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<b><font face="Times New Roman">I</font></b><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="center">
&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="center">
<b><font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;TO READ SRI AUROBINDO</font>
</b>
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<font face="Times New Roman">I learned that you want to know something about Sri 
Aurobindo and the Mother from me. But then there are three lines of approach: 
you may want to know <i>about </i>them, know <i>of</i> them or know them. Of 
course the last is the best. Indeed if you want to know truly something you have 
to become it. Becoming gives the real knowledge. But becoming Sri Aurobindo and 
the Mother means what? Becoming a portion of them, a part and parcel of their 
consciousness — that is what we are here for. And if you can do that, you know 
enough....</font> </p>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Once I told you, I think, how to study or approach 
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in order to read them or understand their writings. 
There are two things: studying and reading; I made a distinction between the 
two. To study Sri Aurobindo is — I won't say fruitless, that is too strong a 
word, but it can only be an aid or a supplementary way. Study means: you take 
the text, you understand mentally each word and phrase, if you don't understand, 
you take a dictionary and try to catch the external meaning expressed by the 
words. That may be necessary but it is not the way to approach their works.</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">Simply to read them in the right way is sufficient. 
Read, it does not matter what you understand and what</font> </p>
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<font face="Times New Roman" size="2">page-1</font><hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">you do not, simply read and wait in an expectant silence.
In studying you approach them with your external mind,
your external intelligence. But what is there in the text is
beyond your mind, beyond your intelligence. And to
understand mentally means you drive your intellect forward into the thing. It is an effort and takes you only
to the outside of the thing. It is an exercise of your brain,
developed in that way, but it doesn't take you very far.
Instead of that, suppose you could keep quiet, silence
your mind, and only read, without unduly trying to understand, and wait for what is there in the text to enter
into you. Instead of your intelligence driving forward,
pushing forward and trying to catch the thing, let the
thing come into you, for what is there in their writings is
not words and phrases, dead material, it is something very
living, something conscious, that they have expressed in
the words, phrases and the sound and rhythm. And I
may tell you that each sentence anywhere, not to speak of
<i>Savitri,</i> is a living being with whom you have to make
acquaintance — not that you understand or are able to
explain, but it is a living being, an entity, a friend, even a
Lover whom you have to know. And your attempt in
that way will be rewarded. You will enjoy much more.
You may ask: &quot;Just because I open a book and read, how
can what are in the lines come to me?&quot; But I say they are
living entities — if you approach in the right spirit, they
come into you. The consciousness, the being in each line
comes to you. And you find how beautiful it is. This is</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman" size=2>Page- 2</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">an approach of love, not of the intellect to understand and
explain. Take for example, the very first verse of <i>Savitri:</i></font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&quot;It was the hour before the Gods awake.&quot;   </font>
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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">It is a Mantra, a living person, how beautiful it is, you
needn't understand much — and a whole world is there.</font>

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">Or, take the opening sentence of <i>The Life Divine —</i> the
rolling cadence of the vast ocean is there. It brings you
a sense of vastness, a sense of Infinity and takes you there.
And, as I said, it is a very living entity and personality.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Here is the whole passage:</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&quot;The earliest preoccupation of man in his awakened
thoughts and, as it seems, his inevitable and ultimate
preoccupation, — for it survives the longest periods of
scepticism and returns after every banishment, — is also
the highest which his thought can envisage. It manifests
itself in the divination of Godhead, the impulse towards
perfection, the search after pure Truth and unmixed Bliss,
the sense of a secret immortality. The ancient dawns of human knowledge have 
left us their witness to this constant aspiration; today we see a humanity satiated but not
satisfied by victorious analysis of the externalities of
Nature preparing to return to its primeval longings.
The earliest formula of Wisdom promises to be its last, — God, Light, Freedom, Immortality.&quot;</font><p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="center">
&nbsp;<font face="Times New Roman" size=2>Page- 3</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">There is indeed a personality behind it and you have to
make acquaintance with that personality. That is what I
meant when I said: become it, by an approach through love, an approach through your soul. Even in studies
you shouldn't approach with the mere intellect, mere
mental understanding; however fine an understanding or
intellect you may have, it won't lead you very far. Only
through your soul you can go far. Even intellectual things
can be approached through your soul — because the soul
is the very essence of all your faculties and being. The
soul is not mere consciousness, mere being, it gathers in
all the elements of your personality. The seeds of your
mind, your vital, even of the physical personality, the true
physical personality, are there in your soul, and you can
establish a true relation with things and persons through
that part of your being — your soul. And remember the soul is not very far from you because you are
that—rather your mind, your vital, your physical are
away from you; they are not your true personality. It
is your soul that is nearest to you.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">In this connection you may remember what the Mother
has said more than once: what is one here for? What are
the children here for? And what is she giving here in the
school, in the playground, in all the activities? It is not
simple efficiency in the outer activities that is given
here, or meant to be given here. For such things
one can get outside in a more successful way — external
efficiency of your intellect, of your mind, of your vital</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman" size=2>Page- 4</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">capacity and your physical strength—the Russian or
the German type. Our records don't match theirs, do
they? But we don't aspire for those records. For, as the
Mother has said: &quot;I am giving here something which you
won't get anywhere else in the world — nowhere except
here.&quot; In your external expression you may cut a very
poor figure: low marks — but that is not the sign of the
Truth that we acquire here. You acquire it even without
your knowing it. When you are in the swimming pool
you are soaked all through, aren't you? You can't help it;</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">so here also; even without your knowing it you are soaked
with the inner consciousness of your soul. It is a very
precious thing — I should say, the only precious thing in
the world. And through that, if you study, you learn — if
you approach that way, you will get another taste, another
interest in things.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">When I was reading with Sri Aurobindo, he didn't lay
much stress upon the grammar or the language — just the
most elementary grammar that was necessary. He used
to put me in contact with the life, the living personality
of the poet — what he was, what he represented in his consciousness. That was the central theme, because a truly
great poet means a status of consciousness; in order to
understand his consciousness you must become identified
with his being.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">Amrita also used to say the same thing, because he
was learning the Gita from Sri Aurobindo. He could feel
the spirit of Krishna and the spirit of Arjuna throughout</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman" size=2>Page- 5</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">—their relations and the atmosphere they created. It is
not the mere lesson, the teaching, that is important — that
is secondary. The person is the primary thing. And the
person in the book or outside, you can approach only
through your soul, through love. The soul alone can
love.</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">I think I told you that once somebody asked me:</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">&quot;You speak of the soul but where is it?&quot;</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">I said: &quot;It is very near you; still you don't believe.
If you see into yourself quietly, you will find that there
are very many good things in you, not only bad things —
bits perhaps, shades or shadows perhaps, but you know
this is a good thought in you, this is a noble impulse, a
sweet feeling. Each one has all these things, you have
only to recognise them. All this is the expression of the
soul in you. The beautiful, the luminous, the noble things
that appear to you, in your consciousness, from time to
time, all come from your soul.&quot; Even the greatest villain
has such moments. You remember Lady Macbeth —
known as the cruellest woman, well, she said about Duncan,
&quot;I would have killed him myself but he looked like my
father&quot; — well, that is the feeling even she had. So let us
not despair, even the weakest among us should not
despair. First of all, each one has a soul, and secondly, we
have the luminously strong support of the Mother. It is
the nature of the Divine that even if you don't think of
Him He thinks of you. It is true, very true; because you
are part of the Divine. Only you have to concentrate</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman" size=2>Page- 6</font><hr align="justify">

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<font face="Times New Roman">consciously<b> </b> on that part, that portion; then gradually it
will increase.</font>

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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman"><i>Question: What is the distinction you make between &quot;to
know about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother,&quot; and &quot;to know
of them&quot; ?</i> </font>
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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; text-indent:25px" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">ANSWER: &quot;About&quot; means what a man does, what his
profession is, his occupation — <i>kim&#257;sita vrajeta kim</i> and&nbsp; &quot;of &quot;&nbsp; means his personality, his character, nature. </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman" size=2>Page- 7</font><hr align="justify">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0" align="right">
<font face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;</b></font><a href="-00_Contents"><span style="text-decoration: none; font-weight:700"><font size="2">HOME</font></span></a>
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