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Everyone believes they are ‘conscious’. Spiritual seekers, especially, having awakened from the purely mechanical, habitual processes of the external life, certainly believe they are conscious. Those who believe in various religious traditions, by virtue of that belief, accept that they are ... Views: 349
When we read Sri Aurobindo’s aphorism noted below, we tend to focus on the second part of the equation, the “bar” to achieving the higher result. There is an implication thereby that we have already achieved the first part and that we are thus ready to proceed to the next phase or stage of inner ... Views: 366
As the seeker begins to examine his life, he quickly finds that virtually all his thoughts, emotions, feelings and actions are based on habitual patterns, either ingrained in the human encoding as a species, or developed through socialisation in a society or civilisation, through family ... Views: 386
It is a quality of human nature. When things are going well, we are happy and contented, we tend not to make extraordinary efforts or focus on change. We feel like things are where they should be in our lives, and we move into ‘enjoyment mode’ rather than ‘change mode’. In some cases, we believe ... Views: 343
If we reflect carefully, we will recognise that much of what takes place in our lives occurs without our conscious awareness, participation or control. The activity of the cells, the nervous system, the internal organs are all virtually automatic functions that elude conscious oversight. Very ... Views: 318
When we reflect on the evolution of consciousness, it becomes obvious to us that nothing can evolve out of Matter that is not already involved in some way. We plant an acorn, and an oak tree grows. Someone unfamiliar with the science would treat this as a magical event. We put one form of ... Views: 348
Several days ago a seeker raised a question, rephrased here: “I read Sri Aurobindo’s writings regularly and for a time they stay active within me, but then, it falls away and I feel blank inside. Am I losing the benefit of Sri Aurobindo’s teaching, and if so, how can I ensure that it stays ... Views: 357
We very easily fall into the mistaken idea that the path we follow is the best way to approach the Divine or achieve spiritual realisation and that other paths are either less effective or do not provide the complete liberation from the ego-personality. We also tend to accept the idea that ... Views: 332
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, there are 8 limbs, or steps, systematically presented as the basis for the practice of Yoga. The first two of these, known as yamas and niyamas present preliminary practices to purify and stabilize the being to prepare for the practice of yoga. Many people consider ... Views: 351
Each individual has a unique way of relating to and developing his spiritual aspiration. Those who are more intellectually inclined may find that they naturally incline towards what is known as the yoga of knowledge. Those who have a nature more inclined to devotion and emotional expression may ... Views: 341
We can identify a systematic evolution of consciousness in the external world. Life evolves out of Matter, Mind out of Life. We do not, however, thereby determine either a significance or purpose to this evolution nor any causative factors that involve mind and life into matter such that they ... Views: 324
The Rishis of the Rig Veda place Agni at the beginning and in a central role in the spiritual development they described. The flame of aspiration, the ‘knower of all things born’, the mystic fire is the starting point for spiritual growth. This flame resides in the psychic being, the soul, ... Views: 373
In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo devotes a chapter to the ‘sevenfold ignorance’. While we are fixated on our external mind, life and body and the life we lead in the external world, we remain ignorant of the forces at work, behind the scenes, to create what we call our being and personality, ... Views: 315
When looked at from the outside, it seems that Matter came first and out of Matter arose Life and out of Life arose Mind. What is not addressed here is how material forces were able to create life and intelligence, in a seemingly random fashion. This is why some religious traditions posit that ... Views: 329
If we focus on the experience of our normal, daily lives, we will find that it can be characterised by a specific feeling or quality that we know as our usual experience. While each individual may have a different characterisation of this experience, some happy, some sad, some joyful, some ... Views: 510
We have seen a phenomenal growth of practices that bring attention to our daily actions. Mindfulness training asks us to attend to each movement, each step, each bite of food, and each thought and emotion. Clearly with the amount of distraction we suffer from as a result of our love affair with ... Views: 348
Personal growth and inner growth, the enhancement of the human being and its capabilities and the transcendence of the human being to develop a being awake and active with a new level of consciousness, are not in conflict with one another. The human being must develop to a certain degree to ... Views: 493
The default standpoint for almost the entire human race is that of the ego. There are tribal societies that try to reduce the predominance of the ego through a collective mindset, but even in such societies, pride, rivalry for dominance, and other forms of ego persist. In the West, a premium is ... Views: 477
The dualities, or pairs of opposites, are recognised throughout the world as a condition of life. Night and day, positive and negative, and all other dualities, can be seen in material nature, as well as in our vital and emotional existence and in our minds. Electricity flows between positive ... Views: 473
We generally experience ourselves as our body, life and mind. When we injure our body, we say that we have hurt ourselves. When there are hunger pangs, we say that we are hungry. When we experience an emotion, we say that we have become angry, or are in love, or are feeling lonely or depressed. ... Views: 459
If we observe ourselves carefully, we find that as a natural consequence of the distractions and the dispersion of the consciousness, we have little if any calm and peace in the being. We experience not only the more overt forms of anxiety and concern, but the more subtle forms of nervous ... Views: 425
Distraction is actually a symptom of another characteristic, that of “dispersion” of the consciousness. If we take the time to observe our own sense of awareness we find that it seems to be primarily on the surface of our being, receiving sense perceptions, reacting to people, things, events and ... Views: 402
With even a very cursory examination of the thoughts and sensations that enter our awareness, it becomes quite clear that there is a constant flow of sensations, impressions, perceptions, feelings, emotions and thoughts that seem to bombard us all the time. Our attention flits from one thing to ... Views: 404
What does the evolution of a new power of consciousness imply? When we observe the impact that the Life-Force has had on Matter, we can see that it brings in a radical transformation of Matter itself to allow the Life-Force to act. Matter has to become more responsive, more flexible, less dense, ... Views: 406
While humanity embodies the development of the mental consciousness, in principle, it must be noted that this generalisation does not apply specifically to each and every human individual. Just as the field of statistics does not predict any single event, and the observational experiments of ... Views: 360
In one of his aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo observes: “…the ego was the helper, the ego is the bar.” For most spiritual seekers, the attachment to the ego-personality is the great hindrance which they must find a way to overcome. Some try extreme methods to minimize the role and power of the ego. But ... Views: 370
Nature takes a long time to effectuate substantive evolutionary progress in manifesting higher, more complex and more powerful forms of consciousness. The shift from the realm of Matter took countless millennia. The first appearance of Life was simple and, again, the time required was far beyond ... Views: 355
Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, compliled by Dr. A.S. Dalal, is an eminently practical handbook for understanding and addressing the complexity of our psychological makeup. Modern-day civilisation creates enormous pressures for individuals, while at the same ... Views: 346
A central key to attaining peace lies in achieving the poise of non-attachment. Non-attachment is sometimes confused with avoidance of action, or some kind of renunciation. But non-attachment can develop even among those who are active in the world. King Janaka was known as being non-attached ... Views: 339
It is a somewhat difficult concept for most people to accept: that each individual has his own spiritual path and realisation before him, and that it is therefore neither appropriate nor fruitful to spend time trying to either criticise or convert others to one’s own path or view, or to attempt ... Views: 365
When one begins to consider how the faults we find in others are those to which we ourselves are susceptible, and that we see them through the focus and affinity that we have to them, as the synchronicity of the universe brings forward to us those very things that we are naturally attracting, it ... Views: 319
It is much easier to see and criticise others for their ideas, behaviour or habits, than to see in oneself potentially those same issues. Jesus raised this issue in his Sermon on the Mount: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in ... Views: 333
When we reflect on the time we have in our lifetime and how we utilize it, we find that after we calculate time spent in sleeping, eating, bathing, growth in childhood, earning a living, exercising, we have a very limited amount of what may be called “free time” available to us. In a culture and ... Views: 351
Many people, including those who are treading a spiritual path, feel depressed and hopeless when they see all the negativity, violence, and destruction taking place in the world around us. The mass media focuses on, and emphasizes, all this negativity, with the saying ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. ... Views: 332
We are usually so busy focusing on the day to day lives we are living that we rarely take the time to reflect on the larger significance of the universal manifestation and what role we, as individuals play in this development. The concept of maya, the cosmic illusion, is based on our ... Views: 347
There are numerous ways to widen one’s consciousness to begin to incorporate the viewpoint and direction of others. Some of these methods are easier than others, in that they utilize a mood or feeling that is evoked from a natural environment, such as the starry sky, the ocean, a wide view from ... Views: 346
The Vedic Rishis sought the Truth, the Right, the Vast. (satyam, rtam, brihat). They understood that the awareness limited to the ego-personality, the individual body-life-mind complex, was incomplete and could not comprehend the truth or meaning of existence. They sought to identify with the ... Views: 363
Many people, over the years, have told me that reading Sri Aurobindo’s writings is difficult due to the complexity and wideness of the concepts he presents. I have heard, or experienced, similar issues reading Kant, Leibnitz, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Joyce and others. For those engaged in technical ... Views: 339
If we observe what happens to our inner psychology when we experience physical pain, we will see that we mostly tighten ourselves up, tensing the body, focusing intently on the experience of the bodily pain. By doing so, we actually intensify the pain experience through this focus and it takes ... Views: 341
The principle Patanjali set forth for the practice of samyajma provided that one would be identified with and gain complete knowledge with the object of the practice of concentration. Those who choose to identify with the vast galactic panorama of stars and space would find their consciousness ... Views: 334
With focus, over time and with dedicated effort, the power of concentrated attention, samyama, eventually bears fruit and one can escape the boundaries of the ego-consciousness and enter into an identification with others. As this occurs, we understand their motivations and the direction of ... Views: 345
There is a complex game called ‘chess’. The modern form of the game reputedly developed from a strategic game that appears to have originated in India in around the 6th or 7th century, although there were likely precursor forms that existed prior to that time. As a game of strategy, the object ... Views: 380
At some time or another, every human being has the experience of having an opinion, thought or idea contradicted. The usual reaction is to defend one’s position, whether or not it is well-founded, and arguments tend to ensure. It is rare that one side of the argument is entirely right, and the ... Views: 358
Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras describes the practice of samyama which is a power of identification that results from the systematic development of dharana (holding the mind on to some particular object), dhyana (an unbroken flow of knowledge in that object) and samadhi (reflecting on the meaning, ... Views: 356
We live in a time of extreme polarization. People and even entire societies are taking fixed stands, and disputing the validity or right of anyone holding different or opposing viewpoints. In the framework of governing a nation, this leads inevitably to either a form of political gridlock if the ... Views: 360
The Indian tradition relates a story of the divine singer, Narad, which emphasizes the power of a positive mind-set in the spiritual quest. He came across a yogi undertaking strenuous discipline, tapasya, This yogi inquired how much longer he would need to achieve enlightenment. Narad replied “4 ... Views: 363
When we look around and see the challenges facing us on the planet, our first impulse is generally to try to find some kind of “fix” to the situation. This generally takes the form of suggesting that our current economic or political system or model is defective, deficient or broken, and thus, ... Views: 345
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote what is one of the classics in Western literature, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The tale is one of a scientist who experiments with potions, one of which releases the dark side of his being, the suppressed inhibitions and dark urges of murder, lust, ... Views: 357
It is easy to see the failings of others, while overlooking the issues within oneself. Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount, recounted in the New Testament of the Bible, exhorted his followers to not judge others but to look within, and noted ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy ... Views: 338
We find in the ancient Indian epic, Ramayana, an interesting sub-plot which changes the very complexion of what appears to be a battle between ‘good’ personified by Rama and his family, and ‘evil’ as personified by Ravana and his kin. As we delve deeper into the tale, we find that Ravana was ... Views: 341