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Life tends to present us with both great struggles and great joy, difficulty, and happiness. In this mix, happiness is often fleeting. If you are fortunate enough to have good circumstances, you might find happiness in your life for a time, but if your feelings of happiness are generated only ... Views: 1120
The yogic trance state called ‘samadhi’ has several levels, including one that is known as ‘with seed’ and one ‘without seed’. The difference essentially is that the level ‘with seed’ means that it still retains the capacity to be broken by the intrusion of external stimuli and internal reaction ... Views: 430
It is common for spiritual aspirants to be advised to isolate themselves or at least limit their contact with others in a social setting, with the ostensible reason to aid the seeker in focusing on the spiritual effort and avoid distraction and the possibility of being diverted or diluted in the ... Views: 218
The Taittiriya Upanishad describes a series of planes or sheathes that are ever more subtle, with the outermost sheath being the physical being, and then the vital sheath and the mental sheath, which makes up our ordinary human existence. Each of these sheaths are connected to a plane of ... Views: 287
As an individual begins to consciously try to understand the yogic path and connect with his soul and discover his true self, and then find and consciously participate in the spiritual purpose of the divine manifestation, he is confronted with a number of different terms and elements that need ... Views: 271
In order to distinguish standpoint and nexus of attention, we refer to the Divine Being as either Transcendent, i.e. exceeding the entire manifested universe and containing both the manifest and unmanifest aspects; Universal, i.e. the consciousness that maintains awareness of the universal ... Views: 320
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: 359
The concept of maya is frequently described as the world being an illusion that mystifies our senses and our minds, such that we take it for real, when it is not the truth of existence. We are then asked to cut through the illusion to find the actual reality, the Absolute, the consciousness that ... Views: 227
Large numbers of individuals have reported the experience of being conscious outside of their physical body. This frequently happens within the context of a near death experience. The individual reports his awareness up above looking down on the body, or outside observing what is taking ... Views: 245
As long as we remain rooted in the ego-consciousness, we identify ourselves with the mind, life and body and their needs, demands, and habitual ways of responding to the challenges of existence. Within this framework, we are trapped by the definitions and boundaries that circumscribe our ... Views: 427
We tend to identify ourselves with the specific body-life-mind complex we inhabit and which becomes the nexus for the ego-consciousness. This identification, however, makes it virtually impossible to gain real insight or mastery over the mind, life and body. The process followed by the devotee ... Views: 229
It's spring here in the northeast. The forsythia branches are showing their first spurts of yellow; the air is warmer; and the puppy dogs on the street are friskier because the world is a-w-a-k-e and alive and full of good things to sniff out and smell.
These spring energies of rebirth and ... Views: 1285
Sri Aurobindo concludes that once we have defined the seven forms of Ignorance, our aim and goal in our human lives must be to successively overcome the Ignorance through the development of the sevenfold forms of knowledge. Each aspect of the knowledge we develop addresses one of the already ... Views: 344
Sri Aurobindo starts the review of the Knowledge and the Ignorance by reminding us of the sevenfold principles of existence: “In our scrutiny of the seven principles of existence it was found that they are one in their essential and fundamental reality: for if even the matter of the most ... Views: 346
The necessity for 21st-century children to be capable enough to empathize with their counterparts has never been bigger. They need to assess varied viewpoints and cultures, know how events around the globe are intertwined, and resolve evils that rise above the borders.
Just look at the ... Views: 555
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” ―Abigail Adams
Learning is something that must be a constant process and must never cease. It is the quest for learning that keep an individual growing. But what to do if the young ... Views: 671
We generally tend to believe that if we focus intensely enough, if we undertake serious spiritual disciplines, we will achieve the goal of spiritual liberation or realisations that we may be seeking. There are no doubt many benefits from practicing spiritual disciplines, undertaking tapasya, and ... Views: 332
We are used to the idea that if we practice something, if we undertake a course of study, we will gradually increase our ability and our level of understanding, so that eventually we move, in the academic field, for example, from primary school to high school, to college, potentially to graduate ... Views: 351
Dearest Darling Friends,
Has water entered your ship?
The ship needs water to move. Compared to the mass of water it can travel and conquer, the size of the ship is very tiny.
Yet, all the water in the biggest of the oceans cannot drown the ship, unless water enters that ship. The ... Views: 2082
Flexible, malleable, tough, modest to deliver and universal well, the plastic isn't the greater part of that. It's a bane as well.
The plastic-a substance imagined in 1950 to make its life less demanding than at any other time has now begun to undermine its own special presence as plastic ... Views: 1064
When Life evolved out of Matter, substantial transformations occurred. What was not possible in a purely material world suddenly became not only possible, but a key principle. Matter itself, to accommodate the life force, had to become more fluid, more flexible and responsive to changes that ... Views: 196
A person who enters into the circle of Islam knows that about Hajj and other creeds and fundamental principles of religion Islam. Every year, millions of Muslim brothers and sisters visit the Makkah and Madinah to perform Hajj. They use different traveling packages such as Islamic Travel ... Views: 1081
We are so used to the constant internal dialogue that we have no conception of what it means to have ‘silence of the mind’. We strive to fill up any silence with sound, whether through conversation, consumption of media, music or even treating television or radio as ‘background noise’ for our ... Views: 468
An important principle for the practitioner of yoga is to recognise that the old habits and ways of acting and reacting need to be removed in order to open up the capacity to receive the new powers of consciousness that are in the process of manifesting. Yoga is more or less a process of applied ... Views: 471
One of the core principles of spiritual growth is the development of ‘equality’ in the sense of accepting whatever comes into one’s life with equanimity. This does not mean that the proper standpoint excludes action against injustice or oppression; rather, that one recognises that sometimes the ... Views: 50
As the seeker proceeds in the path of yoga, it is important that he not misinterpret or misunderstand what he experiences or what the source of the experience may be. Most people confuse the terms Self, Spirit, and soul so that they really cannot appreciate the difference aspects or ... Views: 313
The soul is a portion of the Divine specifically detailed to each individual being that is created as part of the universal manifestation. The soul develops the inmost being, the psychic being, through lifetimes of experience. This psychic being grows, matures and transitions through birth and ... Views: 287
In the West, the existence of the soul has been mainly perceived either as a matter of religious belief or scientific skepticism, neither necessarily based in actual experience. At one point, scientists decided that if the belief that the soul departs at the time of death is to be considered as ... Views: 91
Within a particular lifetime we experience a sense of continuity of being, which we normally attribute to the ego-personality. The sense of ego helps us identify with the body, life and mind we currently inhabit and utilize. This ego-sense is held together by the force of memory and by an ... Views: 300
In the ancient text of India, it is said that a human birth is essential for progress, and that even the Gods, if they desire to attain some new development, need to take birth in a human form. It is clear that generally the physical body, the vital nature and the mental development dissolve ... Views: 347
The questions of what happens to us after we die, whether we are reborn, and if so, in what form or manner have occupied human beings from time immemorial. What is the purpose of life and what are we, as conscious individuals, supposed to do with the life we are living?
The Tibetan Book of ... Views: 270
Most people live their lives centered around the ego-personality and the external life. Their focus and actions are based in the needs, desires and gratifications that are put up by the body, the vital life-energy and the mind. They do not have a conscious relationship with the soul or the most ... Views: 289
Why do we not immediately recognise the existence and centrality of the soul? We tend to set our standpoint in the external consciousness which is directed outwards, and which is constantly receiving sense impressions and pressures impinging on our body-life-mind complex. The sense organs, ... Views: 243
The most direct way to align oneself with the Divine Will is to treat the soul, the psychic being, as the standpoint from which the being takes its stance. This is not a mental analysis, a desire of the vital or a physical need or impulsion; rather it takes the form of an aspiration, a prayer, a ... Views: 49
Many spiritual practitioners have realized that the external life we customarily lead is a life of ‘illusion’, and that it is based in a flawed view of reality. This does not mean that our life, existence and action has no real significance; rather, that the way we define our lives, based on the ... Views: 208
Faith is generally put in opposition to Knowledge, underlying the long-term dispute in the West between ‘religion’ and ‘science’. This debate has religion requiring belief in the tenets of the religion based on pure faith, and denying the validity of a science-based knowledge approach that may ... Views: 443
One level of the deep ignorance within which we live and act is our bondage to the specific individual life, personality and situation that we inhabit. We are generally unaware of anything prior to our birth or which occurs after our death. Some even take the view that there is no “meaning” and ... Views: 489
Spiritual traditions around the world agree that it is on earth, in the physical body, that progress takes place. They treat the soul’s time in the body as the time for growth, for development, for maturation. When the soul leaves the body at the time of death, it goes through a transition that ... Views: 253
Western medical science holds that illness has several potential causes. Failing to digest food properly is one such cause. Stress on the body and its organ systems is another. A third is failure to obtain proper nutrition or fluids. Aging is considered a contributing factor in the breakdown of ... Views: 489
How does Mind evolve out of Matter? Some scientists will tell you that through random chance, chemicals and electrical forces and heat led to the development of beings capable of reflecting, thinking and contemplating deep thoughts, exploring the nature of life and the universe, etc. They do not ... Views: 331
If we ask almost anyone where thoughts come from, they will say that they are produced in the brain. The brain is some kind of thought-factory. They don’t know how. They don’t know why. They don’t know what causes certain thoughts to develop. They recognise that sense perceptions influence the ... Views: 451
An individual experiences a craving, an urge, a desire and automatically tries to fulfill it through some action. If it is hunger or thirst, the individual wants to eat or drink. If it is a more complex desire, something that cannot simply be accomplished, the mind is brought into the picture to ... Views: 527
We tend to internalize and “own” our weaknesses or internal struggles. This is the ego-consciousness at work. We also fail to recognise that there are multiple different sources of pressures on us, some of which are ingrained habits we have accepted into our surface being, others are seeds we ... Views: 455
All consciousness operates on a continuum with each plane representing certain vibrational spectra that are perceptible to those able to receive and process the vibrations of that plane. We know from research with various beings such as insects and animals of various sorts that they have ... Views: 308
While we live and act from the standpoint of the individual ego-personality, we measure and respond to everything based on how it impacts us personally and directly, and judge things based on that impact. This leads us to treat as positive, those events and interactions that satisfy our desires, ... Views: 34
There is considerable confusion about the various terms used to describe the spiritual quest and the reality of our individual existence. Sri Aurobindo distinguishes and defines the different aspects or elements and their role in spiritual practice. There is additional confusion around the term ... Views: 559
We are born into a family, a culture, a society, a given economic and political system, an educational process, and a vast number of social habits, customs and predilections which create for us a framework within which we are expected to take up our destined place in society and carry it ... Views: 194
The spiritual aspirant necessarily has to change the way things have been historically and habitually done in the world if he is to make progress and move beyond the limitations imposed by the body-life-mind complex and all the traditions, rituals, habits, fixed ideas and vital-emotional ... Views: 33
We have a vision. We get inspired. We have a near death experience. We come back from the spiritual experience and we are sure it is meant to change our lives, as we suddenly have a whole new vista open up before us, a realm of truth, beauty, harmony, light. Then we come back into our normal ... Views: 331
Human beings are essentially dependent on their mental perception in order to function in the world. This mental perception frames what we see, how we experience it, and our interpretation. We thus try to transcribe anything provided to us by our senses (or provided directly to the mind without ... Views: 322