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Omsriaurobindomira
All
Life
Is
Yoga
“All life is Yoga.” – Sri Aurobindo
Sadhana
Some Suggestions for the Practice of Yoga
Sri Aurobindo | The Mother
SRI AUROBINDO
DIGITAL EDITION
Copyright 2019
AURO MEDIA
Verlag und Fachbuchhandel
Wilfried Schuh
www.auro.media
eBook Design
SRI AUROBINDO DIGITAL EDITION
Germany, Berchtesgaden
ALL LIFE IS YOGA
SadhanaSome Suggestions for the Practice of Yoga Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother First edition 2019 ISBN 978-3-96387-042-2
© Photos and selections of the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust
Puducherry, India
Flower on the cover:
Azadirachta indica. White. Spiritual significance and explanation given by the Mother: Spiritual atmosphere Light, fluid, clear and transparent, and so clean!
This is one in a series of some e-books created by SRI AUROBINDO DIGITAL EDITION and published by AURO MEDIA under the title All Life Is Yoga. Our effort is to bring together, from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, simple passages with a practical orientation on specific subjects, so that everyone may feel free to choose a book according to his inner need. The topics cover the whole field of human activity, because true spirituality is not the rejection of life but the art of perfecting life.
While the passages from Sri Aurobindo are in the original English, most of the passages from the Mother (selections from her talks and writings) are translations from the original French. We must also bear in mind that the excerpts have been taken out of their original context and that a compilation, in its very nature, is likely to have a personal and subjective approach. A sincere attempt, however, has been made to be faithful to the vision of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
The excerpts from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother carry titles and captions chosen by the editor, highlighting the theme of the excerpts and, whenever possible, borrowing a phrase from the text itself. The sources of the excerpts are given at the end of each issue.
We hope these e-books will inspire the readers to go to the complete works and will help them to mould their lives and their environments towards an ever greater perfection.
“True spirituality is not to renounce life, but to make life perfect with a Divine Perfection.” – The Mother
* * *
ContentsTitle PageCopyrightPublisher’s NoteQuotation from the Mother1. CREATE YOUR OWN SPIRITUAL ATMOSPHERE2. A NEW WAY TO READ3. HOW TO READ THE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER4. TO READ SAVITRI IS TO PRACTISE YOGA5. BASIC APPROACH TO THEIR WORKS6. AFTER ALL WHY AM I HERE?7. THE FIRST QUESTION8. A ROLE TO FULFIL9. WORK DONE IN THE SPIRIT OF KARMA-YOGA10. THE IDEAL CENTRE11. TO BE PERFECTLY SINCERE12. ABSOLUTE SINCERITY13. TRUE CONSECRATION14. NOTHING MORE IS ASKED15. THE MOTHER’S PRESENCE16. I AM WITH YOU17. ON WORK18. WORK IS PRAYER DONE WITH THE BODY19. THE TRUE NATURE OF WORK20. THE TRUE MEANING OF WORK21. LIFE AND HARMONY22. A PRAYER FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO SERVE THE DIVINEAPPENDIXReferencesGuideCoverTable of ContentsStart Reading
The Mother – Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.
This gives life its real sense and will help us to overcome all obstacles.
Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger and stronger by remaining young and progressive. – The Mother
* * *
Chapter 1
CREATE YOUR OWN SPIRITUAL ATMOSPHERE
Words of Sri Aurobindo
A spiritual atmosphere is more important than outer conditions; if one can get that and also create one’s own spiritual air to breathe in and live in it, that is the true condition of progress.
*
Words of Sri Aurobindo
In all spiritual living the inner life is the thing of first importance; the spiritual man lives always within, and in a world of the Ignorance that refuses to change he has to be in a certain sense separate from it and to guard his inner life against the intrusion and influence of the darker forces of the Ignorance: he is out of the world even when he is within it; if he acts upon it, it is from the fortress of his inner spiritual being where in the inmost sanctuary he is one with the Supreme Existence or the soul and God are alone together.
* * *
Chapter 2
A NEW WAY TO READ
Words of the Mother
Once or twice, as a game, you took one of your books or Sri Aurobindo’s and opened a page at random, and read out a sentence. Can these sentences give one a sign or an indication? What should we do to get a true answer?
Everybody can do it. It is done in this way: you concentrate. Now, it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and want the solution, you concentrate on this problem; if you want to know the condition you are in, which you are not aware of – if you want to get some light on the state you are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the light. Or else, quite simply, if you are curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell you, you remain silent and still for a moment and then open the book. I always used to recommend taking a paper-knife, because it is thinner; while you are concentrated you insert it in the book and with the tip indicate something. Then, if you know how to concentrate, that is to say, if you really do it with an aspiration to have an answer, it always comes.
For, in books of this kind (Mother shows “The Synthesis of Yoga”), books of revelation, there is always an accumulation of forces – at least of higher mental forces, and most often of spiritual forces of the highest knowledge. Every book, on account of the words it contains, is like a small accumulator of these forces. People don’t know this, for they don’t know how to make use of it, but it is so. In the same way, in every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small accumulation representative of the force of the person whose picture it is, of his nature and, if he has powers, of his powers. Now, you, when you are sincere and have an aspiration, you emanate a certain vibration, the vibration of your aspiration which goes and meets the corresponding force in the book, and it is a higher consciousness which gives you the answer.
Everything is contained potentially. Each element of a whole potentially contains what is in the whole. It is a little difficult to explain, but you will understand with an example: when people want to practise magic, if they have a bit of nail or hair, it is enough for them, because within this, potentially, there is all that is in the being itself. And in a book there is potentially – not expressed, not manifest – the knowledge which is in the person who wrote the book. Thus, Sri Aurobindo represented a totality of comprehension and knowledge and power; and every one of his books is at once a symbol and a representation. Every one of his books contains symbolically, potentially, what is in him. Therefore, if you concentrate on the book, you can, through the book, go back to the source. And even, by passing through the book, you will be able to receive much more than what is just in the book.
There is always a way of reading and understanding what one reads, which gives an answer to what you want. It is not just a chance or an amusement, nor is it a kind of diversion. You may do it just “like that”, and then nothing at all happens to you, you have no reply and it is not interesting. But if you do it seriously, if seriously your aspiration tries to concentrate on this instrument – it is like a battery, isn’t it, which contains energies – if it tries to come into contact with the energy which is there and insists on having the answer to what it wants to know, well, naturally, the energy which is there – the union of the two forces, the force given out by you and that accumulated in the book – will guide your hand and your paper-knife or whatever you have; it will guide you exactly to the thing that expresses what you ought to know.... Obviously, if one does it without sincerity or conviction, nothing at all happens. If it is done sincerely, one gets an answer.
Certain books are like this, more powerfully charged than others; there are others where the result is less clear. But generally, books containing aphorisms and short sentences – not very long philosophical explanations, but rather things in a condensed and precise form – it is with these that one succeeds best.
Naturally, the value of the answer depends on the value of the spiritual force contained in the book. If you take a novel, it will tell you nothing at all but stupidities. But if you take a book containing a condensation of forces – of knowledge or spiritual force or teaching power – you will receive your answer.
*
Words of the Mother
If one reads Sri Aurobindo carefully one finds the answers to all that one wants to know.
* * *
Chapter 3
HOW TO READ THE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER
Words of the Mother
Sweet Mother, how should one read your books and the books of Sri Aurobindo so that they might enter into our consciousness instead of being understood only by the mind?
To read my books is not difficult because they are written in the simplest language, almost the spoken language. To draw profit from them, it is enough to read with attention and concentration and an attitude of inner goodwill with the desire to receive and to live what is taught.
To read what Sri Aurobindo writes is more difficult because the expression is highly intellectual and the language is much more literary and philosophic. The brain needs a preparation to be able truly to understand and generally a preparation takes time, unless one is specially gifted with an innate intuitive faculty.
In any case, I advise always to read a little at a time, keeping the mind as tranquil as one can, without making an effort to understand, but keeping the head as silent as possible, and letting the force contained in what one reads enter deep within. This force received in the calm and the silence will do its work of light and, if needed, will create in the brain the necessary cells for the understanding. Thus, when one re-reads the same thing some months later, one perceives that the thought expressed has become much more clear and close, and even sometimes altogether familiar.
It is preferable to read regularly, a little every day, and at a fixed hour if possible; this facilitates the brain-receptivity.
*
Words of the Mother
In a general and almost absolute way, if you truly wish to profit from these readings, as from all of Sri Aurobindo’s writings, the best method is this: having gathered your consciousness and focused your attention on what you are reading, you must establish a minimum of mental tranquillity – the best thing would be to obtain perfect silence – and achieve a state of immobility of the mind, immobility of the brain, I might say, so that the attention becomes as still and immobile as a mirror, like the surface of absolutely still water. Then what one has read passes through the surface and penetrates deep into the being where it is received with a minimum of distortion. Afterwards – sometimes long afterwards – it wells up again from the depths and manifests in the brain with its full power of comprehension, not as knowledge acquired from outside, but as a light one carried within.
In this way the faculty of understanding is at its highest, whereas if, while you read, the mind remains agitated and tries to understand at once what it is reading, you lose more than three-quarters of the force, the knowledge and the truth contained in the words. And if you are able to refrain from asking questions until this process of absorption and inner awakening is completed, well, then you will find that you have far fewer questions to ask because you will have a better understanding of what you have read.
*
Words of the Mother
To know is good,
to live is better,
to be, that is perfect.
* * *
Chapter 4
TO READ SAVITRI IS TO PRACTISE YOGA
Words of the Mother
It does not matter if you do not understand it – Savitri, read it always. You will see that every time you read it, something new will be revealed to you. Each time you will get a new glimpse, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always an unexpected vision comes up through the words and lines. Every time you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly. I tell you the very verses you have read once before, will appear to you in a different light each time you re-read them. This is what of happens invariably. Always your experience is enriched, it is a revelation at each step.
But you must not read it as you read other books or newspapers. You must read with an empty head, a blank and vacant mind, without there being any other thought; you must concentrate much, remain empty, calm and open; then the words, rhythms, vibrations will penetrate directly to this white page, will put their stamp upon the brain, will explain themselves without your making any effort.
Savitri alone is sufficient to make you climb to the highest peaks. If truly one knows how to meditate on Savitri, one will receive all the help one needs. For him who wishes to follow this path, it is a concrete help as though the Lord himself were taking you by the hand and leading you to the destined goal. And then, every question, however personal it may be, has its answer here, every difficulty finds its solution herein; indeed there is everything that is necessary for doing the Yoga.
He has crammed the whole universe in a single book. It is a marvellous work, magnificent and of an incomparable perfection.
It may then be said that Savitri is a revelation, it is a meditation, it is a quest of the Infinite, the Eternal. If it is read with this aspiration for Immortality, the reading itself will serve as a guide to Immortality. To read Savitri is indeed to practice Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step of Yoga is noted here, including the secret of all other Yogas. Surely, if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each line one will reach finally the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is truly the infallible guide who never abandons you; its support is always there for him who wants to follow the path. Each verse of Savitri is like a revealed Mantra which surpasses all that man possessed by way of knowledge, and I repeat this, the words are expressed and arranged in such a way that the sonority of the rhythm leads you to the origin of sound, which is OM.
*
Words of the Mother
If you are depressed, if you feel miserable, if you do not succeed in what you do or else if what happens is always the contrary of what you expect, however much you try – if it has come to such a pass that you lose your temper, life becomes disgusting and you are unhappy, then immediately take Savitri and, after a moment‘s concentration, open it at any page and read. You will see that all your misery disappears like smoke. And you will have the strength to overcome the worst sorrows; you will no longer feel that which was tormenting you. Instead you will feel a strange happiness, a reversal of consciousness along with the energy and force to conquer everything, as though there was nothing impossible. And you will feel this inexhaustible joy that purifies all. Read just a few lines and that is enough to establish the contact with your inmost being. Such is the extraordinary power of Savitri.
Or else, after having read some lines, if you concentrate deeply, then too will you find the solution to what was tormenting you. You have only to open Savitri just at random without thinking and you will have the answer to your problems. Do this with faith and simplicity, the result is certain.
* * *
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