Quotation, Mantra, Prayer, Poem, Music, Flower
In this Yoga one can't take a short cut in everything. I had to work on each problem and on each conscious plane to solve or to transform and in each I had to take the blessed conditions as they were and do honest work without resorting to miracles.
The Greeks sought universality by omitting all finer individual touches; Shakespeare sought it more successfully by universalising the rarest individual details of character. That which Nature uses for concealing from us the Infinite, Shakespeare used for revealing the Ananta-guna in man to the eye of humanity.
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.
ॐ तत् सत् ज्योतिरराविन्द
OM Tat Sat Jyotir Aravinda Invocation to the All-Manifesting Transcendent, Supreme Being, His Light, that of Sri Aurobindo
I shall not die. Although this body, when the spirit tires Of its cramped residence, shall feed the fires, My house consumes, not I.
Leaving that case I find out ample and ethereal room. My spirit shall avoid the hungry tomb, Deceiving death's embrace.
Night shall contain The sun in its cold depths; Time too must cease; The stars that labour shall have their release. I cease not, I remain.
Ere the first seeds Were sown on earth, I was already old, And when now unborn planets shall grow cold My history proceeds.
I am the light In stars, the strength of lions and the joy Of mornings; I am man and maid and boy, Protean, infinite.
I am a tree That stands out singly from the infinite blue; I am the quiet falling of the dew And am the unmeasured sea.
I hold the sky Together and upbear the teeming earth. I was the eternal thinker at my birth And shall be, though I die.
More >>
Why, O Lord, does my heart seem to me to be so cold and dry?
I feel, I see my soul living deep within my being, and my soul sees Thee, recognises Thee and loves Thee in all things, in everything that is; it is fully conscious of this, and as the outer being is surrendered to it, it too is conscious; the mind knows and never forgets; the purified vital being no longer has any attractions and repulsions, and more and more does it taste of the joy of Thy Presence in all things and always. But the heart seems to have fallen asleep in a slumber of exhaustion, and the soul no longer finds sufficient activity within it to respond fully to its impulsion. Why? Was it so poor that the struggle could thus wear it out, or so deeply wounded that it has become quite stiff? And yet it would like to answer the inner call; it wants this with a faith and ardour which have never wavered; but it is like an old man smiling benevolently at the games of youth but unable to take part in them. And yet it is full of joy and confidence, it overflows with gratitude for all the treasures of affection which Nature has so generously lavished upon it; it would like, in exchange for these precious gifts, to pour out in inexhaustible streams the golden wine of tenderness which restores and fortifies, enlivens and consoles, the true wine of life for human beings. It would like to and tries... but how poor is what it does beside what it dreams of doing, how mediocre what it is able to do beside what it hopes, for it hopes always. It knows that Thy call is never heard
in vain, and it has no doubt it can one day realise the splendours of which Thou hast given it a glimpse.
Who will open these closed flood-gates?
My heart loves in its human way, and in its human way it seems to me it loves with strength, constancy and purity. But Thou wouldst have it love divinely in a boundless unfolding of Thy sovereign power; and this remains yet unrealised for it.
Who will open these closed flood-gates?...
Prayers & Meditations >>
Savitri Book 1 Canto 4 - The Secret Knowledge
Thus will the masked Transcendent mount his throne. ||11.44|| When darkness deepens strangling the earth’s breast And man’s corporeal mind is the only lamp, As a thief’s in the night shall be the covert tread Of one who steps unseen into his house. ||11.45||
more >>
Home
Sri Aurobindo
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.