From early childhood we are inculcated with the idea of achieving success, becoming foremost and occupying a position of power, prestige or wealth in the world. Parents drum this idea into the mind of their children that they need to study, attain degrees, choose suitable (lucrative) careers, ... Views: 0
From early childhood we are inculcated with the idea of achieving success, becoming foremost and occupying a position of power, prestige or wealth in the world. Parents drum this idea into the mind of their children that they need to study, attain degrees, choose suitable (lucrative) careers, ... Views: 0
Humanity has a tendency to try to judge everything by its existing level of perception and knowledge. Thus, for most of human existence, people ‘knew’ that the sun rotated around the earth and that the earth was the center of the universe around which everything else moved and upon which ... Views: 507
Most people who take up spiritual practices are deeply involved in some kind of regular practice and, as with everything else in the normal life, they look for signs and signals that show they are making progress in their chosen path of development. An experience comes, some new revelatory ... Views: 274
The mind cannot comprehend experiences with which it has no familiarity. Sri Aurobindo describes a spiritual status that is experiential in nature. When there is such an experience, the mind tries to describe or transcribe that experience into its normal process of linear thought expressed in ... Views: 100
Our vital nature crazes ‘excitement’ and to gather ‘experiences’. It is no different for the spiritual aspirant than for the rest of humanity in this regard. Spiritual experiences tend to be extraordinary in the sense that they go beyond the everyday perceptions or sensations and tend to have a ... Views: 416
The vital nature is always interested in, even fixated on, the idea of having dramatic ‘spiritual experiences’. These experiences can open the eyes of the seeker to a wider reality, and can help reorient the direction of the life, sometimes in unusual or unexpected ways. There are many instances ... Views: 556
For the individual who has a spiritual experience, one of the most notable characteristics is the absolute and incontrovertible ‘reality’ of the experience. Yet, people who live primarily in the surface consciousness tend to treat such experiences, when related, as somehow less real or even ... Views: 466
For the individual who has a spiritual experience, one of the most notable characteristics is the absolute and incontrovertible ‘reality’ of the experience. Yet, people who live primarily in the surface consciousness tend to treat such experiences, when related, as somehow less real or even ... Views: 481
Our ability to perceive is limited both by the scale within which we are able to perceive, as well as the operation of the “all or nothing” phenomenon. Thus, events are occurring, activities are underway at wavelengths below those we can perceive, and above those we can perceive. At some point, ... Views: 291
Spiritual seekers harness the powers of body, vital being, emotions and mind in order to develop and eventually attain the goal of their seeking. The power of dedicated work, the power of the breath, the power of devotion, the power of concentration all have a part to play in the seeker’s ... Views: 158
The quality of humility is important to keep the ego in check, but even here, the ego finds ways to create an artificial form of humility that actually reinforces the ego. Those following an inspiring leader, or treading a path that provides true spiritual experience may use their position to ... Views: 583
As human beings typically rely on their mental capacities to understand things, seekers frequently take the advice of tracing back to the roots of the impulses, thoughts, feelings they experience as requiring a method akin to the processes followed in psychotherapy. Western psychotherapy uses ... Views: 234
Spiritual seekers have long looked at liberation from the bondage of life in the world, and oneness with the Transcendent, the Absolute, as the key focus to demand their attention. This is of course an essential step in freeing the individual from the current limits of mind, life and body, and ... Views: 664
Many people mistakenly believe that those who take up the spiritual life and withdraw from active involvement in the outer life of society, marriage, familiy, commerce, governance, etc. are somehow weak or unfit to succeed in society and they are “taking the easy way out”. It is true that some ... Views: 403
The external being wants to have a stable basis by which it can understand and act in the world. The tools that support this stable basis include habit, fixed tendencies, instincts, education, memory and even the way the mental processes work, comparing new impulses of the senses to past memory ... Views: 283
We live in a dynamic, evolving universe, not one that is static and unchanging. All teachings of the past, therefore, have their limitations. In his Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo reminds us that all scriptures have both a temporal element, specific to their time and their circumstances, and ... Views: 365
The supramental transformation involves the manifestation in the world of the next stage of consciousness beyond the mental level. Just as the evolution of mind brought about enormous changes in life on earth, the evolution of supermind will have a transformative effect on all existence, on the ... Views: 472
Sri Aurobindo distinguishes between a “mental seeking” and a “living spiritual experience”. While those who are intellectually-minded frequently confuse ‘knowing’ with “KNOWING”, there is actually a clear distinction between the ability to read, hear, memorize and repeat back a teaching, which ... Views: 350
Spiritual Realisations and Experiences
Posted on April 1, 2023
There is an interesting tale in the Mahabharata when the preceptor Drona was teaching the sons of Dhristarashtra and Pandu, the royal princes of the kingdom, the lesson of the day, which was “not to become angry”. He asked each of ... Views: 408
Not everyone can achieve spiritual progress using exactly the same methods or disciplines. The “one size fits all” approach tried by many religious or spiritual communities of the past only works if their members are all basically similar in temperament and their spiritual development. We have ... Views: 429
For spiritual and religious aspirants, there has always been a pressure to give up the focus on family life due to the inherent distraction that a family creates for the seeker. Whether the seeker takes vows and enters a monastery or cloister, or leaves family behind to follow a particular ... Views: 701
The lure of occult powers and experiences can be a considerable obstacle for the spiritual seeker who becomes enmeshed in the idea of developing these capacities. There is a reason why traditional paths of spiritual development eschew the use of the occult powers that arise naturally as one goes ... Views: 554
Many people confuse spirituality and religion and then try to associate various spiritual paths with specific religious traditions. Spirituality, however, is not based in the beliefs, practices, or customary folkways of any religion. Spirituality seeks for direct experience of the greater ... Views: 587
We frequently hear people speaking about spirituality. They indicate ‘I consider myself to be spiritual, not religious.’ Beyond that distinction, however, when one asks what they mean by ‘spirituality’ there is a wide range of responses that make it clear that spirituality is mostly something ... Views: 330
The spiritual landscape is vast, and there are innumerable objectives and paths that can be taken. Sri Aurobindo describes briefly his approach to spiritual growth and its relation to the process of an evolution of consciousness in the earth-nature to incorporate what he calls the supramental ... Views: 441
There is considerable confusion about what exactly meditation is. This is compounded by the fact that there are numerous different techniques that are taught as meditation, ranging from practices that are called ‘mindfulness’ to those that include detailed visualisations Sri Aurobindo provides ... Views: 361
With all the complexity surrounding the reactions we have to impressions and pressures we receive from the world, it is important to both understand the seed causes of our reactions and find a way to systematically gain control over these reactions. One of the techniques recommended by Sri ... Views: 361
Most people do not reflect on the state of their inner being. They tend to live on the surface and respond or react to whatever happens to come their way. They become happy or unhappy based on how circumstances impact them. They are essentially under the control of external events or happenings ... Views: 87
There are numerous types of power at work in the world and in us. Some of them can be viewed as ‘dynamic’ powers, powers with movement, action and outward facing application of force. Others can be viewed as ‘static’ powers, powers of holding, receiving and containing, powers of withstanding the ... Views: 80
Some people believe that an intense aspiration is all that is needed to overcome the obstacles that prevent seekers from seeing, understanding and effectively responding to the forces that drive the outer life they lead. Others emphasize the details of the methodology to gain the needed insights ... Views: 247
Everything comes to the seeker based on his ability to tune his focus and maintain that focus in an unwavering manner over time. Sri Aurobindo, in his book The Mother, sets forth the methodology as “aspiration, rejection, surrender”. Aspiration is the will from the depth of the being to achieve ... Views: 407
Human interactions, human relationships have both a surface meaning and a subtle hidden energetic action. One of the most powerful vital energies in human life is sexual relations. By examining how this force operates, both overtly and on the occult levels, we can quickly see the mechanism that ... Views: 222
We frequently identify success, as defined by our minds, as an indicator of divine Grace; yet this is driven in many cases by the ego, not by the larger viewpoint of the Divine. In a complex world that is undergoing evolutionary transformation driven by the manifestation of a new power of ... Views: 486
Whether consciously or subconsciously, suggestions reach the being from the outside world, in some cases impacting directly on the body, and in others through the mind or the vital being. When these suggestions arrive subconsciously, we only recognise the thought or feeling when it arises within ... Views: 440
There are names for various impacts that the mind has on the health of the physical body. For instance, there is hypochondria, which is noted when an individual accepts a suggestion in the mind that they are suffering from a particular illness. Even if they are not at the time having that ... Views: 737
The vital worlds are generally unseen and unrecognised by us, as they do not take physical forms in the same way as our external world within which we live and act. This does not imply, however, that they do not have interaction with our world and the beings, including ourselves, that inhabit ... Views: 178
Within the framework of our mind and the experience of our vital existence, we are inculcated in the belief that everything is subject to duality, good and bad, happy and unhappy, light and dark. We cannot generally conceive of an existence that is not subject to these pairs of opposites. We ... Views: 338
The great religious traditions of the world virtually all relate a battle between Powers of Darkness and the Powers of Light. Regardless of the specific names and forms each tradition adopts, the similarities speak to a human experience of a supraphysical reality that impacts life on ... Views: 399
It is human nature to want to be able to explain away events, circumstances or experiences that are not understood. For much of human existence, the rising and setting of the sun and moon, the existence of the stars, the power of the oceans, the wind or the storms were described as actions of ... Views: 557
We are very much creatures of habit, and thus, when it comes to our intake of energy, we tend to habitually turn to a preferred method of reception. For most people, the primary source is food. Most people engage in vital interchange with others, and there is a subtle interaction that can both ... Views: 379
Suggestions are not just directed at the mind; nor are they restricted in their impact on just the mind. We are used to the process of people making suggestions to us constantly about what we could, or should, do or how we could, or should, respond to a situation. We weigh these suggestions not ... Views: 398
The difference between our human understanding and effort, and the action of Divine Grace, is the standpoint from which the result flows. The human ego standpoint tries to evaluate everything in reference to itself at the center, and thus, looks to “my effort”, “my results”, “my progress” and ... Views: 508
There are several points worth considering with respect to utilizing imagination and some of the unanticipated issues that are based primarily in the lag between formulation and accomplishment of the imagined form. Visualization and use of the imagination can act to turn a vague idea or sense ... Views: 154
“What goes around comes around” and “karma” both basically indicate that there is a factor in existence that rewards good deeds and punishes bad deeds. But do we really see that things work this way? Is there some divine entity sitting up in the clouds, watching our good and bad actions, and ... Views: 515
We tend to operate under the fallacy that any spiritual force that is operative will automatically, and completely, achieve its intended result without difficulty. We forget, thereby, the way forces actually work in the world. There are always starting points, conditions, limitations, and ... Views: 163
In the classic methods known as Kundalini Yoga, and more generally in traditional yogic practices that seek to open and energize the subtle energy centers, or chakras, the experience is described as one of the energy starting at the lower chakra center, the Muladhara, and then rising up until it ... Views: 445
We normally judge things based on our own individual egoistic standpoint, basically, how a particular event or circumstance affects us in the moment. We build up expectations and plans, and suddenly, something gets in the way and destroys or diverts those plans. We naturally become disappointed, ... Views: 28
Matter, prepared and encoded with the dataset required to bring forth Life, does not spontaneously, on its own express the life-form for which it is encoded. The seed, or the egg, remains potential, latent, until it is acted upon by a force external to it. In the case of the seed of a plant, the ... Views: 169
Each level of consciousness acts on its own native level independent of any single individual person or embodiment. There is a subtle physical plane, a vital plane, a mental plane, and various spiritual planes beyond that characterize and represent further levels of the evolution of ... Views: 260