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<font size="4">How to Read Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span> and the Mother</font><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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16.3pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; line-height:150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
style='font-size:18.0pt'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>WHY do we read the works
of Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span> and the Mother? <span class=GramE>And
if we read them, how to read them?</span></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Do
we read for the sake of study? <span class=GramE>to</span> know things? <span
class=GramE>to</span> acquire knowledge? That is a secondary aspect, a profit
gained by the way. The real purpose of coming in contact with the words of the
Mother and Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span> is to become conscious, to
acquire consciousness, to be more and more conscious, increase more and more
the consciousness. To understand, that is to say, to seize by the mind, to
grasp intellectually the writings of the Mother and Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span>
is rather difficult. The easier, the more right way would be to enter into the
atmosphere of the world that they have created with their words, to feel the
vibration that the words emanate. For the words that they have uttered are not
mere words taken or found in the dictionaries, they are not mere sounds, dead
syllables, they are living entities, symbols of consciousness, the
consciousness of which I have just spoken. These symbols, being symbols of
consciousness are luminous, they shed light all along, they are full of power
and extend power all along, they have life and they are full of delight. It is
this inner world that is behind the outer world of words that one has to be in
touch with, be aware of, in the first instance, before one can have a mental
understanding; in other words you must cultivate the right attitude, a turn of
your consciousness in tune with the consciousness that has worked out the words
of the Mother and Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span>. You have to take a
plunge, as it were, dip into the waters, and be soaked in the caress of that
element, to come in the living touch of the substance of words, go behind the
meaning, if necessary, avoiding it even. You must contact the living sap, the <span
class=SpellE><span class=GramE>rasa,<span
style='mso-bidi-font-style:italic'> </span>that has poured itself out in
the creation. If you have tasted </span></span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>
<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 254</span></span><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><o:p></o:p></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>of</span>
that, then – It has its own light – that will suffuse you auto­matically with
its radiance; the delight of bathing in the living spring will formulate itself
in rhythms of knowledge and true understanding.</p>

<p class=MsoBodyTextIndent style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">At least such should be the basis of approach to the
works of the Mother and Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span>. You may have
possessed a rich intellectual apparatus, you may have all the information that
sciences and philosophies have gathered, you may have perused the whole story
of the evolution of human knowledge up to the present time, all these are
lesser <span class=GramE>lights,</span> they do not illuminate the light before
which you stand. That light is shown and <span class=SpellE>recognised</span>
by its own reflection or emanation in you, the little light that is in you,
your soul.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Indeed,
there have been instances where great intellectuals, famed savants found
themselves bewildered before the simplest magic phrases of the Mother and Sri <span
class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span>. On the other hand, simpler minds with no burden
of learning, <span class=GramE>nor</span> pride of pedantry, with their pure
streak of light in the depth of their consciousness were able to seize and
unveil the secret sense.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Your
mental understanding, your intellectual apprehension mayor will add to the joy
of your discovery; one that is perhaps at the end or subsequently, when your brain,
your physical reason has been washed by the flow of the inner light, when it
has been made pure and plastic and docile.</p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
another way, to understand the Truth – the Truth that the words of the Mother
or Sri <span class=SpellE>Aurobindo</span> express – you must start by living
it, approaching it not merely through your mind, in fact not even through your
heart, but possessing it in the very body. The Mother says<span class=GramE>,</span>
real understanding comes by the body-understanding. Indeed, the true aim of
knowledge is not merely to know but to be.</span><span style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal; mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal'><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p></b>
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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 255</span></span><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
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style='font-size:10.0pt;'><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p>

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