Quotation, Mantra, Prayer, Poem, Music, Flower
There is no method in this Yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Mother to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness;.....
To find that saving a man's body or mind from suffering is not always for the good of either soul, mind or body, is one of the bitterest of experiences for the humanly compassionate.
A "personalised" section means that the content is refreshed per view for you, as if in answer to your inner aspiration.
The content is selected from the words of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. It is the electronic equivalent of looking up any of Sri Aurobindo's or The Mother's works to receive an indication or answer. The explanation of the physical process follows..
Everybody can do it. It is done in this way: you concentrate. Now, it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and want the solution, you concentrate on this problem; if you want to know the condition you are in, which you are not aware of - if you want to get some light on the state you are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the light. Or else, quite simply, if you are curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell you, you remain silent and still for a moment and then open the book. I always used to recommend taking a paper-knife, because it is thinner; while you are concentrated you insert it in the book and with the tip indicate something. Then, if you know how to concentrate, that is to say, if you really do it with an aspiration to have an answer, it always comes.
For, in books of this kind (Mother shows The Synthesis of Yoga), books of revelation, there is always an accumulation of forces - at least of higher mental forces, and most often of spiritual forces of the highest knowledge. Every book, on account of the words it contains, is like a small accumulator of these forces. People don't know this, for they don't know how to make use of it, but it is so. In the same way, in every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small accumulation representative of the force of the person whose picture it is, of his nature and, if he has powers, of his powers. Now, you, when you are sincere and have an aspiration, you emanate a certain vibration, the vibration of your aspiration which goes and meets the corresponding force in the book, and it is a higher consciousness which gives you the answer.
Everything is contained potentially. Each element of a whole potentially contains what is in the whole. It is a little difficult to explain, but you will understand with an example: when people want to practise magic, if they have a bit of nail or hair, it is enough for them, because within this, potentially, there is all that is in the being itself. And in a book there is potentially - not expressed, not manifest - the knowledge which is in the person who wrote the book. Thus, Sri Aurobindo represented a totality of comprehension and knowledge and power; and every one of his books is at once a symbol and a representation. Every one of his books contains symbolically, potentially, what is in him. Therefore, if you concentrate on the book, you can, through the book, go back to the source. And even, by passing through the book, you will be able to receive much more than what is just in the book.
There is always a way of reading and understanding what one reads, which gives an answer to what you want. It is not just a chance or an amusement, nor is it a kind of diversion. You may do it just "like that", and then nothing at all happens to you, you have no reply and it is not interesting. But if you do it seriously, if seriously your aspiration tries to concentrate on this instrument - it is like a battery, isn't it, which contains energies - if it tries to come into contact with the energy which is there and insists on having the answer to what it wants to know, well, naturally, the energy which is there - the union of the two forces, the force given out by you and that accumulated in the book - will guide your hand and your paper-knife or whatever you have; it will guide you exactly to the thing that expresses what you ought to know…. Obviously, if one does it without sincerity or conviction, nothing at all happens. If it is done sincerely, one gets an answer.
Certain books are like this, more powerfully charged than others; there are others where the result is less clear. But generally, books containing aphorisms and short sentences - not very long philosophical explanations, but rather things in a condensed and precise form - it is with these that one succeeds best.
Naturally, the value of the answer depends on the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing at all but stupidities. But if you take a book containing a condensation of forces - of knowledge or spiritual force or teaching power - you will receive your answer.
In the night as in the day be always with me. In sleep as in waking let me feel in me always the reality of your presence. Let it sustain and make to grow in me Truth, consciousness and bliss constantly and at all times.
At the way's end when the shore raised up its dim line and remote lights from the port glimmered, Then a cloud darkened the sky's brink and the wind's scream was the shrill laugh of a loosed demon And the huge passion of storm leaped with its bright stabs and the long crashing of death's thunder; As if haled by an unseen hand fled the boat lost on the wide homeless forlorn ocean.
Is it Chance smites? is it Fate's irony? dead workings or blind purpose of brute Nature? Or man's own deeds that return back on his doomed head with a stark justice, a fixed vengeance? Or a dread Will from behind Life that regards pain and salutes death with a hard laughter? Is it God's might or a Force rules in this dense jungle of events, deeds and our thought's strivings?
Yet perhaps sank not the bright lives and their glad venturings foiled, drowned in the grey ocean, But with long wandering they reached an unknown shore and a strange sun and a new azure, Amid bright splendour of beast glories and birds' music and deep hues, an enriched Nature And a new life that could draw near to divine meanings and touched close the concealed purpose.
In a chance happening, fate's whims and the blind workings or dead drive of a brute Nature, In her dire Titan caprice, strength that to death drifts and to doom, hidden a Will labours. Not with one moment of sharp close or the slow fall of a dim curtain the play ceases: Yet is there Time to be crossed, lives to be lived out, the unplayed acts of the soul's drama.
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Long months have gone by in which nothing could be said, for it was a period of transition, of passing from one equilibrium to another, vaster and more complete. The outer circumstances were manifold and new, as if the being needed to accumulate many perceptions and observations in order to give a more extensive and complex base to its experience. But, being entirely plunged within this experience, it did not have the necessary perspective to see it as a whole, to know what it was and above all where it was leading.
Suddenly, on the fifth of June the veil was rent, and there was light in my consciousness.
When I contemplated Thee in Thy individual form, O Lord of eternity, and implored Thee to take possession of Thy kingdom of the flesh, Thou didst set again into motion, into activity this vital form, which, for the necessity of development and unification, had been living for years in a passivity that was receptive and harmonious but alien to all active manifestation of Thy will.
This return to activity meant a completely new adaptation of the vital instrument, for its natural tendency is always to resume action with its old habits and methods. This period of adaptation was long, painful, sometimes obscure, though behind, the perception of Thy Presence and perfect surrender to Thy Law were immutable and quite strongly conscious for any disturbance to shake the being.
Gradually the vital being grew accustomed to find
harmony in the intensest action as it had in passive surrender. And once this harmony was sufficiently established, there was light again in all the parts of the being, and the consciousness of what had happened became complete.
Now in the heart of action the vital being has discovered the perception of Infinity and Eternity. It can perceive Thy Supreme Beauty and live it in all sensations and all forms. Even in its every sensation, extended, active, fully developed to feel contrary sensations at the same time, always it perceives Thee.
It is not unaware, however, that this is only one stage, and it bows before Thee in a profound adoration and tells Thee: "Lord, Thou hast taken up Thy instrument again and willed to use it for action. The instrument knows its imperfection and impurity and implores Thy mercy to perfect and purify it, so that, day by day, through a progressive disappearance of all its preferences and limitations, it may be able to manifest Thee more integrally."
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Savitri Book 2 Canto 4 - The Kingdoms of the Little Life
A blindfold search and wrestle and fumbling clasp Of a half-seen Nature and a hidden Soul, A game of hide and seek in twilit rooms, A play of love and hate and fear and hope Continues in the nursery of mind Its hard and heavy romp of self-born twins. ||40.34||
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