On Thoughts And Aphorisms
1958-70
Contents
Jnana (Knowledge)
(1958)
Jnana (Knowledge)
(1960-61)
Jnana (Knowledge)
(1960-61)
Jnana (Knowledge)
(1969-70)
Karma (Works)
(1969-70)
Disease and Medical Science
Bhakti (Devotion)
(1969-70)
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327 – India had three fortresses of a communal life, the village community, the larger joint family and the orders of the Sannyasins; all these are broken or breaking with the stride of egoistic conceptions of social life; but is not this after all only the breaking of these imperfect moulds on the way to a larger and diviner communism?
328 – The individual cannot be perfect until he has surrendered all he now calls himself to the divine Being. So also, until mankind gives all it has to God, never shall there be a perfected society.
Sri Aurobindo writes here in a clear and definite way what I tried to express before: no perfection can be attained so long as the government of the Supreme Lord is not recognised and admitted everywhere and in all things.
Liberty can only be manifested when all men know the liberty of the Supreme Lord. Equality can only be manifested when all men become conscious of the Supreme Lord. Fraternity can only be manifested when men feel that they are equally born of the Supreme Lord and one in His Oneness. 9 February 1970
329 – There is nothing small in God's eyes; let there be nothing small in thine. He bestows as much labour of divine energy on the formation of a shell as on the building of an empire. For thyself it is greater to be a good shoemaker than a luxurious and incompetent king.
330 – Imperfect capacity and effect in the work that is meant for thee is better than an artificial competency and a borrowed perfection. Page - 308 331 − Not result is the purpose of action, but God's eternal delight in becoming, seeing and doing.
It is obvious that the greatness of an action does not depend on its scope, and its perfection does not depend on circumstances or on external conditions, but on the sincerity of the consecration with which it is done. To do what the Divine wants you to do, in a total consecration of the being: this is the only thing that matters; the outer scope of the action is of no account. 10 February 1970
332 − God's world advances step by step fulfilling the lesser unit before it seriously attempts the larger. Affirm free nationality first, if thou wouldst ever bring the world to be one nation.
333 − A nation is not made by a common blood, a common tongue or a common religion; these are only important helps and powerful conveniences. But wherever communities of men not bound by family ties are united in one sentiment and aspiration to defend a common inheritance from their ancestors or assure a common future for their posterity, there a nation is already in existence.
334 − Nationality is a stride of the progressive God passing beyond the stage of the family; therefore the attachment to clan and tribe must weaken or perish before a nation can be born.
Thus Sri Aurobindo reveals to us the great political secret whose realisation can lead us to the union of all nations and finally to human unity. 11 February 1970 Page - 309 335 − Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu's three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted.
336 − With the present morality of the human race a sound and durable human unity is not yet possible; but there is no reason why a temporary approximation to it should not be the reward of strenuous aspiration and untiring effort. By constant approximations and by partial realisations and temporary successes Nature advances.
As Sri Aurobindo has predicted, things are moving fast, and the situation of humanity has changed much since Sri Aurobindo began to work in the subtle physical: the idea of human unity has made great headway and is more widely understood. 12 February 1970 337 − Imitation is sometimes a good training-ship; but it will never fly the flag of the admiral.
338 − Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators.
This applies to artists and writers − nearly all are imitators and copyists. And yet only creators, those who have something new to say or show, should create. 13 February 1970 Page - 310 339 − Tangled is the way of works in the world. When Rama the Avatar murdered Vali,¹ or Krishna, who was God himself, assassinated, to liberate his nation, his tyrant uncle Kansa, who shall say whether they did good or did evil? But this we can feel, that they acted divinely.
This is a supremely elegant way of saying that all notions of good and evil are exclusively human and are worthless in the eyes of the Divine. 16 February 1970
340 − Reaction perfects and hastens progress by increasing and purifying the force within it. This is what the multitude of the weak cannot see who despair of their port when the ship is fleeing helplessly before the storm-wind, but it flees, hidden by the rain and the Ocean furrow, towards God's intended haven.
This is to teach us never to despair. Because, for those who are pure of heart and have an unshakable faith, the worst apparent defeat is only a veiled path leading to final victory. 17 February 1970
341 − Democracy was the protest of the human soul against the allied despotisms of autocrat, priest and noble; Socialism is the protest of the human soul against the despotism of a plutocratic democracy; Anarchism is likely to be the protest of the human soul against the tyranny of a bureaucratic Socialism. A turbulent and eager march from illusion to illusion and from failure to failure is the image of European progress.
¹King of the monkeys. Page - 311 342 − Democracy in Europe is the rule of the Cabinet minister, the corrupt deputy or the self-seeking capitalist masqued by the occasional sovereignty of a wavering populace; Socialism in Europe is likely to be the rule of the official and policeman masqued by the theoretic sovereignty of an abstract State. It is chimerical to enquire which is the better system; it would be difficult to decide which is the worse.
343 − The gain of democracy is the security of the individual's life, liberty and goods from the caprices of the tyrant one or the selfish few; its evil is the decline of greatness in humanity.
All human governments are a falsehood or a chimera. One can hope that one day the earth will be governed by the Truth only if the Supreme Lord makes this Truth evident to all. 18 February 1970
344 − This erring race of human beings dreams always of perfecting their environment by the machinery of government and society; but it is only by the perfection of the soul within that the outer environment can be perfected. What thou art within, that outside thee thou shalt enjoy; no machinery can rescue thee from the law of thy being.
345 − Be always vigilant against thy human proneness to persecute or ignore the reality even while thou art worshipping its semblance or token. Not human wickedness but human fallibility is the opportunity of Evil.
No law or government can save us from meeting in life the consequences of what we are. Page - 312 Submit exclusively to the Divine Truth and It will govern life outside all human laws and governments. 19 February 1970
346 − Honour the garb of the ascetic, but look also at the wearer, lest hypocrisy occupy the holy places and inward saintliness become a legend.
347 − The many strive after competence or riches, the few embrace poverty as a bride; but, for thyself, strive after and embrace God only. Let Him choose for thee a king's palace or the bowl of the beggar.
348 − What is vice but an enslaving habit and virtue but a human opinion? See God and do His will; walk in whatever path He shall trace for thy goings.
This is perfect ! True saintliness is to want and realise what the Divine wants for you, and true wisdom is to unite with Him so that you can clearly know what He wants of you and for you. All the rest is nothing but human convention and theory. 20 February 1970
349 − In the world's conflicts espouse not the party of the rich for their riches, nor of the poor for their poverty, of the king for his power and majesty nor of the people for their hope and fervour, but be on God's side always. Unless indeed He has commanded thee to war against Him! then do that with thy whole heart and strength and rapture.
350 − How shall I know God's will with me? I have to put egoism out of me, hunting it from every lair Page - 313 and burrow, and bathe my purified and naked soul in His infinite workings; then He himself will reveal it to me.
351 − Only the soul that is naked and unashamed can be pure and innocent, even as Adam was in the primal garden of humanity.
What is meant by “the soul that is naked and unashamed?” Isn't the soul always pure?
Yes, that is what Sri Aurobindo says. The soul does not wear any disguise, it shows itself as it is and cares nothing for men's judgments, because it is the faithful servant of the Divine whose abode it is. 23 February 1970
352 − Boast not thy riches, neither seek men's praise for thy poverty and self-denial; both these things are the coarse or the fine food of egoism.
353 − Altruism is good for man, but less good when it is a form of supreme self-indulgence and lives by pampering the selfishness of others.
354 − By altruism thou canst save thy soul, but see that thou save it not by indulging in his perdition thy brother.
355 − Self-denial is a mighty instrument for purification; it is not an end in itself nor a final law of living. Not to mortify thyself but to satisfy God in the world must be thy object. Page - 314 356 − It is easy to distinguish the evil worked by sin and vice, but the trained eye sees also the evil done by self-righteous or self-regarding virtue.
Step by step and from every angle, Sri Aurobindo shows us how the Truth is above and beyond all contraries and opposites, beyond divisions – in a radiant and total Unity. 25 February 1970
357 − The Brahmin first ruled by the book and the ritual, the Kshatriya next by the sword and the buckler; now the Vaishya governs us by machinery and the dollar, and the Sudra, the liberated serf, presses in with his doctrine of the kingdom of associated labour. But neither priest, king, merchant nor labourer is the true governor of humanity; the despotism of the tool and the mattock will fail like all the preceding despotisms. Only when egoism dies and God in man governs his own human universality, can this earth support a happy and contented race of beings.
There is nothing to say. Everything is clearly explained – only the divine government can be a true government. 26 February 1970
358 − Men run after pleasure and clasp feverishly that burning bride to their tormented bosoms; meanwhile a divine and faultless bliss stands behind them waiting to be seen and claimed and captured.
359 − Men hunt after petty successes and trivial masteries from which they fall back into exhaustion and weakness; meanwhile all the infinite force of God in the universe waits vainly to place itself at their disposal. Page – 315 360 − Men burrow after little details of knowledge and group them into bounded and ephemeral thought-systems; meanwhile all infinite wisdom laughs above their heads and shakes wide the glory of her iridescent pinions.
361 − Men seek laboriously to satisfy and complement the little bounded being made of the mental impressions they have grouped about a mean and grovelling ego; meanwhile the spaceless and timeless Soul is denied its joyous and splendid manifestation.
This state of things must change for the supramental consciousness to reign on earth. But although the supramental consciousness has been at work on earth for more than a year,¹ has anything changed in this miserable condition? 28 February 1970 Since the supramental consciousness is at work on earth, won't these miserable conditions change in spite of everything?
Naturally, the first effect will be a change of consciousness, first among the most receptive, and then in a greater number of people. A change in the general conditions of collective life can only come later, perhaps long after individual reactions have been transformed. The first noticeable result is a heightening of the general confusion, because the old principles have lost their authority, and men (except for a very few) are not ready to obey the Divine Command, because they are incapable of perceiving it. 1 March 1970 ¹Mother is referring to the New Consciousness (or Superman Consciousness) which manifested on 1 January 1969. Page - 316 362 − O soul of India, hide thyself no longer with the darkened Pandits¹ of the Kaliyuga in the kitchen and the chapel, veil not thyself with the soulless rite, the obsolete law and the unblessed money of the Dakshina;² but seek in thy soul, ask of God and recover thy true Brahminhood and Kshatriyahood with the eternal Veda; restore the hidden truth of the Vedic sacrifice, return to the fulfilment of an older and mightier Vedanta.
This is to free us from so-called religious conventions which tell us what to do and what not to do. We must recover the true wisdom and receive directly from the Divine the precise indications for living in and for the Truth. 2 March 1970
363 − Limit not sacrifice to the giving up of earthly goods or the denial of some desires and yearnings, but let every thought and every work and every enjoyment be an offering to God within thee. Let thy steps walk in thy Lord, let thy sleep and waking be a sacrifice to Krishna.
364 − This is not according to my Shastra³ or my Science, say the men of rule, formalists. Fool! is God then only a book that there should be nothing true and good except what is written?
¹ Scholars and interpreters of sacred texts. ² Offering made by the devotee to the brahmin priest. ³ Scriptures; prescribed law. Page - 317 365 − By which standard shall I walk, the word that God speaks to me, saying, “This is My will, O my servant,” or the rules that men who are dead, have written? Nay, if I have to fear and obey any, I will fear and obey God rather and not the pages of a book or the frown of a Pandit.
366 − Thou mayst be deceived, wilt thou say, it may not be God's voice leading thee? Yet do I know that He abandons not those who have trusted Him even ignorantly, yet have I found that He leads wisely and lovingly even when He seems to deceive utterly, yet would I rather fall into the snare of the living God than be saved by trust in a dead formulary.
367 − Act according to the Shastra rather than thy self-will and desire; so shalt thou grow stronger to control the ravener in thee; but act according to God rather than the Shastra; so shalt thou reach to His highest which is far above rule and limit.
368 − The Law is for the bound and those whose eyes are sealed; if they walk not by it, they will stumble; but thou who art free in Krishna or hast seen his living light, walk holding the hand of thy Friend and by the lamp of eternal Veda.
369 − The Vedanta is God's lamp to lead thee out of this night of bondage and egoism; but when the light of Veda has dawned in thy soul, then even that divine lamp thou needest not, for now thou canst walk freely and surely in a high and eternal sunlight.
Strive exclusively to hear the command of the Supreme Lord, and if you are perfectly sincere, He will find a way to make you Page - 318 hear and recognise this command with certainty. Such is the assurance given to all those who want to live according to the supreme Truth. 3 March 1970 370 − What is the use of only knowing? I say to thee, Act and be, for therefore God sent thee into this human body.
371 − What is the use of only being? I say to thee, Become, for therefore wast thou established as a man in this world of matter.
372 − The path of works is in a way the most difficult side of God's triune causeway; yet is it not also, in this material world at least, the easiest, widest and most delightful? For at every moment we clash against God the worker and grow into His being by a thousand divine touches.
373 − This is the wonder of the way of works that even enmity to God can be made an agency of salvation. Sometimes God draws and attaches us most swiftly to Him by wrestling with us as our fierce, invincible and irreconcilable enemy.
In short, the divine grace is so marvellous that, whatever you do, it will lead you more or less quickly towards the Divine Goal. 5 March 1970 374 − Shall I accept death or shall I turn and wrestle with him and conquer? That shall be as God in me chooses. For whether I live or die, I am always. Page - 319 |