanity.’ And it was gone. Of course, he took great care to say nothing to my mother, but we were intimate enough for him to tell me about it. I told him, ‘Well (laughing), what an idiot you are!’…That’s the story…At that moment he could have had a spiritual realization: he had the right stuff… Three years later I had that experience – I’ve told you about it – of the Light piercing through me; I physically saw it enter into me. It was obviously the descent of a Being – not a past incarnation, but a Being from another plane. It was a golden light – the incarnation of a divine consciousness. Which proves that she succeeded for both her children…But she ...She was down on her knees before my brother. My mother scorned all religious sentiments as weakness and superstition and she absolutely denied the invisible. ‘It’s all brain disease,’ she would say! But she could say just as well, ‘Oh, my Matteo is my God, he is my God.’ The devil knows why, but in Alexandria she gave him the Italian name Matteo! And she truly treated him like a god. She left him only when he married, because then she really couldn’t continue to follow him around any longer…But what’s interesting, for instance, is that when her father died she knew it; she saw him. She thought it was a dream-’a stupid dream.’ But he came to let her know he was dead and she saw him. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, ‘a dream!’ (Mother laughs)…When my grandmother died.... My grandmother had the occult sense. She had made her own fortune (a sizeable fortune) and had had five children, each one more extravagant than the other. She considered me the only sensible person in the family and she shared her secrets with me. ‘You see,’ she told me, ‘these people are going to squander all my money!’ She had a sixty year old son (she had married in Egypt at the age of fifteen, and had had this son when she was quite young). ‘You see this boy, he goes out and visits impossible people! And then he starts playing cards and loses all my money!’ I saw this ‘boy,’ I was there in the house when he came to her and said very politely, ‘Good-bye, mother, I’m going out to so-and-so’s house.’ ‘Ah, please don’t waste all my money, and take an overcoat – it’s getting chilly at night.’ Sixty years old! It was comical.... But to return to my story, after my grandmother died (I took a lot of care over her), she came to my mother (my mother was with her when she died; they embalmed her – she had gotten it into her head that she wanted to be burned, and since she died at Nice they had to embalm her so she could be burned in Paris). I was in Paris. My mother arrived with the body and told me, ‘Just imagine, I’m constantly seeing her! And what’s more, she gives me advice! “Don’t waste your money!” she tells me.’ ‘Well, she’s right, one must be careful,’ I replied. ‘But look here, she’s dead! Dead! How can she talk to me! She’s dead, I tell you, and quite dead at that!’ I said to her, ‘What does it mean, to die?’…It was all very funny… There was another reason. My father was wonderfully healthy and strong – well-balanced. He wasn’t very tall, but stocky. He did all his studies in Austria (at that time French was widely spoken in Austria, but he knew German, he knew English, Italian, Turkish), and there he had learned to ride horses in an extraordinary manner: he was so strong that he could bring a horse to the ground simply by pressing his knees. He could break anything at all with a blow of his fist, even one of those big silver five-franc pieces they had in those days – one blow and it was broken in two. Curiously enough, he looked Russian. I don’t know why. They used to call him Barine. What an equilibrium – an extraordinary physical poise! And not only did this man know all those languages, but I never saw such a brain for arithmetic. Never. He made a game of calculations – not the slightest effort – calculations with hundreds of digits! And on top of it, he loved birds. He had a room to himself in our apartment (because my mother could never much tolerate him), he had his separate room, and in it he kept a big cage ... full of canaries! During the day he would close the windows and let all the canaries loose....And could he tell stories! I think he read every novel available, all the stories he could find – extraordinary adventure stories, for he loved adventures. When we were kids he used to let us come into his room very early in the morning and, while still sitting in bed, tell us stories from the books he had read – but he told them as if they were his own, as if he’d had extraordinary adventures with outlaws, with wild animals. Every story he picked up he told as his own. We enjoyed it tremendously!...But one day when my brother had disobeyed him (Matteo must have been ten or eleven, and I perhaps nine or ten), I came into the dining room and saw my father sitting on a sofa with my brother across his knees; he had pulled down his trousers and was spanking him, I don’t know what for. It wasn’t a very serious spanking, but still.... I came in, drew myself up to my full height and said, ‘Papa, if you ever do that again, I am leaving this house!’ And with such authority, mon petit! He stopped and never did it again.” The Mother’s Agenda-05.08.1961, 78: CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-424, 79: CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-427, 80: “He sails through life and death and other life, He travels on through waking and through sleep. A power is on him from her occult force That ties him to his own creation’s fate, And never can the mighty Traveller rest And never can the mystic voyage cease Till the nescient dusk is lifted from man’s soul And the morns of God have overtaken his night.” Savitri-72, 81: Savitri-56, 82: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-473, 83: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-456, 84: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-25, 85: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-513, 86: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-890, CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-655, 87: “And finally, Sri Aurobindo has told us somewhere in The Life Divine that to follow the path of spiritual experience, one must have within oneself a “spiritual being”, one must be “twice born” as it is said, for if one doesn’t have a spiritual being within, which is at least on the point of becoming self-aware, one may try to imitate these experiences but it will only be crude imitation or hypocrisy, it won’t be a reality.” TMCW-9/Questions and Answers-1957/p-344-345, 88: “In this Yoga, the psychic being is that which opens the rest of the nature to the true supramental light and finally to the supreme Ananda. If the soul is awakened, if there is a new birth out of the mere mental, vital and physical into the psychic consciousness, then the Yoga can be done; otherwise (by the mere power of the mind or any other part) it is impossible.” CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother-161, 89: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-890, 90: “The subconscient is below the waking physical consciousness — it is an automatic, obscure, incoherent, half-unconscious realm into which light and awareness can with difficulty come. The inner vital and physical are quite different — they have a larger, plastic, subtler, freer and richer consciousness than the surface vital and physical, much more open to the Truth and in direct touch with the universal.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-217, The Mother’s Agenda/ December 13, 1960, 91: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-712, 92: CWSA-22/The Life Divine-947, 93: “The being of man is composed of these elements — the psychic behind supporting all, the inner mental, vital and physical, and the outer, quite external nature of mind, life and body which is their instrument of expression. But above all is the central being (Jivatman) which uses them all for its manifestation; it is a portion of the Divine Self, but this reality of himself is hidden from the external man who replaces this inmost self and soul of him by the mental and vital ego…. It is by the growth of the psychic element in one’s own nature that one begins to come into conscious touch with one’s central being above. When that happens and the central being uses a conscious will to control and organise the movements of the nature, it is then that one has a real, a spiritual as opposed to a partial and merely mental or moral self-mastery.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-63, 94: TMCW-12/On Education-337, 95: CWSA-24/ The Synthesis of Yoga-666, 96: CWSA-22/The Life Divine- 939-940, 97: “But afterwards the mind must itself give place to the spirit, to the spiritual force, the supermind and the Supramental force. And finally the body must develop a perfect power to hold whatever force is brought into it by the spirit and to contain its action without spilling and wasting it or itself getting cracked. It must be capable of being filled and powerfully used by whatever intensity of spiritual or higher mind or life force without any part of the mechanical instrument being agitated, upset, broken or damaged by the inrush or pressure, --as the brain, vital health or moral nature are often injured in those who unwisely attempt Yogic practice without preparation or by undue means or rashly invite a power they are intellectually, vitally, morally unfit to bear, --and, thus filled, it must have the capacity to work normally, automatically, rightly according to the will of that spiritual or other now unusual agent without distorting, diminishing or mistranslating its intention and stress. This faculty of holding, dharana-sakti, in the physical consciousness, energy and machinery is the most important siddhi of the perfection of the body.” CWSA-24/ The Synthesis of Yoga-731, 98: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-67-68, 99: SABCL-2/Karmayogin/p-19m 100: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-61, 101: “When will the world change into the model of heaven? When all mankind becomes boys and girls together with God revealed as Krishna and Kali, the happiest boy and strongest girl of the crowd, playing together in the gardens of Paradise. The Semitic Eden was well enough, but Adam and Eve were too grown up and its God Himself too old and stern and solemn for the offer of the Serpent to be resisted.” Sri Aurobindo/TMCW-10/On Thoughts and Aphorisms/p-344, 102: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-23, 103: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-20-21, 104: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-142, 105: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-917-918, 106: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga-108, 107: The Gita-10.34, 108: “One must be a saint and a hero to be a good teacher. One must be a great yogi to be a good teacher. One must have a perfect attitude to be able to exact a perfect attitude from the students. You cannot ask anyone to do what you don’t do yourself. That is a rule. So look at the difference between what is and what ought to be, and you will be able to estimate the extent of your failure in class.” TMCW-8/Questions and Answers-1956/p-354, 109: CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-723, 110: Savitri-545, 111: “But now her spirit’s flame of conscient force Retiring from a sweetness without fruit Called back her thoughts from speech to sit within In a deep room in meditation’s house.” Savitri-639, ‘I am given the awareness of how huge this thing (Divine descent) is one drop at a time…so I won’t be crushed,’ The Mother’s Agenda, July 15, 1961, ‘and this Subconscient transformation could be done ‘only in deep meditation…and not in any other time, in activity or even in concentration.’ The Mother’s Agenda, December 11, 1963, “And it’s true, I have noticed it: at times when the Force comes with really all its might, it’s terrible! Even for those who are most used to it, even for the most courageous ... it’s hard. So it’s always like that: it contains itself so as not to be ...unbearable. What do you have to tell me? Nothing?... It’s a pity. I’m always the one who speaks!” The Mother’s Agenda/20.02.1968, “That is all right in the ordinary karmayoga which aims at union with the cosmic Spirit and stops short at the Overmind — but here a special work (of Subconscient transformation) has to be done and a new realisation achieved for the earth and not for ourselves alone. It is necessary to stand apart from the rest of the world so as to separate ourselves from the ordinary consciousness in order to bring down a new one. ” CWSA-35/Letters on Himself and the Ashram-p-812-813, 112: Savitri-531, 113: Savitri-626, 114: “When I spoke of being faithful to the light of the soul and the divine Call, I was not referring to anything in the past or to any lapse on your part. I was simply suggesting the great need in all crises and attacks, — to refuse to listen to any suggestions, impulses, lures and to oppose to them all the call of the Truth, the imperative beckoning of the Light. In all doubt and depression, to say “I belong to the Divine, I cannot fail”; to all suggestions of impurity and unfitness, to reply “I am a child of Immortality chosen by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother ; I have but to be true to myself and to them — the victory is sure; even if I fell, I would be sure to rise again”; to all impulsions to depart and serve some other ideal, to reply “This is the greatest, this is the Truth, this alone can satisfy the soul within me; I will endure through all tests and tribulations to the very end of the divine journey.” This is what I mean by faithfulness to the Light and the Call." CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-104, 115: "Therefore with the pronunciation of OM the acts of sacrifice, giving and askesis as laid down in the rules are always commenced by the knowers of the Brahman." The Gita-17.24, Download this WEB PAGE in PDF format: Universal Education "To the teachers of all the infant classes: “One rule which must be rigorously applied: It is absolutely forbidden to hit the children—all blows are forbidden, even the slightest little slap or the so-called friendly punch. To give a blow to a child because he does not obey or does not understand or because he is disturbing the others indicates a lack of self-control, and it is harmful for both teacher and student…. Disciplinary measures may be taken if necessary, but in complete calm and not because of a personal reaction.” The Mother TMCW/12/On Education-196 Subconscient Education "The ideal to attain is an unflinching equality of soul and conduct, a patience that never fails and, of course, the absence of any preference or desire. It is obvious that for one who teaches, the essential condition for the proper fulfilment of his task is the absence of all egoism; and no human being is exempt from the necessity of this effort. But, I repeat, this effort is easier to make here than anywhere else." The Mother TMCW/12/On Education-195 Inconscient Education “Teacher: I hope you will give me precise instructions which will help me to keep order in my classes. The Mother’s Answer: The most important is to master yourself and never lose your temper. If you don’t have control over yourself, how can you expect to control others, above all, children, who feel it immediately when someone is not master of himself?” The Mother TMCW/12/On Education-195 “By doing what they (teachers) can, knowing that they have everything to learn. In this way they will gain experience and do things better and better. That is the best way to learn, and if they do it in all sincerity, in two or three years they will become experts and will be truly useful. Naturally, work done in this way becomes really interesting and makes the teachers as well as the students progress.” The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-12/p-63 “It is true that the guru himself is subject to the same rule of silence with regard to what concerns him personally. In Nature everything is in movement; thus, whatever does not move forward is bound to fall back. The guru must progress even as his disciples do, although his progress may not be on the same plane. (1) And for him too, to speak about his experiences is not favourable: the greater part of the dynamic force for progress contained in the experience evaporates if it is put into words. (2) But on the other hand, by explaining his experiences to his disciples, he greatly helps their understanding and consequently their progress. It is for him in his wisdom to know to what extent he can and ought to sacrifice the one to the other. It goes without saying that no boasting or vain glory should enter into his account, for the slightest vanity would make him no longer a guru but an imposter.” The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-12/p-375