SABCL Set of 30 volumes
On Himself Vol. 26 of SABCL 514 pages 1972 Edition
English

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Sri Aurobindo's notes and letters on his life and yoga and letters on Himself and on The Mother.

THEME

On Himself

Compiled from Notes and Letters

  Sri Aurobindo : corresp.

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Sri Aurobindo

Sri Aurobindo's notes and letters on his life and yoga and letters on Himself and on The Mother. In these letters, Sri Aurobindo writes about his life as a student in England, a teacher in Baroda, a political leader in Bengal, and a writer and yogi in Pondicherry. He also comments on his formative spiritual experiences and the development of his yoga.

Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (SABCL) On Himself Vol. 26 514 pages 1972 Edition
English
 PDF    autobiographical  Sri Aurobindo : corresp.

Part I

Sri Aurobindo on Himself




Beginnings of Yoga




The One Thing Essential

I do not know what X said or in which article, I do not have it with me. But if the statement is that nobody can have a successful meditation or realise anything till he is pure and perfect, I fail to follow it: it contradicts my own experience. I have always had realisation by meditation first and the purification started afterwards as a result. I have seen many get important, even fundamental realisations by meditation who could not be said to have a great inner development. Are all Yogis who have meditated with effect and had great realisations in their inner consciousness perfect in their nature? It does not look like it to me. I am unable to believe in absolute generalisations in this field, because the development of spiritual consciousness is an exceedingly vast and complex affair in which all sorts of things can happen and one might almost say that for each man it is different according to his nature and that the one thing that is essential is the inner call and aspiration and the perseverance to follow always after it, no matter how long it takes, what are the difficulties or impediments, because nothing else will satisfy the soul within us.


If absolute surrender, faith, etc. from the beginning were essential for Yoga, then nobody could do it. I myself could not have done it if such a condition had been demanded of me.









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