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The Divine Centre “Action is demanded of man by the Master of the world who is the master of all his works and whose world is a field of action, whether done through the ego and in the ignorance or partial light of limited human reason or initiated from a higher and more largely seeing plane of vision and motive.”¹⁷ Sri Aurobindo “The acceptance of the law of sacrifice is a practical recognition by the ego that it is neither alone in the world nor chief in the world. It is its admission that, even in this much fragmented existence, there is beyond itself and behind that which is not its own egoistic person, something greater and completer, a diviner All which demands from it subordination and service. ”²³ Sri Aurobindo “The Master of the worlds who in the Gita demands of his servant , the bhakta , to be nothing more in life than his instrument, makes this claim as the friend, the guide, the higher Self, and describes himself as the Lord of all the worlds who is the friend of all creatures, sarvalokamahesvaram suhrudam sarvabhutanam ; the two relations in fact must go together and neither can be perfect without the other.”²⁷ Sri Aurobindo "All action must be done in a more and more Godward and finally a God-possessed consciousness; our works must be a sacrifice to the Divine and in the end a surrender of all our being, mind, will, heart, sense, life and body to the One must make God-love and God-service our only motive. This transformation of the motive force and very character of works is indeed its master idea; it is the foundation of its unique synthesis of works, love and knowledge. In the end not desire, but the consciously felt will of the Eternal remains as the sole driver of our action and the sole originator of its initiative."⁴⁹ Sri Aurobindo The Agenda of the Divine Centre The evolution of sevenfold power (triune glory of Sachchidananda, Supermind, Mind, Life and Body) is the Divine destiny of man. The destiny of evolving consciousness must be wholly and perfectly aware of itself, entirely aware of Self and All. An individual seeker’s Psychic and Spiritual destiny is decreed if his centralised faith is established in the Divine, which ‘see only the Divine and seek only after the Divine,’¹ substituting the earlier ordinary faith which concentrates on ‘development and satisfaction and interests in the old externalised order of things.’¹ If this faith is integralised then his destiny is decreed for the Universal action and he experiences the ‘one Self in all through boundless love.’² To be more specific one can elevate his destiny towards Supramental future by learning two lessons systematically; (1) firstly, he will experience love as extended selfishness or of principle of co-operation and mutual help, by entirely renouncing desire; then there is total sincerity to experience Psychic love through practice of true association, mutual self-giving and interfusion of inner substances, builds his Spiritual destiny to experience complete self-giving, absolute certainty of the Knowledge of three time and rapturous fusion of Psychic and Spiritual Soul into the One and finally his Love becomes a capacity for indefinite expansion of Consciousness in all planes including the material substance, followed by limitless plasticity to trace the movement of Soul in becoming; (2) secondly, he realises initially that his individual ego is not a centre of its own universe and is a small fragment and one concentration of the Universal Self, in which and by which he lives, moves and exists in his being and finally his identity with It leads him towards perfect and constant equality. In Supramental life, his Oneness with the Supreme and his fusion with the world coexist voluntarily and are free from all disturbances and disharmonies. An institution is called the Divine Centre , when individuals with the above decreed Gnostic Consciousness decide to live in a group as collective soul-power of the Truth–consciousness, to intensify the double purpose of Divine union through the ascension of Consciousness and the manifestation of Divine through the descent of Divine Consciousness or it is formed when the collectivity, the multiple liberating Souls, the spoke, the radiating bar is rightly and strongly connected to the wheel, the Divine Centre and its nave, the Central representative, the individual liberated Soul centre consciously governed by the Infinite, whose Spiritual evolution in an unchanged environmental existence is intensified to experience the double movement of Divine ascension of Soul and Divine descent of Shakti or he is a psychological centre related with others through the coexistence of the diversely conscious Many in the universal Being. When the nave becomes the channel of the Divine Consciousness in its entirety that contains all or when his centre of self-vision becomes centre of all-vision, then the limited circumference of the Divine Centre becomes the infinite circumference of the World’s Centre or Creation’s Centre, preoccupied in world transformation action. The Divine Centre does not stop short of any great labour, high discipline, difficult or noble enterprise related to the individual, collectivity, or race but rises to the status of their Transcendent Source.²² It does seek that Spirituality, which has the capacity to release, uplift, transform and perfect life and the surrounding world. All the problems of existence are accepted, accommodated and resolved in a Divine Centre by objectively subjective action of three modes of Nature, Gunas , through representative inmates in the form of tamasic or shudra , rajasic or vaisya, rajaso-sattwic or kshatriya , sattwic or brahmin devotee and subjectively objective action through activation of trigunatita state or activation of fourfold Soul forces of Shudra-Shakti, Vaisya-Shakti, Kshetra-Shakti and Brahma-Shakti, identified as the Knower of Brahman . Works of all types, sarvakarmani , must be made a part of God life and the way of action will not be outward and mental, but inward and Spiritual and it will bring into all activities, whatever they are, the spirit of Divine Love, the spirit of adoration and worship, the spirit of gratitude, the spirit of dedication, the spirit of happiness and beauty in the Divine and service of the Beloved. In a Divine Centre, the basis of action is Spiritual Consciousness, perennial, renovating, creative vision, the ability to renew the truth of form always by the fresh flow of Spirit, and the ability to make every action a living symbol of some truth of the Soul. The scope of work of the Divine Centre is defined through the development of a four-fold active human personality and nature or fourfold integral action as envisaged in Integral Yoga, built out of ancient thought of its four types of the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shudra . The perfection of Brahmana Soul force comes when one is capable of opening to all kinds of revelation, inspiration, intuition, discrimination, and synthesis; and grasps all knowledge with delight, spiritual enthusiasm, ecstasy, full spiritual force, illumination and purity. The perfection of Kshatriya soul force is infinite dynamic courage to which no opposing force can deter the aspiration imposed by the spirit; a high nobility of soul and will be unaffected by any littleness or baseness and moving with certain greatness of spiritual victory over the Powers of Darkness; a spirit never depressed from the faith and confidence in the power that works in the being. An adventure is pursued in multiple subtle bodies and an endless war is fought in darkness with inner and outer wounds that are slow to heal. The ideal character of Vaisya soul powers are the instinct of life to produce, exchange, skill, kausala , possess, enjoy, contrive, put things in order and balance, work out to the best advantage the active relations of existence, skillful devising intelligence, commercial, technical, scientific and utilitarian mind, bent upon efficient exploitation of the world or its surroundings, skillful in the economy, which recognises the great law of interchange and amasses in order to throw out in large return, a power of giving and ample creative liberality, active opulence luxurious of the prolific Ananda of existence. The perfection of Shudra soul force is a universal love that lavishes itself without demand of return, many-sided universal action and service and beneficence guided by Divine Will, absolute self-surrender of the whole being to the Master of our being. All these four Soul Powers can be developed in a single individual for integral perfection or it stands as an indispensable guideline for perfection of the collectivity. So the Divine Centre pushed towards the complete union of the Divine with earth life does give secondary importance to a slow dim long collective preparatory evolutionary mental action of love and beneficent altruistic service in addition to other three types of active mental work of (1) acts of knowledge, (2) acts of will, endeavour and struggle and (3) acts of power and production and creation; and leans on the swift four-fold Spiritual evolution as primary importance to find, know, live and possess the Divine Existence, Consciousness and Bliss in passive mind. In the Divine Centre , the swift individual evolution is accelerated by concentration on the all-inclusive Integral Divine through the practice of Integral Yoga. Integral Divine consists of the triple realisation indicated in the Isha Upanishad that of Brahman is in all things, all things are within the Brahman and all things are made up of the stuff of the Brahman or this realisation in the language of the Gita , that it consists of Manifest mutable Divine, Kshara , Unmanifest immutable Divine, Akshara , and that which exceeds manifest and unmanifest Divine, the Purushottama, Para Brahman , or in the language of Integral Yoga, the realisation of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Divine. It will not stick to the exclusive importance on the manifest Divine or all one-sided philosophical conception of seeing the Divine in a limited personality or personal God of all popular religions which can give birth to monotheistic, polytheistic, sectarian, fanatic and religious institutions; nor can it stick to the exclusive importance on the Impersonal, Unmanifest and Quality-less Divine which may give birth to egoistic, illusionistic and asuric or exclusive Spiritual institution (The desire for personal salvation is the outcome of ego. In Spiritual life the gulf between the Matter and Spirit are not bridged and one discovers Spirit and God by renouncing Life and Matter.); but admits coexistence of both, Saguna Brahman or Self has become all this existence and Nirguna Brahman or Brahman is realised as immobile and immutable Self and both as supreme aspects of one indivisible Reality and transcends them to that which originates and upholds them to experience the Supramental Divine. Enlarging the Spiritual experience towards complete and many-sided comprehensiveness, 'our Yoga can best set out would be naturally the idea, the sense of a conscious all-embracing but all-exceeding Infinite'³² and see and adore one God in all the godheads, men, creatures and objects. At present, The Mother’s International Centre Trust is managing Sri Matriniketan Ashram, consecrated to The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, where ceaseless Japa , nitya smarati, ceaseless consecrated action, nitya Yajna, ceaseless giving, and pouring down of Divine attributes, nitya dana, and ceaseless self-control, nitya sannyasa, are reconciled. One may note that nitya Yajna, nitya sannyasa, nitya japa and nitya dana are linked with the perfection of karmayoga, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga and yoga of self-perfection, respectively. The above vision is now on the way to becoming a reality at a very small corner point of the earth that could spread forth, encircle and seize more and more hearts through love to embrace all the world. It has been identified that with one man’s perfection or one Soul’s specialised extreme effort, tapasya, is an infinitely valuable resource to draw the race towards greater general possibility and complement all other economic and human strengths and it can utilise the least noisy and the least visible triple reversal of Consciousness as the most powerful leverage for world action and transformation. To support and strengthen this inner action it calls very few destined individuals who are at once Moderate, Ascetic, Consecrated and Virgin Souls to participate in the Divine Play of Krishna and Kali, Shiva and Shakti, Brahman and Maya and Sat and Chit of measureless movement or the true Soul is realised as the biune body of the Lord and His Spouse, Ishwara and Shakti, right half male and the left half female, the Hara-Gauri of the Indian iconological symbol. THEIR Ashram is the destined spot of the answering Souls who meet upon their different paths by travelling across limitless planes of Time through many successive births and bodies or it is meant for them those who are initiated to live only for the Divine with the ideal Integral mantra , ‘In the world’s contacts meet his (Divine’s) single touch,’⁸ act only for the Divine with the supporting traditional mantra, ‘Even as I am appointed by Thee seated in my heart, so, O Lord, I act’⁹ and think only for the Divine with the Biblical mantra, ‘My zeal for the Lord has eaten me up’¹⁰ and practice either of the Spiritual disciplines of ‘the Law of Moderation’ or ‘the Law of Tapasya’ or ‘the Law of Sacrifice’ or ‘the Law of Virginity’ and those who do not foresee their clear ‘virginally creative’¹⁸ future and meet the above condition, for them this Ashram can be a place of sojourn for inner preparation of faith, sincerity, gratitude and progress. The Mother’s Ideal Integral School (Residential) is the Ashram’s immediate gateway to the world which has turned into a hot zone of hurtling ground of truth and untruth, straightforwardness and pretension, dedication and selfishness, Divine and undivine. The children are identified as growing gods and pure vessels, who require care, attention and love integrally without losing contact with the World, Self and the Divine. The first object of the Integral Education movement is to accommodate Sri Aurobindo’s unlimited future vision within the limited format and infrastructure of the School in harmony with the Government norm and guiding principle of New Life Education Trust . The second object is to expand the scope of Integral Education through the practice of integral Yoga and its broad highways and narrow bypaths are evolved to provide a safe corridor for higher and deeper studies and experiences. The third objective is to strengthen its research and training activities which include unfolding of both material and spiritual secrets and updating its existing system. The fourth object is insistence on the management of Ashram Trustees and Ashramite teaching faculties to become aware of the object of integral Yoga in its entirety, which is again followed by the insistence on most of the outgoing students through training and education, sikhya , to enable them to fit and accommodate themselves in the mainstream of present world order; few of them receive initiation of the Soul, dikhya , to lead an inner disciplined life and very few of them are privileged to realise the Material and Spiritual fulfillment through practice of integral Yoga. And the last object is that this present phenomenal surface education system is in the process of change in making the vessel ready to expand, hold and manifest the depth, width, height and catholicity of Nature’s most creative Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Education and all their inevitable truth of the Idea. Thus, Integral Education creates an opportunity for each student to choose either a life based on the satisfaction of desire and ego or a life concentrated on the Self and endless unfolding of the Spirit. Sri Matriniketan Ashram is attached with a Medical wing, whose first objective is to provide necessary infrastructure, skill and knowledge towards an improved health, sound physique and indefinitely prolonging life, if not of effecting the entire conquest of death in this Divine community and its surrounding village; its second objective is to link Integral healing with the Integral Yoga and evolve the essential cause of error, suffering and death, by which we might hope to arrive at a mastery over them which should be not relative but entire and thus, we arrive at the essential control of life instead of a more powerful manipulation of circumstances through medical Science; the third objective is an attempt to heal all disease through root knowledge evolved through intervention of Intuition or Divine Grace subordinated by the external or secondary processes developed by doctors and medicines; the last object is to concentrate on the ultimate aim of medical Science of complete eradication and immunization of all disease and to attain physical immortality on earthly body through evolution of subtle faculties that are beyond the cognition of the mind. Another auxiliary unit is Natural farming. The first object of agriculture is to insist on farming with labor-saving appliances and without chemicals, or pesticides, improving soil fertility and its ability to retain water; the second objective is to relate natural farming with the Spiritual health of the community and realises that the healing of the land and purification of the human spirit are single process; the third objective is the acceptance of flower culture as the means of entering into the most plastic and sweet domain of purifying life and prepares the foundation for the highest Spiritual Love; the fourth objective is that it bridges the gulf between the two extreme end of life that of the Matter and the Spirit or as Sri Aurobindo said, "When the supramental Force comes on the earth, there will be a response EVERYWHERE." ³⁷ or as the Mother said, “When the Supramental manifests, an unequalled joy spreads over the earth.” ³⁸ Agriculture is the symbol of the basic need for food, clothing and shelter and the perfecting of the first instrument of the body, Education, the symbol of the development and spreading of fine mental, vital and physical faculties, and Health, is the symbol of sane material life on which the highest Supra-physical knowledge can rest, which constitute the basis of sane living of the civilized humanity are identified as the husk of the truth of the Divine Centre which is again meant for holding strongly its kernel, the accumulated Spiritual concentration directed towards the Supreme and the consequent Divine’s descent into the physical. Or here the subjective mind realities and objective physical realities are seen as things phenomenal and secondary, dependent upon the primary truth of the dynamic Self and the realities of the Spirit. The whole aim of evolution is the continuous enlargement of the existing human vessel. The force or energy that moves the stars and planets, the same force also moves our thoughts and actions. When this inrush of ‘energy is the highest in kind and the fullest in amount’⁴⁷ and works in a perfected human vessel then he has attained the complete and utmost development. To this height all humanity is aspiring, knowingly or unknowingly. The Mother Nature attempts through each individual formation to bridge the gulf between the existing material living and the future Supramental world. She attempted and reattempted this with her best Master Souls and succeeded with Sri Aurobindo. Now after Mother Nature’s success in creating a single Sri Aurobindo, who is a symbol of movement of comprehensive Consciousness, her next great and difficult task is ‘to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.’²⁸ Now it is time for her to universalise her success, by providing the best surrounding atmosphere to the receptive human Souls with perfected minds and bodies who will be able initially to unveil the transcendent activities of the Spirit and finally hold and carry Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness or the total consciousness of the Eternal by the simple formula though difficult to execute that of initially living and experiencing all the norms of Integral Yoga and finally the outer law is substituted by the inner plastic Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Law. Or this intensive evolution of the individual must be preoccupied in entirely changing the mind, life and body in conformity with the truth of the Spirit. This multiplication of total Consciousness of the Eternal may be understood in Sri Aurobindo's language, "The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in external humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity. That which has been done in the outer human life of earth may be repeated in the inner life of all human beings."⁴⁶ After bridging the gulf between ordinary living and Supramental life, the Mother Nature attempted again to experience cellular transformation of her animal evolutionary form through The Mother’s body. This is her another intermediate victory which has opened for the race another possibility of physical change and a journey toward the ultimate victory of Spirit over Matter. The simple formula to repeat The Mother’s Cellular transformation experience or discovery of immortal principles concealed within the cells of the body is to purify the physical substance to the extent of bearing the pressure of All Delight and the burden of the earth’s Inconscient negations. Or “The dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh,”⁴⁴ and “Almighty powers are shut in Nature’s cells.”⁴⁵ The next difficult task of Mother Nature related to multiplication of individual Cellular transformation may be understood in The Mother’s language, ‘If, for any reason this body (The Mother’s body) becomes unusable, the universal Mother will again start manifesting in hundreds of individualities according to their capacity and receptivity, each one being a partial manifestation of the Universal Consciousness.’²⁹ Now, most of humanity is suffering from the slavery of lower Nature and the slavery of ordinary action. So, first, very few should go beyond these two slaveries by ascending their consciousness to the Psychic, Spiritual and Universal planes and their Spiritual Influence should spread beyond the individual Soul Centre. Sri Aurobindo confirms, "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..."⁴⁸ Thus, in the long run, the whole of humanity can be liberated and their life can be Divinised. The Evolution of The Mother’s International Centre Trust: “Because men still imagine that in order to do anything useful, they must gather together in groups, it is the caricature (An exaggerated or distorted representation) of organisation…I know the conditions of the country (India). Even if one person could put himself faithfully at the disposal of the Truth, he could change the country and the world.” ⁴³ The Mother 1) ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust ’ was registered on the auspicious Darshan Day of 24th November, 1997 and its all-necessary form and manifestation was chosen by THEIR Divine Will. The Trust was formed by the pressure of a Supracosmic vision revealed to its Central representative, S. A. Maa Krishna . At the end of the vision a leaf was handed over to her in which it was written ‘Mother’s International Centre’. Sri K. Anurakta , a profound Yogi of Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry gave his consent to form a Trust based on this vision by incorporating a small correction, which reads ‘The Mother’s International Centre Trust’ ; this vision was followed by successive meetings of Supraterrestrial Gods and Goddesses, who are cosmic personalities of the World-Play, promising to extend their help in this Divine work. This vision was further fragmented into Truth Sight of Illumined Mind of multitudes of subtle physical experiences and Truth Thought of Higher Mind extending its right relation with the outside world. It was also revealed to her that the Spiritual concentration would be accumulated through silence, a mould of Spiritual discipline and initiation of few fit Souls; it would depend more on the triple reversal of Consciousness which is directed to meet the most difficult issue of resolving the problem of falsehood from within and without and creating a field of protection for the individual’s growth of Spirituality. This exercise is less dependent on external machinery and least depends on things and objects that would lead to the subjection of Nature. 2) After the formation of the Trust, the scope of the work and the direction in which the Trust would extend its function was defined by the publication of seven volumes of the ‘Working Manual of The Mother’s International Centre Trust’ of around one thousand pages, identifying the best part of Their Teachings and dividing them into four different areas in which we can long concentrate and become accountable. These are (1) Divine Action which is an outcome of Divine union, (2) Identification of the unfinished work of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo in Consciousness extending over all the manifold planes, worlds and sheaths; The Mother’s physical embodiment was missioned, ‘to bring down something not yet expressed in this material world so as to transform life here’;³⁰ so to carry The Mother’s unfinished work ahead means to enter subtle physical experiences extending its ranges from Bliss Self to Inconscient Self; (3) Knowledge on the subtle physical world and higher worlds as a passage for Spiritual Transformation, (4) Danger of the path and study of the reasons of Their earthly departure and the lessons we have learned. (Most of the soft copy lost due to file corruption and few are retained.) This aspiration paved the passage clear for the descent of greater truth through the revelation of a vision that showed that the south block of Sri Matriniketan Ashram’s main building was joined with the north block of Sri Aurobindo’s room at Pondicherry and a secret door opened to Sri Aurobindo’s room at Pondicherry and a free communication to either side was restored. A voice from above informed that now the gulf is bridged and a direct golden link with Sri Aurobindo is established, confirming that from here Their purest vibration will radiate towards the world. Another complementary vision was that a piece of land of Sri Matriniketan Ashram has entered towards Sri Aurobindo’s Samadhi at Pondicherry from the north-east side; both the surfaces were shining with white marble and the radiating vibration of both the lands were almost the same. 3) The new land of Sri Matriniketan Ashram was registered initially on the Darshan day, 21st February 2000, around eleven kilometres away from Brahmapur , at village Ramachadrapur . The place has been chosen to pursue sadhana in double seclusion²¹ as hinted in Savitri, that of an outcaste from the outer light of the world and to renounce the five galloping hooves of sense enjoyment through sound, touch, sight, taste and smell. These two solitudes also symbolise the persuation of integral Jnana Yoga and integral Bhakti Yoga in isolation, whose highest perfection is realised by becoming an integral Karma Yogi . This transient and momentary Divine manifestation in a fugitive existence and passing world is offered to hold the vast Truth and direct its working in the Subconscient and Inconscient Sheaths. The main Ashram building along with meditation hall, class rooms, guest room and medical unit, is accommodated in its campus. Sri Matriniketan Ashram (which is a Sanskrit translation of its earlier English name The Mother’s Foundation ) is aware of its special mission through the psycho-spiritual link in which The Mother and Sri Aurobindo appear in a most concrete overhead vision, command and wisdom confirming that They are constantly present here in carrying Their Work in Their own way and in Their own Time. Their each appearance is directed to overcome the transition in sadhana, indicating our limitations of Nature, the capacity of surrender to which we have to elevate, the scope of physical transformation and reminding of Their yet unfinished and unfulfilled limitless impossible task and vision. 4) In October--2000, a quarterly magazine, ‘The Descent ’ was launched whose objective was to restate the Spiritual experience and establish a link between Sri Aurobindo’s early sadhana at Pondicherry and The Mother’s last cellular transformation. This restatement fulfils the Injunctions issued in integral Yoga that each Sadhaka must trace his own path of Yoga. This new path is strengthened by opening more and more towards the descent of overhead Divine Will, Divine Knowledge and Divine Love. The intervention of Divine will can bring new creation and manifestation in material life, which is unimaginable by the mind. Overhead wisdom is so simple and so all-embracing that even a fool²⁶ can understand it and can undergo change without notice. The new descent of overhead wisdom will bring completeness to understand the existing written truth. A brief touch of Divine Love can erase all our past Karma, change our destiny, and bring immense hope and sweetness in this strange and struggling world. This action proceeds in conformity with a vision, which shows an arrival of French letter from Sri Satprem , one of the Secretaries of The Mother . In that letter, it was written that the Mother had told Satprem that in one of the Centres in Orissa, Her true and comprehensive action would be executed. He got the information that Sri Matriniketan Ashram is emerging as such centre. If the content of this vision is accepted true in spirit and reality, then ‘The Descent’ will witness a significant role in strengthening contact with the Divine and world transformation. 5) The Mother’s International Centre Trust (pan card no-AABTT5264G) received tax exemption certificate U/s 80G (5) of the I.T. Act 1961 vide memo no. ITO(Tech)/80G-277/2006-07/5354-57, dated the Bhubaneswar, 06th September, 2007 for the financial year 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, from CIT, Government of India, and this notification requires no periodic renewal as one-time approval is granted vide circular no. 7/2010 [F.NO.197/21/2010-ITA-1], dated 27.10.2010. The Trust functions as per the objective guidelines of the Government of India and the subjective guidelines of Sri Aurobindo's principal Teachings, The Synthesis of Yoga. They are: (1) "Accept everything, but cling to nothing," (p-) (2) "our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities," (p-) (3) "To arrive by the shortest way at the largest development," (p-) (4) "virginally creative at each moment," (p-637) (5) "All Life is Yoga."(p-8) 6) The health of any institution is dependent on its expansion of research activity and constant renovation of its existing system and setup. The same exercise can make up the deficiencies of the Divine Centre, but still greater identity is required for their fulfilment by the fresh inflow of Spiritual experiences and wisdom to all the realms of life. So, the mental activity of research in Spiritual matters and utilisation of this facility as a passage to Spiritual experiences are undertaken here consistent with the norms of Integral Yoga that insists to ‘sum up in himself all its best and completest possibility’²⁴ and not to loiter on formative issues, formative writings, mechanised system of mind which cut and select to build all that does not fit within the closed system and ‘truth and practice too strictly formulated.’³ It further provides guidelines ‘to discover and understand the workings of the Divine Consciousness-Puissance in man and creatures and things and forces… to enter into the ways of the Divine and his processes, to know the materials and means for the work given to us so that we may use that knowledge for a conscious and faultless expression of the spirit’s mastery, joy and self-fulfilment.’⁴ Here are some of the following issues of academic interest: 6a. The root knowledge of the Veda, the Upanishad and the Gita has been identified as a perennial Source for the ultimate human destiny. Our object is not to develop results arrived at by these ancient Shastra, but to uncover some of their principal conclusions which are considered the best initial foundation in resolving the problem of the Divine Life. These old treasures are recognised as our initial capital, the seed Truth and rich Aryan culture that can most advantageously proceed to accumulate the largest gains in our new commerce with the ever-changeless and ever-changing Infinite. 6b. From these hints of old light, assess how the new light of integral Yoga would emerge and old expression has to be replaced to a certain extent by new expressions suited to a present mentality; as dawn succeeds dawn. 6c. Recognised Sri Aurobindo's Essays of the Gita as a book with the message of Strong Spirituality and its Truth is linked with the highest hinted truth of the original text of the Bhagavad Gita . This exercise helps to explore the wisdom that Sri Aurobindo hinted and developed in His four major works, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine, The Mother and Savitri . To restate, synthesise and integrate the highest truth and self-vision of the above four Shastras , strongly pave the passage clear for the Truth of self-action, new suggestions, new creations and new manifestation in harmony with the Supreme. 6d. Identified the areas of Truth that Sri Aurobindo hinted at but did not develop in The Synthesis of Yoga , and identified the development of these hinted portions from The Life Divine and Savitri. Similarly, the areas of Truth that Sri Aurobindo hinted at and did not develop in The Life Divine are identified and their possible developments were traced in Savitri. Lastly, all that Sri Aurobindo hinted at but never developed during His lifetime were identified and kept as a pending issue for concentration and development. A similar exercise will repeat in exploring The Mother's Agenda and The Mother's Centenary Works . Efforts are made to identify how an Ashram in the twenty-first century can handle the crisis of collective living, how all the inmates can be well informed about every nook and corner of the norms of integral Yoga, dynamise its living force so that crisis of experiment of past collective living will not repeat to the present condition and the Presence of Their new Divinity will wholly possess the entire atmosphere. Then work out how perfection at a single point can spread across the whole earth so that the effect of the highest achievements of individual perfection will not rest satisfied with some intermediate Godhead, no longer confined within the boundary of a small collectivity. All the above issues are not mental ideas, not according to an imposed law of conduct or a constructive thought but Spiritual experience; each of its steps is dictated by an innate Spiritual vision, a comprehensive and exact penetration into the truth of all and the truth of each thing and one can enter inner or higher ranges of Consciousness in order to discover more secrets behind our creation which is an endless process. Sri Aurobindo proposes that for 'this evolutionary miracle'⁴⁰ the central representative of the Divine Centre must have complete union with the Supreme Sachchidananda and the collectivity must have Gnostic Consciousness and the relation between them inside the Divine Centre and with others must be established 'only through the divine consciousness and not through the mental nature.”⁴¹ This will replace the inferior relation of human love of ordinary earth-bound life of the three Gunas . 7) Importance is given here to the Psychic Being which can ‘set the world ablaze with the inner Fire.’¹³ It imposes on life the law of sacrifice on every action and enlarges the smallest action with the sense of the Infinite. We can enter objective action through subjective experience and we know the subjectively objective nature of Supermind only by its brief touch. Partial and fragmentary action is still not disengaged from the lower movement of consciousness and therefore not easily recognisable. The gulf between mind and Supermind has to be bridged by rending¹⁹ the veil between the surface and subliminal part and by ascent and descent of dynamic Consciousness. Through this movement, many closed passages are opened, which are now in us void and mute. And after passing through many linking hierarchies of Consciousness, we can become aware of the Supermind, whose universal action is key to all lesser mysteries and activities. It can also be pursued through intuitive action, which is activated by the passive silence of the Witness Spirit; it compels all things to travel in Ignorance and division towards a yet unrealised Divine goal of unity. Intuition as our first teacher brings those brilliant, rare overhead messages from the Unknown and Reason as our second teacher gives us what profit it can have from the shining intuitive harvest and vision. Intensification of Intuition is the Supramental Force, which has the capacity to prevent all destruction, heal all disease, transform all opposition into mutual help, is supremely positive and creative and provides the opportunity for the largest development in the shortest path and heals the gulf between the World, Self and God and perfects the creation. There are many stations from which The Mother’s work can be pursued and Sri Matriniketan Ashram has chosen either to act from the Psychic or Spiritual or Universal station through imperative vision and revelation, the working and direct intervention of the Supreme Mother Force, with a conviction that all is done for the best, the progress assured, the victory inevitable. In this vision-dependent Ashram , all action is born out of ascending and descending Divine union, fulfilling its own inherent power. Its movement is calm, self-possessed, spontaneous, plastic and a harmonic identity of the truth intimately one with all that is included in its cognition of existence. 8) Integral Yoga can succeed with a twice-born soul if he has 'the true Guide within and without.' ³⁹ If his Psychic and Spiritual being are open, then he can enter direct contact with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo from within and it is identified as an exceptional privilege ³⁵ to have a Spiritual fosterer without. In Sri Matriniketan Ashram, those whose destinies are in the preparatory and formative stage of Sadhana (once-born Soul) and are not yet decreed for Spiritual and higher attainment, they enter indirect contact with the Mother and Sri Aurobindo and are not comfortable with the living Spiritual fosterer. Because the predominance of lower nature plays a pivotal role and they are not ready to accept the fact that the foundation of this Yoga is 'truthfulness and virginity'⁴² and they covertly search for a safe passage to satisfy their suppressed desire. Through this search, the gulf between once-born disciple and twice-born Teacher multiplies. In the Spiritual history of earth, this increase of the gulf gave birth to the crucifixion of Lord Christ. So, the Ashram becomes a field of repetition of old history. Until one has not discovered his Psychic being in the heart centre and Spiritual being above the head, for him ‘rest and earthly ease’²⁰ are forbidden. His primary motive is to make Divine realisation²⁵ as one and only aim of life and to obey the Divine through external means in the form of the Guru and adore and worship Him in the Avatar and the Divine Mother. The secondary aim is to extend this effort towards inner obedience to the omnipotent Spirit within and inner adoration and consecration to the Divine within. One feels secure in preserving his separative identity and his obedience to the Central representative of the Ashram is no longer an indispensable part of his sadhana life, whose variation is dependent on his satisfaction of personal will, want and interest and his regard and reverence to her is restricted by subjection to lower Nature. If an individual aspirant Soul's lower Nature is active, then 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.'³³ 9) Integral Yoga further identifies that for a twice-born Soul, a Spiritual Fosterer is indispensable.³⁵ So, the Divine must depute for him a Spiritual fosterer (like King Aswapati in the life of Savitri) or he must trace him out from a distant land (like Satyavan in the life of Savitri). Vedanta insists on following consistently the guidelines to know, be and possess the Divine in thyself first, then in others and 'the heart’s worship given to the Teacher, whether to the divine Teacher within or to the human Master in whom the divine Wisdom is embodied, — for that is the sense of the reverence given to the Guru .'³¹ In Sri Matriniketan Ashram , the destiny of a twice-born Soul is decreed for Spiritual and higher attainment and fulfilment; he approaches the Divine through subjectively-objective Self-discipline, proceeding from essential self-knowledge to the whole cosmic self-knowledge and from the whole integral knowledge to the knowledge of the parts of the objective world. Its primary aim as proposed in Integral Jnana Yoga is to know himself as ‘the Self, the Spirit, the Eternal’¹¹ by drawing back from mind, life and body or as proposed in Savitri , ‘The One he worshipped was within him now’¹⁴ and the concentration on this life and written truth are shifted to concentration on triple time of all life and the Soul in Mind and Heart. Then he has a secondary aim, which is ‘to establish the true relation between this eternal self that we are and the mutable existence and mutable world.’¹¹ Thus, in fulfilling this secondary aim of complete realisation of the Divine in all things and to know Him everywhere equally without distinction, he has identified as to enter voluntary ideal right relation with its Central representative, the virgin Soul Centre, as ‘a child leading children’¹⁵ and a strict obedience to her 'wise and intuitive leading'³⁴ is normal and necessary for harmony of outer Ashram life. For the fulfillment of universalised living and comprehensive harmony, a certain form of reverence, adoration and the right relation is nurtured with its surrounding nature which includes flowers, children, trees, dogs, cows, crows, pigeons and birds as the Self in all Beings, Sarvabhutastha atmanam ;¹⁶ for the full possession of the Transcendence and the most comprehensive harmony, we enter the true relation with the Mother Soul Sri Radha and the Master Soul Sri Krishna within by whose Grace we have found refuge at the Lotus Feet of Their Supramental Incarnation, The Mother and Sri Aurobindo , the Supreme-Mother-Ishwari-Maya-Chit-Shakti is becoming One with the Supreme-Purushottama-Ishwara-Sat-Brahman , descended from the plane of Sachchidananda into the lower world as Paraprakritir Jivabhuta⁵ and Mamaibansa Jivabhuta ,⁶ and extension of this relation as all pervading Brahman in the form of ‘of the Self, by the Self and in the Self’, atmani atmanam atmana⁷ or ‘Living for me, by me, in me they shall live. ’¹² Thus, an effort is made to practice Sri Aurobindo's Teachings rigorously and live a life based on Divine action. To hold together the boundless Mother and limitless Sri Aurobindo in the heart and all other planes of Consciousness are identified as the highest perfection of this endeavour. THEY have chosen and owned Sri Matriniketan Ashram as a field of THEIR direct special Divine transformation work, development of the highest hinted Truth of Integral Yoga, generalisation of Spirituality through Integral Education, on whom we can depend totally for our life, action, thought, feeling, existence and Ananda . OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-72, 2: Savitri-381, 3: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-22, 4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-142, 5: The Gita-7.5- this passage indicates that the Divine Mother has become the Jiva in the heart, 6: The Gita-15.7- this passage indicates that the Supreme Purushottama has become Jiva in the heart, 7: The Gita-13.24, 8: Savitri-476, 9: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-252, 10: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-58, 11: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-368, 12: Savitri-699, 13: Savitri-597, 14: Savitri-334, 15: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-67, 16: The Gita-6.29, 17: Essays on the Gita/SABCL/Vol-13/P-436, 18: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-637, 19: “His spirit breathed a superhuman air. The imprisoned deity rent its magic fence.” Savitri-82, “Rent man’s horizons into infinity.” Savitri-359, “To rend the veil of the last mysteries.” Savitri-360, “The knot of the two, the higher and the lower hemisphere, is where mind and supermind meet with a veil between them. The rending of the veil is the condition of the divine life in humanity; for by that rending, by the illumining descent of the higher into the nature of the lower being and the forceful ascent of the lower being into the nature of the higher, mind can recover its divine light in the all-comprehending supermind, the soul realise its divine self in the all-possessing all-blissful Ananda, life repossess its divine power on the play of omnipotent Conscious-Force and Matter open to its divine liberty as a form of the divine Existence.” CWSA/21/The Life Divine-279, “An early illumination from above or a rending of the upper velamen can come as an outcome of aspiration or some inner readiness, or it may even come uncalled-for or not called for by any conscious part of the mind, — perhaps by a secret subliminal necessity or by an action or pressure from the higher levels, by something which is felt as the touch of the Divine Being, the touch of the Spirit, — and its results can be exceedingly powerful.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-944, “If it is Thy will it should be so, Thou must rend the last veil and Thy splendour in all its purity must come to transfigure the world!” Prayers And Meditations/p-269/TMCW-1/p-223, 20: “There is no rest for the embodied soul... Forbidding to him rest and earthly ease, Till he has found himself he cannot pause.” Savitri-339, 21: “Outcast from empire of the outer light, Lost to the comradeship of seeing men, He (King Dyumatsena ) sojourns in two solitudes, within And in the solemn rustle of the woods.” Savitri-403, 22: “The truth is not that God moves round the ego as the centre of existence and can be judged by the ego and its view of the dualities, but that the Divine is itself the centre and that the experience of the individual only finds its own true truth when it is known in the terms of the universal and the transcendent.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-59, 23: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-106, 24: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-22, 25: “Only a realisation independent of all outer circumstances, free from all attachment and all understanding, however high, is a true realisation, a valuable realisation. And the only such realisation is to unite with Thee integrally, closely, definitively.” The Mother/Prayers and Meditations-17.07.1914, 26: “I know it would create a furor if I wrote this book! Because any fool could read it like a story and feel perfectly satisfied – and he wouldn’t even notice it taking hold of him inside and changing him.” The Mother’s Agenda-20.12.1961, “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 recognise it.” TMCW/Vol-8/Questions and Answers-1956/p-126, “Above her brows where will and knowledge meet A mighty Voice invaded mortal space. It seemed to come from inaccessible heights And yet was intimate with all the world And knew the meaning of the steps of Time And saw eternal destiny’s changeless scene Filling the far prospect of the cosmic gaze.” Savitri-574, 27: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-565, 28: “We have to recognise once more that the individual exists not in himself alone but in the collectivity and that individual perfection and liberation are not the whole sense of God’s intention in the world. The free use of our liberty includes also the liberation of others and of mankind; the perfect utility of our perfection is, having realised in ourselves the divine symbol, to reproduce, multiply and ultimately universalise it in others.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-29, 29: The Mother, The Mother’s Agenda-11/p-346, , “And if you do not want your body to fail you, avoid wasting your energies in useless agitation. Whatever you do, do it in a quiet and composed poise. In peace and silence is the greatest strength.” The Mother’s Agenda-8/p-365, 30: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-50, 31: CWSA-19/Essays of the Gita/p-414-415, 32: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-82 33: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-23 34: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940-941, 35: “The ordinary man who wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure , he must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twice born can understand or teach the Vedas . When he has done this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, (1) the Sruti or recorded revelation, (2) the Sacred Teacher, (3) the practice of Yoga and (4) the Grace of God.” CWSA-18/Kena and other Upanishads/p-169, "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." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-130, 36: Savitri-237, 37: "I don’t know if it’s our perception that progresses, or if really, as Sri Aurobindo said, "When the supramental Force comes on the earth, there will be a response EVERYWHERE." It seems to me to be that, because these flowers are so, so vibrant, full of life. In the morning I always arrange them (it’s a work that takes me at least three quarters of an hour, there are more than a hundred flowers in different vases that I have to arrange, and to each person I give a special sort of flower – I arrange all that), and in the vases, some flowers say, "Me!" And indeed they are just what I need. They call out to me to say, "Me!" ... But that’s not new, because when I was in Japan, I had a large garden and I had cultivated part of it to grow vegetables; in the morning I would go down to the garden to get the vegetables to be eaten that day, and some of them here, there, there (scattered gesture) would say, "Me! Me! Me!" Like that. So I would go and pick them. They literally called me, they called me...That’s a long time ago, nineteen hundred and ... when was it? It was in 1916-17, so that’s ..." The Mother's Agenda/February 7, 1968, 38: TMCW-15/Words of the Mother-III/p-91, 39: "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, "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.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-940-941, "For other paths of sadhana, especially those which like the Gita accept the reality of the individual soul as an “eternal portion” of the Divine or which believe that Bhagavan and the bhakta are both real, the help of the Guru has always been relied upon as an indispensable aid .” CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-200, "I am here with thee in thy chariot of battle revealed as the Master of Existence within and without thee and I repeat the absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead thee to myself through and beyond all sorrow and evil. Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent Spirit.” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p- 557, 40: "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, 41: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-210-11, 42: “(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, 43: The Mother's Agenda/25th October 1967/19th April 1969, 44: Savitri-237, 45: Savitri-370, 46: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-160, 47: “The ancient Aryans knew that man was not separate from the universe, but only a homogeneous part of it, as a wave is part of the ocean. An infinite energy, Prakriti, Maya or Shakti, pervades the world, pours itself into every name and form, and the clod, the plant, the insect, the animal, the man are, in their phenomenal existence, merely more or less efficient adharas of this Energy. We are each of us a dynamo into which waves of that energy have been generated and stored, and are being perpetually conserved, used up and replenished. The same force which moves in the star and the planet, moves in us, and all our thought and action are merely its play and born of the complexity of its functionings. There are processes by which man can increase his capacity as an adhara. There are other processes by which he can clear of obstructions the channel of communication between himself and the universal energy and bring greater and greater stores of it pouring into his soul and brain and body. This continual improvement of the adhara and increase in quantity and complexity of action of the informing energy, is the whole aim of evolution. When that energy is the highest in kind and the fullest in amount of which the human adhara is capable, and the adhara itself is trained utterly to bear the inrush and play of the energy, then is a man siddha, the fulfilled or perfect man, his evolution is over and he has completed in the individual that utmost development which the mass of humanity is labouring towards through the ages.” CWSA-1/Early Cultural Writings/p-370 48: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-45, 49: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-104, Download this WEB PAGE in PDF format: FLOWER DECORATION, SRI MATRI DHYANA MANDIR “Lord, this morning Thou hast given me the assurance that Thou wouldst stay with us until Thy work is achieved, not only as a consciousness which guides and illumines but also as a dynamic Presence in action. In unmistakable terms Thou hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed. Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence and that henceforth every- thing in us be concentrated on the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work." The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-13/p-6 THE MOTHER'S RELICS & PADUKA "The goal of Yoga is always hard to reach, but this one (integral Yoga) is more difficult than any other, and it is only for those who have the call, the capacity, the willingness to face everything and every risk, even the risk of failure, and the will to progress towards an entire selflessness, desirelessness and surrender." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-27 THE WORLD HINDU SUMMIT-II “I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a faith; I say that it is the Sanatana Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatana Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatana Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatana Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatana Dharma it would perish.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-8/Karmayogin/p-11-12 (The message is from Sri K. Anurakta, our Spiritual Guide) 15.08.2006 THE MOTHER AND SRI AUROBINDO’S VERY SPECIAL LOVE LIGHT, BLISS AND BLESSINGS TO THE MOTHER’S INTERNATIONAL CENTRE TRUST SRI MATRINIKETAN ASHRAM FOR ALL SINCERE AND DEDICATED, TRUE AND ILLUMINED WORK THAT IS BEING DONE FOR THE WORK OF THE MOTHER AND SRI AUROBINDO IN THE PHYSICAL, VITAL AND SPIRITUAL INNER CONSCIOUSNESS. THIS DEDICATION IS WONDERFULLY IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE. “We are here in the Ashram to do this work together with the help of Sri Aurobindo’s knowledge and force, in an attempt to realise a community that is more harmonious, more united, and consequently much more effective in life.” The Mother TMCW/12/On Education/p-355

Sri K. Anurakta & The Evolution of Sri Matriniketan Ashram Sri K. Anurakta is recognised as one of the flame-buoyant and foremost potential Sadhakas of integral Yoga. He has realised some rare Spiritual height to become a part of The Mother’s most difficult Subconscient transformation action and his difficult task was to climb one known peak of Consciousness to another unknown peak and as a result his capacity to bear world’s suffering and blow increased proportionately. He served the next purpose of elevating the general Consciousness of the race by pouring the Mother’s Love and Grace on the bereaved Souls and awakened in them the spark of living Psychic Fire and the Divine Bliss. Devotees gathered around him to dump all their earthly problems and Karma and he bore and relieved most of their sufferings, miseries and sorrows by identifying them with the Divine and yet remained established in a state of absolute calm, complete surrender and highest plane of Turiya for several years. In Savitri, this highest state beyond Supramental is described as ‘the brooding bliss of the Infinite’’ or ‘The bliss that made the world in his body lived.’ The change of his physical appearance of luminous body, jyotirmaya deha, Divine beauty, divya saundarya, and capacity of eternal Love, prema samarthya, confirms that he was firm in the Yoga of cellular transformation. He was at once an Ashramite in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, who had the responsibilities of increasing persistent zeal to become one and possess the Divine Mother and the Lord, utsaha, a Sadhaka, while exploring new vistas of ascending peaks of Consciousness felt the need of much more still to be done, bhuri kartvam and increasing his capacity to bear the earth’s burden through static Divine union, titikshya, a consecrated Child of resolving human problems in large scale through dynamic Divine union, sarvabhutahiteratah, and an integral Yogi of becoming a transparent channel of Divine’s vast ascent and descent, divya aroha and avaroha. OM TAT SAT

Section Française “Lord, very humbly I pray to Thee that I may be equal to my task, that nothing in me, conscious or unconscious, may betray Thee by neglecting to serve Thy sacred mission.” The Mother, Prayers and Meditations-20.02.1914 <> La Mère, Prières et Méditations-20.02.1914 THE BHAGAVAD GITA ( French) FRANÇAIS ET AUTRE MOT EUROPÉEN UTILISÉ PAR SRI AUROBINDO DANS SES ÉCRITS EN ANGLAIS: (Sri Aurobindo's Writings in European Language.) RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN – 2020 RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN - 2022 RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN - 2024 RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN - 2026 APPRENDRE LE FRANÇAIS (Learn French) LES DOUZE FORMULES IMPORTANTES DU LIVRE «THE LIFE DIVINE» (Twelve Important Formula of The Life Divine) RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN - 2021 RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN - 2023 RAPPORT DE L'ASHRAM DE SRI MATRINIKETAN - 2025 "Question: Is it right to say that those who know French will be able to serve the Mother better in the years to come? Answer: It is mostly that it brings a certain closeness to one side of the Mother .” Sri Aurobindo SABCL/25/The Mother/p-368-369 “Sri Aurobindo had a great liking for France . I was born there – certainly for a reason. In my case, I know it very well: it was the need of culture, of a clear and precise mind, of refined thought, taste and clarity of mind – there is no other country in the world for that . None. And Sri Aurobindo had a liking for France for that same reason, a great liking. He used to say that throughout his (fourteen years) life in England, he had a much greater liking for France than for England !” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda/July 3, 1963 "Sri Aurobindo aimait beaucoup la France. Je suis née là-bas – il y a certainement une raison. Pour moi, je sais très bien: c'était la nécessité de la culture, de l’esprit clair, précis; du raffinement de la pensée, du goût, et de la clarté d'esprit – il n'y a pas de pays au monde comme cela. Il n'y en a pas. Et Sri Aurobindo aimait la France à cause de cela aussi, beaucoup-beaucoup. Il disait que pendant toute sa vie en Angleterre, il aimait beaucoup plus la France que l’Angleterre!" La Mère L'Agenda de Mère/ 3 juillet 1963 “Everything can be part of “sadhana ”; it depends on the inner attitude. Naturally, if one lets himself be invaded by the Western atmosphere, farewell to the sadhana . But even in the most materialistic milieu, if one retains one’s aspiration and one’s faith in the Divine Life, the sadhana can and should continue.” The Mother TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-44 “In the West the physical mind is too dominant, so that the psychic does not so easily get a chance — except of course in exceptional people.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-8

Integral Mental Education "The last perfection (This inner instrument is divided by the old system into four powers: citta or basic mental consciousness; manas, the sense mind; buddhi, the intelligence; ahanka ra , the ego-idea.) is that of the intelligence and thinking mind, buddhi . The first need i s the clarity and the purity of the intelligence. It must be freed from the claims of the vital being which seeks to impose the desire of the mind in place of the truth, from the claims of the troubled emotional being which strives to colour, distort, limit and falsify the truth with the hue and shape of the emotions. It must be free too from its own defect, inertia of the thought-power, obstructive narrowness and unwillingness to open to knowledge, intellectual unscrupulousness in thinking, prepossession and preference, self-will in the reason and false determination of the will to knowledge. (second need of perfection) Its sole will must be to make itself an unsullied mirror of the truth, its essence and its forms and measures and relations, a clear mirror, a just measure, a fine and subtle instrument of harmony, an integral intelligence. This clear and pure intelligence can then become a serene thing of light, a pure and strong radiance emanating from the sun of Truth. But, again, (third need of perfection) it must become not merely a thing of concentrated dry or white light, but capable of all variety of understanding, supple, rich, flexible, brilliant with all the flame and various with all the colours of the manifestation of the Truth, open to all its forms. (fourth need of perfection) And so equipped it will get rid of limitations, not be shut up in this or that faculty or form or working of knowledge, but an instrument ready and capable for whatever work is demanded from it by the Purusha. (1) Purity, (2) clear radiance, (3) rich and flexible variety, (4) integral capacity are the fourfold perfection of the thinking intelligence, visuddhi, prakasa, vicitra-bodha, sarva-jnana-samarthya .... When the transition to supermind takes place, the powers of the Buddhi do not perish, but have all to be converted to their supramental values. But the consideration of the supermind and the conversion of the buddhi belongs to the question of the higher siddhi or divine perfection. At present we have to consider the purification of the normal being of man, preparatory to any such conversion, which leads to the liberation from the bonds of our lower nature. " Sri Aurobindo CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-738 CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-653 Integral Mental Education: “Her mind, a sea of white sincerity.” Savitri-15 “The bounded mind became a boundless light,” Savitri-25 “A fearless will for knowledge dared to erase The lines of safety Reason draws that bar Mind’s soar, soul’s dive into the Infinite.” Savitri-26 “His boundless thought was neighbour to cosmic sight:” Savitri-79 “His wakened mind became an empty slate On which the Universal and the Sole could write.” Savitri-81 “Mind can suspend or change earth’s concrete law.” Savitri-84 “The mind learns and knows not, turning its back to truth; It studies surface laws by surface thought,” Savitri-160 “Our reason cannot sound life’s mighty sea And only counts its waves and scans its foam;… Our mind lives far off from the authentic Light Catching at little fragments of the Truth” Savitri-161 “Inconscience chased from the world’s voiceless breast; Transfigured were the fixed schemes of reasoning Thought.” Savitri-232 “Annulled were the transient values of the mind, The body’s sense renounced its earthly look;" Savitri-373 “Her mind now seemed like a vast empty room Or like a peaceful landscape without sound.” Savitri-543 “On summit Mind are radiant altitudes Exposed to the lustre of Infinity, Outskirts and dependencies of the house of Truth, Upraised estates of Mind and measureless.” Savitri-659 “Pursued by me (Divine) through my mind’s wall-less vast,” Savitri-700 “For knowledge shall pour down in radiant streams And even darkened mind quiver with new life And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s fire And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.” Savitri-710 “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 The Maha mantra of Integral Yoga is restated in Integral Mental Education as All Life is Education through rigorous self-control of the Intellect. The Integral Mental Education is defined as the energising of the conscious mental being that liberates the power of concentration, development of capacities, organisation of ideas, control of thought and development of mental silence. It attains self-fulfilment when the mind becomes a pure mirror of the Truth of Being. Mind is a derivative of Overmind which is again a derivative of Supermind. So the mind can arrive at its own transformation and perfection by admitting the light of higher knowledge; it must overcome the opposition and revolt of the dwarf physical mind and cold pragmatic vital mind against the admit of celestial Light of higher planes and change its own ignorant, imperfect and conflicting elements into the divinely effective potencies and harmonious values of Supramental truth-consciousness.⁶ The evolution of mind to its greatest possible range, height and subtlety must be Nature’s major preoccupation; for so only can Nature unveil entirely the intuitive intelligence and the difficult passage to a higher instrumentation of the Spirit. The World Hindu Summit-2013 “A casual passing phrase can change our life.” Savitri-373, “Even in his casual steps they (higher beings) intervene.” Savitri-378, “A casual act determines the world’s fate.” Savitri-429 “A Nature lifted by a larger breath, Plastic and passive to the all-shaping Fire, Answers the flaming Godhead’s casual touch:” Savitri-112 “In the casual error of the world’s ignorance A plan, a hidden Intelligence is glimpsed. There is a purpose in each stumble and fall;” Savitri-658 "This world was not built with random bricks of Chance, A blind god is not destiny’s architect; A conscious power has drawn the plan of life, There is a meaning in each curve and line." Savitri-459-460 “Heaven’s light visits sometimes the mind of earth; Its thoughts burn in her sky like lonely stars; In her heart there move celestial seekings soft And beautiful like fluttering wings of birds, Visions of joy that she can never win Traverse the fading mirror of her dreams. Faint seeds of light and bliss bear sorrowful flowers, Faint harmonies caught from a half-heard song Fall swooning mid the wandering voices’ jar, Foam from the tossing luminous seas where dwells The beautiful and far delight of gods, Raptures unknown, a miracled happiness Thrill her and pass half-shaped to mind and sense.” Savitri-688 Integral Mental Education ascends through consecration³ to four stages of perfection and its highest siddhi is identified as possession of Cosmic Mind or Overmind where all mental contraries and differences find their complementary reconciliation and coexistent correlation. The first perfection of Integral mental Education is identified as possession of Higher Mind which is a more brilliant mind, a higher light, a spiritual idea, a new and superior consciousness, intended for a preliminary and slow transformation of ignorance. This higher mind enters into a foreign and inferior medium of mind, life and body and encounters their incapacities and negations. Truth thought is its chief instrument to enter world action. For greater action of this higher mind, it is necessary to acquire power for quietude, silencing of mind, life and body. Here one will be aware of sea like downpour of masses of spontaneous Truth Thought and Ideas that people eternity. This is an automatic and spontaneous descent of knowledge and ordered thought from a higher plane and is different from the ordinary thought process which is a type of individual seeking, a mental construction, uncertain thought, a labour of speculation and a difficult discovery. This Truth Thought is of cosmic character, a steady sun-shine, a little ray of the Vedic image of Sun of Truth and a Light that falls on our vexed unsatisfied lives.⁴ “Immaculate in white virginity,” Savitri-274 “The virgin forms through which the Formless shines,” Savitri-327 “I witnessed the virgin bridals of the dawn” Savitri-401 “Virgin who comest perfected by joy” Savitri-424 Greek Philosophers and contemporary Philosophers are capable of linking mind with higher Mind and are satisfied with that. They can create link between themselves and the existing world. Most of the Spiritual seekers are satisfied in this domain and do not agree to go beyond and enjoy the world from the splendour and knowledge of that world. Thus from this higher Mind, popular religions are born which is able to resolve the Immediate problem of the man and wonder beyond the knowledge of mortal hope. If they would go to some planes beyond higher Mind then it would create a gulf between themselves and the world and they would not want to lose themselves in the Infinite and Unknowable. The root problem of existence can be resolved only by ascending into highest planes of consciousness and by the descent of that highest consciousness⁵ into the most nether domains of the Inconscient. This exercise of transforming the lowest dark part of Nature will deprive one from arriving at popularity and deprive one from becoming great, luminous and strong which is the innate Nature and manifestation of Higher Mind and it does not bother to search hidden and withheld realities. The second perfection of Integral Mental Education is identified as possession of Illumined Mind which does not work by thought but by vision and thought is utilized here as a subordinate movement to express sight. It is a massive outpouring of lightnings of flaming sun-stuff and here thought goes beyond to lean on vision and shapes a world from the Unthinkable. This is an increased power, intensity, luminosity and driving force which is identified as Truth Sight and Truth Vision. “And Savitri mingling in that glorious crowd, Yearning to the spiritual light they bore,” Savitri-501 Illumined Mind is no longer a higher thought but a spiritual light, a clarity of spiritual intelligence and acts in a condition of an intense lustre, a spendour and illumination of the spirit, a descent of spiritual truth, power, peace and calmness from above, a fiery ardour of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of inwardly visible Light which is primarily a spiritual manifestation of the Divine Reality, Illuminative and Creative. Here the slow deliberate process of higher Mind is replaced by a swift, sometimes a vehement and almost violent impetus of rapid transformation. “A treasure thus unique loaned by the gods,” Savitri-431 The Third perfection of Integral Mental Education is identified as Intuitive Mind with greater power of Truth Force, a more exact and more intimate realisation of Truth Vision, Truth-Thought, Truth-Discernment, Truth-Word, Truth-Sound, Truth-Hearing, Truth-Touch and Truth-Action. Intuition is defined as one special movement of self-existent knowledge. It is opened towards greater Truth-Light to which our mind cannot directly communicate. The Intuitive Mind is a superior light, a stable lightning and it has a fourfold transforming power that of revelatory truth seeing, truth hearing, truth touch and truth discrimination. It enters world relation through right relation of things and right relation of idea with idea. It has the power of penetration of flashes of truth lightning which can bring forward the concealed truth of things nearer to our comprehension. “I am the Madran, I am Savitri. All that I was before, I am to thee still, Close comrade of thy thoughts and hopes and toils, All happy contraries I would join for thee. All sweet relations marry in our life; I am thy kingdom even as thou art mine, The sovereign and the slave of thy desire, Thy prone possessor, sister of thy soul And mother of thy wants; thou art my world, The earth I need, the heaven my thoughts desire, The world I inhabit and the god I adore.” Savitri-719-20 The last perfection of Integral Mental Education is the Cosmic Mind, the Overmind, the source of Intuition and it is in direct contact with the Supramental Truth Consciousness. It is the highest capacity of Mind at once acting in Ignorance which links the Truth-Consciousness of higher hemisphere and veils the same Truth Consciousness through a brilliant Golden Lid; it at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance. It is also at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of spiritual law of existence and intervention of flood of infinite possibility. Overmind releases a million Godheads into action, each empowered to create its own world, each world capable of relation, communication and interplay with the others. In Overmind, (1) each god is worshipped as if he by himself is that Existence, one who is all the other Gods together or contains them in his being; (2) and again each is a separate Deity acting sometimes in unison with companion deities, (3) sometimes separately, sometimes even in apparent opposition to other Godheads of same Existence. Overmind consciousness has great plasticity, multiple possibilities and global knowledge. In this large universality, the separative ego is entirely abolished; the cosmic delight and other cosmic forces become active. Overmind can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision and unite individual mind with cosmic mind and can bring dynamic Spiritual transformation, but it cannot dynamise the Divine in the original Inconscience. S.A. Maa Krishna and Babuli Bhai “Her word that in the silence speaks to our hearts, Her silence that transcends the summit Word,” Savitri-64 “The speech that voices the ineffable,” Savitri-327 “He spoke in sentences from the unseen Heights. For the hidden prompters of our speech sometimes Can use the formulas of a moment’s mood To weigh unconscious lips with words from Fate:" Savitri-373 “Then, falling silent in himself to know He meets the deeper listening of his soul: The Word repeats itself in rhythmic strains:” Savitri-375 “Transmuted by the white spiritual ray He walks in naked heavens of joy and calm, Sees the God-face and hears transcendent speech:” Savitri-375 “His speech carries a light of inner truth,” Savitri-430 “Or, listening to the sages of the woods, In question and in answer broke from her High strange revealings impossible to men, Something or someone secret and remote Took hold of her body for his mystic use, Her mouth was seized to channel ineffable truths, Knowledge unthinkable found an utterance.” Savitri-553 “As yet this great impersonal speech was rare.” Savitri-553 “A thought came through draped as an outer voice. It called not for the witness of the mind, It spoke not to the hushed receiving heart; It came direct to the pure perception’s seat,” Savitri-554 “Her words failed lost in thought’s immensities Which seized them at the limits of their cry And hid their meaning in the distances That stir to more than ever speech has won From the Unthinkable, end of all our thought, And the Ineffable from whom all words come.” Savitri-687-88 What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences and contraries present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlative and complementary. Overmind energy proceeds by an illimitable capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral and indivisible all-comprehending Unity. Recapitulation: “It is not quite like that. In all the sections, Primary, Secondary and Higher Course, the children will follow yogic methods in their education and prepare and try to bring down new knowledge. So all the students can be said to be doing Yoga.”² The Mother A Sadhak of integral Jnana Yoga is weighed by quantum of new overhead Knowledge descended through his vessel. This Knowledge is complemented by indwelling knowledge from Psychic heart centre. Integral Yoga of Knowledge is the extensive extension of the Gita’s teaching of traditional Sankhya and Vedanta . Through this Yoga the higher Nature of Sachchidananda and the lower nature of mind, life and body are reconciled to such extent that the Matter becomes the manifesting field of the Light, Force and Joy of Sachchidananda; life becomes all-blissful conscious force of Sachchidananda ; sensational mind and emotional mind become play field of Divine Love and universal Delight and intellect transforms into Divine Knowledge-Will. OM TAT SAT References: 1: “The past is our foundation, the present our material, the future our aim and summit. Each must have its due and natural place in a national system of education.” Sri Aurobindo/ SABCL-17/p-205) 2: TMCW-12/On Education/p-179, 3: “Everyone is born with ... (what can I call it?) some special twist (laughing) – I know my own twist, I know it quite well! (I don't talk about it because it isn't enjoyable.) But that's what remains last of all. With our idiotic human logic, we think, "That's what should go first," but it's not true: it's what goes last! Even when it all becomes clear, clear (gesture above), even when you have all the experiences, the habit stays on and it keeps coming back. So you push it back: it rises again from the subconscient; you chase it away: it comes back from outside. So if for one minute you aren't on your guard, it shows up again – oh, what a nuisance! But Sri Aurobindo wrote about this somewhere, I don't remember the words; I read it very recently, and when I read it, I thought, "Ah, there it is! He knew it was that way." So it comforted me, and I thought, "All right, then." He said that he who has purified his mind and so on and so forth, who is ready to work towards Perfection (it's in the Synthesis, "The Yoga of Self-Perfection"), "He is ready and patient for lapses and the recurrence of old errors, and he works quietly, waiting patiently till the time comes for them to leave." I thought, "Very well, that's how it is now." I am patiently waiting for the time when ... (though I don't miss any opportunity to catch them by the tip of their nose, or the tip of their ear, and to say, "Ha, you're still here! ..."). The first thing is to detach your consciousness, that's most important. And to say: I-AM-NOT-THIS, it's something that has been ADDED, placed to enable me to touch Matter – but it isn't me. And then if you say, "That is me" (gesture upward), you'll see that you will be happy, because it is lovely – lovely, luminous, sparkling. It's really fine, it has an exceptional quality. And that's you. But you have to say, "That is me," and be convinced that it's you. Naturally, the old habits come to deny it, but you must know that they're old habits, nothing else, they don't matter – that is you. This movement is indispensable. A moment comes when one must absolutely separate oneself from all this, because only when one has separated oneself and become quite conscious that one is there (gesture above the head), that one is THAT, only then can one come down again to change it all. Not to forsake it, but to be its master. I've spent nights in sewers, cleaning out sewers. Ah, that's good! (Mother laughs) Oh, but that's very funny because I've done identical things. Listen! ... Oh, well, it's very funny. It's all right, it's all right. We must endure. The victory belongs to the most enduring. There are times when one is disgusted, and that's just when one should remember this. Now, your disgust may have reasons of its own (!) But you have only to endure. You know, there is one thing, I don't know if you have savored it yet: as soon as you have a difficulty, dissatisfaction, revolt, disgust – anything – fatigue, tension, discomfort, all, all that negative side (there are lots and lots and lots of such things, they take on all kinds of different colors), the immediate movement – immediate – of calling the Lord and saying, "It's up to You." As long as you try (instinctively you try to arrange things with your best light, your best consciousness, your best knowledge ...), it's stupid, because that prolongs the struggle, and ultimately it's not very effective. There is only one effective thing, that's to step back from what's still called "me" and ... with or without words, it doesn't matter, but above all with the flame of aspiration, this (gesture to the heart), and something perfectly, perfectly sincere: "Lord, it's You; and only You can do it, You alone can do it, I can't...." It's excellent, you can't imagine how excellent! For instance, someone comes and deluges you with impossible problems, wants you to make instant decisions; you have to write, you have to answer, you have to say – all of it – and it's like truckloads of darkness and stupidity and wrong movements and all that being dumped on you; and it's dumped and dumped and dumped – you are almost stoned to death with all that. You begin to stiffen, you get tense; then, immediately (gesture of stepping back): "O Lord. " You stay quiet, take a little step back (gesture of offering): "It's up to you."…But you can't imagine, it's wonderful! Immediately there comes – clear, simple, effortlessly, without seeking for it – exactly what has to be done or said or written: the whole tension stops, it's over. And then, if you need paper, the paper is there; if you need a fountain pen, you find just the one you need; if you need ...(there's no seeking: above all don't seek, don't try to seek, you'll just make another mess) – it's there. And that's a fact of EVERY MINUTE. You have the field of experience every second. For instance, you're dealing with a servant who doesn't do things properly or as you think they should be done, or you're dealing with a stomach that doesn't work the way you'd like it to and it hurts: it's the same method, there is no other. You know, at times ... situations get so tense that you feel as if you're about to faint, the body can't stand it any more, it's so tense; or else there's a pain, something wrong, things aren't sorting themselves out, and there's a tension; so immediately you stop everything: "Lord, You, it's up to You...." At first there comes a peace, as if you were entirely outside existence, and then it's gone – the pain goes, the dizziness disappears. And what is to happen happens automatically. And, you see, it's not in meditation, not in actions of terrestrial importance: it's the field of experience you have ALL the time, without interruption – when you know how to put it to use. 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. We are given everything – EVERYTHING. All the difficulties that have to be overcome, all of them (and the more capable we are, that is, the more complex the instrument is, the more numerous the difficulties are), all the difficulties, all the opportunities to overcome them, all the possible experiences, and limited in time and space so they can be innumerable. And it has repercussions and consequences all over the earth (I am not concerned with what goes on in the universe because, for the time being, that isn't my work). But it is certain (because it has been said so and I know it) that what goes on on the earth has repercussions throughout the universe. Sitting there, you live the everyday life with its usual insignificance, its unimportance, its lack of interest ... and it's a WONDERFUL field of experiences, of innumerable experiences, not only innumerable but as varied as can be, from the most subtle to the most material, without leaving your body. Only, you should have RETURNED to it. You cannot have authority over your body without having left it. Once the body is no longer you at all, once it is something that has been added and TACKED onto you, once it is that way and you look at it from above (a psychological "above"), then you can come down into it again as its all-powerful master. You must come out of it first, then come down again. There you are. And one should also look at all those difficulties, all those bad habits (like, for you, that habit of revolt: it's something that seems to have been kneaded into the cells of your body), one should look at all that with the smile of someone who says, "I am not that. Oh, this was put on me! ... Oh, that was added...." And you know, it was added ... because it's one of the victories you must win. I've witnessed the most complete panorama of all the idiotic things in this life, they were shown to me as in a complete panorama: passing from one to another, seeing each of them separately and how they combined with each other. And then: Why? Why should one choose this? (A child's question, which one asks immediately.) And immediately, the answer: "But the more" (let's say "central" to be clearer) "the more central the origin and the more pure in its essence, the greater the 'ignoble complexity below,' as we could call it. Because the lower down you go, the more it takes an essential light to change things." Once you've been told this very nicely, you're satisfied, you stop worrying – it's all right, you take things as they are: "That's how things are, it's my work and I do it; I ask only one thing, it is to do my work, all the rest doesn't matter."” The Mother’s Agenda-20.11.1963 4: “Something seems to be constantly telling people, "But don't take things seriously! ... Don't take things seriously, that's what makes you unhappy! That's what makes you unhappy, you must learn to smile," and so on. And above all, to make fun of ourselves, that's the most important thing: to see how ridiculous we are – the slightest pain and we are full of self-pity, oh! ... At times one protests.... It's a very odd atmosphere, and amusing. But it's a very good cure for that inveterate disease which self-pity is. The body is full of it, it pities itself as soon as there is the smallest trouble – and that makes it terribly worse. And then, what goings-on ... The goings-on of the School, oh, those are ... priceless stories! But yesterday evening, I suddenly became indignant about a boy, the boy who had been accused of copying. He asserted he hadn't copied, and I saw he hadn't (but what I saw was almost worse!), and I said, "No more exams" – a dreadful row everywhere! Then K., who is really a good boy, wrote to me, "Should I not rather tell the boy that you decided he hadn't copied, because he must be worrying?" I thought, "Poor K.!" But anyway, it was a nice gesture, so I said yes. Then he called the boy, told him what he had to, also that exams were abolished and the whole matter was over and done with. As soon as the boy left him, he went and told his friends a world of lies: that I had asked K. to apologize, to express regret and reinstate the boy, and a lot of fibs ... a series of terrible lies (and lies about me). You understand, I had had a movement of sympathy for K. for what he had done; it shows a sort of nobleness of soul in him: he was so convinced, but he accepted what I said and made that gesture because he thought the boy must have been worrying. Then the boy's thoroughly disgusting reaction ... I had to restrain myself (inwardly): I was displeased. I had hoped, on the contrary, that that goodwill would give rise to a somewhat noble response, but all that is a sort of degradation.... Yesterday, I was on the point of giving the child an inner slap – I stopped myself from doing so, but he has clearly put himself in a bad spot. Now they write to ask me, "How can we know whether the children follow if we don't have exams?" I had to explain the difference between a sort of individual control coming from observation, a remark, an unexpected question and so on, which allows the teacher to place the child, and the other method in which you are told, "You will have an exam in eight days and the subject will be what you have learned" – so everyone starts reviewing what he has learned and preparing himself, and that's that: the student with a good memory is the one who passes. I explained all that. If I had been a teacher, my objection to this decision would not at all have been from the teachers' point of view, but from the students' because I remember my studies, and had you not been obliged every three or six months to review what was learned in school, well, you know, you'd have just let it slip away. Well, too bad! But it's a sort of discipline that makes you review things. If you aren't interested enough in the subject to try and remember it and retain the result of what you've learned, well, too bad, it's too bad for you. The students' point of view is false, the teachers' point of view is false. The students' point of view: they learn just to appear to know, pass their exam and cram their heads with all kinds of things.... The teachers' point of view is to have as easy a control as possible and be able to give marks without giving themselves too much trouble, with as little effort as possible. As for me, I say: each student is an individuality, each student should come not because he wants to be able to say, "I have studied and am going to take my exams," but because he is eager to know and comes with the will to know. And the teacher must not follow the easy method of giving a subject and seeing how everyone answers, whether the answer is good or bad, conforms to what he has taught or not: he must find out whether the student's interest and effort are sincere, and everyone according to his own nature – for the teacher it's infinitely more difficult, but that's education. And they protest.” The Mother’s Agenda-26.07.1967, 5: “But this nature has a density of previous formation which resists and obstructs the descent; even when the higher power has broken the barrier and descended and is at work, we have seen that the nature of the Ignorance resists and obstructs the working, that it either strives to refuse transformation altogether or tries to modify the new power into some conformity with its own workings, or even throws itself upon it to seize and degrade and enslave it to its own way of action and lower purpose. Ordinarily, in their task of assumption and assimilation of this difficult stuff of Nature, the higher powers descend first into the mind and occupy the mind centres because these are nearest to themselves in intelligence and knowledge-power; if they descend first into the heart or into the vital being of force and sensation, as they sometimes do because these happen to be in some individuals more open and call them first, the results are more mixed and dubious, imperfect and insecure than if things happen in the logical order. But, even in its normal working when it takes up the being part by part in the natural order of descent, the descending power is not able to bring about a total occupation and transformation of each before it goes farther. It can only effect a general and incomplete occupation, so that the workings of each remain still partly of the new higher, partly of a mixed, partly of the old unchanged lower order. All the mind in its whole range cannot be transmuted at once, for the mind centres are not a region isolated from the rest of the being; the mind action is penetrated by the action of the vital and physical parts, and in those parts themselves are lower formations of mind, a vital mind, a physical mind, and these have to be changed before there can be an entire transformation of the mental being.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine-993, 6: "The supermind, as we have seen, lifts up the action of the mental consciousness towards and into the intuition, creates an intermediate intuitive mentality insufficient in itself but greater in power than the logical intelligence, and then lifts up and transforms that too into the true supramental action. The first well-organised action of the supermind in the ascending order is the supramental reason, not a higher logical intellect, but a directly luminous organisation of intimately subjective and intimately objective knowledge, the higher buddhi, the logical or rather the logos Vijnana. The supramental reason does all the work of the reasoning intelligence and does much more, but with a greater power and in a different fashion. It is then itself taken up into a higher range of the power of knowledge and in that too nothing is lost, but all farther heightened, enlarged in scope, transformed in power of action." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-855-856, "Thought too in the supramental action is a different thing from the thought of the mental intelligence. The supramental thinking is felt at its basis as a conscious contact or union or identity of the substance of being of the knower with the substance of being of the thing known and its figure of thought as the power of awareness of the self revealing through the meeting or the oneness, because carrying in itself, a certain knowledge form of the object’s content, action, significance. Therefore observation, memory, judgment too mean each a different thing in the supermind from what it is in the process of the mental intelligence." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-856, "The supramental reason observes all that the intelligence observes — and much more; it makes, that is to say, the thing to be known the field of a perceptual action, in a certain way objective, that causes to emerge its nature, character, quality, action. But this is not that artificial objectivity by which the reason in its observation tries to extrude the element of personal or subjective error. The supermind sees everything in the self and its observation must therefore be subjectively objective and much nearer to, though not the same as the observation of our own internal movements regarded as an object of knowledge." CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-856 “I am not speaking of people from outside who have never thought about it, who have never felt concerned and who do not even know that there may be something like the Supermind to receive, in fact. I am speaking of people who have built their lives upon this aspiration (and I don’t doubt their sincerity for a minute), who have worked – some of them for thirty years, some for thirtyfive, others somewhat less – all the while saying, ‘When the supermind comes ... When the supermind comes ...’ That was their refrain: ‘When the supermind comes ...’ Consequently, they were really in the best possible frame of mind, one could not have dreamt of a better predisposition. How is it, then, that their inner preparation was so ... let’s just say ‘incomplete,’ that they did not feel the Vibration immediately, as soon as it came, through a shock of identity? Individually, each one’s goal was to make himself ready, to enter into a more or less intimate individual relationship with this 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!’ But how is it that so many hundreds of people – not to mention the handful of those who really wanted only that, thought only of that, had staked their whole lives on that – how is it that they felt nothing? What can this mean? It is well known that only like knows like. It is an obvious fact. There was indeed a possibility to enter into contact with the Thing individually – this was even what Sri Aurobindo had described as being the necessary procedure: a certain number of people would enter into contact with this Force through their inner effort and their aspiration. We had called it the ascent towards the Supermind. And IF and when they had touched the Supermind through an inner ascent (that is, by freeing themselves from the material consciousness), they should have recognized it SPONTANEOUSLY as soon as it came. But a preliminary contact was indispensable – if you have never touched it, how can you recognize it? That’s how the universal movement works (I read this to you a few days ago): through their inner effort and inner progress, certain individuals, who are the pioneers, the forerunners, enter into communication with the new Force which is to manifest, and they receive it in themselves. And because a number of calls like this surge forth, the thing becomes possible, and the era, the time, the moment for the manifestation comes. This is how it happened – and the Manifestation took place. But then, all those who were ready should have recognized it. I hasten to tell you that some did recognize it, but they were so few ... But as for those who ask these questions, who even took the trouble to come here, who took the train to gulp this down as you gulp down a soft drink, how can they possibly feel anything whatsoever if they have not prepared themselves at all? Yet they are already speaking of profiting: ‘We want to benefit from it ... ‘ After all, if they have even a tiny bit of sincerity (not too much, it’s tiring!), a tiny bit of sincerity, it is quite possible (I am joking), it is quite possible that they might get a few good kicks to make them go faster! It is possible. In fact, I think that’s what will happen. But really, this attitude ... this rather overly commercial attitude, is usually not very profitable. If you have difficulties and you sincerely aspire, it is likely that the difficulties will diminish. Let us hope so." The Mother The Mother's Agenda/May 2, 1956

The Journal in Detail “For a knowledge from above begins to descend, frequently, constantly, then uninterruptedly, and to manifest in the mind’s quietude or silence;…”¹ Sri Aurobindo “That Self and Spirit cannot be expressed by the mind’s abstract generalisations; all the inspired descriptions of the seers and mystics cannot exhaust its contents and its splendours.”² Sri Aurobindo “Only those Scriptures, religions, philosophies which can be thus constantly renewed, relived, their stuff of permanent truth constantly reshaped and developed in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing humanity, continue to be of living importance to mankind. The rest remain as monuments of the past, but have no actual force or vital impulse for the future.”³ Sri Aurobindo “…but when we advance in self-knowledge, we find that all our thought and will originate from above though formed in the mind and there first overtly active.”⁴ Sri Aurobindo “Truth is not a dogma that one can learn once and for all and impose as a rule. Truth is as infinite as the supreme Lord and It manifests every instant for those who are sincere and attentive. ”⁹ The Mother “For knowledge shall pour down in radiant streams And even darkened mind quiver with new life And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s fire And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.”⁶ Sri Aurobindo Journal in Detail A concentrated writing can be truly offered near the Divine if it remains free absolutely from all motives. It should be written for the sole satisfaction of the Divine, for the sole reception of the transcendent wisdom, for the sole opening towards the Word that can incarnate the highest Truth and a concentration on central thought and central Truth that can become Omnipotent. It can be made fit for the Divine offering if the writing is made perfect, even in its smallest external detail as well as the highest Spirit and Soul quality from which it has descended. So the first objective of The Descent is to restate the Spiritual experience and bridge the gulf between Sri Aurobindo’s early sadhana at Pondicherry and The Mother’s last cellular transformation experience which is a preliminary effort to accumulate Their vast Spiritual wealth from without and the utter need to live within, which is an atmosphere of Their Supreme Presence; its second objective is to concentrate, contemplate and meditate on the written Truth and constantly revise and heighten the already restated statements through fresh instreaming of overhead Spiritual experiences and Wisdom which is extended to overcome the human limitation of fragmentary knowledge in Ignorance, leading towards an integration of Knowledge; its third objective is to identify The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s established and the most concentrated Spiritual experiences and find the possible means of purification to repeat those experiences which results in a revolution of our internal being and, through the internal movement of Consciousness our external life is perfected; its fourth objective is to establish a strong Spiritual foundation by Jivatma's union with Paramatma, which will serve as a platform for the development and consummation of Their highest hinted Spiritual experiences and utilise that base as lever action to escape into still unknown heights of Consciousness and call down the corresponding divine Light to penetrate into the untouched nether domain of dark Subconscient and Inconscient planes. So the writings of The Descent depend firstly on the Word that descends from above and is caught through large, subtle and plastic Idea which does not insist too much on rigid definition; secondly, it organises anew the highest and the best written wisdom already available on the earth through its past and present Spiritual experiences; thirdly, some of its writings are based on the construction of the mind which expresses partial and practical half light and half truth and waits till its constant element of falsity and twilight are replaced by the higher and wider Knowledge from within and above; fourthly, to mind Spiritual experiences of Individual, Cosmic and Transcendent Beings are intelligible as eternal hierarchies of powers of Consciousness and we cannot hope to describe adequately the visions of heights of Consciousness or experience of the mysteries Absolute in terms of negative or positive abstract mental language but can only hope to indicate, glimpse and hint it to the utmost power of our pure symbolic language which is ‘yet to be discovered and mapped in their completeness;’⁵ fifthly, integral Yoga authorises ‘an absolute liberty’⁷ to enter new subjective Spiritual experience and reaffirm rightly all knowledge in new terms and new combinations; sixthly, Consciousness must be trained to move in between Subliminal, Psychic and Spiritual planes and through this movement corresponding Psychic and Spiritual Sheaths and adjacent subtle mental, subtle vital and subtle physical sheaths are purified, enlarged, transformed and perfected and writing/oration can be used as Prakriti-yajna, one of the important means for this movement of Divine Consciousness and descent of Divine Shakti; and lastly, it aims at elevating all writings towards the status of absolute Brahman through constant restatement extending over a long formative period of Sadhana and in this endless growth of impersonal and universal state there is no trace of negation, discord and division and one enters into exceedingly affirmative and uniting Consciousness with radically different ecstatic awareness of things. There can develop a Supramental envisaging of the universe whose each step and each action are dictated by an innate Spiritual vision, a comprehensive and exact penetration into the Truth of all and the Truth of each thing. Large and plastic ideas and speech can be expressed through the supreme effort of creative Consciousness in carrying those highest experiences to its farthest end and assist mankind towards the possession of the knowledge of God and the supreme Reality. The Descent can serve its true purpose when it can catch without ego, most of the secret threads of integral Yoga or seize the knowledge of the Unknowable directly, not by intellectual poor abstract understanding but by the discovery of another overhead language which is at once creatively metaphysical, revealingly poetic, substantially malleable and can pour down in a vivid plastic massiveness of flaming stream. A Sadhaka’s Spiritual life is secured through the complete union of the Soul with the universal and transcendent Divine and by fulfilment of the task of accountability in sadhana before his Self, World and Divine. His principal motive is to give Them (dual Divine) consecrated service and this slavehood to the Divine gives him the right to enter deep into Their Teachings. Their Teachings contain vast Truths of reconciling wisdom and Oneness whose wrong discrimination and misuse ¹¹ can make life asuric and a separative commerce⁸ with the world for some personal gain may become predominant. If he accumulates Their Spiritual opulence rightly without separate personal energy of ego, vidhipurbakam,¹⁰ then life will flower unimaginably with predominance of Silence, Truth, Plasticity, Consciousness and Love in his frontal nature and he will serve at once as passive Instrument of Divine Will and active Participant in the bliss of universal Divine action and the bliss of world transformation. OM TAT SAT References: 1: CWSA-22/The life Divine/p-946, 2: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-296, 3: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-5, 4: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-818, 5: CWSA-22/The life Divine/p-953, 6: Savitri-710, 7: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-56, 8: “The man of knowledge, the liberated soul offers on the contrary all his activities to the one eternal Godhead without any attachment to their fruit or to the satisfaction of his lower personal desires. He works for God, not for himself, for the universal welfare, for the Soul of the world and not for any particular object which is of his own personal creation or for any construction of his mental will or object of his vital longings, as a divine agent, not as a principal and separate profiteer in the world commerce . And this, it must be noted, is a thing that cannot be really done except in proportion as the mind arrives at equality, universality, wide impersonality, and a clear freedom from every disguise of the insistent ego: for without these things the claim to be thus acting is a pretension or an illusion.” CWSA/19/Essays on the Gita-458, "At any rate in man it is the ego idea which chiefly supports the falsehood of a separative existence; to get rid of this idea; to dwell on the opposite idea of unity, of the one self, the one spirit, the one being of nature is therefore an effective remedy; but it is not by itself absolutely effective. For the ego, though it supports itself by this ego idea, aham-buddhi, finds its most powerful means for a certain obstinacy or passion of persistence in the normal action of the sense-mind, the prana and the body. To cast out of us the ego idea is not entirely possible or not entirely effective until these instruments have undergone purification ; for their action being persistently egoistic and separative, the buddhi is carried away by them, --as a boat by winds on the sea, (The Gita-2.67) says the Gita , --the knowledge in the intelligence is being constantly obscured or lost temporarily and has to be restored again, a very labour of Sisyphus. But if the lower instruments have been purified of egoistic desire, wish, will, egoistic passion, egoistic emotion and the buddhi itself of egoistic idea and preference, then the knowledge of the spiritual truth of oneness can find a firm foundation. Till then, the ego takes all sorts of subtle forms and we imagine ourselves to be free from it, when we are really acting as its instruments and all we have attained is a certain intellectual poise which is not the true spiritual liberation.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-677, 9: The Mother’s Agenda-22.03.1967, 10: “Even those who sacrifice to other godheads with devotion and faith, they also sacrifice to Me, O son of Kunti, though not according to the true law, avidhipurbakam .” The Gita-9.23, “The sacrifice not performed according to the right rule of the Shastra, vidhi-hina, without giving of food, without the mantra, without gifts, empty of faith, is said to be tamasic .” The Gita-17.13, " By works the Vedantins understood these religious works, the sacrificial system, the yajna , full of a careful order, vidhi , of exact and complicated rites, kriya-visesa-bahulam . But in Yoga works had a much wider significance. The Gita insists on this wider significance; in our conception of spiritual activity all works have to be included, sarva-karmani . At the same time it does not, like Buddhism , reject the idea of the sacrifice, it prefers to uplift and enlarge it. Yes, it says in effect, not only is sacrifice, yajna, the most important part of life, but all life, all works should be regarded as sacrifice, are yajna, though by the ignorant they are performed without the higher knowledge and by the most ignorant not in the true order, avidhi-purvakam. " CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-89, 11: "Very long ago (very long, a few years after Sri Aurobindo left), one night (because I was already seeing him), I saw him: I had gone to his place, and I found him sitting on a sort of bed … with a truss: three or four bandages like that on his body! (Mother laughs) So he called me and said (in English), “Look, Look what they’re doing with me! Look, they’re putting bandages all over me!” So I inquired-and found that they wanted to make cuts in his writings…. " The Mother/July-23/1969/Mother’s Agenda/Vol-10/P: 251-256, Download this WEB PAGE as a PDF file: “ The supramental word manifests inwardly with a light, a power, a rhythm of thought and a rhythm of inner sound that make it the natural and living body of the supramental thought and vision and it pours into the language, even though the same as that of mental speech, another than the limited intellectual, emotional or sensational significance. It is formed and heard in the intuitive mind or supermind and need not at first except in certain highly gifted souls come out easily into speech and writing, but that too can be freely done when the physical consciousness and its organs have been made ready, and this is a part of the needed fullness and power of the integral perfection.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-837

The Education in Detail “An Integral Education which could, with some variations, be adapted to all the nations of the world, must bring back the legitimate authority of the Spirit over a matter fully developed and utilised.”¹ The Mother “The ascent of the human soul to the supreme Spirit is that soul’s highest aim and necessity, for that is the supreme reality; but there can be too the descent of the Spirit and its powers into the world and that would justify the existence of the material world also, give a meaning, a divine purpose to the creation and solve its riddle. East and West could be reconciled in the pursuit of the highest and largest ideal, Spirit embrace Matter and Matter find its own true reality and the hidden Reality in all things in the Spirit.”² Sri Aurobindo The sacred institution of Integral Education is missioned to bridge the gulf and sharp division between the two extreme ends of existence, the Matter and the Spirit which begins step by step obscurely and ignorantly, continues through diversity and exclusiveness and culminates in an immense educational movement through inalienable unity, constant luminous reconciliation and triumphant harmony. It recognises this mutable mechanical unintelligent bodily substance as the noble and fit material to inhabit the immutable and imperishable Spirit and the Soul; they are reconciled with each other either by the objectively subjective method of critical analysis, organisation and observation applied to Life, Mind and Matter through knowledge by projection, confrontation and apprehension or by the subjectively objective method of synthesis, truth discerning vision and illumination applied to Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Self through Knowledge by identity, harmony and comprehension and arrives at the repose of the ultimate Oneness without denying the manifestation of the vivid multiplicity. Objectively Subjective method of Education proceeds separately from all multiple things to resultant unity and arrives at the knowledge of the Self and the Universe through the activation of pure Reason, Intellect and Mind. The subjectively Objective method of Education proceeds from essential oneness to resultant multiplicity and arrives at the Knowledge of the Self and Universe through pacification of mind and the activation of Silence and Intuitive faculty of the triple Soul. Only by complete and catholic affirmation of both the method of Education known as Integral Education can all the multiform and apparently contradictory facts of existence be harmonised and Mind with its effort and the endeavour and the Soul with its spontaneity and the way of infinite enlargement will discover the true centre or the Central Truth, and Education will know its aim of objective and subjective self-fulfillment through apprehensive and comprehensive knowledge and integral human existence through infinite unity and serves the life with a serene and settled joy and light with rhythmically coherent Divine Shakti to support the growth of a diversified individuality. The first object of Integral Education is the discovery of its true centre which should be neither achievements, nor fame, nor success, nor power, nor material opulence, nor morality, nor separative ego, nor attachment to mutable form. So the true centre of education must be always identified as the dynamic Soul, the Psychic being in the heart, the need of its growth and experience, its aspiration towards possession of pure power of Light, Love, Wisdom, Joy, Beauty and Harmony and elimination of all imperfection. All that helps this Soul growth, Mental, Vital and Physical Education are identified as its accessory²⁴ or a subsidiary helpful process; by the pressure of Soul force these modern learning materials are lifted out of their limitations and carried more swiftly and profoundly to discover their Mighty Source, Subtle Mental, Subtle Vital and Subtle Physical Education; they subsequently are drawn towards the supreme Light in Knowledge, integral Completeness and their detailed and yet undreamed potentialities. The second object of Integral Education is the discovery of its second centre or second Soul, which is not a high intellectual notion of truth and right, not idealism, not altruistic eagerness, not an ethical turn of mind, nor moral purity and austerity, not religiosity or an exalted emotional fervour, not even a compound of all these excellent things, not an emotional aspiration and fulfilment, not a regulation of conduct according to religious and ethical formula. It is the discovery of the Spiritual Self above the head, a vast static and silent Self, enters into contact with greater immutable Reality beyond and pervading the universe; it is also a turning, conversion and transformation of our whole being through a large dynamic descent of Divine Light, Love, Knowledge, Power, Bliss or other supernormal affirmative Energies into untransformed Nature. This Spiritual Self uncovers the passage to Cosmic Consciousness where the Matter is real to the Spirit and Spirit is real to the Matter and both find their true reconciliation through enlargement and universalisation of Subtle Mental, Subtle Vital and Subtle Physical Sheaths. After the prolonged movements between the above two Selves, the third object of Integral Education is traced by the discovery of its third centre or third Soul, the discovery of a Supramental Self, Vijnanamaya Purusha , the limitless Consciousness in which the individual, the Cosmic and the Transcendent live eternally in each other; it has come for the adventure of the Soul lapsing into Inconscience and emerging out of its darkness and this adventure proceeds to capture all other sheaths without disturbing the poise which is kept firm from the summit of Consciousness to its base; the experiencing Consciousness must preserve a calm balance, supreme harmony and a high Spiritual positivism. The fourth aim of Education is concentrated around a centre of Infinity that must be all-inclusive perfection directed to resolve all the problems of existence including the ultimate, lasting and permanent solutions and utilise the Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Education towards the transformation of human collectivity and a journey towards the discovery of the source of Ananda from which this whole creation is originated. And the last aim of integral Education is the perfect self-expression of the Spirit in the material life of our terrestrial existence by purifying, perfecting and transforming the nether dark worlds through Subconscient and Inconscient Education or restoration of all-perfection of Sachchidananda Consciousness in the whole of humanity through activation of Subconscient and Inconscient Self. Integral Education considers this life as 'a field of manifestation in which there is a progressive evolution of the soul and the nature in Matter'²⁵ which culminates in 'the complete revelation of Sachchidananda in life.'²⁵ The Main Formula of Integral Education: The literal meaning of Integral Education is the Concentration on the total Consciousness of the Eternal. Its main formula and its successive bifurcations are derived from the main formula of integral Yoga. They are as follows:- 1) All Life is Education. Or ‘All Time of All Life is a continuous uninterrupted Education’ of which ‘this Time of this whole life’ is a very small fragment of Integral Education. This whole external ordinary life is a very small part of vast inner living. This inner life is connected through a subtle link of union with our unnumbered past and future bodies and births, which is defined as All Life and the Timeless Spirit in us has thrown itself into All Life as the adventurer in Time to uncover self-knowledge and integral knowledge. Education is defined as the developmental urge discovered by the Mother-nature through many-sided purposeful efforts in Ignorance and spontaneous leap action by Shakti in Knowledge to arrive at apprehensive Knowledge, Prajnana and comprehensive Knowledge, Vijnana . It begins with limited separative exclusive awareness and ends with integral awareness of integral knowledge. True education means to purify, expand and perfect the constitution of subtle physical, subtle vital and subtle mental which constitute our inner life which is again veiled by outward appearance of phenomenal Education of training the surface mind, vital and body. 2) All Education is a synthesis of all developmental methods discovered by the Mother-nature through age-long many-fold effort of Science, Arts, Religion, Ethics, Occultism, Spiritual thought and Spiritual experiences and lifts them out of their existing limitations. They draw all their new discoveries and inventions from the ‘secret Supermind’s huge store.’²⁰ The evolutionary endeavour of Nature has experimented on all lines and attempted every possible way in order to discover her primary education of enlarging the bound of surface knowledge, deeper and larger teachings of true inner education and the out bringing of the widest, the most powerful and the highest boundary of whole education which are combined as Integral Education. 3) All methods of Education are the synthesis of dispensable and indispensable self-discipline. Education cannot confine itself to the dispensable method of an outwardly acquired and learned knowledge of the existence or exclusively preoccupied with its immeasurable outlook on the world and uncovering the secrets of the material worlds, but an unveiling and revelation of an inward and upward self-unfolding and would awake to an indispensable awareness of Self’s vast in look, (1) a clear and complete knowledge of the multiple Selves and triple time, (2) a direct knowledge of others, surrounding world and extreme complexity of untransformed Nature, (3) a direct knowledge of hidden and mysterious dark forces of Nature and (4) a direct knowledge of the occult mechanism of mind, life and matter, which are beyond our present immediate attainment. 4) The methods by which the largest time saving development in the shortest possible path can be pursued are identified as indispensable self-disciplines of Integral Education which are Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Education, responsible for evolving the capacity in man to become the (1) master of himself or opening towards his multiple Selves, (2) master of the hierarchies of ascending and descending Consciousness, (3) master of the energies of Nature, (4) master of his instrumentation of mind, life and matter. These indispensable self-disciplines are subordinated by all other lines of developmental urge of Nature, identified as Psycho-physical discipline, which is further fragmented as Physical, Vital and Mental Education; its utmost mission is to educate the obscure consciousness emerged out of the dark prison of Matter, to overcome and control life and matter, to enlighten the dull inertia, blind instincts and vague perceptions till it shall be capable of opening towards higher Light. The last perfection of mental, vital and physical education can come by opening to something beyond which is key of his completeness. When the dispensable self-discipline of education learns consciously to become the subordinate of the indispensable self-discipline, then the essential and comprehensive truth of the Integral education is known and not at all ignored. 5) All the dispensable self-discipline or objectively subjective approach towards education is defined as development of higher or highest faculties through the formulation of lower mental methods of ‘educate thyself’ and its indispensability is felt till the higher methods or Soul’s methods of ‘know thyself’ are evolved and it asks indispensable presence and help of physical guide. Mind has the capacity to enter large effort to gain small result and even if with this struggle to limit the action of our capacities and even then uses with a much less sure rapidity, the intelligent will is treated as our first conceptive potentiality, main force of effectuation and the highest available faculty at our immediate disposal and to fully utilise the mental faculty of exclusive concentration for purification is identified as the best beginning and sure promise of integral emergence of an underlying truth which is an uncovering of higher faculties other than mind, acquisition of scientifically minute knowledge and scrupulous accuracy through a long culture of intellect. 6) The need of Integral Education is felt primarily to enlarge our knowledge of the World, Self and God and extend our Mental, Vital, Physical and Spiritual existence; secondarily reconcile, integrate, transform and perfect them; where the former is enforced on each student of Integral Education in order to make him fit to enter the mainstream of life and world and the latter is a special opportunity of voluntary choice among the privileged few. 7) As Integral Education is the utilitarian aspect of Integral Yoga, Integral Evolution, Mediatrix Shakti and Absolute Shakti; so, all developmental aspect of the former will draw its strength, innovation, inspiration, expansion and guidance from the latter. Education has its roots in Yoga; Yoga has its roots in Evolution of Nature; Evolution has its roots in Consciousness; Consciousness has its roots in Shakti; Shakti has its roots in Chit or Sachchidananda . What Sri Aurobindo stated in the Principal Shastra , The Synthesis of Yoga for a Sadhaka in terms integral Yoga and strong declaration that ‘All Life is Yoga’ (through consecration), the same thing He restated with greater precision, force and enlargement in the complementary Shastra , The Life Divine for mere men or all humanity in terms Integral Evolution, hence we can discover it as the book of ‘The Synthesis of Evolution’ and He asks all humanity to train the mind towards the realisation of the mantra ‘All Life is Evolution’ (of Consciousness). The same objective He restated in the complementary Shastra , ‘The Mother ’ book for Her all children in terms of Mediatrix Shakti where all the four intermediate Spiritual Powers and Personalities of the Mediatrix Mother are synthesised to which we can discover it as the book of ‘The Synthesis of (four) Overmental Shakti ’ whose mantra is ‘All life is the possession of the Truth and the Divine Shakti’ (through the increase of faith, Sraddha , and Truth Power that rejects, destroys and transforms falsehood). The same objective He restated again with greatest intensity and vividness in the complementary Shastra, Savitri for swiftest Spiritual evolution of Her dearest children or Integral Yogis in terms of absolute or virgin Mother Power, Maya , to which we can discover it as the book of ‘The Synthesis of four¹⁹ Supramental Mother Power, Maya ’ and Her mantra is ‘All life is possession of Virginity and Supramental Maya’ (through intensification of purifying and all-embracing Divine Love that rejects, destroys and transforms the limitation of human love). So now the method of Education is to be restated in the form of a profound developmental urge of learning for all students from above four books in terms of Integral Education along with the mantra ‘All Life is Education’³ (through the practice of concentration, samyama ) and the evolution of the new written truth can be restated as ‘The Synthesis of Education .’ Thus, one strives after truth and perfection that 'are constantly endeavouring to embody in new statements of the science and art of the inner and outer life, a new Shastra .'²⁶ Now it is time to intensify education through four powers of the Mother-nature that of the integral Yoga, integral Evolution, integral Truth and integral Virginity, not limiting oneself to physical virginity alone and welding them strongly to the One, the Divine, the Sachchidananda who stands above as the Lord of Yoga, the Lord of Evolution, the Lord of Truth Power, Shakti and the Lord of absolute Virgin Power, Chit Shakti and also the Lord of Integral Education. A student of Integral Education will be at once a seeker of Integral Yoga, Integral Evolution, Integral Truth and Comprehensive Virginity extending over multiple subtle bodies in addition to his surface training of mind, vital and body. He will be aware of a Supramental world whose advent will be foreseen when earth life will be the playfield of more and more ‘superior human and invisible beings’¹⁷ hinted in Savitri as ‘Omnipotent’s flaming pioneers,’⁵ ‘mighty wardens,’²¹ ‘The sun-eyed children,’⁵ ‘radiant children of Eternity,’⁴ ‘princes of the Sun,’¹² ‘garbless deity,’⁶ ‘golden child,’⁷ ‘King-children,’¹⁵ ‘nude god-children,’¹⁸ ‘The heroic leaders of coming time,’¹⁵ ‘The Infants of the Monarchy of the worlds,’¹⁵ ‘Nameless the austere ascetics without home’¹⁵ ‘sunlight moulded like a golden maid,’⁸ ‘high-bred maiden,’⁹ ‘golden bride,’¹⁰ ‘the eternal bride,’¹¹ ‘golden virgin,’¹⁶ ‘virgin bridals of the dawn,’¹² and the ‘citizens of that mother state.’¹³ 8) The superiority of one educational institution from another (or one individual from another) can be discerned by the degree of truth and knowledge they have worked out from world falsehood and world Ignorance and the perfect institution²² (or the most conscious individual) always suffers least corruption in its mind and heart and that is possible when the Mother Nature’s four Evolutionary energy that of Yogic Power, Consciousness Power, Truth Power and Virgin Power are perfectly reconciled. An uncorrupted individual²³ and institution always reject falsehood from within by silencing and purifying the three Gunas and reject falsehood from without which diminishes and lowers the frontal distorted consciousness or wages a constant outer war against adharma . OM TAT SAT References: 1: The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol-13/p-361, , 2: CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-553, 3: “Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.” The Mother’s Agenda-07.02.1968, 4: “The radiant children of Eternity dwell” Savitri-282, 5: Savitri-343, 6: Savitri-430, 7: Savitri-76, 8: Savitri-400, 9: Savitri-496, 10: Savitri-718, 11: Savitri-666, 12: Savitri-401, 13: Savitri-262, 14: “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 strong foundation of Karma and Bhakti Yog a, 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 great Soul or integral Yogi is very rare.” The Gita-6.45/7.19, 15: CWSA-34/Savitri-382, 266, 16: CWSA-34/Savitri-384, 17: The Gita defines developed Souls in different terminologies of Dvija, Dvijottam (the best among the twice born), Yantra, Vibhuti, Avatara, Panditah, Sthita Prajna, Buddha, Maharsi, Debarsi, Siddhanam, Suhridam, Sadhunam, Sraddhavan, Jnanaban, Jnani, Jnaninah, nitya Sannyasi, Tyagi, Brahmachari, Munirbrahma, Muneh, Mumuksubhih, Yoginah, Tattva-darsinah, Tattvavit, Jitendriya, Visuddhatma, Dhira, Putah, Sthirabuddhi, Yatinam, Suhrud, Jitatmana, Triptatma, Prasantatma, Vijitatma, Asammudhah, Samyami, Bhakta rajarsayah, Brahmavid, Mahatma, Kshina-kalmasah, Krishna-vit, Dharmatma, Brahmavadinam, Mokshakankhivih, Atiba-priya Bhakta. Among the masculine personalities it has identified Janaka ( A famous King and Sage and the Father of Mother Sita), Vivasvan (the Sun-God), Ikshavaku (head of the Solar line and the first king of solar race), Vrigu (son of Varuna , regarded as one of the Rishis in the Veda), Ushana (a Vibhuti among seer-poets), Kapila Muni (traditional founder and chief exponent of Sankhya system of philosophy), Narada (the heavenly sage who stands for Divine Love and Knowledge), Manu (mythological Father of mankind), Asita (name of the Vedic Seer), Devala (the name of the Vedic Seer), Vyasa (compiler of the Vedas and the author of the Mahabharata and the Gita), Sanaka (son of the creator God, Brahma), Prahllada (son of an Asura King Hiranyakasipu and true devotee of Lord Vishnu), Arjuna (one of the five Pandavas, very dear to the external manifestation of Godhead, the best among the twice born Souls, Instruments and Emanations), Sanjaya, (Dhritarashtra’s minister who was endowed with the power of celestial vision) and Lord Sri Krishna (son of Devaki, Godhead and the Lord of Ananda , one of the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) as developed Souls. Among the feminine personalities, it has identified Kirti, Sree, Vak or Vani, Smriti, Medha, Dhriti and Kshama as developed Souls. They are unattached to outward touches for their happiness and are ever satisfied with themselves through inner contact with the Soul, nitya-trupto nirasrayah. Similarly, they can use but do not depend on external aid for their Spiritual fulfillment. The traditional Yoga of the Gita proposes that a developed Soul is free from seven deformations, vicaras, that of liking and disliking, iccha, dvesah, pleasure and pain, sukham, dukham, subjection to lower consciousness, chetana , place together truth and falsehood, sanghatah , tamasic and rajasic persistence, dhriti. Integral Yoga proposes that a developed Soul or adult Soul is free from seven deformations, vicaras that of (1) hatred, (2) disliking, (3) scorn, (4) repulsion, (5) clinging, (6) attachment and (7) preference. 18: Savitri-126, 19: Four Supramental Mother Powers are Truth supreme, Power supreme, Supreme Delight and Will supreme, 20: Savitri-187, 21: “The mighty wardens of the ascending stair” Savitri-265, 22: “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.” TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277, “No material organisation, whatever its degree of preparation, is capable of bringing a solution to the miseries of man…Man must rise to a higher level of consciousness and get rid of his ignorance, limitation and selfishness in order to get rid also of his sufferings.” TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277, 23: “Fostered by sacrifice the gods shall give you desired enjoyments: who enjoys their given enjoyments and has not given to them, he is a thief, stena .” The Gita-3.12, “Who controls the organs of action, but continues in his mind to remember and dwell upon the objects of sense, such a man has bewildered himself with false notions of self-discipline, mithychara. ” The Gita-3.06, “The corruption of the best produced the worst by that strange chemistry of the power of life which generates evil out of good even as it can also generate good out of evil… Yet even in the earthward life a higher knowledge is indeed the one thing that is throughout needful, and without it the lower sciences and pursuits, however fruitful, however rich, free, miraculous in the abundance of their results, become easily a sacrifice offered without due order and to false gods; corrupting, hardening in the end the heart of man, limiting his mind’s horizons, they confine in a stony material imprisonment or lead to a final baffling incertitude and disillusionment.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-140-141, 24: “It is through the growth of consciousness that the collective soul and its life can become aware of itself and develop; the free play of mind and life is essential for the growth of consciousness: for mind and life are the soul’s only instrumentation until a higher instrumentation develops; they must not be inhibited in their action or rendered rigid, unplastic and unprogressive.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-194, 25: CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-444-445, "All existence is a manifestation of God because He is the only existence and nothing can be except as either a real figuring or else a figment of that one reality. Therefore every conscious being is in part or in some way a descent of the Infinite into the apparent finiteness of name and form." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-13-14, "All existence is a manifestation of the divine Existence and that which is within us is spirit of the eternal Spirit. We have come indeed into the lower material nature and are under its influence, but we have come there from the supreme spiritual nature: this inferior imperfect status is our apparent, but that our real being." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-424, 26: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-478, Download this Web Page in PDF format: The Mother's Ideal Integral School "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 The task of Integral 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 The Central Truth of Integral 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 "A child from the school asked me, “How can mathematics, history or sciences help me to find you?” I found that quite amusing! I answered: “They can help in several ways: 1. To be able to receive and bear the light of Truth, the mind must be strengthened, broadened and made supple. These studies are an excellent way to achieve this. 2. Sciences, if you study them deeply enough, will teach you the unreality of appearances and will thus lead you to the spiritual reality. 3. The study of all aspects and movements of physical Nature will bring you into contact with the universal Mother, and you will thus be nearer to me.” I still remember my impression when I was quite small and was told everything is “atoms” (that was the term they used in those days). They said to me, “You see this table? You think it’s a table, that it’s solid and it’s wood-well, it’s only atoms moving about.” I remember, the first time I was told that, it caused a kind of revolution in my head, bringing such a sense of the complete unreality of all appearances. All at once I said, “But if it’s like that, then nothing is true!” I couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. His question called this to mind. I said to myself, “It opens a door onto another reality” The Mother The Mother's Agenda/17th December, 1966

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 "Mental ideas, opinions, constructions are his no more; for his mind has fallen into silence, it is only a channel for the Light and Truth of the divine knowledge. Ideals are too narrow for the vastness of his spirit ; it is the ocean of the Infinite that flows through him and moves him for ever.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-209 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 an 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 limitations 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 the elite who are satisfied with their exclusive achievement, the victory of a single truth, clarity of the sword of limited Light. It does not want to go beyond itself to discover the Psychic being. A 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 the 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 the schoolman mind, fixed mind and outer mind can trace their Psychic being and subsequently their Spiritual being. This is identified as the rebirth of an Ideal Teacher or the new birth of an 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: "It has been best formulated in the already expressed doctrine of the Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being ."¹¹⁷ Sri Aurobindo “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 i n 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: “He (King Aswapati) came new-born (thrice-born Soul), infant and limitless And grew in the wisdom of the timeless Child; He was a vast that soon became a Sun.” Savitri-301 “The Gnostic soul is the child, but the king-child; here is the royal and eternal childhood whose toys are the worlds and all universal Nature is the miraculous garden of the play that tires never.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-503 "The gnostic individual would be the consummation of the spiritual man; his whole way of being, thinking, living, acting would be governed by the power of a vast universal spirituality.... He would feel the presence of the Divine in every centre of his consciousness, in every vibration of his life-force, in every cell of his body." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1007 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 ¹¹⁶ 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, “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/ The Mother’s Agenda/ August 25, 1954, 41: TMCW (second edition)/Vol-12/On Education/p-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. T o 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/p-473, 83: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-456, 84: CWSA-32/The Mother with Letters on the Mother/p-25, 85: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-513, 86: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-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, “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, “A perfected community also can exist only by the perfection of its individuals, and perfection can come only by the discovery and affirmation in life by each of his own spiritual being and the discovery by all of their spiritual unity and a resultant life unity.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1087-1088, If then life has to become a manifestation of the Spirit, it is the manifestation of a spiritual being in us and the divine life of a perfected consciousness in a Supramental or Gnostic power of spiritual being that must be the secret burden and intention of evolutionary Nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1054 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/p-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/p-712, 92: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-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/p-63, 94: TMCW-12/On Education/p-337, 95: CWSA-24/ The Synthesis of Yoga/p-666, 96: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p- 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/p-731, 98: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-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/p-23, 103: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-20-21, 104: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-142, 105: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-917/p-918, 106: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-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, 116: "The thought of the intuitive mind proceeds wholly by four powers that shape the form of the truth, (1) an intuition that suggests its idea, (2) an intuition that discriminates, (3) an inspiration that brings in its word and something of its greater substance and (4) a revelation that shapes to the sight its very face and body of reality." CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-813, "Intuition has a fourfold power . (1) A power of revelatory truth-seeing, (2) a power of inspiration or truth-hearing, (3) a power of truth-touch or immediate seizing of significance, which is akin to the ordinary nature of its intervention in our mental intelligence, (4) a power of true and automatic discrimination of the orderly and exact relation of truth to truth, — these are the fourfold potencies of Intuition ." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-983, “There is, indeed, a higher form of the buddhi that can be called the intuitive mind or intuitive reason, and this by its intuitions, its inspirations, its swift revelatory vision, its luminous insight and discrimination can do the work of the reason with a higher power, a swifter action, a greater and spontaneous certitude. It acts in a self-light of the truth which does not depend upon the torch-flares of the sense-mind and its limited uncertain percepts; it proceeds not by intelligent but by visional concepts: it is a kind of truth-vision, truth-hearing, truth-memory, direct truth-discernment .” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-477, 117: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-177, 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

Integral Vital Education “The Prana is not only a force for the action of physical and vital energy, but supports also the mental and spiritual action. Therefore the full and free working of the pranic shakti is required not only for the lower but still necessary use, but also for the free and full operation of mind and supermind and spirit in the instrumentality of our complex human nature. That is the main sense of the use of exercises of Pranayama for control of the vital force and its motions which is so important and indispensable a part of certain systems of Yoga. The same mastery must be got by the seeker of the integral Yoga; but he may arrive at it by other means and in any case he must not be dependent on any physical or breathing exercise for its possession and maintenance, for that will at once bring in a limitation and subjection to Prakriti . Her instrumentation has to be used flexibly by the Purusha, but not to be a fixed control on the Purusha . The necessity of the pranic force, however, remains and will be evident to our self-study and experience. It is in the Vedic image the steed and conveyance of the embodied mind and will, vahana. If it is full of strength and swiftness and a plenitude of all its powers, then the mind can go on the courses of its action with a plenary and unhampered movement. But if it is lame or soon tired or sluggish or weak, then an incapacity is laid on the effectuation of the will and activity of the mind. The same rule holds good of the supermind when it first comes into action. There are indeed states and activities in which the mind takes up the pranic shakti into itself and this dependence is not felt at all; but even then the force is there, though involved in the pure mental energy. The supermind, when it gets into full strength, can do pretty well what it likes with the pranic shakti , and we find that in the end this life power is transformed into the type of a supramentalised prana which is simply one motor power of that greater consciousness. But this belongs to a later stage of the siddhi of the Yoga... Then again there is the psychic prana , pranic mind or desire soul ; this too calls for its own perfection. Here too the first necessity is a fullness of the vital capacity in the mind, its power to do its full work, to take possession of all the impulsions and energies given to our inner psychic life for fulfilment in this existence, to hold them and to be a means for carrying them out with strength, freedom, perfection. Many of the things we need for our perfection, courage, will-power effective in life, all the elements of what we now call force of character and force of personality, depend very largely for their completest strength and spring of energetic action on the fullness of the psychic prana . (the second necessity) But along with this fullness there must be an established gladness, clearness and purity in the psychic life-being. This dynamis must not be a troubled, perfervid, stormy, fitfully or crudely passionate strength; energy there must be, rapture of its action it must have, but a clear and glad and pure energy, a seated and firmly supported pure rapture. And as a third condition of its perfection it must be poised in a complete equality. The desire-soul must get rid of the clamour, insistence or inequality of its desires in order that its desires may be satisfied with justice and balance and in the right way and eventually must rid them of the character of desire altogether and change them into impulsions of the divine Ananda. To that end it must make no demands nor seek to impose itself on heart, mind or spirit, but accept with a strong passive and active equality whatever impulsion and command come into it from the spirit through the channel of a still mind and a pure heart. And it must accept too whatever result of the impulse, whatever enjoyment more or less, full or nil, is given to it by the Master of our being. At the same time, possession and enjoyment are its law, function, use, swadharma. It is not intended to be a slain or mortified thing, dull in its receptive power, dreary, suppressed, maimed, inert or null. (the fourth condition and necessity) It must have a full power of possession, a glad power of enjoyment, an exultant power of pure and divine passion and rapture. The enjoyment it will have will be in the essence a spiritual bliss, but one which takes up into itself and transforms the mental, emotional, dynamic, vital and physical joy; it must have therefore an integral capacity for these things and must not by incapacity or fatigue or inability to bear great intensities fail the spirit, mind, heart, will and body. (1) Fullness, (2) clear purity and gladness, (3) equality, (4) capacity for possession and enjoyment are the fourfold perfection of the psychic prana. (purnata, prasannata, samata, bhoga-samarthya )" Sri Aurobindo CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-733-735 The Integral Vital Education “Held by intuitive heart and secret sense.” Savitri-29 “A secret sense awoke that could perceive A Presence and a Greatness everywhere.” Savitri-42 “Eternity’s contact broke the moulds of sense. A greater Force than the earthly held his limbs, Huge workings bared his undiscovered sheaths,” Savitri-81 “Heaven’s joys might have been earth’s if earth were pure. There could have reached our Divinised sense and heart Some natural felicity’s bright extreme, Some thrill of Supernature’s absolutes:” Savitri-123 “A purer, fierier sense had there its home, A burning urge no earthly limbs can hold; One drew a large unburdened spacious breath And the heart sped from beat to rapturous beat.” Savitri-123 “Our very senses blindly seek for bliss.” Savitri-170 “Thrilled by the clasp of the warm satisfied sense” Savitri-233 “His knowledge stripped bare of the garbs of sense” Savitri-294 “A wall of stillness shuts it (Soul) from the world, A gulf of stillness swallows up the sense And makes unreal all that mind has known, All that the labouring senses still would weave Prolonging an imaged unreality.” Savitri-310 “Sense failed in that tremendous lucency;” Savitri-319 “Life in his members lay down vast and mute; Naked, unwalled, unterrified it bore The immense regard of Immortality.” Savitri-320 “Where sense can build a world of pure delight:” Savitri-328 “Life’s rapture kept for ever its flame and cry.” Savitri-329 “The Power within her shaped her moulding sense In deeper figures than our surface types.” Savitri-356 “This spirit stumbling in the fields of sense, This creature bruised in the mortar of the days Could find in her broad spaces of release.” Savitri-380 “He (Satyavan) takes with bright surprise spirit and sense.” Savitri-430 “A mighty life-self with its inner powers Supports the dwarfish modicum we call life;” Savitri-485 “A secret air of pure felicity Deep like a sapphire heaven our spirits breathe; Our hearts and bodies feel its obscure call, Our senses grope for it and touch and lose. If this withdrew, the world would sink in the Void; If this were not, nothing could move or live." Savitri-629 “There is a joy in all that meets the sense, A joy in all experience of the soul, A joy in evil and a joy in good, A joy in virtue and a joy in sin:” Savitri-630 “The All-Wonderful makes a marvel of each event, The All-Beautiful is a miracle in each shape; The All-Blissful smites with rapture the heart’s throbs, A pure celestial joy is the use of sense.” Savitri-663 “All here but passionate hint and mystic shade Divined by the inner prophet who perceives The spirit of delight in sensuous things, Turned to more sweetness than can now be dreamed.” Savitri-675 “There was a greater tranquil sweetness there, A subtler and profounder ether’s field And mightier scheme than heavenliest sense can give.” Savitri-677 “The high perfected sense illumined lived” Savitri-678 The Maha mantra of Integral Yoga is restated in Integral Vital Education as All Life is Education through rigorous self-control of the vital or psychic prana . In Integral Vital Education, 'the vital undergoes a rigorous discipline in order to transform itself.'¹ ⁵ Vital is the universal play of force to create, energise, maintain, support and modify and even to some extent dissolve and reconstruct substantial forms and its fundamental character is the interchange and mutual play of an overtly or secretly conscious energy. Vital Education is defined as energising of conscious vital being that liberates creative force of existence such as effective dynamism, enthusiasm, artistic aptitude,¹ ⁹ endurance ,¹⁰ delight, love and beauty. Through this education the heart and the sense become subtle, intense and large to embrace all existence and it makes one capable to see, feel, hear and touch God, the Eternal and realizes the transcendent Self and oneness of Self. Integral Vital Education liberates man from slavery¹¹ to instincts . It attains self-fulfilment when Life consciously lends its energies to the perfect self-figuration of the Divine in ever new forms and activities of universal existence. The Mother observed, ‘When one paints a picture or composes music or writes poetry, each one has his own way of expression. Every painter, every musician, every poet, every sculptor has or ought to have a unique, personal contact with the Divine, and through the work which is his speciality, the art he has mastered, he must express this contact in his own way, with his own words, his own colours. For himself, instead of copying the outer form of Nature, he takes these forms as the covering of something else, precisely of his relationship with the realities which are behind, deeper, and he tries to make them express that. Instead of merely imitating what he sees, he tries to make them speak of what is behind them, and it is this which makes all the difference between a living art and just a flat copy of Nature.’¹ "High priests of wisdom, sweetness, might and bliss, Discoverers of beauty’s sunlit ways And swimmers of Love’s laughing fiery floods And dancers within rapture’s golden doors, Their tread one day shall change the suffering earth And justify the light on Nature’s face." Savitri-344 “A tangle of bright bodies, of moved souls Tracing the close and intertwined delight, The harmonious tread of lives for ever joined In the passionate oneness of a mystic joy As if sunbeams made living and divine, The golden-bosomed Apsara goddesses, In groves flooded from an argent disk of bliss That floated through a luminous sapphire dream, In a cloud of raiment lit with golden limbs And gleaming footfalls treading faery swards, Virgin motions of bacchant innocences Who know their riot for a dance of God , Whirled linked in moonlit revels of the heart.” Savitri-676-77 Guru Sangamam in 2012 In Integral Vital Education, Life is identified as dynamisation of the entire secret of the universe and in order to master it he has to go through a mass of colliding results, a whirl of potential energies out of which he has to disengage some supreme order and some yet unrealized harmony. The ideal of human life is neither simply an animal repeated on a higher degree of vitality nor a moderate living with mental satisfaction which would have arrested all his growth and advance, nor a scientific mind, which extends life to mechanical principle, unaware of new evolving principle and another state of Consciousness. Integral Vital Education identifies man as greatest of the discontented living being and he can uncover the concealed Godhead through four ascending stages of life. “Her thoughts, her mind remembered Narad’s date.” Savitri-469 “Out of the ignorant eager toil of the years Abandoning man’s loud drama he had come Led by the wisdom of an adverse Fate To meet the ancient Mother in her groves.” Savitri-393 The first status of Vital Education identifies life in terms of extreme divisions, a rigid form of Matter, a force-driven Subconscient will, a limited consciousness, which is responsible for our basic existence and accomplished type of material living. It seeks its extension through scientific mind and mechanical consciousness concealed in Matter. In the physical world, its most difficult achievement is to create and maintain a separative survival of individuality and a stable form. “Earth she would lift to neighbourhood with heaven,” Savitri-196 “Make earth almost the mate and peer of heaven,” Savitri-706 “Earth shall be made a home of Heaven’s light,” Savitri-451 “She made earth her home, for whom heaven was too small.” Savitri-275 As life delivers itself out of this form, the second gradations of Vital Education interferes to concentrate on three terms of evolution; the first is the life’s positive urge to realize the physical immortality is confronted with immediate threat of death, decay and mutual devouring; secondly life’s positive urge to possess fully the delight of existence is confronted with the negative habit of hunger and conscious desire for life’s satisfaction and security; thirdly, the life’s positive urge towards possession of the Self and conquest of surrounding is confronted with limited capacity that struggles for survival, possession and perfection. This second status of Vital Education increases our vitality by dissolving our vital ego, vital selfishness of the individual and aggressive living. ‘Heaven’s joys might have been earth’s if earth were pure.’ Savitri-123 “Heaven’s tranquil shield guarded the missioned child.” Savitri-16 “She guards the austere approach to the Alone.” Savitri-295 The first two statuses of Vital Education contain in themselves the seed of the new principle of its third status, which must increase in proportion as Mind evolves out of the Matter and it is identified as principle of cooperation and mutual help. The third status of Vital Education gives birth to practice of association and flowering of human love which begins with the desire of the wife, the child, the friend and helper and associated group. This preliminary human love may be identified as extended selfishness and if this extension is permitted to evolve uninterruptedly, then man will realize that his natural individual formation is only a minor term of the vast Self and he exists by the grace of the universal Self. Or "The heart that loved man thrills to the love of God," (Savitri-632) If the first status of Vital Education stands on the principles of division, then the third status of Vital Education grows under the strong principle of unity, a fusion by aggregation and every divided form must be its subordinate. Its safe growth is ensured by development of science of mental and spiritual existence which will explore in the line of ancient occult knowledge regarding the subtle vital being,¹⁷ our life energy, our desire energy, powers, passions, strivings and dissolution of vital frame after death and its relation with other vital bodies. It will further unfold the secret of life through constant interchange, intermixture and fusion of being with being. The persistent aggregate life finds its safety and harmony by the development of mental being and soul-consciousness. The governing principle of life is association with love and the new law that becomes active is the law of association, the law of love, of common help, kindliness, affection, comradeship, mutual self-giving and unity. With the development of mind these laws are increasingly imposed on the material existence and its scope increases by the commerce that more it gives, the more it receives and grows; and the more it fuses itself into others, the more it fuses others into itself and increases the scope and capacity of the being. The third status of law of love does not abolish the second status of law of desire but transforms and fulfills it. In the preliminary state of love, it obeys the law of hunger and enjoys the receiving and extracting from others rather than the giving and surrendering to others. The true law of love establishes an equal commerce in which the joy of giving is equal to the joy of receiving and tends in the end to give more. The law of love is an impulse to realize and fulfill oneself in others and by others, to be enriched by enriching others and to possess and be possessed by others. The perfect solution of the problem of life cannot be realized by the law of love, the law of mind and heart alone and there must emerge a fourth status of vital Education in which the eternal unity of many is realized through the unity and freedom of the Spirit. The Vital Being, Pranamaya Purusha, must be trained to receive pure delight that comes to it from right functioning of life in obedience to the working of the Divine Will. The fine flower of the fourth status of Vital Education emerging from the fourth status of life is the pure and full emergence of original Divine Will, the illumined fulfillment of intermediate desire, deep satisfaction of conscious interchange of Divine Love and Divine unity of all souls which is the foundation of Supramentalised Vital Education and is envisaged as canalization of seas of Omnipotence for the final good and salvation of all humanity. “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 “Abolished were the scripts of destiny.” Savitri-82 “The soul is the watchful builder of its fate” Savitri-184 “But many-visaged is the cosmic Soul; A touch can alter the fixed front of Fate.” Savitri-256 “ A flame that cancels death in mortal things.” Savitri-291 “Fate’s driving ceased and Nature’s sleepless spur:” Savitri-320 “Let a great word be spoken from the heights And one great act unlock the doors of Fate.” Savitri-345 “One shall descend and break the iron Law, Change Nature’s doom by the lone spirit’s power.” Savitri-346 “Fate shall be changed by an unchanging will.” Savitri-346 “A greater destiny waits you (Savitri) in your front:” Savitri-370 “Her force and will exceed her form and fate." Savitri-371 (Higher beings) “Have made our fate the child of our own acts,” Savitri-378 “Let Fate do with me what she will or can; I (Savitri) am stronger than death and greater than my fate; My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me Helpless against my immortality.” Savitri-432 “And make the soul the artist of its fate.” Savitri-465 “My soul can meet them (stone eyes of Law and Fate) with its living fire.” Savitri-589 "And woke in it (Savitri’s heart) the Force that alters Fate.” Savitri-665 “The soul in man is greater than his fate:” Savitri-691 “You (Savitri) are my (Lord’s) Force at work to uplift earth’s fate,” Savitri-702 “A chant hymeneal to the unseen Divine, A flaming rhapsody of white desire Lured an immortal music into the heart And woke the slumbering ear of ecstasy.” Savitri-123 “Alive with her yearning woke the inert cell, In the heart she kindled a fire of passion and need, Amid the deep calm of inanimate things Arose her great voice of toil and prayer and strife.” Savitri-133 Behind the surface life of desire, lust, violence³ or behind the sense mind, emotional mind and psychic prana, there is in us an inner and subtle vital Sheath, which is not dissolved by death ‘and has the greatest difficulty in changing its way of being.’⁵ If this vital Godhead behind the vital sheath is brought out into prominence, then it lifts life with the Supreme’s touch and will be a true instrument of Divine Nature. The innermost domain of subtle vital Sheath that is close to the true Psychic being is called the true vital Being,⁴ Pranamaya Purusha , which has direct access to the Divine in the Spiritual domain and subsequently in the Supramental domain. True vital Being is the means through which the sacrificial flame will rise in order to bring down Divine forces to the subtle vital and gross vital substance. True vital Being is the purest part of the vital where the Divine is stationed and around it there is extension of subtle vital and around subtle vital there is extension of gross vital. Both gross vital and subtle vital are subject to impurity and the purity of subtle vital grows as it is exposed to the influence of true Vital Being. The Mother confirms, “I am going to study what Sri Aurobindo says when I come to it in 'the Yoga of Self-Perfection.' He says there comes a time when the senses change – it’s not that you employ the senses proper to another plane (we have always known we had senses on all the different planes); it’s quite different from that: the senses THEMSELVES change. He foretells this change – he says it will occur. And I believe it begins in the way I am experiencing it now.”¹² Thus we get the hint from Sri Aurobindo's writings, about Supramental transformation of sense, "There is accordingly a change, a profound transformation in the physical sense, a supramentalising of the physical sight, hearing, touch, etc., that creates or reveals to us a quite different view, not merely of life and its meaning, but even of the material world and all its forms and aspects. The supermind uses the physical organs and confirms their way of action, but it develops behind them the inner and deeper senses which see what are hidden from the physical organs and farther transforms the new sight, hearing, etc. thus created by casting it into its own mould and way of sensing. The change is one that takes nothing from the physical truth of the object, but adds to it its supraphysical truth and takes away by the removal of the physical limitation the element of falsehood in the material way of experience." ¹ ⁴ Integral Yoga proposes six-fold disciplines through which life will be transformed into the image of the Divine. First , life as it is a movement of desire; for Divine living, the desire must be abolished and in its place there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of true vital being.⁷ '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.'¹⁸ Secondly, life is driven partly by the influence of physical mind, vital mind, emotional mind, sensory mind, thought mind, and these faculties are still under the domination of ignorant forces; for Divine living these lower mind faculties must cease to be anything but function properly ¹⁶ as an instrument of the inmost Psychic being. Thirdly, there is a veil that separates the lower mind faculties from higher mind faculties, which are higher Mind, illumined Mind, intuitive Mind and Over Mind; for Divine living the lid that separates these two domains must be broken and vital sheath must come under the direct influence of higher Mind; the six lotuses or energy centres open from top in descending order and vital sheath opens by the pressure of higher mental sheath or Spiritual sheath. 'The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of one's way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.'⁴ Fourthly , life for its satisfaction turns towards separative ego; ego must disappear and must be replaced by true Spiritual person and the formation of universal sheath begins. F ifthly , the law of Love is a Divine Presence and Influence to realise and fulfil oneself in others and by others, to possess and be possessed by others because without being possessed one does not possess oneself utterly. S ixthly ,¹³ the life must open itself towards Supramental pranic force and will for its complete transformation and perfect enjoyment and with the exposure towards Divine Love one ‘does in a brief period the work of many lives or ages.’² Lastly , we may take the help of external physical means of Hatha Yogic Asana and Pranayama and Raja Yogic japa , for the full and free working of the universal Pranic Shakti .⁸ Savitri, Book-2, Canto-3, gives a vivid account of the action of Para-prakriti or dynamised true vital being or ‘the gracious great-winged Angel’⁹ on life or vital plane. This is also Prakriti Yajna, Vedic sacrifice, more powerful and more comprehensive than the Purusha Yajna or Vedantic sacrifice. From this Canto we learn the lesson how Para-Prakriti or a hierarchy of dynamic Consciousness, can act stumblingly and steadily on the life and experiences, both rise and fall, or glory and fall of life. We also get the hint of nude god-children who are perfect instruments to Divinise life and the knowledge on vital transformation that makes life young and energetic. This Canto asks to develop the highest dynamic Consciousness which can meet the inert Inconscient’s law. We can refer to the Mother’s following important observation related with Her vital Being: “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 let up, night and day... We shouldn’t be in a hurry.”⁶ OM TAT SAT References: 1: TMCW-8/Questions and Answers-1956/p-158, 2: CWSA/Vol-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-183, 3: “Violence is necessary as long as men are ruled by their ego and its desires. But violence must be used only as a means of defense when you are attacked. The ideal towards which humanity is moving and which we want to realize is a state of luminous understanding in which each person’s needs as well as the harmony of the whole are taken into account…The future will have no need of violence because it will be governed by the Divine Consciousness, in which all things are harmonized and complement each other…For the moment, we are still in a stage where weapons are necessary. But it should be understood that this is a transitory stage, not a permanent one, and we must strive for the other one…Peace ... peace and harmony will be a natural outcome of the change of consciousness…You see, in India there reigns the Gandhian concept of nonviolence which has replaced physical violence with moral violence, but it’s far worse! But if you dare speak against Gandhi, everyone will immediately ... oh! You don’t need to mention his name, you can explain to the children that replacing physical violence with moral violence is no better. Lying down in front of a train to stop it running is a moral violence that can ultimately cause more disorder than physical violence…There would be a lot to say. It depends on each case. I myself very much encouraged the practice of fencing because it gives you skill, control over your movements and discipline in violence – I very much encouraged fencing at one time. I learned how to shoot; I used to shoot with a rifle, because it gives you steadiness and skill and a very good eye; and it forces you to remain calm in the midst of danger. All these things are.... I don’t see why one should be hopelessly nonviolent, it only makes a spineless character…Turn it into an art! An art for cultivating calm, skill and self control. There’s no need to cry out indignantly as Gandhi would. It’s useless, useless, absolutely useless – I am not at all in favor of it! One should master the means of self-defense, and one should cultivate them in order to do so…Above all, make them understand that moral violence is just as bad as physical violence. It can even be worse, that is, at least physical violence forces you to become strong and control yourself, whereas moral violence is... You may be like this [apparently quiet] and harbor the worst moral violence in yourself.” The Mother’s Agenda-18.02.1973, 4: “It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, – and even of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners, – is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole. The subliminal self stands behind and supports the whole superficial man; it has in it a larger and more efficient mind behind the surface mind, a larger and more powerful vital behind the surface vital, a subtler and freer physical consciousness behind the surface bodily existence. And above them it opens to higher superconscient as well as below them to lower subconscient ranges. If one wishes to purify and transform the nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being. Even this should be done with care, not prematurely or rashly, following a higher guidance, keeping always the right attitude; for otherwise the force that is drawn down may be too strong for an obscure and weak frame of nature. But to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of one's way to invite trouble. First, one should make the higher mind and vital strong and firm and full of light and peace from above; afterwards one can open up or even dive into the subconscious with more safety and some chance of a rapid and successful change.” Sri Aurobindo/The Mother’s Agenda-21.01.1962/CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-613, " 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." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-177-178 We find in Savitri, the Presence of true vital being. They are: "A secret sense awoke that could perceive A Presence and a Greatness everywhere." Savitri-42 "Here too the gracious great-winged Angel poured" Savitri-130 "Abolished was her subtle mighty spirit" Savitri-130 "Impure, degraded though her motions are, Always a heaven-truth broods in life’s deeps; In her obscurest members burns that fire. ” (True vital being.) Savitri-139 "In Nature he saw the mighty Spirit concealed," Savitri-141 "A seeking Power found out its road to form," Savitri-142 "Only was lit some heat of the flame of Life, Some joy to be, some rapturous leaps of sense. All was an impetus of half-conscious Force, A spirit sprawling drowned in dense life-foam, A vague self grasping at the shape of things." Savitri-146 "They follow the unseen leader in the heart ," Savitri-184 "Even upon earth the spirit is life’s key," Savitri-191 "A mighty life-self with its inner powers Supports the dwarfish modicum we call life;" Savitri-485 "To find the inner self concealed in sense." Savitri-489 “But now the vital godhead wakes within (true vital being) And lifts the life with the Supernal’s touch.” Savitri-490 5: “But I have noticed, especially for those who have had a Western education, that they shouldn't change their external occupations abruptly. Most people tend to want to change their environment, to want to change their occupation, to want to change their surroundings, to want to change their habit, thinking that will help them to change inwardly – it's not true. You are much more vigilant and alert to resist the old movement, the old relationships, the vibrations you no longer want when you remain in a context that, in fact, is habitual enough to be automatic. You shouldn't be "interested" in a new external organization, because you always tend to enter it with your old way of being… It's very interesting even, I made a very deep study of people who think that if they travel things are going to be different.... When you change your external surroundings, on the contrary, you always tend to keep your internal organization in order to keep your individuality; whereas if you are held by force in the same context, the same occupations, the same routine of life, then the ways of being you no longer want become more and more evident and you can fight them much more precisely… Basically, in the being, it's the vital that has difficulty; it is the most impulsive part and has the greatest difficulty in changing its way of being. And it's always the vital that feels "free," encouraged and more alive during travels, because it has an opportunity to manifest freely in a new environment in which everything has to be learned: reactions, adaptations, etc. On the contrary, in the routine of a life that has nothing particularly exciting, it strongly feels (I mean, if it has goodwill and an aspiration for progress), it strongly feels its inadequacies and desires, its reactions, repulsions, attractions, etc. When one doesn't have that intense will to progress, it feels imprisoned, disgusted, crushed – the whole habitual refrain of revolt.” The Mother’s Agenda-2.12.1964, “A perfect equality not only of the self, but in the nature is a condition of the Yoga of self-perfection. The first obvious step to it will be the conquest of our emotional and vital being, for here are the sources of greatest trouble, the most rampant forces of inequality and subjection, the most insistent claim of our imperfection. The equality of these parts of our nature comes by purification and freedom. We might say that equality is the very sign of liberation. To be free from the domination of the urge of vital desire and the stormy mastery of the soul by the passions is to have a calm and equal heart and a life-principle governed by the large and even view of a universal spirit. Desire is the impurity of the Prana, the life-principle, and its chain of bondage. A free Prana means a content and satisfied life- soul which fronts the contact of outward things without desire and receives them with an equal response; delivered, uplifted above the servile duality of liking and disliking, indifferent to the urgings of pleasure and pain, not excited by the pleasant, not troubled and overpowered by the unpleasant, not clinging with attachment to the touches it prefers or violently repelling those for which it has an aversion, it will be opened to a greater system of values of experience. All that comes to it from the world with menace or with solicitation, it will refer to the higher principles, to a reason and heart in touch with or changed by the light and calm joy of the spirit. Thus quieted, mastered by the spirit and no longer trying to impose its own mastery on the deeper and finer soul in us, this life-soul will be itself spiritualised and work as a clear and noble instrument of the diviner dealings of the spirit with things. There is no question here of an ascetic killing of the life-impulse and its native utilities and functions; not its killing is demanded, but its transformation. The function of the Prana is enjoyment, but the real enjoyment of existence is an inward spiritual Ananda, not partial and troubled like that of our vital, emotional or mental pleasure, degraded as they are now by the predominance of the physical mind, but universal, profound, a massed concentration of spiritual bliss possessed in a calm ecstasy of self and all existence. Possession is its function, by possession comes the soul’s enjoyment of things, but this is the real possession, a thing large and inward, not dependent on the outward seizing which makes us subject to what we seize. All outward possession and enjoyment will be only an occasion of a satisfied and equal play of the spiritual Ananda with the forms and phenomena of its own world-being. The egoistic possession, the making things our own in the sense of the ego’s claim on God and beings and the world, parigraha , must be renounced in order that this greater thing, this large, universal and perfect life, may come. Tyaktena bhunjıthah. , by renouncing the egoistic sense of desire and possession, the soul enjoys divinely its self and the universe.” CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-702-703 6: The Mother’s Agenda-March 28 1964, 7: “There is behind all the vital nature in man his true vital being concealed and immobile which is quite different from the surface vital nature. The surface vital is narrow, ignorant, limited, full of obscure desires, passions, cravings, revolts, pleasures and pains, transient joys and griefs, exultations and depressions. The true vital being on the contrary is wide, vast, calm, strong, without limitations, firm and immovable, capable of all power, all knowledge, all Ananda. It is moreover without ego, for it knows itself to be a projection and instrument of the Divine; it is the divine Warrior, pure and perfect; in it is an instrumental Force for all divine realisations. It is the true vital being that has become awake and come in front within you. In the same way there is too a true mental being, a true physical being. When these are manifest, then you are aware of a double existence in you; that behind is always calm and strong, that on the surface alone is troubled and obscure. But if the true being behind remains stable and you live in it, then the trouble and obscurity remain only on the surface; in this condition the exterior parts can be dealt with more potently and they also made free and perfect.” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga/p-185-186, “It [the true vital] is capable of receiving the movements of the higher consciousness, and afterwards it can be capable of receiving the still greater supramental power and Ananda. If it is not, then the descent of the higher consciousness would be impossible and supramentalisation would be impossible. It is not meant that it possesses these things itself in its own right and that as soon as one is aware of the true vital , one gets all these things as inherent in the true vital .” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-186, “It is as I told you — only by losing ego and having the sense of the Infinite can one experience the true vital. So you got the experience of the loss of ego and the sense of a true vital existence. But there are all those parts of the human vital nature that are not the true vital and these are full of impurities which have to be thrown in the fire of aspiration burning in the true vital being .” CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I-187 "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......For, first, life as it is is a movement of desire and it has built in us as its centre a desire-soul which refers to itself all the motions of life and puts in them its own troubled hue and pain of an ignorant, half-lit, baffled endeavour: for a divine living, desire must be abolished and replaced by a purer and firmer motive- power, the tormented soul of desire dissolved and in its stead there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of a true vital being now concealed within us....It has been best formulated in the already expressed doctrine of the Gita by which a complete renouncement of desire for the fruits as the motive of action, a complete annulment of desire itself, the complete achievement of a perfect equality are put forward as the normal status of a spiritual being. A perfect spiritual equality is the one true and infallible sign of the cessation of desire, — to be equal-souled to all things, unmoved by joy and sorrow, the pleasant and the unpleasant, success or failure, to look with an equal eye on high and low, friend and enemy, the virtuous and the sinner, to see in all beings the manifold manifestation of the One and in all things the multitudinous play or the slow masked evolution of the embodied Spirit. It is not a mental quiet, aloofness, indifference, not an inert vital quiescence, not a passivity of the physical consciousness consenting to no movement or to any movement that is the condition aimed at, though these things are sometimes mistaken for this spiritual condition, but a wide comprehensive unmoved universality such as that of the Witness Spirit behind Nature." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-175-178 8: “We can become aware of the existence and presence of the universal Shakti in the various forms of her power. At present we are conscious only of the power as formulated in our physical mind, nervous being and the corporeal case sustaining our various activities. But if we can once get beyond this first formation by some liberation of the hidden, recondite, subliminal parts of our existence by Yoga, we become aware of a greater life force, a pranic Shakti, which supports and fills the body and supplies all physical and vital activities, --for the physical energy is only a modified form of this force, --and supplies and sustains too from below all our mental action.” CWSA/24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-755 9: Savitri-130, 10: “Let endurance be your watchword: teach the life-force in you — your vital being — not to complain but to put up with all the conditions necessary for great achievement. The body is a very enduring servant, it bears the stress of circumstance tamely like a beast of burden. It is the vital being that is always grumbling and uneasy. The slavery and torture to which it subjects the physical is almost incalculable. How it twists and deforms the poor body to its own fads and fancies, irrationally demanding that everything should be shaped according to its whimsicality! But the very essence of endurance is that the vital should learn to give up its capricious likes and dislikes and preserve an equanimity in the midst of the most trying conditions. When you are treated roughly by somebody or you lack something which would relieve your discomfort, you must keep up cheerfully instead of letting yourself be disturbed. Let nothing ruffle you the least bit, and whenever the vital tends to air its petty grievances with pompous exaggeration just stop to consider how very happy you are, compared to so many in this world. Reflect for a moment on what the soldiers who fought in the last war had to go through. If you had to bear such hardships you would realise the utter silliness of your dissatisfactions. And yet I do not wish you to court difficulties — what I want is simply that you should learn to endure the little insignificant troubles of your life .” TMCW-3/Questions and Answers-1929-1931/p-136, 11: “No law can liberate women unless they liberate themselves. What makes them slaves is: Attraction towards the male and his strength, Desire for home life and its security, Attachment to motherhood. If they get free from these three slaveries, they will truly be the equal of men. Men also have three slaveries: Spirit of possession, attachment to power and domination, Desire for sexual relation with women, Attachment to the small comforts of married life. If they get rid of these three slaveries, they can truly become the equal of women.” The Mother/TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-289, 12: The Mother’s Agenda/ June 27, 1961, 13: "Because, for example, 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, 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." The Mother's Agenda/20.09.1960, 14: CWSA-24/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-867-868, 15: TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-45, 16: “The proper function of the sense mind is to lie upon passively, luminously to the contacts of Life and transmit their sensations and the rasa or right taste and principle of delight in them to the higher function; but interfered with by the attractions and repulsions, the acceptances and refusals, the satisfactions and dissatisfaction, the capacities and incapacities of the life-energy in the body it is, to begin with, limited in its scope and secondly, forced in these limits to associate itself with all these discords of the life in Matter. It becomes an instrument of pleasure and pain instead of for delight of existence.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-351, “Similarly the emotional mind compelled to take note of all these discords and subject itself to their emotional reactions becomes a hurtling field of joy and grief, love and hatred, wrath, fear, struggle, aspiration, disgust, likes, dislikes, indifferences, content, discontent, hopes, disappointments, gratitude, revenge and all the stupendous play of passion which is the drama of life in the world. This chaos we call our soul. But the real soul, the real psychic entity which for the most part we see little of and only a small minority in mankind has developed, is an instrument of pure love, joy and the luminous reaching out to fusion and unity with God and our fellow creatures. This psychic entity is covered up by the play of mentalised Prana or desire mind which we mistake for the soul; the emotional mind is unable to mirror the real soul in us, the Divine in our hearts, and is obliged instead to mirror the desire-mind.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-351, “So too the proper function of the thought-mind is to observe, understand, judge with a dispassionate delight in knowledge and open itself to messages and illuminations playing upon all that it observes and upon all that is yet hidden from it but must progressively be revealed, messages and illuminations that secretly flash down to us from the divine Oracle concealed in light above our mentality whether they seem to descend through the intuitive mind or arise from the seeing heart. But this it cannot do rightly because it is pinned to the limitations of the life-energy in the senses, to the discords of sensation and emotion, and to its own limitations of intellectual preference, inertia, straining, self-will which are the form taken in it by the interference of the desire-mind this psychic Prana.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-351-52, 17: "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, 18: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-646, 19: " Sunil asked me to play for him; I told him I had stopped playing: "I can’t play anymore, my hands have lost the habit." The power to transcribe what comes is no longer there (I do hear the music, but I can’t transcribe it anymore). It’s like something that has been forgotten. Then he told me it didn’t matter, that even if I played a few notes – three or four notes – it would be enough. But I have noticed that the first time I play after a long time without playing, I play much better than afterwards. You understand, I always try not to be the one to play, because I no longer know how to (how long has it been? At least sixty years since I truly played, except occasionally, so the whole knowledge of the hands has gone: they are clumsy, they can’t play anymore). The only thing I try to do is to have someone (either a musical spirit or a musical entity) use these hands, to have something come and use these hands; and generally, it works fairly well the first time, then the hands start again wanting to "try to know," so it’s all over. They must be absolutely plastic, without personal will.... I’ve never been quite able to use this electric organ; I used to make much better use of my grand organ, the one I had before; it was far easier for me. This one is very complicated, very mechanical, very mechanical. It’s a bit too mechanically modern and it doesn’t respond to vital influence as well as my old organ did. My feet used to make it work, and they put such force into it! There was a force of vibration in the way the swells were worked.... This one, I would have had to get accustomed to it, to impregnate the instrument; but to me it’s like an empty shell, with no soul behind it: it’s an empty shell. You see, a sounding board responds a lot; in a piano, the sounding board, the keys, the strings, it all responds; it responds to the force. You can even make them vibrate without touching them. While this electric device is an empty shell...." The Mother's Agenda/August 24, 1966 Download this WEB PAGE as a PDF file: “It is very clear. So it is not I who can make Her (The Mother of Ananda, or the Creative Power’s aspect of Joy) stay. And I certainly cannot ask Her to stay for egotistical reasons. Moreover, all these Aspects, all these Personalities manifest constantly – but they never manifest for personal reason. Not one of them has ever thought of helping my body – besides, I don’t ask them to because that is not their purpose. But it is more than obvious that if the people around me were receptive, She could permanently manifest since they could receive Her – and this would help my body enormously because all these vibrations would run through it. But She never gets even a chance to manifest – not a single one. She only meets people ... who don’t even feel Her when She’s there! They don’t even notice Her, they’re not even aware of her presence. So how can She manifest in these conditions? I’m not going to ask Her, ‘Please come and change my body.’ We don’t have that kind of relationship! Furthermore, the body itself wouldn’t agree. It never thinks of itself, it never pays attention to itself, and besides, it is only through the work that it can be transformed...Yes, certainly ... had there been any receptivity when She came down and had She been able to manifest with the power with which She came ... But I can tell you one thing: even before Her coming, when, with Sri Aurobindo , I had begun going down (for the Yoga or calling down the Supramental Force) from the mental plane to the vital plane, when we brought our yoga down from the mental plane into the vital plane, in less than a month (I was forty years old at the time – I didn’t seem very old, I looked less than forty, but I was forty anyway), after no more than a month of this yoga, I looked exactly like an 18 year old! And someone who knew me and had stayed with me in Japan came here, and when he saw me, he could scarcely believe his eyes! He said, ‘But my god, is it you?’ I said, ‘Of course!' Only when we went down from the vital plane into the physical plane, all this went away – because on the physical plane, the work is much harder and we had so much to do, so many things to change... But if a force like Hers could manifest and be received here, it would have INESTIMABLE results! ... Well, I am only telling you all this because I thought someone might ask me about it, but otherwise ... I don’t have that kind of relationship with Her. You see, if you consider this body, this poor body, it is very innocent: it in no way tries to draw attention to itself nor to attract forces nor to do anything at all except its work – as best it can. And that’s how it stands: its importance is proportionate to its usefulness ... and to the significance the world attributes to it – since its action is for the world.” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-I/p-45/ August 25, 1954

Sri Aurobindo's Consciousness “The consciousness is like a ladder: at each great epoch there has been one great being capable of adding one more step to the ladder and reaching a place where the ordinary consciousness had never been. It is possible to attain a high level and get completely out of the material consciousness; but then one does not retain the ladder, whereas the great achievement of the great epochs of the universe has been the capacity to add one more step to the ladder without losing contact with the material, the capacity to reach the Highest and at the same time connect the top with the bottom instead of letting a kind of emptiness cut off all connection between the different planes. To go up and down and join the top to the bottom is the whole secret of realisation, and that is the work of the Avatar. Each time he adds one more step to the ladder there is a new creation upon earth.... The step which is being added now Sri Aurobindo has called the Supramental; as a result of it, the consciousness will be able to enter the supramental world and yet retain its personal form its individualisation and then come down to establish here a new creation.” The Mother The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol.3/p-178-179, Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness “…what Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history, is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. And I am just trying to fulfill that action.”²² The Mother “Sri Aurobindo is the Lord, but only a part of the Lord, not the Lord of His totality because the Lord is All—all that is manifested and all that is not manifested. There is nothing that is not the Lord..., but those who are conscious of the Lord are very rare. And this unconsciousness of the creation is what constitutes its Falsehood.”¹⁸ The Mother “Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.”²³ The Mother Sri Aurobindo represents, the Being, the Spirit, the Sat, initially the static state of Impersonal Divine Consciousness and finally 'the total Consciousness '³⁵ of the Eternal, which gathers together all experience in the truth of a supreme and all-reconciling Oneness; this Consciousness of 'Knowledge of the Whole'³⁶ is at once the Purusha’s possession and the full conscious control of the Prakriti and by its pressure the transformation of Soul and Nature in Ignorance is experienced; increasing manifestation of Ishwara in the cosmic Being who dynamises out of Himself as increasing manifestation of Ishwari in the cosmic Nature and distinction between Ishwara and Shakti begins to disappear to support Their Divine union and universalised individuality and possession of complete Power and Presence of the Divine in every cell of the body and beyond it there could be the Consciousness of the Avatara , assuming a human name and form for the Transcendent Action, Supreme Creation, Delight of active oneness of Brahman with Maya leading one to the origin of the Existence and Sachchidananda Consciousness of the Divine Lila . This evolving Divinity is paralysed when approached wrongly through the limitation of consciousness. To limit the Illimitable and divide the Indivisible are identified as the first sin of a Spiritual man. For him, the Divine is primarily Impersonal and secondarily Personal. Wherever this sequence is compromised, there Spirituality diminishes into a slow evolutionary movement of efficient self-expansive Religion. His sin seems to become great when instead of becoming a conscious channel and instrument of the Divine, he attempts to correct the imperfection of God’s unfinished world manifestation, who works out the distorting creation, Maya, through wisdom which went forth since the beginning of creation. The corrective measure of this sin of finding fault of the Faultless Creator is that he would under no circumstance ‘set the power and knowledge in him against the power and knowledge of others or affirm himself as an ego striving against other egos.’²⁰ His greater sin is to live content with blissful inner life of ‘golden impotence’²¹ without any force to change the harsh outer life or his exclusive conversion of inner life of thought and feeling without corresponding similar transformation of surface life and body would result in some ‘maimed achievement.’¹⁹ The sin born out of this static blissful seclusion is corrected by dynamising the triple wheel of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti Yoga together simultaneously by giving equal importance to the evolution of these three Soul Forces of Sachchidananda . His last and greatest sin is the ‘spiritual pride’¹ which prevents him from embracing the whole of existence through some exclusive preoccupation and restricts his relation with the all-inclusive, all-embracing and all-exceeding Divine through some partial Divine union. For him, all exclusive enjoyments are imperfect, relative and incomplete accounts of Divine Bliss and perfection comes when this joy is shared by all. An active mind has the capability of possessing the Divine partly, whereas through the passive mind, the Divine is capable of possessing the mind entirely. Similarly Integral Yoga confirms that truth and practice of the greatest Shastra or written truth, which is a preoccupation of active mind, can lead one to the ‘partial expression of the eternal Knowledge’³ and for entire knowledge one must lean on the Soul, the seat of supreme Shastra and ‘the eternal Veda ’⁹ and the former confirms that a Sadhaka may follow one or many Shastras to awaken in him a crowning varieties of highest Spiritual experiences and the latter confirms that this must culminate by becoming ‘a Sadhaka of the Eternal’³ beyond all written truth. The study and practice of Sri Aurobindo’s writings can be used as a means of a double evolution, slow surface mental evolution and swift inner evolution in three ascending stages through the development of Intellect and Intuition. (1) Firstly, if this effort is utilised for exclusive development of the intellect, then even a severely trained intellect is considered as an inexhaustible source of distortion and its critical control over spiritual experience can be hampering and unreliable.²⁸ In spite of the above limitation, Intellect can help in the evolution of the outward nature and the evolution of mind to its greatest possible range, height and subtlety, which is necessary for the unveiling an entirely intuitive intelligence. (2) Secondly, if this exercise is used as a means of exclusive development of Intuition, then there will be the evolution of the Spiritual being but this development is a world escaping and heaven seeking Spirituality. (3) And lastly, if this exercise is used as a means of developing both Intuition and Intellect, with Intellect granted a subordinate status of only verifying the rich harvest of Intuitive truth and then a comprehensive change of double evolution of outer and inner nature becomes practicable. The Supreme Truth revealed to Sri Aurobindo through His writings is divided into two parts, that of (1) firstly, the truth and practice descended sufficiently through His sadhana which is necessary for a Sadhaka to build his strong Spiritual foundation and (2) secondly, the highest descended truth hinted in one book is either developed in another book or not developed during His life time and these hints are necessary for a Sadhaka for unfolding of endless Truth endlessly, integration and perfection of his whole being and nature. So, this double utility in the practice of integral Yoga by organising anew all the past revelations can open a passage towards Sri Aurobindo’s Supreme Influence. The Highest Hinted Truth of The Synthesis of Yoga : The main contribution of The Synthesis of Yoga to the world is that it universalises the individual consciousness and helps to resolve the most difficult problem of integration of the human and Divine personality through the middle or link plane of Vijnana which interposes the triune glory of the utter Spirit, the Infinite Existence, Consciousness and Bliss of the Eternal and our lower triple nature of Mind, Life and Body. The Gita developed sufficiently the divine mystery of Purusha Yajna and hinted little about Prakriti Yajna. Sri Aurobindo was able to go beyond the Gita by developing and exploring the highest secret hinted in it, which is through pursuance of Integral Karma Yoga , Integral Jnana Yoga , Integral Bhakti Yoga and the Integral Yoga of Self-perfection one arrives at the dynamisation of four Divine Shaktis, chatvaro manabastatha ⁶ , that of Mahasaraswati, Maheswari, Mahalakshmi and Mahakali respectively leading a liberated Soul towards the liberation of Nature. This exercise in The Synthesis of Yoga is further complemented by developing the highest truth of Purusha Yajna hinted in the Upanishads resulting in The Life Divine and developing the highest truth of Prakriti Yajna hinted in the Veda, resulting in The Mother and the Savitri books. The Integral Shastra provides a similar opportunity and absolute liberty to identify and restate the highest secrets hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga and explore the possible means to extend these experiences which need not be restricted within the limitation of intellectual exercise but a subject of profound and deep Spiritual experience. 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 towards the Source, the Sachchidananda . So an evolution of integral method is recommended in which all the faculties related with integral perfection is included. 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, Lower true Mental, Psychic, Higher Mental or Spiritual, Universal, Supramental and Bliss Self. The uncovering of the ten Purushas and perfection of their encircling ten koshas , sheaths, and 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 got 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 were beyond its scope. 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 hints 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 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 The Synthesis of Yoga are restated, systematized, extensively developed and made available for further exploration to the human race. The Life Divine Beyond the existing ordinary Life: “Even on the struggling Nature left below Strong periods of illumination came: 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 “Even when we fail to look into our souls Or lie embedded in earthly consciousness, Still have we parts that grow towards the light, Yet are there luminous tracts and heavens serene And Eldorados of splendour and ecstasy And temples to the godhead none can see.” Savitri-46-47 “Awaiting some tremendous dawn of God, He saw the purpose in the works of Time. Even in that aimlessness a work was done (the Divine work) Pregnant with magic will and change divine.” Savitri-137-138 (Transformation of Nature) “A fragment here is caught of heaven’s design; Else could we never hope for greater life And ecstasy and glory could not be. Even in the littleness of our mortal state, Even in this prison-house of outer form, A brilliant passage for the infallible Flame Is driven through gross walls of nerve and brain, A Splendour presses or a Power breaks through, Earth’s great dull barrier is removed awhile, The inconscient seal is lifted from our eyes And we grow vessels of creative might.” Savitri-108 “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 "In an outbreak of the might of secret Spirit, In Life and Matter’s answer of delight, Some face of deathless beauty could be caught That gave immortality to a moment’s joy, Some word that could incarnate highest Truth Leaped out from a chance tension of the soul, Some hue of the Absolute could fall on life, Some glory of knowledge and intuitive sight, Some passion of the rapturous heart of Love." Savitri-175-176 “Even with the Light denied that sent her forth And the hope dead she needed for her task, Even when her brightest stars are quenched in Night, Nourished by hardship and calamity And with pain for her body’s handmaid, masseuse, nurse, Her tortured invisible spirit continues still To toil though in darkness, to create though with pangs; She carries crucified God upon her breast.” Savitri-180 "In anguish we labour that from us may rise A larger-seeing man with nobler heart, A golden vessel of the incarnate Truth, The executor of the divine attempt Equipped to wear the earthly body of God, Communicant and prophet and lover and king." Savitri-342 “Even when she bent to meet earth’s intimacies Her spirit kept the stature of the gods; It stooped but was not lost in Matter’s reign. A world translated was her gleaming mind, And marvel-mooned bright crowding fantasies Fed with spiritual sustenance of dreams The ideal goddess in her house of gold.” Savitri-356 "All our earth starts from mud and ends in sky, And Love that was once an animal’s desire, Then a sweet madness in the rapturous heart, An ardent comradeship in the happy mind, Becomes a wide spiritual yearning’s space. A lonely soul passions for the Alone, The heart that loved man thrills to the love of God, A body is his chamber and his shrine." Savitri-632 Can one imagine the establishment of Consciousness in the Life Divine? It is beyond our mental capacity, but that can only come to our necessity when we have sufficiently evolved in the whole range of Consciousness to see it as our principal endeavour. But the establishment of Consciousness in the Life Divine also asks more effort, the manner in which Sri Aurobindo pursued forty years of concentrated Tapasya in isolation. Those who have approached Sri Aurobindo with their active mind gained little of His vast Spiritual wealth and those who have approached Him in passive or silent mind can become fit to carry ahead of His mission. The first part of this effort asks that we must dare to go below the clear surfaces of things on which the mind loves to dwell, to tempt the vast and obscure fields of Inconscient world towards the Divine Light, to penetrate the unfathomable depths of consciousness and identify ourselves with states of being that will lead us towards an infinite series of Spiritual experiences which can build a strong Spiritual foundation; the second part of the effort identifies the highest Spiritual experiences hinted in The Life Divine and the last part of the effort their full development and consummation. The Life Divine teaches us to learn the lesson of movement of ascending and descending Consciousness. Those who have learned this lesson, they know the Mother partly. By intensification of this movement they can know Her entirely, samagram mam . In The Life Divine, the knowledge hinted but not sufficiently developed in The Synthesis of Yoga is restated again, with greater intensity, finer precision, larger universal approach and clearly spelt hierarchies between the Matter and the Spirit, seven-fold Ignorance and seven-fold Integral Knowledge, Exclusive Concentration and Integral Concentration, Separative Knowledge by indirect contact and Knowledge by Identity, Higher Mind and Supermind, Inconscient self and Bliss self; gives us ample opportunity to go beyond Buddha, Shankara and the Gita ; defines Religion, Modern Science and Occultism in their evolutionary context and possible emergence of Divine community, for the wider and total benefit of the humanity; so the norms imposed by The Synthesis of Yoga for the Sadhakas of Integral Yoga and the norms imposed by The Life Divine for the comprehensive growth and intense evolution of the individual and the race are almost same. And again in Savitri, the issues that are hinted but not sufficiently developed in The Life Divine , are profoundly experienced which are identified as the Presence of Divine in the Inconscient sheath, the passage through which ordinary destiny of man can be shifted to higher Spiritual and Supramental destiny, transformation of human love into Divine Love through intermediate stair of Subtle physical love, the finding of the soul through movements of successive layers of desire souls and intermediate soul forces, the secret of true association of the incarnating dual Power where the law of departure is applicable, which means the evolutionary leap can be experienced without undergoing through the experience of successive stages of ascending evolution, the experience of transforming Divine force in the different sheaths without experiencing any actual feeling of Divine descent, adhering to psycho-physical method of sadhana through japa and cataleptic trance during difficult journey in the inconscient realm and critical stages of sadhana like conquest of physical death etc. Savitri also hints about five gradations of transformation of Nature that of slow, constant, high, comprehensive and instantaneous change, that reinforced the triple transformation hinted in The Life Divine that of the Psychic, the Spiritual and the Supramental. The Life Divine provides opportunity for five gradations of ascending humanity to arrive at the Divine Life, which is at once the mundane Ignorance and the Supra-mundane Knowledge and their effective reconciliation. The sons of Death have ascended through these gradations to become the children of Immortality. 1: Mundane: A mundane renounces the inner subjective life of the Spirit and concentrates on the outward material life to arrive at the highest human perfection. He feels comfortable and deeply satisfied with his outer living without any contact with the Divine. 2: Moderate: Moderate spirituality provides material man the means to enter the secrets of existence through Religion, which is an ‘unconscious Yoga of Nature through devotion’ and through Science, which is an ‘unconscious Yoga of Nature through Intellect’. A moderate is satisfied with his partial union with the Divine. 3: Ascetic or Later Vedantic Saint: The path of the Ascetic is the path of an equal indifference and renunciation leading to the distant Bliss of the Sachchidananda consciousness, transcendent of the universe and aloof from outer life. The Life Divine declares, “In practice also the ascetic spirit is an indispensable element in human perfection;”¹² which liberates humanity from the subjection “to an always insistent animalism.”¹² 4: Consecrated Individual or Ancient Vedantic Seer: The path of a consecrated individual is the path of indispensable surrender and loss of ego leading to the all-embracing Bliss of the Sachchidananda consciousness which is at once individual, universal and transcendent and possession of an all-pervading equal delight; it is the path of the ancient Vedantic sages who affirmed that the perfect and the liberating knowledge excludes neither the Self nor its Creations and he is preoccupied in organising the world and its objects through reconciliation of perfect Spirit with imperfect Matter. 5: Virgin or High-bred golden Maiden of the Veda, Surya Savitri: The Life Divine declares that difficult ascension in the path of the Divine Life becomes easy and facile to those who dwell from the beginning on a ‘virgin stuff of mind and matter’⁷ and they act upon the world from the ‘fortress’⁸ of their inner Psychic being and in the inmost sanctuary of this inner world they are alone with the Divine and one with the supreme Existence. This established inner seclusion is the highest hinted secret Truth of collective living of The Life Divine is further developed in Savitri , where this Supreme Shastra promises that the earth life can be made equal and peer of Heaven and Heaven’s joy can be stabilized on earth if Earth can be made pure and virgin. That is the condition of the complete descent of the Unknowable of which the individual is a channel and centre of the universe, collectivity is a condition and field and humanity is a mould and circumscription. A similar five-fold ascension of consciousness is also observed in Savitri, where Death is projected as the Mundane Godhead who has spread his net of death over the whole world to easily catch the weaker section of the humanity and he understands world through the mundane eye. King Aswapati’s wife, the Queen of Madra , represents the moderate Spiritualist who has realised God but is ignorant of God’s power that can transform human nature and subsequently human destiny. King Aswapati represents the concentrated effort, Tapasya , askesis aspect of the hard ascetic living and he was capable of bringing down the Divine Mother to earthly tenement through his Spiritual Power. Satyavan represents the fit vessel of consecration by loss of ego at the feet of the Divine Mother and has the spirit of the ancient Vedic Rishi who has equal regard and reverence for both Matter and Spirit to find their reconciliation. And lastly we find the Virgin Savitri, a concentration of the universal Mother for earth’s salvation, whose path was to annul herself to find the Supreme alone and her strong subtle physical Presence could not be caught by the Death’s net and she further extended her power to save her consecrated child and playmate, Satyavan , who is at once the Godhead, the doomed husband and the representative Soul of the whole of humanity. So, to escape from death, a mundane has to shun attachment to outward living and outward enjoyment and has to enter human perfection of physical substance. Then, as a moderate, he turns outer into inner life to realise God. Then this partial realisation is to be universalized and transcended through the increase of concentration or tapasya which will culminate in total consecration to call down the entire presence of the Divine Mother. The more one enters the subtler world the more it becomes difficult for Death to catch in his world spreading death-trap. Death is conquered through the complete possession of the Divine Mother, which is an unfolding of the unending mystery of the Spirit. Those who want to go beyond the ordinary earth-bound life or develop the highest hinted secret of The Life Divine, of arriving at fullness of Being, fullness of Consciousness and fullness of Life can receive Savitri’s assistance. Since Savitri and Satyavan were the first woman and man³³ of the earth from the beginning of creation, they evolved from their mundane²⁹ identity. Satyavan’s early days in the Shalwa’s forest land were to think, act, enjoy and breathe like other mundane man and yet he had the brief partial glimpse of deeper Self. Then a ‘truth was felt’ in his moderate life ‘that screened its shape from mind.’³⁰ A moderate is oblivious of future doom and is preoccupied with present moments. An awareness of future doom comes through vision, and by consecration, Divine union is experienced and the doom changes. The moderate Satyavan , who lived in the illumined Soul ray of God’s touch but was not ready to face the eternal Sun of His constant embrace, became ascetic Satyavan, when this surface concentration of the Divine ray penetrated heart and flesh. This ascetic Divine realisation could not bridge the gulf between Matter and Spirit. When he concentrated on the world, he lost God and when he concentrated on God, he lost the world. With Savitri’s arrival, this gulf was bridged and the consecrated Satyavan became King Child and was able to live and face the sunlight, representing Vijnana . And in the cosmic Consciousness of Vijnana, the Spirit and Matter are reconciled and Matter’s or physical body’s fixed death-bound destiny and grooves of Iron law are changed into the Spirit’s immortal all life. This is a passage from mere mundane man² ⁹ incarnating to the integral ascending Godhead of the race or ‘the soul of man climbing to God,’³ ² and its destined saviour. Satyavan’s Godhead status does not prevent him from living ‘in one house with the primal beast’³¹ in the forest, colloquies with the Djinn and Asuras of the Subconscient world; thus, in the Divine’s single plan ‘high meets the low’³¹ or ‘God’s summits look back on the mute Abyss;’³¹ accepts to be small and human on earth. This is the emergence of Lord Satyavan, ³⁴ for whom Savitri fought with dark Godhead in Death’s Night. Through this hard sacrificial action, the highest Divine Consciousness of the Avatar is reconciled with the lowest consciousness of earth. The Highest hinted Truth of The Mother Book developed in Savitri : “It left mind’s distance from the Truth supreme” Savitri-44 “A Truth supreme has forced the world to be;” Savitri-658 “Fragments of Truth supreme have lit his soul,” Savitri-659 “All-ruler, ruled by none, the Truth supreme,” Savitri-661 “The Truth supreme, vast and impersonal” Savitri-662 “O Death, if thou couldst touch the Truth supreme” Savitri-663 “If Truth supreme transcends her shadow here” Savitri-663 “Then shall the Truth supreme be given to men:” Savitri-705 “This independent, once a power supreme,” Savitri-542 “The quintessence glowed of Life’s supreme delight.” Savitri-120 “Only to be was a supreme delight,” Savitri-124 “In the deep breast of God’s supreme delight.” Savitri-200 “Happy to enjoy one touch of things supreme,” Savitri-238 “There leaps out unity’s supreme delight” Savitri-324 “Yet are they instruments of a Will supreme,” Savitri-378 The Mother’s Mediatrix Spiritual Mother identity hinted in ‘The Mother’ book is fulfilled and culminated as Supreme Creatrix Mother identity in Savitri . In Savitri, the Overmental Power of Maheswari is culminated in the Supramental experience of Truth supreme, which is identified as highest Spiritual/Supramental experience of the Savitri book and by its activation Savitri could conquer Death. King Aswapati had the brief touch of this experience of Truth Supreme which is described as 'Upheld to a Light it could not always hold.'²⁴ Similarly, the Overmental Power of Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati are culminated as Supramental Shakti of Power supreme, supreme Delight and Will supreme respectively. The Divine action of The Mother as the Four Overmental Mahashaktis of The Mother book is also to be related with the Mother of All Life extending from ‘a force in her that toiled since the earth was made’¹⁰ to the final promise of Savitri that ‘The mighty Mother shall (again) take birth in Time’¹¹ . She is also to be strongly related with the four Psychic Mother Powers that of Brhahma Shakti, Kshatriya Shakti, Vaisya Shakti and Shudra Shakti , as hinted in The Synthesis of Yoga and the Supramental Mother known as Maya , or the power of the Brahman as hinted in The Life Divine and the four attributes of the Supramental Mother as indicated in Savitri. This exercise also again wants to uncover the Mother from ‘folds of velvet darkness’² ⁶ in the Subconscient cave and the Mother seated in the many petalled lotus throne of 'the thousand-pillared temple'²⁷ of Inconscient sheath. Then above the Supramental plane and below the Inconscient plane She is identified as the Bliss Mother, who has pervaded all these worlds, sheaths and planes of Consciousness. These experiences will lead us to the Source of existence where King Aswapati saw: “This world of bliss he saw and felt its call, But found no way to enter into its joy; Across the conscious gulf there was no bridge.” Savitri-128 “There he beheld in their mighty union’s poise The figure of deathless Two-in-One, A single being in two bodies clasped, A diarchy of two united souls, Seated absorbed in deep creative joy; Their trance of bliss sustained the mobile world.” Savitri-295 Savitri fully explores Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Mother Powers which are dynamised after the opening of the Psychic Being, Spiritual Being and Supramental being, either through ascent of Consciousness, Vedantic sacrifice or through the descent of Divine Consciousness, Vedic sacrifice. Here in Savitri the Vedic sacrifice is developed to such extent that it gives birth to Integral Tantra Yoga , if rightly pursued then the Sadhaka of Integral Yoga can compress his evolution of many centuries into few years. The Highest Hinted Spiritual and Supramental experience in Savitri: The highest hinted Spiritual secret of Savitri is the entire descent of the Supreme Mother and the Supreme Lord with all their attributes of Truth Supreme, Love Supreme, Delight Supreme, Knowledge Supreme, Beauty Supreme, Power Supreme, Life Supreme, Light Supreme, Silence Supreme, Peace Supreme, Word Supreme, Voice Supreme and Void Supreme, followed by the discovery of the Divine in the Subconscient and Inconscient Self and entry into the virgin forest of multiple subtle bodies and sheaths to which no one has ever trod. A part of the highest hinted truths of Savitri are segregated into five parts, that of Morning Prayer, Noon Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer and General Prayer, so that it can be concentrated and contemplated on. The task of a Sadhak of integral Yoga is to utilise and organise the highest hinted truth as seed of future developed knowledge. This exercise is also identified in Savitri language 'His small beginnings asked for a mighty end.'²⁵ Through prolonged Sadhana the highest hinted Truth of Savitri can be transformed into highest developed Truth which is identified as fulfilment of Intgral Yoga's task of unfolding endless truth endlessly or "An endless Truth she endlessly unfolds; A timeless mystery works out in Time." (Savitri-178) Morning Prayer (Her Future Task): "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 "Overpowered were earth and Nature’s obsolete rule; The python coils of the restricting Law Could not restrain the swift arisen God: Abolished were the scripts of destiny." Savitri-82 "But many-visaged is the cosmic Soul; A touch (of cosmic Self) 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 "A fiery stillness wakes the slumbering cells, A passion of the flesh becoming spirit, And marvellously is fulfilled at last The miracle for which our life was made." Savitri-278 “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 "Omnipotence, girdle with the power of God Movements and moments of a mortal will, Pack with the eternal might one human hour And with one gesture change all future time." Savitri-345 “A Magician’s formulas have made Matter’s laws... All here can change if the Magician choose. If human will could be made one with God’s, If human thought could echo the thoughts of God, Man might be all-knowing and omnipotent... Then is he a miracle doing miracles.” Savitri-457-58 "All now is changed, yet all is still the same. Lo, we have looked upon the face of God, Our life has opened with divinity. We have borne identity with the Supreme And known his meaning in our mortal lives." Savitri-719 "A Power arose out of my slumber’s cell." Savitri-343 "Almighty powers are shut in Nature’s cells" Savitri-370 "Achieve perfection by the magic throb" Savitri-112 "Of Beauty’s touch transfiguring heart and sense" Savitri-195 "And could in a moment dangerously change." Savitri-206 "And the world change with the beauty of a smile." Savitri-290 "Even a brief nearness has reshaped my life" Savitri-406 "Because of change within me by thy look." Savitri-408 "Although her kingdom of magic transformation within Remained unspoken in her secret breast, All that lived round her felt its magic’s charm:" Savitri-532 "All the world’s values changed heightening life’s aim;" Savitri-42 "All’s miracle here and can by miracle change." Savitri-85 "Where all seems sure and, even when changed, the same," Savitri-69 "All is a miracle of symmetric charm, A fantasy of perfect line and rule." Savitri-113 "And when that greater Self comes sea-like down To fill this image of our transience, All shall be captured by delight transformed." Savitri-171 "Proclaiming a panacea for all Time’s ills" Savitri-198 "Healed were all things that Time’s torn heart had made" Savitri-232 "And the almighty source of cosmic change." Savitri-298 "He had reached the top of all that can be known:" Savitri-300 "All he had been and all towards which he grew Must now be left behind or else transform Into a self of That which has no name." Savitri-307 “All now is changed, yet all is still the same. Lo, we have looked upon the face of God, Our life has opened with divinity. We have borne identity with the Supreme And known his meaning in our mortal lives.” Savitri-719 Noon Prayer (Her Unfinished Work): "A whisper lures to evil the human heart, It seals up wisdom’s eyes, the soul’s regard, It is the origin of our suffering here, It binds earth to calamity and pain." Savitri-448 "Our souls can visit in great lonely hours Still regions of imperishable Light, All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss And calm immensities of spirit space." Savitri-47 "I keep my will to save the world and man; Even the charm of thy alluring voice, O blissful Godhead, cannot seize and snare. I sacrifice not earth to happier worlds." Savitri-692 "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 "An invisible sunlight ran within her veins And flooded her brain with heavenly brilliances That woke a wider sight than earth could know." Savitri-356 "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 "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 Evening Prayer (Her Mighty Task): "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 "A secret spirit in the Inconscient’s sleep, A shapeless Energy, a voiceless Word, He was here before the elements could emerge, Before there was light of mind or life could breathe." Savitri-60 "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 (in Inconscient sheath). A grand solution closed the long impasse In which the heights of mortal effort end." Savitri-89 "A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff, A bliss is born that can remake our life." Savitri-397 "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 "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 "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 "Break into eternity thy mortal mould; Melt, lightning, into thy invisible flame! Clasp, Ocean, deep into thyself thy wave, Happy for ever in the embosoming surge. Grow one with the still passion of the depths. Then shalt thou know the Lover and the Loved, Leaving the limits dividing him and thee. Receive him into boundless Savitri, Lose thyself into infinite Satyavan." Savitri-691-92 "Housing a multitudinous embrace To marry all in God’s immense delight, Bearing the eternity of every spirit, Bearing the burden of universal love, A wonderful mother of unnumbered souls." Savitri-695 "Yet were there regions where these absolutes met And made a circle of bliss with married hands; Light stood embraced by light, fire wedded fire, But none in the other would his body lose To find his soul in the world’s single Soul, A multiplied rapture of infinity." Savitri-282 "Aspiring to the monarchy of the sun They call in Truth for their high government, Hold her incarnate in their daily acts And fill their thoughts with her inspired voice And shape their lives into her breathing form, Till in her sun-gold godhead they too share." Savitri-185 "A consciousness that saw without a seer, The Truth where knowledge is not nor knower nor known, The Love enamoured of its own delight In which the Lover is not nor the Beloved Bringing their personal passion into the Vast, The Force omnipotent in quietude, The Bliss that none can ever taste." Savitri-525 Night Prayer (The Unfinished Story of Her Soul): "My Love is stronger than the bonds of Fate: Our love is the heavenly seal of the Supreme. I guard the seal against thy (Death’s) rending hands. Love must not cease to live upon the earth; For Love is the bright link twixt earth and heaven, Love is the far Transcendent’s angel here; Love is man’s lien on the Absolute." Savitri-633 "He who would save the world must be one with the world," Savitri-537 "One man’s perfection still can save the world." Savitri-531 "One soul’s ambition lifted up the race;" Savitri-44 "And guards the world with its all seeing gaze." Savitri-317 "He mastered the tides of Nature with a look:" Savitri-219 "Its (Supramental Being’s) gaze controls the turbulent whirl of things." Savitri-571 "Her aspiration called high destiny down;" Savitri-358 "It bore the stroke of That which kills and saves." Savitri-20 "His brain was wrapped in overwhelming light, An all-embracing knowledge seized his heart: Thoughts rose in him no earthly mind can hold, Mights played that never coursed through mortal nerves: He scanned the secrets of the Overmind, He bore the rapture of the Oversoul." Savitri-302 "A Heart was felt in the spaces wide and bare, A burning Love from white spiritual founts Annulled the sorrow of the ignorant depths; Suffering was lost in her immortal smile. A Life from beyond grew conqueror here of death; To err no more was natural to mind; Wrong could not come where all was light and love." Savitri-313-14 "All underwent a high celestial change:" Savitri-529 "A deeper interpretation greatened Truth, A grand reversal of the Night and Day; All the world’s values changed heightening life’s aim; A wiser word, a larger thought came in Than what the slow labour of human mind can bring, A secret sense awoke that could perceive A Presence and a Greatness everywhere." Savitri-42 "All worlds she makes the partners of her deeds, Accomplices of her mighty violence, Her daring leaps into the impossible:" Savitri-86 "A last high world was seen where all worlds meet; In its summit gleam where Night is not nor Sleep, The light began of the Trinity supreme." Savitri-89 "This earth is not alone our teacher and nurse; The powers of all the worlds have entrance here." Savitri-153 "Into a wonderful bodiless realm he came, The home of a passion without name or voice, A depth he felt answering to every height, A nook was found that could embrace all worlds, A point that was the conscious knot of Space, An hour eternal in the heart of Time. A point that was the conscious knot of Space, An hour eternal in the heart of Time. The silent Soul of all the world was there:" Savitri-290-291 "His large identity and all-harbouring love Shall bring the cosmic anguish into his depths, The sorrow of all living things shall come And knock at his doors and live within his house; A dreadful cord of sympathy can tie All suffering into his single grief and make All agony in all the worlds his own." Savitri-446 "Into the eternal Light he shall emerge On borders of the meeting of all worlds; There on the verge of Nature’s summit steps The secret Law of each thing is fulfilled, All contraries heal their long dissidence." Savitri-450-51 "Then listening to the thunder’s fatal crash And the fugitive pattering footsteps of the showers And the long unsatisfied panting of the wind And sorrow muttering in the sound-vexed night, The grief of all the world came near to her." Savitri-468-469 "Above her brows where will and knowledge meet A mighty Voice invaded mortal space. It seemed to come from inaccessible heights And yet was intimate with all the world And knew the meaning of the steps of Time And saw eternal destiny’s changeless scene Filling the far prospect of the cosmic gaze." Savitri-474 "All the world’s possibilities in man Are waiting as the tree waits in its seed: His past lives in him; it drives his future’s pace; His present’s acts fashion his coming fate." Savitri-482 "One day I will return, His hand in mine, And thou shalt see the face of the Absolute. Then shall the holy marriage be achieved, Then shall the divine family be born. There shall be light and peace in all the worlds ." Savitri-521 "Yet all the worlds and God himself were there, For every symbol was a reality And brought the presence which had given it life." Savitri-525 "It plunged into the unfathomable deeps And found no end to the silent mystery That held all world within one lonely breast, Yet harboured all creation’s multitudes." Savitri-555 "She was a single being, yet all things; The world was her spirit’s wide circumference, The thoughts of others were her intimates, Their feelings close to her universal heart, Their bodies her many bodies kin to her; She was no more herself but all the world ." Savitri-556 "Nowhere she dwelt, her spirit was everywhere, The distant constellations wheeled round her; Earth saw her born, all worlds were her colonies, The greater worlds of life and mind were hers; All Nature reproduced her in its lines, Its movements were large copies of her own." Savitri-557 "A few have dared the last supreme ascent And break through borders of blinding light above, And feel a breath around of mightier air, Receive a vaster being’s messages And bathe in its immense intuitive Ray." Savitri-659 "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 General Prayer (The World’s Enormous Task): "Impenetrable, a mystery recondite Is the vast plan of which we are a part; Its harmonies are discords to our view Because we know not the great theme they serve." Savitri-160 "Aspiring to the monarchy of the sun They call in Truth for their high government, Hold her incarnate in their daily acts And fill their thoughts with her inspired voice And shape their lives into her breathing form, Till in her sun-gold godhead they too share." Savitri-185 "Only to attract her veiled companion And keep him close to her breast in her world-cloak Lest from her arms he turn to his formless peace, Is her heart’s business and her clinging care." Savitri-181 (The relation between Supreme Self and Supreme Nature.) "As yet thought only some high spirit’s dream Or a vexed illusion in man’s toiling mind, A new creation from the old shall rise, A Knowledge inarticulate find speech, Beauty suppressed burst into paradise bloom, Pleasure and pain dive into absolute bliss." Savitri-330 "But few can look beyond the present state Or overleap this matted hedge of sense All that transpires on earth and all-beyond Are parts of an illimitable plan The One keeps in his heart and knows alone. Our outward happenings have their seed within, And even this random Fate that imitates Chance, This mass of unintelligible results, Are the dumb graph of truths that work unseen: The laws of the Unknown create the known." Savitri-52 "Infinite, coeval with the mind of God, It bore within itself a seed, a flame, A seed from which the Eternal is new born, A flame that cancels death in mortal things." Savitri-291 "Yet a foreseeing Knowledge might be ours, If we could take our spirit’s stand within, If we could hear the muffled daemon voice." Savitri-52 "For through a dress of blind and devious chance Is laid upon the work of all-wise Fate, Our acts interpret an omniscient Force That dwells in the compelling stuff of things, And nothing happens in the cosmic play But at its time and in its foreseen place." Savitri-389 "O Aswapati, random seem the ways Along whose banks your footsteps stray or run In casual hours or moments of the gods, Yet your least stumblings are foreseen above. … Heaven’s wiser love rejects the mortal’s prayer; Unblinded by the breath of his desire, Unclouded by the mists of fear and hope It bends above the strife of love with death; It keeps for her her privilege of pain." Savitri-456-57 "Fate is Truth working out in Ignorance. O King, thy fate is a transaction done At every hour between Nature and thy soul With God for its foreseeing arbiter. Fate is a balance drawn in Destiny’s book. Man can accept his fate, he can refuse. Even if the One maintains the unseen decree He writes thy refusal in thy credit page: For doom is not a close, a mystic seal… Thy fate is a long sacrifice to the gods Till they have opened to thee thy secret self And made thee one with the indwelling God."Savitri-458 "For out of danger and pain heaven-bliss shall come, Time’s unforeseen event, God’s secret plan. This world was not built with random bricks of Chance, A blind god is not destiny’s architect; A conscious power has drawn the plan of life, There is a meaning in each curve and line." Savitri-459 "A worshipped empress all once vied to serve, She made herself the diligent serf of all, Nor spared the labour of broom and jar and well, Or close gentle tending or to heap the fire Of altar and kitchen, no slight task allowed To others that her woman’s strength might do. In all her acts a strange divinity shone: Into a simplest movement she could bring A oneness with earth’s glowing robe of light, A lifting up of common acts by love." Savitri-470 "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 and its human part, The calm immortal and the struggling soul. Then with a magic transformation’s speed They rushed into each other and grew one." Savitri-527 "The voice that only by speech can move the mind Became a silent knowledge in the soul; The strength that only in action feels its truth Was lodged now in a mute omnipotent peace." Savitri-32 Her shining minutes of celestial speech, Passed through the masked office of the occult mind, Transmitting gave to prophet and to seer The inspired body of the mystic Truth. Savitri-39 Savitri’s World Conquering Impossible Task: "Whether to bear with Ignorance and death Or hew the ways of Immortalty, To win or lose the godlike game for man, Was her soul’s issue thrown with Destiny’s dice. But not to submit and suffer was she born; To lead, to deliver was her glorious part." Savitri-17 "Writing the unfinished story of her soul… Her single will opposed the comic rule. To stay the wheels of Doom this greatness rose." Savitri-19 "Moveless upholds the world’s enormous task," Savitri-58 "He is a spirit in an unfinished world" Savitri-71 "There work was play and play the only work, The tasks of heaven a game of god like might:" Savitri-126 "In nescience began her mighty task, In Ignorance she pursues the unfinished work," Savitri-135 "Her task no ending knows; she serves no aim But labours driven by a nameless Will That came from some unknowable formless Vast. This is her secret and impossible task To catch the boundless in a net of birth, To cast the spirit into the physical form, To lend speech and thought to the ineffable; She is pushed to reveal the ever Unmanifest. Yet by her skill the impossible has been done:" Savitri-177 "The unfinished creation of a changing soul" Savitri-178 "And the hope dead she needed for her task," Savitri-180 "They were figures crowding an unfinished sum." Savitri-187 "Always a farther task was left to do" Savitri-197 "To teach the Ignorance is her difficult charge, Her thought starts from an original nescient Void And what she teaches she herself must learn Arousing knowledge from its sleepy lair." Savitri-243-44 "For knowledge comes not to us as a guest Called into our chamber from the outer world; A friend and inmate of our secret self, It hid behind our minds and fell asleep And slowly wakes beneath the blows of life; The mighty daemon lies unshaped within, To evoke, to give it form is Nature’s task." Savitri-244 "She did the task, obeyed the knowledge given, Her deep heart yearned towards great ideal things And from the light looked out to wider light:" Savitri-256 "Something thou 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 "A mightier task remained than all he had done." Savitri-317 "His work unfinished he claims a heavenly prize." Savitri-338 "She took again her divine unfinished task:" Savitri-353 "Although our fallen minds forget to climb, Although our human stuff resists or breaks, She keeps her will that hopes to divinise clay; Failure cannot repress, defeat o’erthrow; Time cannot weary her nor the Void subdue, The ages have not made her passion less; No victory she admits of Death or Fate. Always she drives the soul to new attempt;" Savitri-354 "Nowhere she found her partner of high tasks," Savitri-366 "And went impelled on her unfinished way" Savitri-385 "He beheld the cosmic Being at his task,"Savitri-416 "Or must fire always test the great of soul? Along the dreadful causeway of the Gods, Armoured with love and faith and sacred joy, A traveler to the Eternal’s house, Once let unwounded pass a mortal life." Savitri-423 "Her eyes are fixed upon her mighty aim; No cry or prayer can turn her from her path." Savitri-427 "One voice that questioned changeless destiny, A will that strove against the immutable Will." Savitri-437 "Hard is the world-redeemer’s heavy task;… Those he would save are his antagonists:… He still must labour on, his work half done. … The world’s blows cannot bend his victor head; … Fate’s deaf resistance cannot break his will. … He has broken into the Inconscient’s depths That veil themselves even from their own regard: … He must call light into its dark abysms, … He must pass to the other shore of falsehood’s sea, He must enter the world’s dark to bring their light. The heart of evil must be bared to his eyes, He must learn its cosmic dark necessity, … He must know the thought that moves the demon act … He must enter the eternity of Night And know God’s darkness as he knows his Sun. For this he must go down into the pit, For this he must invade the dolorous Vasts. … He still must travel Hell the world to save. Into the eternal light he shall emerge … Then shall the world-redeemer’s task be done." Savitri-448-51 "A greatness in thy daughter’s soul resides That can transform herself and all around But must cross on stones of suffering to its goal. Although designed like a nectar cup of heaven, Of heavenly ether made she sought this air, She too must share the human need of grief And all her cause of joy transmute to pain." Savitri-457 "Her lonely strength facing the universe, Affronting fate, asks not man’s help nor god’s:.. Alone she is equal to her mighty task." Savitri-460 "Think not to turn her from her heaven-sent task, Strive not to save her from her own high will." Savitri-461 "Thou hast come down into a struggling world To aid a blind and suffering mortal race, To open to Light the eyes that could not see, To bring down bliss into the heart of grief, To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven; If thou wouldst save the toiling universe, The vast universal suffering feel as thine: Thou must bear the sorrow that thou claimst to heal; The day-bringer must walk in darkest night. He who would save the world must share its pain. If he knows not grief, how shall he find grief’s cure?" Savitri-537 "Our tasks are given, we are but instruments; Nothing is all our own that we create:" Savitri-542 "Darkness below, a fathomless Light above, In Light are joined, but sundered by severing Mind Stand face to face, opposite, inseparable, Two contraries needed for his great World-task, Two poles whose currents wake the immense World-Force." Savitri-656-57 "In vain thou tempest with solitary bliss Two spirits saved out of a suffering world; My soul and his indissolubly linked In the one task for which our lives were born, To raise the world to God in deathless Light, To bring God down to the world on earth we came, To change the earthly life to life divine." Savitri-692 Beyond Savitri: “The lyric of love that waits through Time And the mystic volume of the book of Bliss And the message of the superconscient Fire.” Savitri-232 “If Divine Love were to manifest now in all its fullness and totality, not a single material organism would but burst”¹⁴ Sri Aurobindo There are still streams of the Divine love that have not yet manifested in the earth’s atmosphere and shall manifest when earth and its prepared individuals are ready to hold it. The Savitri book hints that there is still a subtle Savitri emerging from the secret Subtle, Superconscient and Supramental world from which the inexhaustible source of Knowledge, Love and Delight can pour in to bring completion and fullness of earth’s Divine manifestation. Those words can be recorded in ‘The Book of Bliss’, which is hinted as knowledge beyond Savitri . Savitri hints that Death can be conquered by increasing the Love force that binds earth to the Supreme. For such Divine Love to manifest upon earth, earth must be capable of holding the Divine Love in its entirety. Savitri indicates sufficiently that the present humanity is satisfied with its mundane and moderate existence and is not ready for physical immortality and conquest of death. Its mental development is closed between the two firmaments of brute outwardness and subjection of word and images or sound and sight and refuses to plunge within. In this slow evolution the Death acts as a guardian of Truth and devours all that cannot stand the pressure of the change and transformation. Death was able to see a fragment of Truth supreme in Savitri which made him powerless and he managed to escape into his inconscient home. The slaying of Death or transformation of Death in his Inconscient home was left as an issue for the future incarnation of the Divine Mother or future Savitri who will be able to possess the highest siddhi or perfection of Truth supreme, entirely to conquer and eliminate Death from earth’s scene. The present earth is an unfinished story of Savitri , the all Mother and the present Savitri has extended herself through future incarnations of her mortal form. The Mother’s¹³ Highest Hinted Spiritual and Supramental Experiences: The Mother’s major Spiritual experiences are listed below with brief descriptions. The dates of these important realisations are mentioned here so that we can celebrate these days in our inner Spiritual journey. Attempts were made to find similar Spiritual experiences hinted in Savitri . These words can be used as a means of entering contact with Her and a passage towards the cellular transformation opens wide. These experiences make us aware of the variety of multitudes of Supramental states of consciousness that wait to possess the physical substance to change their physical constitution. Those who are destined for cellular transformation experiences will find immense support from the Mother’s word and will be verified in their inner journey. 29th February, 1956: FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION: (During the common meditation on Wednesday, the 29th February, 1956 at Ashram Playground) "This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door which separated the world from the Divine. As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘THE TIME HAS COME’, and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one below, one single blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces. Then the Supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow." (A parallel of The Mother’s above experience is observed in Savitri and Isha Upanishad:-) “The great hammer-beats of a pent-up world-heart Burst open the narrow dams that keep us safe Against the forces of universe.” Savitri-83 “The face of the Truth or the Supramental world is covered with a brilliant golden lid, that do thou remove, O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth, for sight.” Isha Upannishad-15 3rd July 1957: VISION OF IMMENSE HOTEL: "This vision took place early in the night and woke me up with a rather unpleasant feeling. It was a kind of an immense hotel where all the terrestrial possibilities were lodged in different apartments. And it was all in a constant state of transformation: parts or entire wings of the building were suddenly torn down and rebuilt while people were still living them in them, such that if you went off somewhere within the immense hotel itself, you ran the risk of no longer finding your room when you wanted to return to it, for it might have been torn down and was being rebuilt according to another plan! It was orderly, it was organised …yet there was this fantastic chaos which I mentioned…It went something like this: somewhere, in the centre of this enormous edifice, there was a room reserved—as it seemed in the story –for a mother and her daughter. The mother was a lady, an elderly lady, a very influential matron who had a great deal of authority and her own views concerning the entire organisation. Her daughter seemed to have a power of movement and activity enabling her to be everywhere at once while at the same time remaining in her room, which was…well, a bit more than a room—it was kind of apartment which, above all, had the characteristic of being very central. But she was constantly arguing with her mother. The mother wanted to keep things ‘just as they were,’ with their usual rhythm, which precisely meant the habit of tearing down one thing to rebuild another, then again tearing down that to build still another, thus, giving the building an appearance of frightful confusion. But the daughter did not like this, and she had another plan. Most of all, she wanted to bring something completely new into the organisation: a kind of super-organisation that would render all this confusion unnecessary. Finally, as it was impossible for them to reach an understanding, the daughter left the room to go on a kind of general inspection… She went out, looked everything over, and then wanted to return to her room to decide upon some final measures… She clearly remembered where her room was, but each time she set out to go there, either the staircase disappeared or things were so changed that she could no longer find her way! So she went here and there, up and down, searched, went in and out… but it was impossible to find the way to her room! Since all of this assumed a physical appearance, as is always the case in these symbolic visions—there was somewhere (how shall I put it?) the hotel’s administrative office and a woman who seemed to be the manager, who had all the keys and who knew where everyone was staying. So the daughter went to this person and asked her, ‘Could you show me the way to my room?’ –‘But of course! Easily!’ Everyone around the manager looked at her as if to say, ‘How can you say that?’ However, she got up, and with authority asked for a key –the key to the daughter’s room –saying, ‘I shall take you there.’ And off she went along all kinds of paths, but all so complicated, so bizarre! The daughter was following along behind her very attentively, you see, so as not to lose sight of her. But just as they should have come to the place where the daughter’s room was supposed to be, suddenly the manageress, both the manageress and her key...vanished! And the sense of this vanishing was so acute that...at the same time, everything vanished! So to help you understand this enigma, let me tell you that the mother is physical Nature as she is, and the daughter is the new creation. The manageress is the world’s organizing mental consciousness as Nature has developed it thus, far, that is, the most advanced organising sense to have manifested in the present state of material Nature. This is the key to the vision... the vanishing of the manageress and her key was obvious sign that she was altogether incapable of leading what could called ‘the creative consciousness of the new world’ to its true place." 3rd FEBRUARY 1958: EXPERIENCE OF SUPRAMENTAL SHIP: "…I found myself upon an immense ship, which is the symbolic representation of the place where this work is being carried out. This ship, as big a city, is thoroughly organised, and it had certainly already been functioning for quite some time, for its organisation was fully developed. It is the place where people destined for the Supramental life are being trained. These people (or atleast a part of their being) had already undergone a Supramental transformation because the ship itself and all that was aboard was neither material nor subtle-physical, neither vital nor mental: it was a Supramental substance. This substance itself was of the most material Supramental, the Supramental substance nearest the physical world, the first to manifest. The light was a blend of red and gold, forming a uniform substance of luminous orange. Everything was like that—the light was like that, people were like that—everything had this colour, in varying shades, however, which enabled things to be distinguished from one another. The overall impression was of a shadowless world: there were shades, but no shadows. The atmosphere was full of joy, calm, order; everything worked smoothly and silently. At the same time, I could see all the details of education, the training in all domains by which people on the board were prepared…." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "A seeker of hidden meanings in life’s forms, Of the great Mother’s wide uncharted will And the rude enigma of her terrestrial ways He is the explorer and the mariner On a secret inner ocean without bourne: He is the adventurer and cosmologist Of a magic earth’s obscure geography. " Savitri-69 “A sailor on the Inconscient’s fathomless sea, He voyages through a starry world of thought On Matter’s deck to a spiritual sun.” Savitri-71 1st May 1958: DESCENT OF SUPRAMENTAL SUBSTANCE INTO MATTER: "The Divine has become the body. Impossible to have the least disorder in all the surrounding matter. Automatically every object around obeys: a divine harmony in everything. If that is established in a permanent way, there can no longer be illness or accident – all the objects of bathroom obeyed. It is Matter becoming the Divine. A thing happening first time upon earth." (Similar experience in Savitri:-) " Each final scheme leads to a sequel plan. Yet every new departure seems the last, Inspired evangel, theory’s ultimate peak, Proclaiming a panacea for all Time’s ills Or carrying thought in its ultimate zenith flight And trumpeting supreme discovery; Each brief idea, a structure perishable, Publishes the immortality of its rule, Its claim to be the perfect form of things, Truth’s last epitome, Time’s golden best." Savitri-198 " “A fiery stillness wakes the slumbering cells, A passion of the flesh becoming spirit, And marvellously is fulfilled at last The miracle for which our life was made.” Savitri-278 1st October 1958: EXPERIENCE OF BEING THE SUPREME LORD: "Before, I always had the negative experience of the disappearance of the ego, of the oneness of Creation, where everything implying separation disappeared – an experience that, personally, I would call negative. Last Wednesday, while I was speaking (and that is why at the end I could no longer find my words), I seemed suddenly to have left this negative phenomenon and entered into the positive experience: the experience of BEING the Supreme Lord, the experience that nothing exists but the Supreme Lord –all is the Supreme Lord, there is nothing else. And at that moment, the feeling of this infinite power that has no limit, that nothing can limit, was so overwhelming that all the functions of the body, of this mental machine that summons up words, all this was…I could no longer speak French… For example, the volume of Force that was to be expressed in the voice was too great for the speech organ. So I had to be a little attentive—that is, there had to be a kind of filtering in the outermost expression, otherwise the voice would have cracked. But this is not done through the will and the reason, it’s automatic. Yet I feel that… the capacity of Matter to contain and express is increasing with phenomenal speed. But it’s progressive, it can’t be done instantly. There have often been people whose outer form broke because the Force was too strong; well, I clearly see that is being dosed out. After all, this is exclusively the concern of the Supreme Lord, I do not bother about it – it is not my concern and I do not bother about it—He makes the necessary adjustments. Thus, it comes progressively, little by little, so that no fundamental disequilibrium occurs. It gives the impression that one’s head is swelling so tremendously it will burst! But then if there is a moment of stillness, it adapts; gradually, it adapts." " His nature grew a movement of the All, Exploring itself to find that all was He, His soul was a delegation of the All That turned from itself to join the one Supreme." Savitri-319 Evening of 7th November 1958: AN ALMIGHTY SPRING: "At the very bottom of the inconscience most hard and rigid I struck upon an almighty spring that cast me up forthwith into a formless, limitless vast, generator of all creation. I was descending into a crevasse between two steep rocks, rocks that appeared to be made of something harder than basalt, BLACK, but metallic at the same time, with such sharp edges—it seemed that a mere touch would lacerate you. It appeared endless and bottomless, and it kept getting narrower, narrower and narrower, narrower and narrower, like a funnel, so narrow that there was almost no more room –not even for the consciousness –to pass through. And the bottom was invisible, a black hole. And it went down, down, down, like that, without air, without light, except for a sort of glimmer that enabled me to make out the rock edges. They seemed to be cut so steeply, so sharply… And as soon as I had uttered, ‘What is there at the bottom of this hole?’ I seemed to touch a spring that was in the very depths—a spring I didn’t see but that acted instantly with a tremendous power –and it cast me up forthwith, hurled me out of this crevasse into… (arms extended, motionlessly) a formless, limitless vast, but it gave a feeling of ease and of an intimate warmth. And it was all-powerful, with an infinite richness. It did not have … no, it didn’t have any kind of form, and it had no limits (naturally, as I was identified with it I knew there was neither limit nor form). It was as if (because it was not visible), as if this vast were made of countless, imperceptible points –points that occupied no place in space (there was no sense of space), that were of a deep warm gold – but this is only a feeling, a transcription. And all this was absolutely LIVING, living with a power that seemed infinite. And yet motionless." (Similar experience in Savitri:-) “His grasp surprised her mightiest energies’ spring; He spoke with the unknown Guardians of the worlds, Forms he descried our mortal eye sees not.” Savitri-44 “A living robot moved by her energy’s springs, He acts as in the movements of a dream,” Savitri-65 “This master-spring of a delicate enginery, Aspired to enlighten its user and refine Lifting to a vision of the indwelling Power The absorbed mechanic’s crude initiative:” Savitri-158 “Our springs are kept close hid beneath, within; Our souls are moved by powers behind the wall.” Savitri-161 Night of 24th and 25th July 1959: SUPRAMENTAL LIGHT ENTERED THROUGH FEET: First penetration of Supramental force into the body. Sri Aurobindo alive in a concrete and permanent subtle physical body. Supramental Light entered through feet. …For the first time the Supramental light entered directly through the feet (a red and gold colour—marvellous, warm, intense), 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. But then, I very clearly received the indication to make the Calm and Peace descend, to widen all this body-consciousness and all these cells, so that they could contain the Supramental light. So I widened, and as the light was ascending, I brought down the vastness and an unshakable peace. And suddenly there was a second of fainting. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “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 “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 “Two powers from one original ecstasy born… One leans to earth, the other yearns to the skies:” Savitri-684 “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 shalt respond to me from every nerve.” Savitri-700 “Lain like an infant spirit unaware Lulled on the verge of two consenting worlds.” Savitri-716 29th February 1960: A GOLD KRISHNA: Fabulous experiences. A gold Krishna came. During the Darshan I was gone, perhaps everywhere: no more physical centre! Annul oneself so that the Supreme Lord may be. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "A borrower of Supernature’s gold, He paves his road to Immortality." Savitri-339 “In a simple purity of emptiness Her mind knelt down before the unknowable.” Savitri-522 “Consent to be nothing and none, dissolve Time’s work, Cast off thy mind, step back from form and name. Annul thyself that only God may be.” Savitri-538 “Then even those stirrings rose in her (Savitri) no more; Her mind now seemed like a vast empty room Or like a peaceful landscape without sound. This men call quietude and prize as peace.” Savitri-543 “An impersonal emptiness walked and spoke in her." Savitri-552 “Her divine emptiness was their (Savitri and Satyavan’s) instrument.” Savitri-553 24th May 1960: DISINTEGRATION OF PHYSICAL EGO: "For the first time, for approximately three hours, the physical ego disintegrated: the Sachchidananda spreading in a constant flood through the universe. Even the body consciousness was different. Something which was everything at once. No division. A variety of colours, vibrations, powers, and everything was within it. A universal vastness that kept going on and on… It moves and does not move. It was neither mysterious nor incomprehensible: it was absolutely obvious; though untranslatable. Contradictory things that nevertheless all existed simultaneously." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “Thus was she lost within to separate self; Her mortal ego perished in God’s night. Only a body was left, the ego’s shell Afloat mid drift and foam of the world-sea, A sea of dream watched by a motionless sense In a figure of unreal reality.” Savitri-552 “A greater Personality sometimes Possesses us which yet we know is ours: Or we adore the Master of our souls. Then the small bodily ego thins and falls; No more insisting on its separate self, Losing the punctilio of its separate birth, It leaves us one with Nature and with God.” Savitri-47 “The landmarks of the little person fell, The island ego joined its continent. Overpassed was this world of rigid limiting forms: Life’s barriers opened into the Unknown.” Savitri-25 “Abolished is the burdening need of life Thought falls from us, we cease from joy and grief; The ego is dead; we are freed from being and care, We have done with birth and death and work and fate.” Savitri-310 Night of 21st and 22nd January 1961: EXPERIENCE OF PRE VEDIC AGE OF PINK MARBLE BATHTUB: "It was a kind of artificial hurricane created by semi human beings. They created the storm to cut me off from ‘my home’. Material Mother Nature offering Mother ancient facilities (the pink marble bathtub)… Yes, I am disrupting their work –I know perfectly well that I am disrupting their domination of the world! All these vital beings have taken possession of the whole Matter, (The Mother touches her body) life and action –and have made it there domain, this is evident. But they are beings of lower vital, for they seemed artificial –they do not express any higher form, but an entire range of artificial mechanism, artificial will, artificial organisation, all deriving from their own imagination and not at all from a higher inspiration." “Wherever love and light and largeness lack, These crooked fashioners take up their task. To all half-conscious worlds they extend their reign. Here too these godlings drive our human hearts, Our nature’s twilight is their lurking-place :” Savitri-153 “Agents of darkness imitating light, Spirits obscure and moving things obscure, Unwillingly they serve a mightier Power.” Savitri-162 "Against all higher truth their stuff rebels ; Only to Titan force their will lies prone. Inordinate their hold on human hearts, In all our nature’s turns they intervene. Insignificant architects of low-built lives And engineers of interest and desire, Out of crude earthiness and muddy thrills And coarse reactions of material nerve They build our huddled structures of self-will And the ill-lighted mansions of our thought, Or with the ego’s factories and marts Surround the beautiful temple of the soul. Artists minute of the hues of littleness, They set the mosaic of our comedy Or plan the trivial tragedy of our days, Arrange the deed, combine the circumstance And the fantasia of the moods costume. These unwise prompters of man’s ignorant heart And tutors of his stumbling speech and will, Movers of petty wraths and lusts and hates And changeful thoughts and shallow emotion’s starts, These slight illusion-makers with their masks, Painters of the decor of a dull-hued stage And nimble scene-shifters of the human play, Ever are busy with this ill-lit scene. Ourselves incapable to build our fate Only as actors speak and strut our parts Until the piece is done and we pass off Into a brighter Time and subtler Space. Thus they inflict their little pigmy law And curb the mounting slow uprise of man, Then his too scanty walk with death they close ." Savitri-163 Night of 23rd -24th January 1961: TOTAL PRESENCE OF SUPRAMENTAL FORCE IN THE BODY. REACTIVATION OF ENERGY CENTRES: I was not in trance. Then, lying flat, my entire body (but a slightly enlarged body, exceeding the purely physical form) became ONE vibration, extremely rapid and intense but immobile. I don’t know how to explain this, because it did not move in space but was a vibration (that is, it wasn’t motionless), yet it was motionless in space. And the exact form of my body was absolutely the most brilliant white Light of the supreme Consciousness, the consciousness of the Supreme. The whole body consciousness, without moving, without shifting began consciously to rise up towards the supreme Consciousness—and the junction was made. An absolutely awake junction, no trance. An eternity in the body. Then I began to come back down and realised that all the difficulty I had been fighting the other day and which had created this illness was absolutely ended, ANNULLED –mastered. Actually, it was not even mastery but the non existence of anything to be mastered: simply THE vibration from top to bottom; yet here was neither high nor low nor any direction. Then without moving this supreme Consciousness began to reactivate different centres. I saw with a new consciousness, a new vision and above all a new power –the entire Work. It was the power that was no longer the same! A truly essential change in the body: it will have to accustom itself to this new Power. It is the conscious and the total presence of the Supramental Force in the body. A feeling that a certain omnipotence is not far away. Still a long, long way to go, but the first step on the way has been taken. (A Similar experience in Savitri :-) (Example of the Vedic descent of Shakti followed by the ascent of the Soul :-) “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. As glides God’s sun into the mystic cave Where hides his light from the pursuing gods, It glided into the lotus of her heart And woke in it the Force that alters Fate. 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 (Example of the Vedantic ascent Soul followed by the descent of Shakti :-) “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. Then at the crown it joined the Eternal’s space. In the flower of the head, in the flower of Matter’s base,... In the country of the lotus of the head Which thinking mind has made its busy space, In the castle of the lotus twixt the brows Whence it shoots the arrows of its sight and will, In the passage of the lotus of the throat Where speech must rise and the expressing mind And the heart’s impulse run towards word and act... In the kingdom of the lotus of the heart Love chanting its pure hymeneal hymn Made life and body mirrors of sacred joy And all emotions gave themselves to God. In the navel lotus’ broad imperial range Its proud ambitions and its master lusts Were tamed into instruments of a great calm sway To do a work of god in earthly soil. In the narrow nether centre’s petty parts Its childish game of daily dwarf desires Was changed into a sweet and boisterous play, A romp of little gods with life in Time.” Savitri-528-30 1st June 1961: THE EXPERIENCE OF CRYSTALINE OR MUDDY RIVER: Both were together, like two rooms. It was enough to say, “I want to go there.” This interference of “big brother” who wanted to cross the water by his own method: the water grows muddy again. The “big brother” –the physical mind. A crystal clear, imperative will: “I want to go there.” (A Similar experience in Savitri :-) “Heaven’s flaming lights descend and back return, The luminous Eye approaches and retires; Eternity speaks, none understands its word; Fate is unwilling and the abyss denies; The Inconscient’s mindless waters block all done.” Savitri-371 15th July 1961, SUPRAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION: “It is very easy to be a saint! Oh, even to be a sage is very easy. I feel I was born with it—it is spontaneous and natural for me… but Supramental transformation is another thing altogether, oh!… No one has ever followed that path; Sri Aurobindo was the first, and He left before telling us what He was doing, I am literally carving out a trail through the virgin forest—worse than a virgin forest…I am given the awareness of how huge this thing is one drop at a time…so I won’t be crushed (or ‘Light conquered now even by that feeble beam:’ Savitri-601). It has reached a point where all Spiritual life, all those people and races that have tried since the beginning of the earth, all that seems like nothing, like child’s play in comparison. And it is a work without glory: you have no results, no experiences filling you with ecstasy or joy—none of that, it is a hideous labour.” (A Similar experience in Savitri :-) " 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 " 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 Night of 2nd -3rd April 1962: THE FIRST TURNING POINT LEADING TO TOTAL CARDIAC ARREST: "Just between eleven and twelve [last night] I had an experience by which I discovered that there is a group of people – purposely their identity was not revealed to me – wanting to create a kind of religion based on the revelation of Sri Aurobindo. But they have taken only the side of power and force, a certain kind of knowledge and all which could be utilized by Asuric forces. There is a big Asuric being that has succeeded in taking the appearance of Sri Aurobindo . It is only an appearance. This appearance of Sri Aurobindo has declared to me that the work I am doing is not his. It has declared that I have been a traitor to him and to his work and has refused to have anything to do with me... What the Asuric Force that has succeeded in taking the appearance of Sri Aurobindo (and with whole group organised around him—people, ceremonies and so on) will create is a new religion or thought, perhaps cruel and merciless, in the name of the Supramental Realisation. But everybody must know that it is not true, it is not Sri Aurobindo’s teaching, not the truth of his teaching. The truth of Sri Aurobindo is a truth of love and light and mercy. He is good and great and compassionate and divine. And He will have the final victory.” The Mother-03.04.62 "…A group of people wanting to create a new religion based on the revelation of Sri Aurobindo. A big Asuric being has taken the appearance of Sri Aurobindo and declared that I have been a traitor to his work –I did not reject it, because of the infinity of Sri Aurobindo. Vision of true Sri Aurobindo: he showed me that still he was not master of the physical realm. This group of people has wanted to take my life several times, they would like me dead: as long I am in a body upon Earth their purpose cannot succeed… I am no more in my body. Now is the last fight. If the body has to be dissolved, humanity will pass through a critical time. This Asuric force will create a new religion, cruel and merciless. The truth of Sri Aurobindo is a truth of love and light and mercy. And he will have the final victory." “Only it is perfectly true that to deal with those realms (of subtle planes) one must be fully protected by a guru, a real guru, a man with knowledge, or else have purity (not saintliness), an unmixed vital and mental purity. Very, very often, bhaktas (devotees) of Sri Aurobindo or me—when they are sincere, truly sincere, that is, people of great spiritual purity –have dozens of beings appear to them, saying, “I am Sri Aurobindo.” It happens all the time, with all the right external appearances –it is very easy for such beings to put on a disguise. It takes the inner psychic purity not to be deceived –you invariably FEEL something that makes it impossible for you to be duped.” The Mother, 11th March 1962 (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “This evil Nature is housed in human hearts, A foreign inhabitant, a dangerous guest: The soul that harbours it it can dislodge, Expel the householder, possess the house. An opposite potency contradicting God, A momentary Evil’s almightiness Has straddled the straight path of Nature’s acts. It imitates the Godhead it denies, Puts on his figure and assumes his face. A Manichean creator and destroyer, This can abolish man, annul his world. But there is a guardian power, there are Hands that save, Calm eyes divine regard the human scene.” Savitri-482 (Similar Experience in The Life Divine :-) “It is possible to receive help or guidance or harm or misguidance from these beings; it is possible even to become subject to their influence, to be possessed by their invasion or domination, to be instrumentalised by them for their good or evil purpose. At times the progress of earthly life seems to be a vast field of battle between supraphysical Forces of either character, those that strive to uplift, encourage and illumine and those that strive to deflect, depress or prevent or even shatter our upward evolution or the soul’s self-expression in the material universe. Some of these Beings, Powers or Forces are such that we think of them as divine; they are luminous, benignant or powerfully helpful: there are others that are Titanic, gigantic or demoniac, inordinate Influences, instigators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of actions that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-806 “In entering within one may find oneself amidst a chaos of unfamiliar and supernormal experiences to which one has not the key or a press of subliminal or cosmic forces, subconscient, mental, vital, subtle physical, which may unduly sway or chaotically drive the being, encircle it in a cave of darkness, or keep it wandering in a wilderness of glamour, allurement, deception, or push it into an obscure battlefield full of secret and treacherous and misleading or open and violent oppositions; beings and voices and influences may appear to the inner sense and vision and hearing claiming to be the Divine Being or His messengers or Powers and Godheads of the Light or guides of the path to realisation, while in truth they are of a very different character. If there is too much egoism in the nature of the seeker or a strong passion or an excessive ambition, vanity or other dominating weakness, or a obscurity of the mind or a vacillating will or a weakness of the life-force or an unsteadiness in it or want of balance, he is likely to be seized on through these deficiencies and to be frustrated or to deviate, misled from the true way of the inner life and seeking into false paths, or to be left wandering about in an intermediate chaos of experiences and fail to find his way out into the true realisation. These perils were well-known to a past spiritual experience and have been met by imposing the necessity of initiation, of discipline, of methods of purification and testing by ordeal, of an entire submission to the directions of the path finder or path-leader, one who has realised the Truth and himself possesses and is able to communicate the light, the experience, a guide who is strong to take by the hand and carry over the difficult passages as well as to instruct and point out the way. But even so the dangers will be there and can only be surmounted if there is or there grows up a complete sincerity, a will to purify, a readiness for obedience to the Truth, for surrender to the Highest, a readiness to lose or to subject to a divine yoke the limiting and self-affirming ego. These things are the sign that the true will for realisation, for conversion of the consciousness, for transformation is there, the necessary stage of the evolution has been reached: in that condition the defects of nature which belong to the human being cannot be a permanent obstacle to the change from the mental to the spiritual status; the process may never be entirely easy, but the way will have been made open and practicable.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-938-39 (Similar Experience in The Synthesis of Yoga :-) "If the egoism of the worker disappears, the egoism of the instrument may replace it or else prolong it in a disguise. The life of the world has been full of instances of egoism of this kind and it can be more engrossing and enormous than any other; there is the same danger in Yoga. A man becomes a leader of men or eminent in a large or lesser circle and feels himself full of a power that he knows to be beyond his own ego-force; he may be aware of a Fate acting through him or a Will mysterious and unfathomable or a Light within of great brilliance. There are extraordinary results of his thoughts, his actions or his creative genius. He effects some tremendous destruction that clears the path for humanity or some great construction that becomes its momentary resting-place. He is a scourge or he is a bringer of light and healing, a creator of beauty or a messenger of knowledge. Or, if his work and its effects are on a lesser scale and have a limited field, still they are attended by the strong sense that he is an instrument and chosen for his mission or his labour. Men who have this destiny and these powers come easily to believe and declare themselves to be mere instruments in the hand of God or of Fate: but even in the declaration we can see that there can intrude or take refuge an intenser and more exaggerated egoism than ordinary men have the courage to assert or the strength to house within them. And often if men of this kind speak of God, it is to erect an image of him which is really nothing but a huge shadow of themselves or their own nature, a sustaining Deific Essence of their own type of will and thought and quality and force. This magnified image of their ego is the Master whom they serve. This happens only too often in Yoga to strong but crude vital natures or minds too easily exalted when they allow ambition, pride or the desire of greatness to enter into their spiritual seeking and vitiate its purity of motive; a magnified ego stands between them and their true being and grasps for its own personal purpose the strength from a greater unseen Power, divine or undivine, acting through them of which they become vaguely or intensely aware. An intellectual perception or vital sense of a Force greater than ours and of ourselves as moved by it is not sufficient to liberate from the ego." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-248-249 "This perception, this sense of a greater Power in us or above and moving us, is not a hallucination or a megalomania. Those who thus feel and see have a larger sight than ordinary men and have advanced a step beyond the limited physical intelligence, but theirs is not the plenary vision or the direct experience. For, because they are not clear in mind and aware in the soul, because their awakening is more in the vital parts than into the spiritual substance of Self, they cannot be the conscious instruments of the Divine or come face to face with the Master, but are used through their fallible and imperfect nature. The most they see of the Divinity is a Fate or a cosmic Force or else they give his name to a limited Godhead or, worse, to a Titanic or demoniac Power that veils him. Even certain religious founders have erected the image of the God of a sect or a national God or a Power of terror and punishment or a Numen of sattwic love and mercy and virtue and seem not to have seen the One and Eternal. The Divine accepts the image they make of him and does his work in them through that medium, but, since the one Force is felt and acts in their imperfect nature but more intensely than in others, the motive principle of egoism too can be more intense in them than in others. An exalted rajasic or sattwic ego still holds them and stands between them and the integral Truth. Even this is something, a beginning, although far from the true and perfect experience. A much worse thing may befall those who break something of the human bonds but have not purity and have not the knowledge, for they may become instruments, but not of the Divine; too often, using his name, they serve unconsciously his Masks and black Contraries, the Powers of Darkness." CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-249-250 Night of 12th -13th April 1962: THE MANIFESTATION OF SUPREME LOVE: Suddenly in the night (of April 12-13, the experience lasted at least four hours) I woke up with the full awareness of what we could call the Yoga of the world. The Supreme Love was manifesting through big pulsations, and each pulsation was bringing the world further in its manifestation. It was the formidable pulsations of the eternal, stupendous Love, only Love: each pulsation of Love carrying the universe further in its manifestation. And the certitude that what is to be done is done and the Supramental Manifestation is realised… All the results of the Falsehood had disappeared: Death was an illusion, Sickness was an illusion, Ignorance was an illusion—something that had no reality, no existence... Only Love, and Love, and Love, and Love –immense, formidable, stupendous, carrying everything. But then it came: “You have accepted that this world should know the Supramental Truth,... and it will be expressed totally, integrally.” Yes, yes …And the thing is DONE. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “A strong Descent leaped down. A Might, a Flame, A Beauty half-visible with deathless eyes, A violent ecstasy, a Sweetness dire, Enveloped him with its stupendous limbs And penetrated nerve and heart and brain That thrilled and fainted with epiphany: His nature shuddered in the Unknown’s grasp. 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 15th August 1962: SRI AUROBINDO SITTING UPON ASHRAM COMPOUND: "Sri Aurobindo sitting upon the Ashram, upon the Ashram compound I felt the friction of this presence in subtle physical. A sense of absoluteness, as if all were fulfilled. The most beautiful August-15 we had ever had. All his power was there, far stronger and clearer than when he was in his body! I always had that same impression – it was always like that in his room; and I would always have that impression whenever I met him. And even when I was working, all the while I would feel him behind me, doing everything. But this was much stronger. Much stronger. It was ... one was caught up and there was no way to get out of it. That's how it was – something ABSOLUTE. I've asked no one, I've told no one, I haven't said anything about it, not a word; you're the first. When Pavitra came yesterday I smilingly asked him if he'd had a good meditation, that's all. He said yes. So I told him, "Well, Sri Aurobindo was sitting on you!" (Mother laughs) "I was sitting below, in Sri Aurobindo's room," he replied. "He was there too!" I said (Mother laughs)." "A Presence wrought behind the ambiguous screen: It beat his soil to bear a Titan’s weight, Refining half-hewn blocks of natural strength It built his soul into a statued god. The Craftsman of the magic stuff of self Who labours at his high and difficult plan In the wide workshop of the wonderful world, Modelled in inward Time his rhythmic parts. Then came the abrupt transcendent miracle: The masked immaculate Grandeur could outline, At travail in the occult womb of life, His dreamed magnificence of things to be. A crown of the architecture of the worlds, A mystery of married Earth and Heaven Annexed divinity to the mortal scheme." Savitri-25 "A vision lightened on the viewless heights, A wisdom illumined from the voiceless depths: A deeper interpretation greatened Truth , A grand reversal of the Night and Day; All the world’s values changed heightening life’s aim; A wiser word, a larger thought came in Than what the slow labour of human mind can bring, A secret sense awoke that could perceive A Presence and a Greatness everywhere." Savitri-42 24th November 1962: A CUBE OF CONCENTRATED WHITE LIGHT: "…an immensity of light, like gold becoming white by its intensity, absolutely immobile, containing an infinite Power. At the centre of that immensity: a cube of concentrated white light, tremendously active, and all that immensity converged there without moving. A cube enveloped in pale gray tulle expressing perfect humility that abolishes the ego. The cube represented my physical being and through it I could discern all the action being done for the whole earth. Things from the past and things far into the future. At the moment, it was nothing but Sat: an immobile existence. An absolute certainty that things are like that, although the appearances may seem altogether different. The gray tulle, like the little wild grass I have named “Humility.” I said to myself, “That is why I named it Humility!” And the sense of the separate bodily form had completely vanished. And it was ONE moment of the Manifestation. All we see, think, understand was nothing, unsubstantial, but THAT! …The body feels how artificial all life’s complications and problems are, how different it could be! There are just bad habits, fading away, losing their force, becoming more and more unreal. Like a machine that takes time to run down. In the other consciousness everything is so obvious: that is IT. It is not something you are looking at: it’s like that. All life’s misfortunes: a bad habit —the time has come to change habits… Still in a transitional period when the true thing is getting established but the tail of the old thing trails behind. The habit of not understanding something unless it can be mentally explained is disastrous. To live THAT spontaneously, all the time, how wonderful it would be!" "In the wide signless ether of the Self, In the unchanging Silence white and nude, Aloof, resplendent like gold dazzling suns Veiled by the ray no mortal eye can bear, The Spirit’s bare and absolute potencies Burn in the solitude of the thoughts of God." Savitri-57 "A formless Stillness called, a nameless Light. Above him was the white immobile Ray, Around him the eternal Silences. No term was fixed to the high-pitched attempt; World after world disclosed its guarded powers, Heaven after heaven its deep beatitudes, But still the invisible Magnet drew his soul." Savitri-102 6th June, 1963: EXPERIENCE OF SUPRAMENTAL POWER: "In the night of 6th, for three hours, everything was at a standstill: only the sensation of a stupendous Force. It was spherical. It was going out in innumerable directions. An incalculable mass. I suppose that if the mind had been associated with the experience, it would have gone mad! But there was in the physical centre an ecstasy that sparkled like a diamond to reassure the body: “Don’t be afraid, don’t worry.” Only universal forces in action, and a sparkling, ecstatic point in that immensity. It is the first time: it was everywhere at the same time. It was something happening for the earth (the earth was very small). And no psychological perception (peace, love, knowledge etc.): a pure vibratory sensation on a colossal scale. When I woke up, my head felt inordinately swollen –but the clear-headedness is the same as ever." (Similar experience in Savitri:-) "Then kindling the gold tongue of sacrifice, Calling the powers of a bright hemisphere We shall shed the discredit of our mortal state, Make the abysm a road for Heaven’s descent, (The gulf between Supreme Self and Inconscient Self is bridged) Acquaint our depths with the supernal Ray And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire." Savitri-171-172 “This independent, once a power supreme, Self-born before the universe was made, Accepting cosmos, binds himself Nature’s serf Till he becomes her freedom – or God’s slave.” Savitri-542 9th December 1963: THE BATTLE IN THE SUBCONSCIENT: On December 9, a frightful battle in the Subconscient, like a return of the 1958 attack: the same origin of forces. It went on during the meditation. It stops the heart, so it was unpleasant. Q:- Was there no human instrument? No, but plenty of spots to which that force clings: it clings to certain tendencies, attitudes, reactions. During the meditation: a grating in the cells. A very aggressive ill will which belongs to a dark age… A victory of that very black force over the one that tries to follow more harmonious paths… (Similar experience in Savitri:-) "All came back to her: Earth and Love and Doom, The ancient disputants , encircled her Like giant figures wrestling in the night: The godheads from the dim Inconscient born Awoke to struggle and the pang divine, And in the shadow of her flaming heart, At the sombre centre of the dire debate, A guardian of the unconsoled abyss Inheriting the long agony of the globe, A stone-still figure of high and godlike Pain Stared into Space with fixed regardless eyes That saw grief’s timeless depths but not life’s goal." Savitri-9-10 “He saw the city of ancient Ignorance Founded upon a soil that knew not Light. There each in his own darkness walked alone: Only they agreed to differ in Evil’s paths, To live in their own way for their own selves Or to enforce a common lie or wrong; There Ego was lord upon his peacock seat And Falsehood sat by him, his mate and queen: The world turned to them as Heaven to Truth and God.” Savitri-208-209 29th February 1964: SPARKLING OF WHITE STARS: "During the meditation of 29th I noticed (I looked), I noticed that for about two days, the atmosphere had been a full of a sparkling of white stars, like dust – a twinkling dust of white stars. I saw it had been there for three days. And at the time of meditation, it became extremely intense. But it was widespread, it was everywhere. …There seemed to be nothing but sparkling diamond everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And it had a tendency to come from above downward. It lasted not just hours, but days… But there was nothing stunning or magnificent or astounding about it: nothing of the kind, nothing spectacular, nothing to give the feeling of a “great experience” –very quiet, but very, very self assured. Very quiet." "Unsmeared with the dust of our mortal atmosphere It still reflected heaven’s spiritual joy. Almost they saw who lived within her light Her playmate in the sempiternal spheres Descended from its unattainable realms In her attracting advent’s luminous wake, The white-fire dragon-bird of endless bliss Drifting with burning wings above her days: Heaven’s tranquil shield guarded the missioned child. A glowing orbit was her early term, Years like gold raiment of the gods that pass; Her youth sat throned in calm felicity." Savitri-16 Night of 6th -7th March 1964: THE EXPERIENCE OF ANANDA OF PROGRESS: "Something has begun to permeate this terrestrial consciousness: a power of transformation, the ananda of progress, of the animal becoming man, of man becoming superman, what a force, what a power—I had never felt that intensity in the material world. And no resistance anywhere: everything was enthusiastically participating. …The return to ordinary consciousness: a sort of superficial bark, something very artificial, then, dry. … The experience of the Ananda of progress gave a TERRESTRIAL meaning to all those scattered little promises. The earth – a little thing which my consciousness dominated, but which was an exclusive object of my concentrations. The present imperfections of the body are tolerated: the “obvious” transformation –something secondary and not urgent in the overall vision of the Work. But soon, the body could be entirely driven by the direct Will. The feeling that a corner has been turned for the earth. This morning I noted the experience through the same process – ‘the penetration and permeation into material substance of the Ananda o f the power of progress in Life.” The whole material substance of the earth received this ananda of the power of progress. Even plants participated. …A power that can crush everything and rebuild everything. Only when the flash of the mental transformation through the Supramental descent joins the ananda of Power will there occur things that will be a bit… indisputable. For the moment, only those who have can see: they see examples of tiny miracles multiply. … During the experience, I knew there would be another one, which is yet to come, (Penetration of permeation of Ananda from below the feet.) which would join with this one to form a third, and that junction will change something in the appearances. I do not know when it will come." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "To live, to love are signs of infinite things, Love is a glory from eternity’s spheres. Abased, disfigured, mocked by baser mights That steal his name and shape and ecstasy, He (Divine Love) is still the godhead by which all can change. A mystery wakes in our inconscient stuff, A bliss is born that can remake our life ." Savitri-397-398 "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 (Divine Love) labours in the depths, exults on the heights; He shall remake thy universe, O Death. ” Savitri-592 24th March 1964: THE SUBSTITUTION OF TRUE VIBRATION: "…(on this day) again, the experience was quite concrete and powerful: it is not necessary to move, or to move anything, for this Truth Consciousness to replace the consciousness of deformation or distortion. In other words, the capacity to live in and be this true Vibration –essential and true –seems to have the power to SUBSTITUTE this Vibration for the vibration of Falsehood and Distortion, to such an extent that… For instance, the outcome of Distortion or of the vibration of distortion should naturally have been an accident or catastrophe, but if, within those vibrations, there is a consciousness that has the power to become aware of the Vibration of Truth and therefore manifest the Vibration of Truth, it can –it must –cancel the other vibration. Which would be translated, in the external phenomenon, by an intervention that would stop catastrophe… There is a growing feeling that the True is the only way to change the world; that all other process of slow transformation are always a tangent (you draw nearer and nearer but you never arrive) and the last step must be this --the substitution of the true vibration." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “A slowly changing order binds our will. This is our doom until our souls are free. A mighty Hand then rolls mind’s firmaments back, Infinity takes up the finite’s acts And Nature steps into the eternal Light. Then only ends this dream of nether life.” Savitri-154 25th March 1964: THE DESCENT OF TRUTH POWER: "Two or three nights ago, something like that occurred: in the middle of the night, early morning, there was a descent of this Force, a descent of this Truth Power; and this time it was everywhere (it’s always everywhere), but with a special concentration in the brain –not in this brain: in THE brain (The Mother’s experiences are not individual experiences, but experiences of the earth-consciousness). And it was so strong, so strong, so strong! The head felt as if it were about to burst – so that for about two hours I simply had to keep calling for the widening of the Lord’s Peace: “Lord, Your widening, Your peace,” like that in the cells. And with the consciousness (which is always conscious, of course [gesture above]) that the descent into an unprepared brain would be enough to drive you completely mad or absolutely daze you (at the very best), or else you would burst … This experience, like the other one (Experience of 7th March), hasn’t left. …And I saw (because I wanted to see, and I saw) that the other experience was still there but it was beginning to be almost habitual, almost natural, while this one was new. It was the result of my old prayer: “Lord, take possession of this brain.” …Well, that’s what is happening—happening everywhere, all the time. So if it happens in a large enough aggregate, it gives the appearance of a miracle – but it is a miracle of the whole EARTH." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “It left mind’s distance from the Truth supreme” Savitri-44 “A Truth supreme has forced the world to be;” Savitri-658 “Fragments of Truth supreme have lit his soul,” Savitri-659 “All-ruler, ruled by none, the Truth supreme,” Savitri-661 “The Truth supreme, vast and impersonal” Savitri-662 “O Death, if thou couldst touch the Truth supreme” Savitri-663 “If Truth supreme transcends her shadow here” Savitri-663 “Then shall the Truth supreme be given to men:” Savitri-705 30th September 1964: A VERY MATERIAL POWER EXERTING PRESSURE: "It is like beginning of a new phase. For a few days now, whenever something or other goes wrong, when, for instance, people don’t do what they should or their reactions are wrong or when they are difficulties…, now there come into me a sort of Power, a VERY MATERIAL Power, which goes like this (gesture of pummeling), which goes at things and pushes terribly hard –oh, what a pressure it makes! … And it comes without my willing it, it goes without my knowing it. …Naturally, the inner Power is put into action (that Power which obviously is always increasing), but it never used to be exerted in that way, in detail, on tiny things of that sort, like someone’s wrong attitude of an action that doesn’t confirm to the Truth, anyway lots of things… pitiable things, which I used to watch: I would smile, put the Truth-Light on them (gesture from above) and would leave them. But now, it’s not that way: “that” comes, and it’s like something that comes and says to people, things, circumstances and individuals (in an imperative tone): “You shall do what the Lord wills – you shall do what He wills. And beware! You shall do what He wills.” …It makes me laugh, it must be having some effect!" 3rd November 1964: EXPERIENCE OF SUPREME’S PRESENCE IN A PERSONAL FORM: "For the first time…, I had in a flash – it lasted just a flash – for the first time in my life, I had the PHYSICAL experience of the Supreme’s Presence in a personal form. It was not a defined form, but it was a personal form. And it came in the wake of a series of experiences in which I saw the different attitudes of different categories of people or thinkers, according to their conviction. It came as if that form were saying to my body (it was PHYSICAL presence), as if it were saying, really with words (it was a translation; the words are always a translation—I don’t know what language the Supreme speaks (!), but it’s translated, it must be translated in everyone’s brain according to his own language) as if He were telling me, “through you” (that is through this, the body) “ I am charging…” (it was like a conquest, a battle), “I am charging to conquer the physical world.” That is how it was. And the sensation was really of an all powerful Being whose proportions were like ours, but who was everywhere at once." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “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 7th November 1964: EMPTY HEAD: "For the past three days there has been a constant phenomenon: something… I don’t know what it is… as if the whole head were being emptied (The Mother shows the blood going downward). Physically that is what you feel before fainting, as if all the blood were leaving the head: the head empties, and then you faint." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “Banish all thought from thee and be God’s void. Then shalt thou uncover the Unknowable” Savitri-537 “In the absolute stillness bare and formidable T There was glimpsed an all-negating Void Supreme That claimed the mystic Nihil’s sovereign right To cancel Nature and deny the soul.” Savitri-545 11th February 1965: THE ASHRAM ATTACKED BY RIOTERS: "I had for the first time the consciousness of the physical Truth of the earth, that is, the quality of the vibration of Truth in the physical earth consciousness. A stillness unknown to the physical: the whole attack seemed like an absolute Falsehood, but I saw all the points of falsehood in the Ashram’s atmosphere that made the contact possible,… The true Vibration of Peace can cure everything. Now I have caught hold of it… “The power of discrimination between the impulses that come from the Truth and those that come from the falsehood is one of the first effects of the Advent of the Truth’s Light in the earth’s atmosphere.”… “Behind all the destructions of Nature or the human destructions there is always Kali’s power. Whatever is Divine in its essence cannot be touched by these destructions. The extent of the damage gives the measure of the imperfection.” (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “I wear the face of Kali when I kill, I trample the corpses of the demon hordes.” Savitri-509 “All reeled into a world of Kali’s dance.” Savitri-255 5th December 1965: THE BLACK MAGIC: "On 5th December I saw it (black magic), and afterwards I understood. It was extremely interesting, but it was impossible to repeat. On the 5th, at meditation, I knew what it was. … On the afternoon of the 5th, after I had understood clearly and seen everything and done everything, suddenly … (you know how Sri Aurobindo used to take away illnesses: it was like a hand that came and took away the disease), it went away just like that, it was taken away, literally taken away like that, and the body was INSTANTLY fine. Oh, you know, I am still flabbergasted." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “Looking for the golden Hand that never came, The advent for which all creation waits, The beautiful visage of Eternity That shall appear upon the roads of Time.” Savitri-199 "But Satyavan replied with smiling lips, “Lay all on her; she is the cause of all. With her enchantments she has twined me round. Behold, at noon leaving this house of clay I wandered in far-off eternities, Yet still, a captive in her golden hands, I tread your little hillock called green earth And in the moments of your transient sun Live glad among the busy works of men.” Savitri-723 2nd June 1966 (two nights ago): ANANDA IN THE CELLS: "A new experience: the whole cellular consciousness shot through by a material power of a fantastic velocity –light is slow and unhurried in comparison. As if carried away by a movement so fast that the cells felt suffocated. Three hours. For the first time in my life I felt the Ananda in the cells. Previously, the body’s whole existence was based on surrender and endurance; but “that” was so innocent and pure a joy, and I was shown: there isn’t one vibration that isn’t vibration of joy. Light, so light. It wasn’t flowing through the cells: they were IN movement, they were moving with that same fantastic velocity, felt materially." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “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 giant drop of the Bliss unknowable Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became A fiery ocean of felicity; He foundered drowned in sweet and burning vasts: The dire delight that could shatter mortal flesh, The rapture that the gods sustain he bore. Immortal pleasure cleansed him in its waves And turned his strength into undying power. Immortality captured Time and carried Life." Savitri-237 11th June 1966: THE MIND, AN IMMENSE BALLOON: "This morning, I had, for instance, a whole series of experiences regarding the notion of selfishness. Sri Aurobindo said, ‘…the most selfish of all is the Divine, since everything belongs to Him and He sees everything in relation to Himself!” A moral atmosphere so far from the Truth. The Mind: an immense balloon, as large as the earth. As soon as you get out of it, an immensity of such living light! All the rest becomes so paltry. The ultimate outcome of this Yoga is something so wonderful that even the most unique experience are insipid in comparison. The body feels it’s not too high a price to pay for that. A fullness of experience that can be known only in the body. An absoluteness of sincerity in the body: YOU ARE." 31st August 1966: THE BODY LIVED THE TRUTH: "The body lived the Truth this morning several times for a few seconds (which might have been eternities). But it is obvious that if everything were ready for “that” to be established, it would mean omnipotence. …I mean it abolishes nothing of the Manifestation; you don’t even feel that Falsehood is abolished: it doesn’t exist, it isn’t. Everything can remain exactly as it is; it becomes only a question of choice: you choose this way, choose that way… And a splendour of joy, of beauty, of harmony, plentitude of luminous consciousness in which there is no darkness anymore: it no longer exists. And it truly is the choice between life and death. A tiny nothing which changes everything, lived at the very heart of the cells. That is how a dead man can come back to life: through that change. The certitude that everything was necessary, from the most marvelous for the human consciousness to the most horrible. … Even physical suffering, material suffering, which is one of the things most difficult to feel as illusory: a lamentable act you put on for yourself, for the cells. And I am speaking from experience, with convincing examples." (Similar experience in Savitri:-) “There is our aspect of eternity, There is the figure of the god we are, His young unaging look on deathless things, His joy in our escape from death and Time, His immortality and light and bliss.” Savitri-484 "Heaven had unveiled its lustre in her eyes, Her feet were moonbeams, her face was a bright sun, Her smile could persuade a dead lacerated heart To live again and feel the hands of calm." Savitri-514 Night of 13th – 14th November 1966: SRI AUROBINDO IN SUBTLE PHYSICAL: "I spent the whole night with Sri Aurobindo , at least four hours in that subtle physical world. He has quite a beautiful abode there! It is magnificent –And it’s not fluid: it’s very concrete, yet at the same time not fixed! It has a suppleness that adapts to all necessities. It is really interesting. … but it’s still a phase of preparation and adaptation: it is not final. It is not final: there are experiments, trials. It’s extremely supple, it’s in a phase of formation, as though it were preparing for a manifestation, or rather, “learning” to be what it must be. It’s very interesting." (Similar experience in Savitri:-) “A fine degree of wonder’s hierarchy, The kingdom of subtle Matter’s faery craft Outlined against a sky of vivid hues, Leaping out of a splendor-trance and haze, The wizard revelation of its front. A world of lovelier forms lies near to ours, Where, undisguised by earth’s deforming sight, All shapes are beautiful and all things are true.” Savitri-103 24th April 1967: INTERPENETRATION OF VIBRATION OF HARMONY: "A constant interpenetration of the vibration of Harmony and the general vibration of disorder; a simple movement of consciousness sends you to one side or the other. The descent of vibration of Harmony: a power capable of crushing an elephant. The body loses the sense of its own existence, the time flashes by in a second. The first time my body has had that sort of Samadhi. Sri Aurobindo said he never had a Samadhi in his body; neither did I …a light like molten gold: very thick, a weight. No more body, nothing but That. And an action that does not cause any movement: a sort of pressure which displaces nothing… Sri Aurobindo said: when the Supramental force is there you get a sense of unconditioned all-powerfulness." 4th May 1967 (4.5.67): YEAR OF COMPLETE REALISATION, THE GOVERNMENT WOULD OBEY THE SUPRAMENTAL INFLUENCE: "On the morning of 4th, when I got up (it was 4.30), suddenly I seemed to be sent … well, it was as if I were sent a ball of lightning like this (The Mother strikes her head). I said, “Ah, very well!” (The Mother laughs) But it shook me! It was so strong that it shook me. Then came the explanation of the “message” for 4.5.67. It came in English… It was Sri Aurobindo speaking to me, but He said it like that! “The Divinity mentioned by Sri Aurobindo is NOT A PERSON, but a condition to be shared and lived by all those who prepare themselves for it.” (Similar experience in The Life Divine:-) “A Consciousness-Force, everywhere inherent in Existence, acting even when concealed, is the creator of the worlds, the occult secret of Nature.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-309 “But since this consciousness is creatrix of the world, it must be not only a state of knowledge, but power of knowledge, and not only a Will to light and vision, but a Will to power and works.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-131 Night of 26th August 1968: SUPRAMENTAL PRESSING FROM EVERYWHERE: "Powerful and prolonged penetration of the Supramental forces into the body, everywhere at the same time… Penetration into the body: Yes, penetrations of currents I had had several times, but that night, what came all of a sudden was as though there was nothing anymore except a Supramental atmosphere. Nothing remained except that. My body was in it. And it was pressing to enter, from everywhere, but everywhere at the same time – everywhere: You understand, it was not a current flowing in, it was an atmosphere penetrating from everywhere. It lasted for at least four or five hours. And there was only one part that was BARELY penetrated: it was from here to here (gesture between the throat and the top of the head). Here it seemed gray and dull, as if the penetration were less… My teeth are in a dreadful state, my head is in a dreadful state –I tell you, I can’t see any more, can’t hear anymore, can’t …All this (from head to throat) is in need of a great transformation. But apart from it, all the rest without exception – it was pouring and pouring and pouring in… I had never, never seen that before, never! It lasted for hours –hours. Perfectly consciously." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “It (Spirit) is within, below, without, above.” Savitri-98 “Heaven’s leaning down to embrace from all sides earth, A quiet rapture, a vast security.” Savitri-716-17 1st January 1969: SUPRAMENTAL PERSONALITY: "On the 1st, something really strange took place: something very material, a golden light with a smiling benevolence. It had a taste, so concrete was it. The impression was that of an immense personality, so very benevolent, and coming to help. Was it a Supramental personality which will manifest later in the material forms? It came directly into the body, not through some inner being. Now there is a sort of certitude. I feel it is the formation that’s going to permeate and express itself in what will be the bodies of the Supramental. May be the superman? But a human of divine proportions: without weakness and shadows." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) Awareness of the Guardians of the Supramental world or world-creators who oversee (1) Fate, (2) Chance, (3) Divine Work through Divine Will. If we will do this Yoga, then these invisible Guardians from Supramental world will come down to help us, help in our ascent of the Soul, give protection to our Sadhana life, they will help to change our destiny, transform chance into decreed Spiritual life and will expedite the Divine work, Divine Purification, transformation, and perfection. “A greater Personality sometimes Possesses us which yet we know is ours:” Savitri-47 “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… Above the world the world-creators stand, In the phenomenon see its mystic source.” Savitri-53-54 “They are guardians of the silence of the Truth, They are keepers of the immutable decree. A deep surrender is their source of might,” Savitri-57 24th March 1972: EXPERIENCE OF A COMPLETELY NEW BODY: "For the first time, early this morning, I saw myself: my body. I don’t know whether it’s the Supramental body or… (what shall I say?) a transitional body, but I had a completely new body, in the sense that it was sexless: it was neither woman nor man… that’s the first time. It was around four in the morning, I think. And perfectly natural. I only remember what I saw (gesture from chest to waist). I was covered only with veils, so I only saw… What was very different was the torso, from the chest to the waist: it was neither male nor female… But it was lovely, my form was extremely svelte and slim –slim but not thin. And the skin was very white, just like my skin. A lovely form. And no sex –you couldn’t tell: neither male nor female. The sex has disappeared… The same here (The Mother points her chest), all that was flat. I don’t know how to explain it. There was an outline reminiscent of what is now, but with no forms, not even as much as man’s. a very white skin, very smooth. Practically no abdomen to speak of. And no stomach. All that was slim." (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "All here must learn to obey a higher law, Our body’s cells must hold the Immortal’s flame. Else would the spirit reach alone its source Leaving a half-saved world to its dubious fate." Savitri-35 "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 “Even the body shall remember God, Nature shall draw back from mortality” Savitri-707 Night of 3rd -4th May 1972: EXPERIENCE OF A GOLDEN FORCE PRESSING DOWN: Strange feeling …Since last night, a strange impression that the Divine has become… (how to formulate it?) like a golden Force pressing down like this (gesture of pressure on the earth). They alone, who by their aspiration are able to pass through to the Divine Origin, will escape catastrophes … Only those who have an aspiration, a sincere and unconditional aspiration towards the Divine, only they will escape –they will stand in a golden glory. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "A universal light was in his eyes, A golden influx flowed through heart and brain ; A Force came down into his mortal limbs, A current from eternal seas of Bliss; He felt the invasion and the nameless joy." Savitri-79 "A fire that seemed the body of a god Consumed the limiting figures of the past And made large room for a new self to live. Eternity’s contact broke the moulds of sense." Savitri-81 “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 "As man disguised the cosmic Greatness works And finds the mystic inaccessible gate And opens the Immortal’s golden door. " Savitri-488 "A golden fire came in and burned Night’s heart; Her dusky mindlessness began to dream; The Inconscient conscious grew, Night felt and thought. 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 “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 10th January 1973: THE HEART HAD STOPPED BEATING: …Yesterday or the day before, I don’t remember, all of a sudden, for two or three minutes my body was seized by the horror of death –the idea of being put like this (gesture of being tossed into a hole) in a tomb was so horrifying! Horrifying… I couldn’t have stood that more than a few minutes. It was HORRIFYING. Not because I was buried alive, but because my body was conscious. It was considered “dead” by everybody for the heart had stopped beating –yet the body was conscious …that was a horrible experience… I was displaying all the signs of “death,” you know, the heart was not working, nothing was working –but I was conscious. The body was conscious. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "These symbol figures lost their right to live, All tokens dropped our sense can recognise; There the heart beat no more at body’s touch, There the eyes gazed no more on beauty’s shape." Savitri-31 “Even if he seems to leave her to her lone strength, Even though all falters and falls and sees an end And the heart fails and only are death and night, God-given her strength can battle against doom Even on a brink where alone seems close And no human strength can hinder or can help.” Savitri-661-62 24th November, 1926: THE OVERMENTAL SIDDHI of Sri Aurobindo : (The Mother said on 2nd August, 1961) Except for Krishna …. .In 1926, I had begun a sort of overmental creation, that is, I had brought the Overmind down into matter, here on earth (miracles and all kinds of things were beginning to happen). I asked all these gods to incarnate, to identify themselves with a body (some of them absolutely refused). Well, with my very own eyes I saw Krishna, who had always been in rapport with Sri Aurobindo , consent to come down into his body. It was on November 24th, and it was the beginning of ‘Mother.’ Q:- Yes, in fact I wanted to ask you what this realisation of 1926 was. It was this: Krishna consented to descend into Sri Aurobindo’s body-to be FIXED there; there is a great difference, you understand, between incarnating, being fixed in a body, and simply acting as an influence that comes and goes and moves about, the gods are always moving about, and it’s plain that we ourselves, in our inner beings, come and go and act in a hundred or a thousand places at once. There is a difference between just coming occasionally and accepting to be permanently tied to a body-between a permanent influence and a permanent presence. These things have to be experienced. Q:- But in what sense did this realisation mark a turning point in Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana? No, the phenomenon was important FOR THE CREATION; he himself was rather indifferent to it. But I did tell him about it. It was at that time that he decided to stop dealing with people and retire to his room. So he called everyone together for one last meeting. Before then, he used go out on the verandah every day to meet and talk with all who came to see him (this is the origin of the famous ‘Talks with Sri Aurobindo…Mother is about to say something severe, then reconsiders-anyway …) I was living in the inner rooms and seeing no one; he was going out onto the verandah, seeing everyone, receiving people, speaking, discussing-I saw him only when he came back inside. After a while, I too began having meditations with people. I had begun a sort of ‘overmental creation,’ to make each god descend into a being-there was an extraordinary upward curve! Well, I was in contact with these beings and I told Krishna (because I was always seeing him around Sri Aurobindo ), This is all very fine, but what I want now is a creation on earth-you must incarnate.’ He said ‘Yes’ Then I saw him, with my own eyes (inner eyes, of course), join himself to Sri Aurobindo. Then I went into Sri Aurobindo’s room and told him, Here’s what I have seen.’ ‘Yes, I know!’ he replied (Mother laughs) ‘That’s fine; I have decided to retire to my room, and you will take charge of the people. You take charge.’(There were about thirty people at the time.) Then he called every one together for one last meeting. He sat down, had me sit next to him, and said, ‘I called you here to tell you that, as of today, I am withdrawing for purposes of sadhana, and Mother will now take charge of everyone; you should address your selves to her; she will represent me and she will do all the work.’ (He hadn’t mentioned this to me!–Mother bursts into laughter) These people had always been very intimate with Sri Aurobindo, so they asked: Why, why, why?’ He replied, ‘It will be explained to you.’ I had no intention of explaining anything, and I left the room with him, but Datta began speaking. (She was an English woman who had left Europe with me; she stayed here until her death–a person who received ‘inspiration.’) She said she felt Sri Aurobindo speaking through her and she explained everything: that (Sri) Krishna had incarnated and that Sri Aurobindo was now going to do an intensive sadhana for the descent of the Supermind; that it meant Krishna’s adherence to the Supramental Descent upon earth and that, as Sri Aurobindo would now be too occupied to deal with people, he had put me in charge and I would be doing all the work. This was in 1926. It was only … (how can I put it?) a participation from Krishna . It made no difference for Sri Aurobindo personally: it was a formation from the past that accepted to participate in the present creation, nothing more. It was a descent of the Supreme, from… some time back, now consenting to participate in the new manifestation. 24th November, 1926: THE OVERMENTAL SIDDHI of Sri Aurobindo : (The Mother said on 2nd August, 1961) Shiva, on the other hand, refused. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will come only when you have finished your work. I will not come into the world as it is now, I am ready to help.’ He was standing in my room that day, so tall (laughing) that his head touch the ceiling! He was bathed in his own special light, a play of red and gold … magnificent! Just as he is when he manifests his supreme consciousness–a formidable being! So I stood up and … (I too must have become quite tall, because my head was resting on his shoulder, just slightly below his head) then he told me, ‘No, I’ m not tying myself to a body, but I will give you ANYTHING you want.’ The only thing I said (it was all done wordlessly, of course) was: ‘ I want to be rid of the physical ego.’ Well, mon petit (laughing) it happened! IT was extraordinary!… After a while, I went to find Sri Aurobindo and said, ‘See what Has happened! I have a funny sensation (Mother laughs) of the cells no longer being clustered together! They’re going to scatter! He looked at me, smiled and said, Not yet. And the effect vanished. But Shiva had indeed given me what I wanted! Not yet, Sri Aurobindo said. No, the time wasn’t ripe. It was too early, much too early. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) “A giant dance of Shiva tore the past;” Savitri-343 “On Shiva’s breast is stayed the enormous dance.” Savitri-247 “World-existence is the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the body of the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves that white existence precisely where and what it was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object is the joy of the dancing.” CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-85 24th November, 1926: THE OVERMENTAL SIDDHI of Sri Aurobindo (The Mother said on 22nd December, 1962) In the end Sri Aurobindo told me it was an overmental creation, not the (Supramental) Truth. These were his very words: “Yes, it is an overmental creation, but that is not the truth we are seeking; it is not the truth, the highest truth,” he said. I made no reply, not a word: in half an hour I had undone everything –I undid it all, really everything, cut the consciousness between the gods and the people here, demolished absolutely everything. Because you see, I knew it was so attractive for people (they were constantly seeing the most astonishing things) that the obvious temptation was to hang on to it and say, “We will improve on it” –which was impossible. So I sat down quietly for half an hour, and I undid it all. We had to start over again with something else. But I said nothing, I told no one about it except Sri Aurobindo . At the time I let no one know, because they would have been completely discouraged. (Similar experience in Savitri :-) "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 “He scanned the secrets of the Overmind, He bore the rapture of the Oversoul. A borderer of the empire of the Sun, Attuned to the supernal harmonies, He linked creation to the Eternal sphere.” Savitri-302 Recapitulation: SRI AUROBINDO’S FOUR MAJOR SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES: “Sri Aurobindo had already realised in full two of the four great realisations on which his Yoga and his spiritual philosophy are founded. (1) The first he had gained while meditating with the Maharastrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Boroda in 1908; it was the realisation of the silent spaceless and timeless Brahman gained after a complete and abiding stillness of the whole consciousness and attended at first by an overwhelming feeling and perception of the total unreality of the world, though this feeling was disappeared after his (2) second realisation which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is, which happened in the Allipore jail and of which he has spoken in his speech at Uttarapara . To the other two realisations, (3) that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and (4) that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in the Alipore jail. ” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-36/Autobiographical Notes/p-94 Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness is at once a vast universality of Soul and an intense unity of all. His universal and infinite Consciousness can always surround and seize on the mind of the aspiring destined individual with certain continuity, persistence and frequency and can most easily transform it into Intuitive mentality and subsequently, through arduous training to Supramental movement. He was able to identify the highest hinted Spiritual experiences of His Spiritual predecessors and transcended them. This paper identifies, in part, His (and also the Mother’s) highest hinted Spiritual realisations and proposes to use them as a lever to extend the unfolding of the ceaseless miracle of the Infinite and the ever-expanding mystery of the Eternal, thereby lifting the nature wholly towards the Divine. This paper also creates an opportunity to develop the highest hinted Truth of Integral Yoga through concentration, contemplation and meditation and subsequently the flashes of Spiritual experiences. The Synthesis of Yoga provides some clues for building a passage in arriving and establishing oneself in Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness. First, it proposes that a (1) Sadhaka must go beyond the human virtue of prescribed moral formulas, rules and laws and beyond the human sin² born out of vital impurity, desire and wrong impulse and instincts and shall govern all his life by the light and truth of the Spirit; secondly, (2) he must go beyond Divine collective action² to become a precursor and pioneer of New Consciousness and this isolation from collectivity will necessarily give a determination, manifestation and creation of new inward and outward form and standard and lastly, (3) he must go beyond all written truth,³ sabdabrahmativartate ,⁴ must go beyond all truth heard through past Spiritual exercise and all truth yet to hear through future Spiritual exploration, srotabyasya srutasya cha ⁵ and live in his triple Soul of Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Being and thus, he becomes the Sadhaka of the Eternal. The Life Divine provides a further clue that such isolated seekers of the Divine Life ‘must…withdraw into their secret divine kingdom and guard themselves in a spiritual solitude’¹⁵ and lead humanity towards a happier future through action from their inner Light and Love on mankind. The Savitri book issues further injunction on ‘too great’¹⁶ Souls to walk alone in ‘mighty solitude’¹⁶ and discourages them from wasting time in their effort to create a soul and mind of their own kind. Their own accumulated Soul Force is their most faithful and precious companion in the world journey, inner exploration and world transformation. This injunction in pursuing Sri Aurobindo’s concentrated Consciousness is complemented by The Mother’s expansive Consciousness, in which She gives Her all-embracing Divine Contacts to liberate and transform humanity. OM TAT SAT References: 1: Savitri-599, 2: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-207, 3: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-55-56, 4: The Gita-6.44, 5: The Gita-2.52, 6: The Gita-10.05, 7: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-948, 8: "In all spiritual living the inner life is the thing of first importance ; the spiritual man lives always within, and in a world of the Ignorance that refuses to change he has to be in a certain sense separate from it and to guard his inner life against the intrusion and influence of the darker forces of the Ignorance: he is out of the world even when he is within it; if he acts upon it, it is from the fortress of his inner spiritual being where in the inmost sanctuary he is one with the Supreme Existence or the soul and God are alone together. The gnostic life will be an inner life in which the antinomy of the inner and the outer, the self and the world will have been cured and exceeded. The gnostic being will have indeed an inmost existence in which he is alone with God, one with the Eternal, self-plunged into the depths of the Infinite, in communion with its heights and its luminous abysses of secrecy; nothing will be able to disturb or to invade these depths or bring him down from the summits, neither the world’s contents nor his action nor all that is around him. This is the transcendence aspect of the spiritual life and it is necessary for the freedom of the spirit; for otherwise the identity in Nature with the world would be a binding limitation and not a free identity." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1013, “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, 9: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-61, 10: Savitri-19, 11: Savitri-705, 12: CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-27, 13: These experiences are collected from the Mother’s Agenda, 14: The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-1/p-477, 15: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1097, 16: Savitri-368, 17: SABCL/Vol-26/p-64, 18: The Mother’s Agenda/Vol-6/p-43, 19: “But it is not either of these sides separated from other, but rather a harmony of the inner and the outer life made one in fullness and transfigured into a play of something that is beyond them which will create the form of a perfect living. A Yoga of works, a union with the Divine in our will and acts---and not only in knowledge and feeling---is then an indispensable, an inexpressibly important element of an integral Yoga. The conversion of our thought and feeling without a corresponding conversion of the spirit and body of our works would be a maimed achievement.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-92, 20: CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-1069, 21: “If Life refuses the aid of its intermediary energy to the spirit’s other workings or is itself refused, they are likely to be reduced for all the effect they can have here to a static seclusion or a golden impotence; or if anything is done, it will be a partial irradiation of our action more subjective than objective, modifying existence perhaps, but without force to change it.” CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-173, 22: The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol.13/p-23, 23: The Mother’s Centenary Works/Vol.13/p-19, 24: Savitri-43, 25: Savitri-315, 26: Savitri-42, 27: Savitri-706, 28: "But not by showering heaven’s golden rain Upon the intellect’s hard and rocky soil Can the tree of Paradise flower on earthly ground And the Bird of Paradise sit upon life’s boughs And the winds of Paradise visit mortal air. Even if thou rain down intuition’s rays, The mind of man will think it earth’s own gleam, His spirit by spiritual ego sink, Or his soul dream shut in sainthood’s brilliant cell Where only a bright shadow of God can come." Savitri-520-521, 29: “Once were my (Satyavan’s) days like days of other men: To think and act was all, to enjoy and breathe; This was the width and height of mortal hope:” Savitri-406-7, “But when she (Savitri) came back to her self of thought, Once more she was a human thing on earth, A lump of Matter, a house of closed sight, A mind compelled to think out ignorance, A life-force pressed into a camp of works And the material world her limiting field.” Savitri-488 (Savitri said) “Nay, let me work within my mortal bounds, Not live beyond life nor think beyond the mind; Our smallness saves us from the Infinite.” Savitri-520, The Mother recounts, "That’s another interesting point, because I was an outright atheist: till the age of twenty, the very idea of God made me furious. Therefore I had the most solid base – no imaginings, no mystic atavism; my mother was very much an unbeliever and so was my father. So from the point of view of atavism it was very good: positivism, materialism. Only one thing: since I was very small, a will for perfection in any field whatever; a will for perfection and the sense of a limitless consciousness – no limits to one’s progress or to one’s power or to one’s scope. And that, since I was very small. But mentally, an absolute refusal to believe in a "God": I believed only in what I could touch and see. And the whole faculty for experiences was already there (they didn’t manifest because the time hadn’t come). Only, the sense of a Light here (gesture above the head), which began when I was very small, I was five, along with a will for perfection. (1) A will for perfection: oh, whatever I did always had to be the best I could do. And then, (2) a limitless consciousness. These two things. And my return to the Divine came about through Theon’s teaching, when I was told for the first time, "The Divine is within, there" (Mother strikes her breast). Then I felt at once, "Yes, this is it." Then I did all the work that’s taught to find Him again; and through here (gesture to the heart center) I went there (gesture of junction above with the Supreme). But outwardly, mentally, no religion – a horror of religions...And I see now that it was the most solid base possible for this experience: there was no danger of imaginings....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, 30: Savitri-407, 31: Savitri-541, 32: Savitri-703, 33: "For we were man and woman from the first, The twin souls born from one undying fire." Savitri-614, 34: “Give me back Satyavan , my only lord." Savitri-637, 35: "An incarnation is something more, something special and individual to the individual being. It is the substitution of the Person of a divine being for the human person and an infiltration of it into all the movements so that there is a dynamic personal change in all of them and in the whole nature; not merely a change of the character of the consciousness or a general surrender into its hands, but a subtle intimate personal change. Even when there is an incarnation from the birth, the human elements have to be taken up, but when there is a descent, there is a total conscious substitution." Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-421, "But there is too somewhere deep down in us the need of a total consciousness, there is in Nature a secret universal seeking for the whole Divine, an impulsion towards some entire awareness and delight and power of existence; this need of a whole being, a total knowledge, this integral will in us is not fully satisfied by these solutions. So long as the world is not divinely explained to us, the Divine remains imperfectly known; for the world too is That and, so long as it is not present to our consciousness and possessed by our powers of consciousness in the sense of the divine being, we are not in possession of the whole Divinity." CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-408, "It is only if we can open up the wall between the outer mind and the inner consciousness to which such phenomena are normal, or if we can enter freely within or dwell there, that this realm of knowledge can be truly explained and annexed to our total consciousness and included in the field of operation of our awakened force of nature." CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-557, "The first, the essential, is at one end the superconscient Silence and at the other end the Inconscience; the second, the integral, is the total consciousness of Sachchidanand a, the supramental concentration; the third, the multiple, is the method of the totalising or global overmental awareness; the fourth, the separative, is the characteristic nature of the Ignorance." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-604, "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, 36: "Those who are bewildered by the three modes, not knowers of the whole, let not the knower of the whole (knower of Total Consciousness) disturb in their mental standpoint." The Gita-3.29, "Equally, an enlargement of our mental consciousness out of the experience of the egoistic dualities into an unregulated unity with some form of total consciousness might easily bring about a confusion and incapacity for the active life of humanity in the established order of the world’s relativities. This, no doubt, is the root of the injunction imposed in the Gita on the man who has the knowledge not to disturb the life-basis and thought-basis of the ignorant; for, impelled by his example but unable to comprehend the principle of his action, they would lose their own system of values without arriving at a higher foundation." CWSA-21/The Life Divine/p-58, Download this WEB PAGE as a PDF file: " 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

Ashram News Flower Offering on 16th May 2026 Past Editions “Science gives us the objective truth of existence and the superficial knowledge of our physical and vital being; but we feel that there are truths beyond which possibly through the cultivation of our subjective being and the enlargement of its powers may come to lie more and more open to us. When the knowledge of this world is ours, we are irresistibly impelled to seek for the knowledge of other states of existence beyond, and that is the reason why an age of strong materialism and scepticism is always followed by an age of occultism, of mystical creeds, of new religions and profounder seekings after the Infinite and the Divine. The knowledge of our superficial mentality and the laws of our bodily life is not enough; it brings us always to all that mysterious and hidden depth of subjective existence below and behind of which our surface consciousness is only a fringe or an outer court. We come to see that what is present to our physical senses is only the material shell of cosmic existence and what is obvious in our superficial mentality is only the margin of immense continents which lie behind unexplored. To explore them must be the work of another knowledge than that of physical science or of a superficial psychology.” Sri Aurobindo/ CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-458 November 2025 “The mental and physical sciences which examine into the laws and forms and processes of things, those which concern the life of men and animals, the social, political, linguistic and historical and those which seek to know and control the labours and activities by which man subdues and utilises his world and environment, and the noble and beautiful Arts which are at once work and knowledge, — for every well-made and significant poem, picture, statue or building is an act of creative knowledge, a living discovery of the consciousness, a figure of Truth, a dynamic form of mental and vital self-expression or world-expression, — all that seeks, all that finds, all that voices or figures is a realisation of something of the play of the Infinite and to that extent can be made a means of God-realisation or of divine formation. But the Yogin has to see that it is no longer done as part of an ignorant mental life; it can be accepted by him only if by the feeling, the remembrance, the dedication within it, it is turned into a movement of the spiritual consciousness and becomes a part of its vast grasp of comprehensive illuminating knowledge.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-141-143, October 2025 “To see, know, become and fulfil this One in our inner selves and in all our outer nature, was always the secret goal and becomes now the conscious purpose of our embodied existence. To be conscious of him in all parts of our being and equally in all that the dividing mind sees as outside our being, is the consummation of the individual consciousness. To be possessed by him and possess him in ourselves and in all things is the term of all empire and mastery. To enjoy him in all experience of passivity and activity, of peace and of power, of unity and of difference is the happiness which the Jiva, the individual soul manifested in the world, is obscurely seeking. This is the entire definition of the aim of integral Yoga; it is the rendering in personal experience of the truth which universal Nature has hidden in herself and which she travails to discover. It is the conversion of the human soul into the divine soul and of natural life into divine living.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-23/The Synthesis Of Yoga/p-63 December 2025 Hello I’m a paragraph. This is where people can read more to learn about a subject written in this article. This is a great place to get readers hooked with an attention getter. read more Forthcoming Events Event 1: Yoga Sadhana Camp from 28.07.2026 to 31.07.2026 on the first and last three Chapters of 'The Life Divine' Event-2: Fourth Anniversary of Sri Matri Dhyana Mandir, 01.08.2026 Announcements Announcement 1: Two new web pages have been released in the link: https://www.srimatriniketanashram.com/research/the-main-formula-of-integral-yoga https://www.srimatriniketanashram.com/research/the-questions-raised-by-death-god “If you want to know what is really happening in the world, you should not read newspapers of any sort, for they are full of lies." “To read a newspaper is to take part in the greatest collective falsehoods.” The Mother TMCW-17/More Answers from the Mother/p-323 (The above message hints that those who see entertainment and news channels in the popular net service afflict life with inferiority and are far from becoming instruments of Truth.) “Question by a disciple: Z told me that if I had no time to read newspapers, I should at least glance at them. I asked him, “Is it a law that we must read newspapers?” He answered, “I have to know what is going on in the world too; I am not a sannyasi .” Answer given by The Mother: I am not a sannyasi and I never read a newspaper! ... I don’t have time for it. It is difficult to read newspapers without having the consciousness descend to a very ordinary level. Only when the consciousness is firmly established in union with the Divine is it possible to read newspapers without any risk of falling into a lower consciousness.” The Mother TMCW-17/P-19, 5 December 1933 "Sweet Mother, How can we know the truth of the facts when reading newspapers? What is the best way of knowing the truth of the world? The best way is to find the truth in ourselves — then we shall be able to see the Truth wherever it is.... Blessings." The Mother TMCW-16/Some Answers from the Mother/P-419, “Rules like these [not reading newspapers, eating a fixed diet, keeping only a few things] are intended to help the vital and physical to come under the discipline of sadhana and not get dispersed in fancies, impulses, self-indulgences; but they must be done simply, not with any sense of superiority or ascetic pride, but as a mere matter of course. It is true also that they can be made the occasion of a too great mental rigidity — as if they were things of supreme importance in themselves and not only a means. Put in their right place and done in the right spirit, they can be very helpful for their purpose.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-29/Letters on Yoga-II/p-383, “If one is always in the inner consciousness, then one can be not dispersed even when doing outward things — or if one is conscious of the Divine at all times and in all one does, then also can one read newspapers or do much correspondence without dispersion. But even then though there is not dispersion, yet there is less intensity of consciousness when reading a newspaper or writing a letter than when one is not putting part of oneself into quite external things. It is only when the consciousness is quite siddha that there is not even this difference. That does not mean one should not do external things at all, for then one gets no training in joining the two consciousnesses.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-324-325

The Agenda of Collective Living “....just as I wanted to tell you what kind of collectivity we wish to realize according to the ideal described by Sri Aurobindo in the last chapter of The Life Divine – a gnostic, supramental collectivity, the only kind that can do Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga and be realized physically in a progressive collective body becoming more and more divine –....” The Mother The Mother's Agenda/April 22, 1957 “I suppose each man makes or tries to make his own organisation of life out of the mass of possibilities the forces present to him. Self (physical self) and family are the building most make — to earn, to create a family and maintain it, perhaps to get some position in the present means of life one chooses, in business, the profession etc., etc. Country or humanity are usually added to that by a minority. A few take up some ideal and follow it as the mainstay of their life. It is only the very religious who try to make God the centre of their life — that too rather imperfectly, except for a few. None of these things are secure or certain, even the last being certain only if it is followed with an absoluteness which only a few are willing to give. ("Only were safe who kept God in their hearts:" Savitri-211) The life of the Ignorance is a play of forces through which man seeks his way and all depends on his growth through experience to the point at which he can grow out of it into something else. That something else is in fact a new consciousness — whether a new consciousness beyond the earthly life or a new consciousness within it ." Sri Aurobindo CWSA-28/Letters on Yoga-I/p-438 The Agenda of Collective Living “In spiritual life, one is always a virgin every time one awakens to a new love, for in each case it is a new part of the being, a new state of being that awakens to divine Love.”⁶ The Mother "... just as I wanted to tell you what kind of collectivity we wish to realize according to the ideal described by Sri Aurobindo in the last chapter of The Life Divine – a gnostic, supramental collectivity, the only kind that can do Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga and be realized physically in a progressive collective body becoming more and more divine...Sri Aurobindo tells us that a true community – what he terms a gnostic or supramental community – can be based only upon the INNER REALIZATION of each one of its members, each realizing his real, concrete oneness and identity with all the other members of the community; that is, each one should not feel himself a member connected to all the others in an arbitrary way, but that all are one within himself. For each one, the others should be as much himself as his own body–not in a mental and artificial way, but through a fact of consciousness, by an inner realization."³³ The Mother Sri Matriniketan Ashram is one small point of concentration of universe, ("A little point reveal the infinitudes." Savitri-100) one small beginning, ("His small beginnings asked for a mighty end:" Savitri-315) which rests on the conviction that one experiences all Ocean in a drop of water or a finite Self within can explore multiple subtle worlds of infinite Consciousness; all of earth’s longing can be felt within a whirl of the atom and the Eternal can manifest in a time made finite body. Our mortality is justified only as a step towards immortal all life; a smallest and meanest work can be a sweet, glad and glorious sacrament offered to the One and it can be utilised as means for the highest descent of Divine Force or "Insignificant her means, infinite her work" (Savitri-178). By the support of the Divine’s touch, a childlike immature thought can be ‘flame-wrapped outbursts of the immortal Word’⁷ and ‘the grandeur of its dreams’⁹ can ‘glow through the centuries;’⁸ our earth can be fulfilled only by opening and embracing the purity of heavens beyond; an individual can live Divine life only when he has discovered greater and higher planes of Consciousness. So, all views of both cosmic and individual existence are incomplete accounts of endless truth that 'change circumstances and human natures'; for both depend upon, exist, and are fully satisfied by the constant miracle of the Divine Forces or the invasion of Transcendent Divine Being. The Agenda of Mundane Perfection : The Aim of Mundane Aspiration: Almost all men normally devote the major part of their energy to the earthly life, terrestrial needs, interests, desires, care of the body, sufficient development and satisfaction of the vital and mental being, expansion and refinement of the intellect and knowledge, of the will and power, of ethical character, of aesthetic sensitivity and creativeness, of emotionally balanced poise and enjoyment, of vital and physical soundness, regulated action and just efficiency. Without these things, man could not attain his full manhood. If we unduly neglect, belittle and condemn these material and mental facts behind our life for some other higher Spiritual truth or merit or utility or suitability to certain individual temperament, then we suffer the unfitness of the general and complete rule of human living. The maintenance of material and mental grounds cannot be allowed to go into the background and Mother Nature takes good care so that the human race shall not neglect these aims of terrestrial perfection of mental radiations. These are a necessary part of her evolution to affirm him in Ignorance before he can perfect himself in Knowledge and all that transpires on earth and all that is beyond fall within the total scope and method of the illimitable Divine plan. The integral Yoga practiced at Sri Matriniketan Ashram does not reject any of the above essential mundane aims but enlarges, heightens and magnifies it by finding its true hidden meaning and transfigures it from a limited, earthly and mortal thing to something infinite, eternal and immortal existence. Or 'For, followed more largely and with less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realization of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realization of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realization a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilizable for the projection of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualization and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.'¹⁵ The Method of Mundane Aspiration: The self-discipline of mundane aspiration is an intellectual, volitional, ethical, emotional, aesthetic, and physical training and improvement which does not travel beyond the ordinary circle of working of mind, life and body. Our normal perception, imagination, formulation and cognition of things are mental and of constructed understanding. It is still in the obscured and unillumined preparatory Yoga of Nature and pursuit of an ordinary human perfection which is an increasing littleness of its motives, an absorption in an ordinary surface living, oblivious of our natural response to the Divine Being’s larger joy in cosmic existence. It does not aspire beyond the mind to that which is purest reason and brightest Intuition and leaves the Spiritual element either undeveloped or insufficiently satisfied or it falls back before the too intense demand of the Spiritual effort. Still, the method of mundane existence is unconsciously a heightening of the force of consciousness in the narrow circle of manifested nature. The Perfection of Mundane Aspiration: The mundane perfection is conceived of as something outward, social, a thing of action, a more rational dealing with our fellow men and our environment, a better and more efficient citizenship and discharge of duties, a better and more harmonious associated enjoyment of the opportunities of existence. This growth into the full mental being is the first transitional human perfection which does not liberate the soul, but it lifts us one step out of the material and vital absorption and subjection and prepares the loosening of the hold of the limited knowledge. But the Mother-nature has implanted in us some urge which goes beyond this first terrestrial perfection of humanity and to limit ourselves to the present formula of an imperfect humanity is to exclude our Divine potentialities. For this reason, the human race cannot accept or follow for a very long time any view of perfection that ignores the higher and subtler sense and labours to confine us entirely to the purely terrestrial way of living of too mental standard and mental cognition of things are no longer considered sufficient. If we are not satisfied with life as the influence of lower Nature dominates it, then something in us or the Soul within us shall strive for Divine perfection. "In place of the ignorance of the lower Nature absorbed in its outward works and appearances the eye will open to the vision of God everywhere, to the unity and universality of the spirit. The world’s sorrow and pain will disappear in the bliss of the All-blissful; our weakness and error and sin will be changed into the all-embracing and all-transforming strength, truth and purity of the Eternal. To make the mind one with the divine consciousness, to make the whole of our emotional nature one love of God everywhere, to make all our works one sacrifice to the Lord of the worlds and all our worship and aspiration one adoration of him and self-surrender, to direct the whole self Godwards in an entire union is the way to rise out of a mundane into a divine existence. " ¹⁷ The Mother recounts, "That’s another interesting point, because I was an outright atheist: till the age of twenty, the very idea of God made me furious. Therefore I had the most solid base – no imaginings, no mystic atavism; my mother was very much an unbeliever and so was my father. So from the point of view of atavism it was very good: positivism, materialism. Only one thing: since I was very small, a will for perfection in any field whatever; a will for perfection and the sense of a limitless consciousness – no limits to one’s progress or to one’s power or to one’s scope. And that, since I was very small. But mentally, an absolute refusal to believe in a "God": I believed only in what I could touch and see. And the whole faculty for experiences was already there (they didn’t manifest because the time hadn’t come). Only, the sense of a Light here (gesture above the head), which began when I was very small, I was five, along with a will for perfection. (1) A will for perfection : oh, whatever I did always had to be the best I could do. And then, (2) a limitless consciousness . These two things. And my return to the Divine came about through Theon’s teaching, when I was told for the first time, "The Divine is within, there" (Mother strikes her breast). Then I felt at once, "Yes, this is it." Then I did all the work that’s taught to find Him again; and through here (gesture to the heart center) I went there (gesture of junction above with the Supreme). But outwardly, mentally, no religion – a horror of religions."³⁴ Beyond the Mundane Aspiration: Most of the thinking humanity conceived ideal development as mundane change and approach at least to an ideal standard of perfection which his mind is able to conceive, fix before and pursue. It is only the minority who concern themselves with self-development as one of the most important aim of life and very few feel the need of a total Spiritualisation of mundane Nature. They can arrive at a point when they can open themselves to the power and presence of the Spirit and admit its direct Divine working. Brahman is at once the foundation of Supra-mundane Knowledge and self-aware manifestation of mundane Ignorance and by the synthesis of both one arrives at the Integral Knowledge. For the material is not the only truth of our existence; other planes of consciousness there are to which we can attain and not to know and manifest their law in our life is to fall short of the height and fullness of our Being. This entire separation of the Divine foreseen in a mundane life can be a starting point of all our Spiritual pursuits and in the Mother's language, "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.”¹⁶ The Agenda of Moderate Spirituality : The First Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or the Law of Moderation: The world itself is identified as the fortress of moderate Spirituality where every individual has the right to serve and adore the Divine in spite of his many lapses in outer living and enormous intellectual and spiritual timidity. An individual is considered fit to pursue moderate Spirituality when his mundane existence begins to recognise the God concealed in His creation. Here, the Spiritual change begins by the influence of the inner Being, enlargement of the bounds of surface Knowledge-Ignorance, a growth of religious temperament in the heart and piety in the conduct. He experiences Spiritual upliftment or mental illumination through obedience to the law of moderation, and must learn to give full scope to the inner Spirit to develop its own truth and reality and exceeding our present limited Consciousness. "The seeker of the integral state of knowledge must be free from attachment to action and equally free from attachment to inaction....But this state of perfection (master of the physical) arrives later in the Yoga and till then the law of moderation laid down by the Gita is the best for us; too much mental or physical action then is not good since excess draws away too much energy and reacts unfavourably upon the spiritual condition; too little also is not good since defect leads to a habit of inaction and even to an incapacity which has afterwards to be surmounted with difficulty."²⁰ "Verily this Yoga is not for him who eats too much or sleeps too much, even as it is not for him who gives up sleep and food, O Arjuna ."²¹ The Second Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or the Middle Path of Intellect: He chooses the middle path of ‘reason’s vigilant light’¹⁸ which is neither the entire rejection of the ascetic living, nor the entire surrender of the inner and outer life to consecrated living, nor the calling down of the large Divine Descent of high spirituality. His attraction towards world and earthly enjoyment always predominates over attraction towards the Divine. He is to be made fully aware that his endeavour is not directed to become a witness of the miracles of inferior powers and the Spiritual Powers are not meant to be wrongly utilised towards satisfaction of earthly desires and interests but are intended for rightly utilising them for the Divine end, for development of subtle faculties and entry into higher planes of Consciousness. An integral Moderate climbs above the mind and lives in the calm vastness of the One and raises the consciousness to the pure unvanquished Spirit and spreads himself to a wide intense calm and arrives slowly at timeless peace. The Third Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or Generalisation of Spirituality: Sri Aurobindo confirmed that such large communities of moderate Spirituality through Religion have succeeded in India and ‘has been one of the greatest triumphs of Spirit over Matter’¹⁹ and moderately practical and scientific societies in Europe with its habit of conscious change and fixed idea of progress have succeeded and is ‘one of the greatest triumphs of Mind over Matter.’¹⁹ Spirituality can be generalised in the mass through practice of moderate Spirituality but its other disadvantage is that its diffusive movement of intellectual formalization of Spiritual knowledge has resulted in materialisation of living practice into a dead mass of cult, ceremony, ritual and mechanisation by which the Spirit is bound to leave in the course of time from its body and structure. Integral Yoga proposes to take this risk²² of expansive movement as this is an inherent necessity of the Spiritual urge in evolutionary Nature and through the general advancement of the human race the victories of the Spirit can be secured. The transformation from Mental to Spiritual is the destiny of the race and the immediate need is a general admission of the Spiritual ideal, a widespread endeavour, a conscious awareness and intensification of our concentration, which will carry the stream of man’s developing tendency to a definite achievement. The Fourth Condition of the Fortress of Moderate Spirituality or Reproduction of Liberated Souls: Efforts have been made to accommodate the moderate seekers in the main streams of integral Yoga regardless of their past trends, fixed beliefs and practices. The moderate Ashramites and Devotees will be conversant with the manyfold constraints of integral Yoga from the very beginning of their sadhana life and make their life opulent with the fresh inflow of Spiritual experiences. They receive the immediate Divine call to liberate the Soul and manifestation of the Divine through customary activities like concentration on written truth, Study Circle, Yoga Sadhana camp and other related associations. The objective of this Centre of Moderate Spirituality is to generalise the highest Spiritual aspiration of integral Yoga in humanity or organise an evolutionary general progression through the principle of intensive and concentrated evolution or rigorous Self-control emerging from the secret schools of Spiritual fortress. In the past, the rare Spiritual perfection of the Mystics was generalised in the men in the mass through Religious leaders or this principle of expansion and extension was carried forward with the help of liberated Souls liberating others; for it is the constant upward effort of few towards the vision of this Spiritual change that has kept humanity alive and maintained for it its place in the front of creation. "“This is my word of promise,” cries the voice of the Godhead to Arjuna , “that he who loves me shall not perish.” (The Gita-9.31) Previous effort and preparation, the purity and the holiness of the Brahmin , the enlightened strength of the king-sage great in works and knowledge have their value, because they make it easier for the imperfect human creature to arrive at this wide vision and self-surrender; but even without this preparation all who take refuge in the divine Lover of man, the Vaishya once preoccupied with the narrowness of wealth-getting and the labour of production, the Shudra hampered by a thousand hard restrictions, woman shut in and stunted in her growth by the narrow circle society has drawn around her self-expansion, those too, papa-yonayah, on whom their past Karma has imposed even the very worst of births, the outcaste, the Pariah, the Chandala, find at once the gates of God opening before them. In the spiritual life all the external distinctions of which men make so much because they appeal with an oppressive force to the outward mind, cease before the equality of the divine Light and the wide omnipotence of an impartial Power."²³ "For from all, from the thief and the harlot and the outcaste as from the saint and the sage, the Beloved looks forth and cries to us, “This is I.” “He who loves Me in all beings,” — what greater word of power for the utmost intensities and profundities of divine and universal love, has been uttered by any philosophy or any religion?"²⁴ "If Narayana is without difficulty visible in the sage and the saint, how shall he be easily visible to us in the sinner, the criminal, the harlot and the outcaste?"²⁵ The Agenda of the Ascetics’ Fortress : The First Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress or Law of Renunciation: Five inner rejections of desire, attachment, ego, three gunas and dualities and two outer rejections of initiation of work and old earth-bound association are binding conditions of sane ascetic living, if practiced sincerely one will arrive at the objective of supernormal energising of Consciousness and Will in order to gain some intense and exceptional Spiritual power and mastery. A developed moderate is considered fit to live in Ascetics’ Fortress when he recognises the conquest of lower nature³¹ as a condition of higher Spiritual life. An Ascetic experiences Spiritual upliftment when his tapasya i s consistent with the Law of Renunciation. "Then evidently the straight and simplest way to get out of the close bondage of the active nature and back to spiritual freedom is to cast away entirely all that belongs to the dynamics of the ignorance and to convert the soul into a pure spiritual existence. That is what is called becoming Brahman, brahma- bhuya . It is to put off the lower mental, vital, physical existence and to put on the pure spiritual being. This can best be done by the intelligence and will, buddhi , our present topmost principle. It has to turn away from the things of the lower existence and first and foremost from its effective knot of desire, from our attachment to the objects pursued by the mind and the senses. One must become an understanding unattached in all things, asakta-buddhih sarvatra . Then all desire passes away from the soul in its silence; it is free from all longings, vigata-spruhah . That brings with it or it makes possible the subjection of our lower and the possession of our higher self, a possession dependent on complete self-mastery, secured by a radical victory and conquest over our mobile nature, jitatma. And all this amounts to an absolute inner renunciation of the desire of things, sannyasa . Renunciation is the way to this perfection and the man who has thus inwardly renounced all is described by the Gita as the true Sannyasin . "²⁸ The Second Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress: Individual soul liberation remains the prime concern of an ascetic Ashramite in spite of the limitation of its exclusive seeking. This separate affirmation of the ascetic Ashramite is an indispensable element in human perfection in liberating his vital being from insistent animalism. Then to rise beyond the desire of personal salvation is necessary for the complete rejection of the basis of ego. When he lives inward and arrives at vast equality and peace unnoticed by the reactions of the outer nature, then that is a great but incomplete liberation without the deliverance of outer Nature. Even after the personal deliverance is complete, an Integral Ascetic Sadhaka feels it is insufficient without the deliverance extended to the whole of humanity. "I do not believe that sadhana in the cave is easy — only there the insincerity remains hidden, while in life and action it is revealed. You can look like a Yogi in a cave, but in life the humbugging is more difficult, because you have to behave like a Yogi ."³² The Third Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress: Traditional Shastra preaches three doors of escape; firstly, the renunciation of life itself and of our mundane existence, the entire rejection of world-existence as a lie, an insanity of the Soul; secondly, the Soul’s hunger for individual salvation by escape into farthest height of unalloyed Bliss, its unwillingness to return from the ecstasy of the Divine embrace into the lower field of work, struggle and service of the inferior nature which is bound down to ego in all its activities, chained triply to the stake of differentiated individuality of the gunas ; thus, the exaggeration of the difficulties of combining life of works with Spiritual realisation as impossibility becomes prominent ; a selfishness grows which does not care of what becomes of those who are left behind us; thirdly, the traditional Yoga develops a weakness that shrinks from struggle, disgust and disappointment and baffled by the great cosmic labour and the indifference to the cry that rises up from a labouring humanity. In integral Yoga none of these escape, weakness, and selfishness are valid in its dealings with the surrounding, nor can there grow a mere sympathy, love or the understanding created by mental knowledge, but rather there must be a conscious unity with his fellow beings, a Divine strength, compassion and helpfulness are the very stuff that an integral Ascetic would take upon himself. "The wise man puts away the shrinkings and hesitations of the desire-soul and the doubts of the ordinary human intelligence, that measure by little personal, conventional or otherwise limited standards. He follows in the light of the full sattwic mind and with the power of an inner renunciation lifting the soul to impersonality, towards God, towards the universal and eternal the highest ideal law of his nature or the will of the Master of works in his secret spirit. He will not do action for the sake of any personal result or for any reward in this life or with any attachment to success, profit or consequence: neither will his works be undertaken for the sake of a fruit in the invisible hereafter or ask for a reward in other births or in worlds beyond us, the prizes for which the half-baked religious mind hungers. The three kinds of result, pleasant, unpleasant and mixed, in this or other worlds, in this or another life are for the slaves of desire and ego; these things do not cling to the free spirit. The liberated worker who has given up his works by the inner sannyasa to a greater Power is free from Karma. Action he will do, for some kind of action, less or more, small or great, is inevitable, natural, right for the embodied soul, — action is part of the divine law of living, it is the high dynamics of the spirit. The essence of renunciation, the true Tyaga , the true Sannyasa is not any rule of thumb of inaction but a disinterested soul, a selfless mind, the transition from ego to the free impersonal and spiritual nature. The spirit of this inner renunciation is the first mental condition of the highest culminating sattwic discipline. "²⁹ The Fourth Condition of Living in an Ascetics’ Fortress: Similarly an integral ascetic Sadhaka has to exceed the traditional ascetic’s limitation (1) of saintly inactivity by dynamisation of Divine Will and realise God as the Doer of all action who demands action, obedience and subordination from all; (2) the traditional ascetic’s realisation of God’s shadow, Brahma satya Jagat mithya ,¹⁰ is first experienced as indispensable Spiritual foundation and then superseded by the Direct contact with the Divine All, Brahma satya Jagat satya ; (3) the integral Ascetic attains the fullness of surrender by realising the fullness of life and this he realises by accepting and transforming life; (4) he realises the fullness of Divine Love by integrating the Personal, Saguna, and Impersonal, Nirguna, aspect of the Divine; (5) in integral Yoga the triune view of mutually contradictory philosophies, Maya of the Mayavadin , Illusionist, Prakriti of the Sankhya doctrine and the Lila , the Divine Play of the Bhakti movement are perfectly consistent with each other, necessary and complementary and must be accepted as the starting-point for all our understanding of the universe; (6) integral Ascetic links the lower deluding mental Maya of Mayavadin with the Supramental Maya of the Vedic seers in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight; (7) those who come to this ascetic Ashram at an earlier age or those who enter Sannyasa without exhausting the attraction of the outside world, for them adventure into Space through outer wandering become indispensable; so the later Vedantic wandering Eremite for the search of the Divine truth and Divine manifestation is transformed in integral Yoga into the spirit of ancient Vedantic Seers through inner wandering of Soul and in search of higher planes of Consciousness, and become a manifest and manifold power of the Spirit without dropping back the dynamic parts into the indeterminate stuff of Nature. Or after experiencing the ecstatic Divine union an integral ascetic Sadhaka declares in Savitri’s language, “Now of more wandering it has no need”¹ and he begins to understand that he still lives in Matter empty of its Lord and receives the Divine call of illumining the Matter’s depth by manifestation of higher states of Consciousness. His highest Spiritual realisation, while moving towards Supramental status is the entry into the total Nirvana of mentality and mental ego, which is a passage into the silence of the Spirit and in the Void he experiences the Omniscience Supreme. "The true Sannyasa of action is the reposing of all works on the Brahman . “He who, having abandoned attachment, acts reposing (or founding) his works on the Brahman, brahmanyadhaya karmani , is not stained by sin even as water clings not to the lotus-leaf.” (The Gita-5.10) Therefore the Yogins first “do works with the body, mind, understanding, or even merely with the organs of action, abandoning attachment, for self-purification, sangam tyaktvatmasuddhaye . (The Gita-5.11) By abandoning attachment to the fruits of works the soul in union with Brahman attains to peace of rapt foundation in Brahman, but the soul not in union is attached to the fruit and bound by the action of desire.” (The Gita-5.12) The foundation, the purity, the peace once attained, the embodied soul perfectly controlling its nature, having renounced all its actions by the mind, inwardly , not outwardly, “sits in its nine- gated city neither doing nor causing to be done.” For this soul is the one impersonal Soul in all, the all-pervading Lord, prabhu, vibhu , who, as the impersonal, neither creates the works of the world, nor the mind’s idea of being the doer, na kartrutvam na karmani, (The Gita-5.14) nor the coupling of works to their fruits, the chain of cause and effect. All that is worked out by the Nature in the man, svabhava, his principle of self-becoming, as the word literally means."³⁰ The Agenda of the Divine Centre or the Ashram : The First Condition of True Ashram Living or the Law of Sacrifice: The right living in the Ashram begins when one receives the Divine Call of the double movement of the ascent of the Soul and descent of the Divine Shakti and gives his whole life towards the intensification of these double movements. A liberated inner Ascetic (Not a physical ascetism¹⁴) is considered fit to live in a Divine Centre when his practice of inner renunciation or human Tapasya paves the passage clear for equality and consecration. A consecrated child experiences Spiritual upliftment through the practice of the Law of Sacrifice and receives the Divine call to reconcile Matter and Spirit. "A mutual giving and receiving is the law of Life without which it cannot for one moment endure, and this fact is the stamp of the divine creative Will on the world it has manifested in its being, the proof that with sacrifice as their eternal companion the Lord of creatures has created all these existences. The universal law of sacrifice is the sign that the world is of God and belongs to God and that life is his dominion and house of worship and not a field for the self-satisfaction of the independent ego; not the fulfilment of the ego, — that is only our crude and obscure beginning, — but the discovery of God, the worship and seeking of the Divine and the Infinite through a constantly enlarging sacrifice culminating in a perfect self-giving founded on a perfect self-knowledge, is that to which the experience of life is at last intended to lead... Because of this ignorance whose seal is egoism, the creature ignores the law of sacrifice and seeks to take all he can for himself and gives only what Nature by her internal and external compulsion forces him to give. He can really take nothing except what she allows him to receive as his portion, what the divine Powers within her yield to his desire. The egoistic soul in a world of sacrifice is as if a thief or robber who takes what these Powers bring to him and has no mind to give in return. He misses the true meaning of life and, since he does not use life and works for the enlargement and elevation of his being through sacrifice, he lives in vain."²⁶ “They who enjoy the nectar of immortality left over from the sacrifice attain to the eternal Brahman.” Sacrifice is the law of the world and nothing can be gained without it, neither mastery here, nor the possession of heavens beyond, nor the supreme possession of all; “this world is not for him who doeth not sacrifice, how then any other world?”"²⁷ The Second Condition of True Ashram Living: Again, those who live in the Ashram or related with it, without having the above Divine call have two options in their hand, that is either to develop the sense of ownership of the Ashram through practice of pseudo tamasic and rajasic consecration or raise the Being towards The Mother’s Infinite Consciousness through true self-giving, though the latter option is difficult to realise than the former and also it is the latter attitude that draws one towards sane Ashram living. The sense of ownership in Ashram living gives birth to triple internal politics which are internal dialogue between its members by entirely separating themselves from the Divine. Thus, in the first category we observe that one lives in the Ashram without his Soul’s consent but mind, life and body pretend to live a Divine life; in the second category, the Soul has chosen the Divine life but mind, life and body have not wholly consented to such living; in the third category those who support Ashram from outside they carry with them always a behind intention which is not meant for the sole satisfaction of the Divine but the satisfaction of their own desire, ego and interest. So wrong Ashram living leaves an impression on them of God as cruel, hard hearted, immoral, merciless and a monster without noticing that they are precisely like that themselves. So one is considered fit for true Ashram living when he is capable of discerning truth from falsehood and persistently rejects what is false and obscure in him. The Third Condition of True Ashram Living: The true Ashram living emerges when one gives the first priority to the Divine, who is primarily, One, the force of unity, Vijnana , immutable Divine, Nirguna Brahman and secondarily, the manifestation of Many, Saguna Brahman , with whom he has direct contact; the second priority is given to the obedience towards the Law of Divine living, which works out things clearly, decisively and usefully, classify, act, deal with them harmoniously or he is well informed about every nook and corner of the norms of integral Yoga, and he can become a child, replacing the outer law by the inner Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental Law; the more he is obedient to inner and external Divine Law the more he is having proximity with the direct Divine contact and the third priority is given to the fellowship with whom the Law is manifested, the collectivity, the source of mutuality. A true individual has an eternal relation with all other individuals, a practical mutuality founded in essential unity which is the basis of perfect universal Divine contact and Divine life. Those who compromise or violate the above order or sequence meet on their path endless falsehood and discord. A true and right Ashram living leaves an impression on them of God as all-Love, all-Light, all-Good and all-Compassion. The Fourth Condition of True Ashram Living: The Yoga Sadhana in Ashram living must first be pursued in secrecy and silence and the high truth of Spirituality need not be brought to the scrutiny before the tribunal¹² of common mentality which has no experience of these things and they consider their incapacity of Spiritual experience as proof of their invalidity and non-existence and demand physically valid proof of Supraphysical facts or what they find difficult to understand or imagine they consider it their right to deny. It has been observed that common men have indulged in the profanation of the Spiritual mysteries and have lost the truth and significance of pure living and their surface nature revolt or deny entry within and reject any inner change. Secondly, a strict mould of Spiritual discipline is enforced on each Sadhaka which will prevent him from the misuse¹¹ of opportunities available in wide and free Ashram living and turns the eye inward in continuous search of the Eternal and lastly, the integral Yoga pursued is meant for few fit initiated destined twice-born Souls or nameless adventurers in Consciousness and the purity of its motive and special object of extension of inborn Spirituality into various experience need not be popularised or generalised with the help of external machinery because by that ‘hundreds and thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce it to pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence.’² The Influence of the highest perfection of the consecrated child or man of Spiritual attainment need not rest satisfied with some intermediate tapasya , no longer confines within the boundary of small collectivity, but he seizes upon one Yogic method after another to realise the single integral Truth and one Supreme experience. His perfection at a single corner point of Ashram can spread across the whole earth and his single disposal towards Truth can change humanity and in order to arrive at the completeness of existence he least depends on external aids. “There is a divine compassion which descends to us from on high and for the man whose nature does not possess it, is not cast in its mould, to pretend to be the superior man, the master-man or the superman is a folly and an insolence, for he alone is the superman who most manifests the highest nature of the Godhead in humanity. This compassion observes with an eye of love and wisdom and calm strength the battle and the struggle, the strength and weakness of man, his virtues and sins, his joy and suffering, his knowledge and his ignorance, his wisdom and his folly, his aspiration and his failure and it enters into it all to help and to heal.”¹³ The Agenda of The Mother’s Virgin Fortress : The First Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: A Virgin’s Mind, Life, Body and Soul, seeks only the Divine and she adores the Divine Mother as the Lord and the Protector of her immaculate white virginity. A consecrated individual is considered fit to live in a Virgins’ Fortress when her consecration begins to enter the Divine union and the sole attraction of the Divine. A virgin Ashramite experiences Spiritual upliftment through fulfillment of the condition of the Law of Virginity and receives the distant Divine call of cellular transformation. The Second Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: It has been pointed out that the Spiritual disciplines in India have entered corruption and decline through the ‘method of self indulgence'³ and have ‘fallen in to discredit’³ with those who were not Sadhakas, or those who were not aware of the truth and practice of original Shastra . Again one cannot be a Sadhaka by intellectual preparation, understanding and reading of Scriptures; ‘for at the end of our long mental labour we might know all that has been said of the Eternal, possess all that can be thought of the Infinite and yet we might not know him (the Divine) at all.’⁴ The essential condition of becoming a Sadhaka is ‘a resolute self consecration from deep within,’⁵ ‘a call from the soul and a sufficient point of support in the mind.’⁴ The Virgins’ Fortress is born with its extreme Spiritual doctrine to build a strong Spiritual foundation and to meet the inner deficiency and cause of Spiritual fall and a virgin Sadhaka’s tender purity indulges only in things Divine and Eternal. The Third Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: A true Virgin child is she or he in whom the static Divine Union is prolonged and dynamised and the Ishwara becomes the Shakti. She pours herself into the material mould in ever growing intensities and she or he no longer feels herself as a different entity but identifies as a part and portion of the virgin Savitri or the Divine Mother, one with Her Love, Ananda and Consciousness. The Fourth Condition of Living in a Virgins’ Fortress: An integrated Virgin is she or he who is capable to direct the gained Divine Consciousness earthward for Psychic, Spiritual and Supramental transformation of Nature. She is preoccupied in entire effort to reveal Savitri, the All Mother in humanity. She discovers the Divine in the Subconscient Self and Inconscient Self and her material life is full of the Presence of the Lord. The Agenda of the World’s (Spiritual) Centre: 1: The First Centre: The First Centre or the World’s Centre in its inception is a deformation of God’s Eternity. 2: The Second Centre: The Second Centre or the World’s Centre in its formation is a deformation of God’s Capacity. 3: The Third Centre: The Third Centre or the World’s Centre in its making represents God’s transparency. 4: The Fourth Centre: The Fourth Centre or the World’s Centre in its developed state channels God’s Light, Love and Force to earth and man. It fulfills and completes the objective of the Divine Centre of liberating humanity and of the Virgins’ Fortress of transforming humanity. Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness : First Condition: The collective Divine living may not be sufficient for an individual who is destined to become a pioneer and precursor in Consciousness. He can isolate himself from collective Divine action and enter exclusively or his all-inclusive movement of Consciousness will cover vertical heights and depths and horizontal wideness capturing the whole earth and the Transcendence and all the nether planes which are identified as undivine. Second Condition: A revolutionary individual effort in Consciousness or a special extreme individual askesis can drag humanity ahead if his subjective and objective preoccupation entirely rests on the highest hinted reconciling, all-embracing and all exceeding Wisdom of the past and the present and his centre of living is shifted more and more within and above leaving far behind the recalcitrant surface consciousness to encircle the whole earth and hews a path towards the future. Third Condition: The World-redeemer’s heavy and mighty task in Consciousness is to make world-life a bridge twixt earth and heaven. The Day-bringer must walk in the darkest night of Hell and he who would save the world, must share its pain. His Soul must be wider than the universe to contain all the suffering of Earth and calls down greater Power and larger Light to world’s Inconscient abysm. Then he can hope to break the Wheels of earth’s doom and then shall be ended here the Law of Pain and all would turn ahead to Wisdom and Immortality. The Mother’s Consciousness : The First Consciousness: Observing Consciousness is defined as many-sided movements of effort in Ignorance and Waking Consciousness is defined as spontaneous action of the Shakti in Knowledge to arrive at comprehensive Knowledge. The Second Consciousness: The normal real life of a true liberated man is the state of oneness with the Supreme and with all beings and the bliss of that state and perfect knowledge of Spiritual atmosphere and the great Soul cannot regard with indifference the suffering of others and the deliverance of others must be felt as intimate to his own deliverance. He lives in a universalized Consciousness where all Death is realised as the Spiritual necessity for evolution of new being; it is also a stair, a stumbling stride, an instrument of perpetual life and change of robe from birth to birth in the immortal All Life or death is a rapid disintegration of cellular consciousness subservient to life’s necessity of change and variation; all Pain is a symbol of unwillingness to change and become one with the Divine, some secret rapture’s tragic mask and a violent backwash of the waters of universal Delight and without pain he would not get all the value of infinite Delight; all Limitation is a turning of the Infinite upon itself; all Evil is in travail of eternal Good and a circling around its own perfection; all error is significant of all possibility and effort of discovery of Supreme Truth; all destruction and war are small transient storm and rapidly clear the field for new good and a more satisfying harmony; all darkness is a veil of self-hidden Light. This Cosmic Consciousness is a meeting place where the Matter is real to the Spirit and Spirit is real to the Matter and illumined harmony of mind, life and body are perfectly realised. The Third Consciousness: The Supramental Consciousness is at once the static self-awareness of the Infinite and Eternal and a dynamic power of self-determination inherent in that self-awareness. In this Consciousness, all contradictions are canceled or fused into each other in the higher light of seeing and being, in unified self-knowledge and world-knowledge. It is the fulfilled existence that will solve all the complex problems of existence created by partial affirmation of Mind and Life emerging from the total denial of the Inconscient. The Divine in its nature is an infinite Consciousness and the nature of infinite Consciousness is a pure and infinite Delight. The Fourth Consciousness: The Mother’s Infinite Consciousness is that which rests on the One and acts in the All and is capable of free power of self-variation producing infinite results in the phenomenon and form or manifesting and playing with Being in Infinite form and movements in order to cast Herself into the world; Her Consciousness transcends All and denies none; sees all but lives for its transcendent task; transcends the Light and the Darkness to merge in the Absolute; becomes All and yet transcends the mystic whole; She is immortal yet suffers the mortal limitation of birth and death; when most unseen She works most mightily; She can uphold in Herself a million universes and pervades each with a single ray of Her Self-light and a single degree of Her ineffable existence; this whole creation lives in a lonely ray of Her Sun and before Her Infinite Chit-Shakti the Supramental Consciousness grows like a shadow. The Agenda of Evolutionary Synthesis: The agenda of the above human aspirations can be satisfying if it can be reconciled by giving equal effort, regard and reverence to all eight institutions. The fundamental urge of mundane perfection to attain harmony in the material existence is to be linked preliminarily with the moderate effort of linking existence with the Source, the Creator. The surface concentration of the Divine touch of the moderate is to be penetrated within by substituting the sole pursuit of the Divine in an Ascetic discipline. The Ascetic ascent of uniting with the Divine is to be rightly related with the descending Shakti in a consecrated Ashram living. The reconciliation of Matter and Spirit in a Divine Centre is to be rightly related with the perfection of material life and the quest for cellular transformation of a Virgins’ Fortress. The individual liberation of the Soul in the Moderate and Ascetics’ Fortress and individual transformation of the Nature of the Divine Centre and Virgins’ Fortress are to be universalised so that individuals can act as a centre of world liberation and world transformation. The mission of the World Centre to act as a channel of Divine Force in liberating and transforming humanity is concentrated further in the movement towards the realisation of the total Consciousness of the Eternal or what we understand as Sri Aurobindo’s Consciousness. The descent of total Consciousness is a dynamic state of Brahman , known as The Mother’s Consciousness, which is responsible for the total Divine transformation of humanity. Thus, the Vedic doctrine of disclosing the Godhead in the manifestation of Spirit, Mind, Life and Body is realised. OM TAT SAT References: 1: Savitri-412, 2: 02.10.1934, SABCL-Vol-26/p-375, 3: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-42, “To those who want to practise the integral Yoga, it is strongly advised to abstain from three things: Sexual intercourse Smoking Drinking alcohol” The Mother/12 June 1965/TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-35 4: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-81, 5: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-82, 6: The Mother’s Agenda-Vol-6/p-119-120, 7: Savitri-37, 8: Savitri-259, 9: Savitri-327, 10: “A mighty murmur of immense retreat Besieged the ear, a sad and limitless call (The Spiritual experience of Brahma satya Jagat mithya is sad limitless call.) As of a soul retiring from the world.” Savitri-391, 11: “Let the mind learn to be silent, let it not be eager to profit immediately by the forces which come to us from Thee for the integral manifestation…” The Mother/TMCW-1/Prayers and Meditations/p-201, 12: “The greatest inner discoveries, the experience of self-being, the cosmic consciousness, the inner calm of the liberated spirit, the direct effect of mind upon mind, the knowledge of things by consciousness in direct contact with other consciousness or with its objects, most spiritual experiences of any value, cannot be brought before the tribunal of the common mentality which has no experience of these things and takes its own absence or incapacity of experience as a proof of their invalidity or their non-existence.” CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-677, 13: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-58, 14: "He (the Lord) discourages the tamasic recoil and the tendency to renunciation and enjoins the continuance of action and even of the same fierce and terrible action, but he points the disciple towards another and inner renunciation which is the real issue from his crisis and the way towards the soul’s superiority to the world-Nature and yet its calm and self-possessed action in the world. Not a physical asceticism , but an inner askesis is the teaching of the Gita." CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-55-56, "As a matter of fact, when people talk of Tyaga, of renunciation, it is always the physical renunciation of the world which they understand by the word or at least on which they lay emphasis, while the Gita takes absolutely the opposite view that the real Tyaga has action and living in the world as its basis and not a flight to the monastery, the cave or the hill-top. The real Tyaga is action with a renunciation of desire and that too is the real Sannyasa . ” CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-494, 15: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-38-40, 16: The Mother/TMCW-3/Questions and Answers-1929-1931/p-26–27, 17: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-336, “But this exclusive consummation (realisation of Supreme Self) is not the sole or inevitable result of the Path of Knowledge. For, followed more largely and with less individual aim, the method of Knowledge may lead to an active conquest of the cosmic existence for the Divine no less than to a transcendence. The point of this departure is the realization of the supreme Self not only in one’s own being but in all beings and, finally, the realization of even the phenomenal aspects of the world as a play of the divine consciousness and not something entirely alien to its true nature. And on the basis of this realization a yet further enlargement is possible, the conversion of all forms of knowledge, however mundane, into activities of the divine consciousness utilizable for the projection of the one and unique Object of knowledge both in itself and through the play of its forms and symbols. Such a method might well lead to the elevation of the whole range of human intellect and perception to the divine level, to its spiritualization and to the justification of the cosmic travail of knowledge in humanity.” Sri Aurobindo/CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-38-39 18: " The middle path is made for thinking man. To choose his steps by reason’s vigilant light, To choose his path among the many paths Is given him, for each his difficult goal Hewn out of infinite possibility." Savitri-434, 19: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-23- 24, 20: CWSA-23/The Synthesis of Yoga/p-348, 21: The Gita-6.16, 22: "Another untoward result or peril of the diffusive movement and the consequent invasion has been the intellectual formalisation of spiritual knowledge into dogma and the materialisation of living practice into a dead mass of cult and ceremony and ritual, a mechanisation by which the spirit was bound to depart in course of time from the body of the religion. But this risk had to be taken , for the expansive movement was an inherent necessity of the spiritual urge in evolutionary Nature." CWSA-22/The Life Divine/p-903, 23: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-335, 24: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-208, 25: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-359, 26: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-126-127, 27: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p- 122, 28: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-530, 29: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-497, 30: CWSA-19/Essays on the Gita/p-185, 31: “Never forget that, as much outside as in the Ashram, if you want to lead a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses; otherwise there is no end to the miseries and the troubles.” TMCW-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-255, 32: TMCW/Vol-14/Words of the Mother-II/p-47, 33: The Mother's Agenda/April 22, 1957, 34: The Mother's Agenda/March 26, 1966, DOWNLOAD THIS WEBPAGE IN PDF FORMAT: THE MESSAGE OF MERRY CHRISTMAS “You know, mon petit, I said one day that in the history of earth, wherever there was a possibility for the Consciousness to manifest, I was there; this is a fact. It's like the story of Savitri: always there, always there, always there, in this one, that one – at certain times there were four emanations simultaneously! At the time of the Italian and French Renaissance. And again at the time of Christ, then too .... Oh, you know, I have remembered so many, many things! It would take volumes to tell it all. And then, more often than not (not always, but more often than not), what took part in this or that life was a particular yogic formation of the vital being – in other words something immortal. And when I came this time, as soon as I took up the yoga, they came back again from all sides, they were waiting. ” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-27 June 1962 NEW YEAR GREETINGS-2025 “He (Sri Aurobindo ) wrote this in a letter, I believe, and he spoke of this system of compensation – for example, those who take an illness on themselves in order to have the power to cure; and then there’s the symbolic story of Christ dying on the cross to set men free. And Sri Aurobindo said, ‘That’s fine for a certain age, but we must now go beyond that.’ As he told me (it’s even one of the first things he told me), ‘We are no longer at the time of Christ when, to be victorious, it was necessary to die.’ I have always remembered this...But things are PULLING backwards – phew, how they pull! ... ‘The Law, the Law, it’s a Law. Don’t you understand, it’s a LAW, you can’t change the Law.’ ‘But I CAME to change the Law.’. .‘Then pay the price.’” The Mother The Mother’s Agenda-November 12, 1960, (1) SAVITRI RECITATION ON 24.11.2025 AND (2) DARSHAN DAY(24.11.2025) PROGRAM AT SRI MATRINIKETAN ASHRAM “To concentrate most on one’s own spiritual growth and experience is the first necessity of the sadhak — to be too eager to help others draws away from the inner work. There is also likely to be an overzeal and haste which clouds the discrimination and makes what help is given less effective than it should be. To grow in the spirit is the greatest help one can give to others, for then something flows out naturally to those around that helps them .” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-317, “The idea of helping others is a subtle form of the ego. It is only the Divine Force that can help. One can be its instrument, but you should first learn to be a fit and egoless instrument.” Sri Aurobindo CWSA-31/Letters on Yoga-IV/p-318, “The best way to help the world is to transform oneself by an integral and intensive yoga.” The Mother TMCW-14/Words of The Mother-II/p-277 “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 "A community life must necessarily have a discipline in order that the weaker may not be maltreated by the stronger; and this discipline ought to be respected by all those who wish to live in that community. But for the community to be happy it is necessary that this discipline should be determined by someone or by those who have the greatest broadness of mind and, if possible, by him or by those who are conscious of the Divine Presence and are surrendered to that. For the earth to be happy, power should be in the hands of those alone who are conscious of the Divine Will. But this is impossible at the moment because the number of those who are truly conscious of the Divine Will is negligible and these have necessarily no ambition. To tell the truth, when the hour comes for this realisation, this will come about quite naturally." The Mother TMCW-13/Words of the Mother-I/p-165

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